C.L. Roberts-Huth's Blog, page 5

G'night to You!

Is It Getting Hot in Here? (Cover Reveal)

When I heard that the fabu Amelia James was doing a cover reveal, well, excited just doesn't cover it!

From the Trashy Goddess herself:

Twice the Trashy Cover Reveal!
Today I have not one but two gorgeous covers to expose. The first is for my upcoming contemporary romance, Tell Me You Want Forever.
The second is a new cover for the previous book, Tell Me You Want Me. The original cover is beautiful, but in recent months I've been seeing that couple on dozens of other books. I want to stand out, so I'm doing something different.

Both new covers and the original were designed by Mallory Rock. 

Hello? Is that the Mallory Rock to did the fantastic covers for my books? Oh, heck yeah!

Dear Readers, without further ado...drum roll please!

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Bestselling romance Tell Me You Want Me gets a steamy sequel....
Notorious heartbreaker Austin Sinclair vowed he'd never fall in love, but all that changed when he met his Janie. They're living their happily ever after... until an unexpected threat tears them apart. 
Austin is desperate to get Janie back, but fails miserably. He's said 'I love you' so often Janie doesn't care anymore, and getting her in his bed to prove it seems impossible. His old life beckons. Could he be that guy again?
Jane scored big when she landed Austin, but now she faces a temptation she never expected—one that makes her question what she really wants from love. Staying in a relationship with him requires all the strength she has. She's tired, and giving in to someone else would be so easy.
Each hopes that something will change, that the other will give in, but it's going to take both of them—together—to overcome this obstacle. Can they make their love last forever? Or has their fight been for nothing?
RELEASE DATE 1 December 2014!


...“I can give you exactly what you’re asking for, Janie, and I can give it to you all night long.”...Their first kiss is impulsive, fun, a little wicked—everything Jane Elliot isn’t looking for in a man, but desperately needs.
Their second kiss is slow, deliberate, an instant connection—everything Austin Sinclair never had with a woman, and doesn’t want.
Jane is no easy conquest, not the type of woman Austin’s used to. Stubborn as hell, and a bookworm more interested in studying than dating, she needs a little—no, a lot—of fun in her life. Well,Austin’s just the guy who can give it to her.
Too bad she thinks love should be easy. Too bad Austin knows it isn’t.
Everybody told her to stay away from the heartbreaker, but Jane knows there’s more to Austin than full-body contact kisses and bad boy charm. He promised her a good time—nothing more—and wow… does he ever deliver!
Aren't they beautiful? Love the covers, Amelia! 
Check out more of her work here!

Rest in Peace, Captain, My Captain.

How to Write a Great Book Review!

 Or, "Eek, I want to write a review but..."

As a writer, our bread and butter in the current world are reviews given by readers on such sites as Amazon and Goodreads. It's how we move up in the rankings and expand our exposure. It's how we get new readers to, well, read our work.


Interestingly enough, the problem I run into, when soliciting reviews from people I know have enjoyed the book, isn't that they don't want to leave a review, but that they feel like they are ill-equipped to leave a 'proper' review.

Au contraire, mon frere.

YOU are the most uniquely qualified person to leave a review, because YOU took the time to read and (I hope) enjoy the book. No one else can leave a review like YOU.

So, ahem, how does one write a good review?

Here are my top ten things to consider:

1. Honesty. Seriously, that's it. If you write a honest review about the book, then you've done best by the writer, and that's all we can ask.

But Connie, I don't want to hurt your feelings! As long as you're respectful and honest, you're not going to hurt my feelings, I promise. I'm always growing as a writer, and I cannot grow if I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

2. What Did You Like? Tell me what you liked about the book. Did you enjoy the main character's attitude? Were the scenes visual enough for you? Did you feel like you were watching a movie as you read? Was there any particular scene that moved you? Did you cheer for the good guys? Or the bad ones?

3. What Didn't You Like? Tell me what you didn't like about the book. Were any of the characters obnoxious stereotypes? Did the writer go on too long describing a tree that never reappeared in the rest of the book? (I'm looking at you, Mr. King.) Were you uncomfortable with the violence and/or cursing?

