Lizzy Ford's Blog, page 67

More Google AdWords talk, tips and a video

Our cover artist Dafeenah just launched a new website for her design services. Getting to know Dafeenah has been one of my favorite parts of this indie author journey. She is as funny as she is talented. We traded a few emails about Google AdWords the other day and I thought I would mention of couple of the topics we discussed.

I've talked several times about the math behind Google AdWords and why it's so important to track your conversion rates. Dafeenah is in a situation that is a little less common. She isn't selling a product that is always there and just needs to be clicked on (eBooks) or a product that has a set cost and needs to be shipped (paperback books). She is selling her time and talent as a designer. If she is charging $50 per awesome book cover and they take her four hours to complete then she's making $12.50 per hour (minus the cost of acquiring images, software etc).

With most websites they need to weigh the cost of acquiring a customer via AdWords versus the amount of money they can make per customer. The math makes this an easy problem to solve. With Dafeenah it's a bit of a different story. If she has to pay $10 per customer acquired (a hypothetical $0.50 a click with 1 in 20 who click actually becoming clients) then she isn't in danger of losing money, she just lowered her hourly rate from $12.50 to $10.00. Is it worth it? When you're starting out it probably is. Just use that free trial of Google AdWords for all it's worth to start the ball rolling to make sure you don't start paying out before the revenue starts coming in.

In this situation my likely strategy would be to start off with a cheap Google AdWords campaign to get the ball rolling, track everything involved with it to make sure I wasn't losing money, but to simultaneously be building other sources of customer acquisition. Forum posting, eBay etc. As soon as you can acquire clients from cheaper sources and your word of mouth spreads you can scale back your Google AdWords budget or put in on hold all together. If you ever hit a slow period and would like to drum up some more clients, you can always fire it back up again instantly.

In the video I talk about the section of Google AdWords where you can track conversation rate and how to implement it, why SEO companies love AdWords and a couple of things you can use the advertising network information for. If you have any more detailed questions about this or any other topic let me know and I'll do my best to answer it.

Things to do on Your First Day with a WordPress Site

While Lizzy and I were eating a bagel this morning I got an email from indie author Julia Crane. The email basically read "I just switched my website to WordPress, now what??" Talk about one of those questions where it's easier to show then to tell!

I made three YouTube videos showing where I give a VERY basic WordPress introduction, and demonstrate a few things you can do to make your WordPress exactly what you want it to be. If you're an experienced WordPress user these are probably of little interest to you. In the videos I deal with one plugin to demonstrate the concepts, but be sure to check out my post on plugins we use on our site to see some other handy ones.

In video one we take a quick look at the WordPress dashboard, discuss the difference between a page and a post and introduce you to widgets.

In video two we find, download, install and configure a plugin and we show you how to control when your posts publish and why you would want to alter that.

In the third and final video we discuss categories, themes and show how to modify your post URLs for better search engine visibility.

I'm a little stuffed up and still trying different things with my new microphone so please excuse the less then stellar audio, I hope the content makes it worth it! As always, please feel free to ask any questions.

Some WordPress Plugins Worth Using

I'm going completely backwards with this one. One of the posts on my "to write" list is an article on some of the advantages that using WordPress has over traditional websites and as part of that I was going to talk about some of the plugins we use. Well today Julia Crane is converting her website to WordPress and so the list of handy plugins we use jumped to the front of the list.

Akismet

The fact that WordPress includes this as part of the standard installation should tell you something. Akismet checks every comment that get's posted on your site and and determines if it's spam. If it thinks it is it moves it to a special spam queue with the others where you can delete them with two clicks. When we first started this site I thought Akismet was awesome as it would save us from identifying and deleting the spams by hand one at a time. As our site has grown in traffic it has gone from great to a necessity. We got 36 spam comments in March and Akismet was handy. So far in September we have 3,839. If it wasn't for Akismet I would literally spend all day cleaning spam. To say this is worth the time to get an api and configure it would be a colossal understatement.

All in one SEO pack

Ads a small window window when you write new posts that let's you set the title of the page that your post will show on as well as the meta description and meta keywords on your post. If you're an SEO addict like I am you want this.

AmberPanther Favicon for WordPress

Let's you ad your own cute little custom icon next to your page name that shows on browser tabs or browser bookmarks.

Exclude Pages from Navigation

I just added this one last week. It's bad mojo with Google if it goes to find a page that used to exist but is no longer there. Google frowns upon dead links. I had a page that no longer fit with the rest of the site so I didn't want it showing at the top of each page but I didn't want to delete it all together. I downloaded this plugin, checked that page to be excluded and it now longer shows in the navigation menu at the top of each page, but it still exists so no Google penalization.

Fast Secure Contact Form

I use this for our "Contact Us" page. It was quick, easy and works great.

Google Analyticator

Automatically ads the code for Google analytics to the top of every page or post you create. I set this up one time and haven't thought about it since. This is a day one "must install".

Google XML Sitemaps

Automatically creates a new XML sitemap every time you ad new content and submits it to the major search engines. Another day one "must install".

Online Backup for WordPress

Let's you download a backup file with all of your site's content and formatting. Do it at least once a month or so. Hopefully the day never comes when you need it, but if it ever does and you don't have it….

Post Filters

Some posts I write belong in their categories but I would rather not have them hog a spot on the front page. This ads a little checkbox to the bottom of the post creation form called "skip frontpage" that does exactly that when I check it. VERY useful for landing pages.

Ultimate Category Excluder

Another one I recently installed to fill a specific need. With WordPress everything you do goes out on your sites RSS feed, as well it should. Lizzy has it setup so that every new RSS post get's posted on Goodreads, Facebook etc. Most of the time that is really cool. The problem is, if I'm getting ready to make a landing page I don't necessarily want that going out to all of those sites. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I just don't want to spam Facebook with "Check out Lizzy's new books!!". This plugin let's me designate a category to be excluded from the site's RSS feed, and therefore won't be posted on those other sites. Another handy plugin for landing page fans.

There are thousands of WordPress plugins and more are added every day so if you have a specific need, you can probably download an answer. As always, feel free to ask any question and please post if you know of any handy ones you loved that I've missed!

Link Building Tips

The two biggest factors in any website ranking high in search engine results are: high quality content and the links from other sites pointing towards that page. We've talked a lot about the content but not too much about the link building, so I thought I would write an article to help balance that out.

The VERY basics.

Google treats a link from page A to page B as a vote of confidence from page A for page B. This vote makes Google think page B is more likely to have good content (why else would page A link to them?) and therefore makes Google more likely to place page B higher in its search results. That is a very easy concept to understand. What's not so easy to figure out sometimes is how much that vote is worth. If site A is a website that gets 5 visitors a day, that vote can be worth very little. If site A is a well-established site getting 500 visitors a day, the vote MAY be worth quite a bit.

The obvious goal for website owners is to get as many high quality links to their website as possible. Sometimes easier said than done. We'll now talk about the different methods you can use to acquire links for your site, and some things to watch out for.

Link Exchange

The time honored tradition of all website owners. You basically email the owner of another website and offer to put a link to their site on yours if they agree to put a link for your site on theirs. This is an extremely effective method, and it's only requirement is time. What should you look for?

1: The website is in the same industry as you. This is a HUGE factor. If you're an author a link from someone in the publishing industry is probably going to be far more valuable to your site then someone in the hardware industry. Don't just look for any site that will take your link; be picky and try to find sites in the same genre.

2: Check the websites traffic using alexa.com. Any website in the field is probably worth having a link from, but it's still nice to know how much traffic the site gets. If you have the Google toolbar installed in your browser, you can check a site's pagerank as well. Pagerank is a number from 0 to 10 that measures how much authority Google views a site as having. The tricky part about pagerank is that it's not Google's real number. Google's real number is updated daily and nobody outside of Google knows what that is. The range rank number from the toolbar is only updated 2-4 times a year. While pagerank is worth looking at, make sure you know the Alexa number as well.