4. Did It Teach or Move You? Did you learn something new about a culture or a stereotype that you didn't know before? Did you connect with any of the characters? Did it bring up a memory for you? Did character struggles make you overtly emotional?

5. Did It Remind You of Any Other Book? This seems like a weird question, right? But if you mention that a book reminds you of another book, people who are reading the reviews are more likely to say, "Oh, then I might like this, because I liked that book, too!"

6. Was the manuscript written well? And I mean, grammar and flow. Nothing is worse than a good story lost to typos, bad grammar and lack of paragraphs! So it's good for the author (and the publisher) to know if the quality of the manuscript is top notch or lacking.

7. Not My Genre, But... If you read a book on a whim (or as a courtesy to a new writer) and it is outside your normal genre, it's actually really helpful to comment about that. If you enjoyed it, if you didn't, mentioning that you usually read romance novels, so the gore was a little much, this lets other potential romance readers make better decisions about whether or not to take a chance on the book.

And three things you should never do:

8. One liners. Even with a five star rating. It doesn't help us as an author when you comment that you really like everything I write, but don't talk about the book at all. But I would much prefer that to one-star one liners. It's frustrating to get a review that basically says, "This book sucks" without any explanation on why it sucked for them.

9. Name drop. I love my friends. I love my friends who take the time to read my novels. But when you leave a review that says, "She's my bestest best friend ever, and I think she's the best author on the planet!" without any quantifying commentary about why this book in particular is covered in awesome sauce, it feels like a cotton candy review: pretty but full of fluff.

10. Revenge Review. Oh, this shouldn't even be a thing, but alas, it is. In the world of publishing, there are occasionally indie authors who cannot survive a low-star comment on their work and will purposelygo to that author's books and leave crappy one-star reviews, dragging down the book's ranking. Don't be that troll. Just don't.

I hope this makes your book reviews a little easier to write (and a tad more beneficial to the author).

Keep reading!

You can find my work at: ReadZoe.com

Originally published at LinkedIn.com

GIVEAWAY: Who Wants to See the Cover to "Serpent"?

One lucky winner is going to get a signed mini-poster of the new cover and a $15 gift card to Amazon.com! Two more lucky readers will get signed mini-posters!

This is a review mandatory giveaway! Check out the Rafflecopter below! Winners will be drawn on August 8th!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
 

Who Wants to See the Cover to "Serpent"?

One lucky winner is going to get a signed mini-poster of the new cover and a $15 gift card to Amazon.com! Two more lucky readers will get signed mini-posters!

This is a review mandatory giveaway! Check out the Rafflecopter below! Winners will be drawn on August 15th!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
 

What Was Your Favorite Part?

 
Tell me what your favorite part of Whispers is!

AND THE WINNER IS...

Sarit Dana-Yahalomi!!
Congratulations!
Didn't win? Everyone who entered gets a signed bookmark!
Please send a snail mail address to clrhuth@gmail.com for yours!

Excerpt: Whispers of the Serpent

I glanced back over the guardrail, pushing just a bit of my energy over the distance to sense Sera. It didn’t take long to find her, and she wasn’t alone. Sure, I felt the other humans, but there were pockets of emptiness in the same space.    I touched the spot on my neck, and my wolf growled. “If they get arrested, no one’s going to find those babies. Those guys aren’t going to give up a location. Not to the cops.”
“No, not to cops,” he repeated. “But sometimes, Zoë…” He said my name like it was a decadent candy between his lips. “Sometimes we are truly all that stands between the evils of men and those they would harm. And sometimes,” He closed the space between us and whispered in my ear, hot breath on skin. “Just sometimes, we are called on to be the agents of karmic retribution.” 
- Ch 30: Choosing Sides 

Oooh, I'm so amped to be writing this chapter! And the next one! I hope you all love it as much as I do!

TEN DAYS LEFT!!

Were you hemming and hawing over entering the giveaway? You only have ten days left to win this fabulous prize pack!!
Go and enter now!!
And I'm only one review away from 20 reviews on Amazon! Make sure that you can see your review, so that I can see your review! Thank you!!