Now that you know what you're looking for, start hitting Google to find sites in your industry, and start letting the emails fly. What should you email them? Most important is to be honest. If you just found their site today, don't say you're a long time reader. The second most important thing is to be human. Don't make it strictly a form letter; tell them what you liked about their site.

When you get to the part where you ask for the link, sell yourself as much as you can. I didn't do enough link building when we first started this site, but one good thing from that is now when I'm trying to get a link I can say our site has an Alexa ranking under half a million and gets over 300 unique visitors a day. What if you don't have any numbers? Sell yourself. Tell them what you've done and what you're planning to do. It really is purely a time and numbers game. If you email 20 website owners with honest emails asking to exchange links, you're probably going to get a lot more links then if you hadn't emailed anyone.

When you've found your first website owner willing to swap links, take a second to think about what hyperlinked text you want to appear on their site to bring them to your site.  This is called the "anchor text" of a link. While it's not the most important thing in the world, it does matter. If I want our site to be in the top results for the term "Romance eBooks" I would much rather have links use that text then just "Guerrilla Wordfare". I'm going to rank at or near the top for guerrilla wordfare no matter what I do so if I have a choice I'll ask for the "Romance eBooks" text. Does it really matter? Yes, and I can prove it! Open up a new tab or browser window and google "click here". What's the top result? Adobe Acrobat Reader (the software that lets you view PDF files). Look at their site and you won't find them optimizing for the term "click here". So why are they in first place? Because there are millions of websites out there with pdf files, and many of them have statements like the following:

You can view PDF files with adobe acrobat. In order to download adobe acrobat click here.

While that is an extreme example, it is a great one. There is a digital marketing company called Click Here, with the website of clickhere.com, and they still have to struggle to get the top spot from adobe for the sole reason of a ton of anchor text all over the internet.

Buying Links:

You don't see much about this topic. Why? Because Google doesn't like it! So is that just the end of the story?  Not really. In my opinion there are three categories of link buying.

1: The private sale of a link/ad from one website owner to another website owner.

If there is a website in your industry with a lot of traffic and they sell ad space, there is nothing wrong with buying that link/ad. I think some may say that a link is different but I really don't think it is. Our advertising budget from the start has been five dollars a month (seriously). I paypal a website owner $5 a month for a small square picture ad for Lizzy's books to run on her site. If I paid her $5 a month for a text link instead of a picture ad is that wrong? A few may say yes, but I really don't see why. Small transactions like this take place all the time and nobody really has a problem with them.

Do you NEED to do it? Absolutely not! But if you've got more money than time and you want links…

2: Link building companies.

Google HATES these people. There are firms out there who charge a pretty penny, and then go out and get links for your website. Some of them do a great job, some of them not so much. The price alone is probably going to keep you from doing this, but if that doesn't the possibility of them doing something dumb and getting your website banned from google should be.

What kind of dumb stuff could they do? Stuff like #3.

3: Bulk junk.

Go to eBay, fiver.com or any other site and you will see tons of people offering "1000 backlinks to your site! Boost your SEO now!!!!". These are usually pretty cheap too. These will all be worthless links from adult sites, link farms, spams on blogs etc. Best case they will do nothing for you, worst case they will get your site banned from Google. Google isn't dumb, when they see 100 new links to your site, 40 of which are from the same ip address and the other 60 are blog spam, they aren't going to think highly of you.

Links from forum posts and blog comments:

I don't do nearly enough of this. You really should be active in the online community of whatever industry you're in, and you should have a signature block with a link to your site. A lot of forums are set up so that the links don't count as votes of confidence for your site but they can still bring people to your site. This shouldn't be your entire link building strategy, but it should be a part.

Links from writing articles, press releases etc.

One of the fun things about SEO is that tactics that work right now may not work in six months. Why even try? Because if you stick to good content and natural link building, that will NEVER go out of style with Google. What is the latest thing that Google has declared an enemy? Duplicate content.

Earlier this year Google started rolling out updates called "Panda". The main target of these updates is to lower the search engine relevance of sites that have content which is also in other locations. If the article on your site is also on 20 other sites, why should Google send them to you?

I LOVE this update. It means people who take the time and effort to write quality content will face less competition from sites who just try to scrape content from others. The reason I'm bringing this up is that it seems to have severely reduced the value of writing articles and submitting them to services to be plastered over the internet. So if you're currently reading a book from 2009 that's encouraging you to article write your way to millions, you may want to spend your time elsewhere.

However, what I don't know is what the threshold is.  Do you get penalized only if your content appears on more than 5 other websites?  10?  15?  No one knows but Google.

Summary:

I've seen tests where people post high quality content but make zero link building efforts. The results aren't pretty. You really do need to balance yourself and your time. Got a million links to your site but no good, updated content? You'll only end up with a million disappointed visitors. Got a ton of great content but no links, nobody may ever see the content.

That's a very basic overview of link building. Which is most important? All of them. Google is watching you. If all of your links are from any one thing in particular, you won't have as much credibility in their eyes as if you have a variety of links with a variety of anchor texts. If there was a secret, I'd tell you. If you know what the secret is, please email it to me.

One last thing you're going to find out anyway so you might as well hear it from me. You're going to get a lot of rejection. We have a good thing going here and when I email people I'm always polite, friendly, honest and tell them what I'm proposing (link exchange, book giveaway, book feature etc.) and how I think it could benefit them. Most of the time I get no reply and "No thanks" is a strong second place with "sure" a distant third. One summer in high school I worked as a telemarketer to make money for the upcoming school year. Link building is giving me telemarketing flashbacks. Dealing with a steady stream of rejection isn't fun for anybody but I really know of no way around the process other then paying someone else to do it for you.

I tell myself to remember that even if I only get one out of every ten that's still one more then I would otherwise have gotten, and tomorrow I'll go after ten more. Link building rewards both your creative approaches to identifying potential partners and the hours you spend trying to make those partnerships happen. If you work at it you will build more partners and get web exposure. It's impossible not too. The only bottleneck is the time your willing to/able to put into it.

As with a lot of my posts, I'm afraid I've left the reader feeling overwhelmed by throwing so much information out there in one post. Why do I do it? Because even though lack of time keeps me from doing everything I know I should be doing, an understanding of all of these different factors and their value to my website's visibility helps me make informed decisions on how to spend the time I do have.

Introducing the Rhyn Trilogy book trailer

I'm thrilled to introduce the Rhyn Trilogy book trailer created for "Katie's Hellion" and "Katie's Hope"!  I have a couple of trailers in the works; this was the first one completed.  It's also my  graphics artist, Dafeenah's, first ever trailer.  I see shiny things like pretty covers and trailers, and poor Dafeenah has to figure out how to make them. 

You know what?  IT ROCKS!  She's brilliant!  Check it out and let me know what you think!

What do YOU want Lizzy to write in 2012?

I posted a note on FB about hammering out my 2012 book schedule, saw a couple of responses, and started thinking: what do my readers want me to write next year?  J

Here are the books I'm writing with assigned release months:

March: "Rhyn's Redemption" (Rhyn Trilogy)
May: "The Grey God" (War of Gods/Damian series)

Books without months assigned:

"Rebel Heart" (was slated for this year, but I had to ax it due to time constraints!)
Book 2 in new (unnamed) trilogy (first book is being launched in Dec this year)
Book-on-Demand*
Super-fun-happy surprise book (can't tell you, but you'll like it!)

I have room to add 2-4 more (depending on how early in the year I leave the day job to write full time!)  I've had sequel/series requests for: The Warlord's Secret, Kiera's Moon.  Yes, no, 2 book-on-demand projects, surprise you? 

*For the Book-on-Demand idea: I'll post a 30-day survey sometime in Spring to gather up votes from readers on which genre, setting, characters, etc., they prefer.  I'll then write a book based on the winning votes in each of the categories.  More on this early next year!

 

Who Wants Some Free Advertising?

I struggled mightily with what to name this article. I thought about "How to get the most out of a free Google AdWords trial" but that seemed a little boring. "Experiments of a AdWords Cheapskate" was closer to the mark but I ended up going with "Who Wants Some Free Advertising?" because that's exactly what this article is about.

In a post I wrote a few weeks ago I talked about AdWords, mentioned some pitfalls and said that we hadn't used it previously, but had just signed up for a free $80 credit to test. I've now played with AdWords for a while and identified two strategies that may help an indie author bring visitors to their site.

If you've been following my posts, you've probably signed up for an AdWords account so you can perform some free and easy keywords analysis. If you haven't used AdWords for placing ads yet, you should be eligible for a free trial credit. I googled "AdWords" and the top advertisement was from Google and had a link for $75 in free credit. It gave me a code to use when I logged into my AdWords account.  When I applied the code, my credit balance changed to $80. I absolutely love the fact that I never had to give them any credit card information, so there's no chance of exceeding the budget I pick for my ads.

When you first start, you create a "campaign". You pick the region(s) you want your ad displayed in, what you're daily maximum budget is, what by default you're willing to pay per click, your targeted demographics, what search terms you want your ads displayed for and then you create your ad. I made demographics bold there because you really shouldn't just gloss over that option. Advertisers a decade ago would have done anything for the type of targeting that we can now do easily on the net. I've read some of Lizzy's books and loved them, but I'm not the target audience. I set our ads up to show for females only.

I made a text ad which stated that we had Free Romance eBooks for your Kindle, Nook, iPad, eReader or Kobo. The ad sat with a status of "under review" for 72 hours and was then declined. When I called to find out why I was told I couldn't use Kindle or iPad in my ad. That's lesson one for this. If you're going to be targeting ads for a specific day (i.e. book launch) then get your ads in ahead of time and get them approved.

I went after females and the keywords "free romance eBooks" and "free romance novels". Google politely suggested that I pay up to $0.65 a click.  I agreed to their terms and set my daily budget to $10. Google showed my ad 2,700 times and sent me 21 clicks at an average $0.49 a click. $10.33 gone and 21 visitors to show for it. I'm glad it was their money and not mine Google left me an alert suggesting that my daily budget was causing me to miss out on a lot of impressions and that I should raise it. No thanks.

For the next two days, I lowered the amount I was willing to pay to $0.25 a click. In those two days Google showed my ad 4,500 times, and I got 88 clicks for my $20.75. $0.24 a visitor is a lot better then $0.49 a visitor, but I wasn't done yet. I channeled my inner tightwad and told Google I would only pay $0.14 a click. That day Google showed my ad 2,840 times and gave my 59 clicks for $8.21. I was actually happy with $0.14 per visitor but I had to see how far I could push it.

Lowering my bid to $0.12 a click dropped it to 1,927 impressions and 31 visitors at a cost of $3.70. I was surprised I had gotten down this far and was still getting shown. I had to try $0.05 a click, right?? I did $0.05 a click for two days and got 1,029 impressions and 15 clicks for $0.54 total cost. $0.12 to $0.05 was a big drop in traffic.

I knew I wouldn't get much but I had to try $0.01. To my amazement I got 114 impressions but no clicks. I can't imagine what sites Google has me at the bottom of with my generous offer to give them $0.01 of their own money back.

I spoke to the Google AdWords representative on the phone and he told me there was no time limit on using the credits once they were applied to your account.  By all means, go grab them now if you already haven't. How you should use them is up to you but two strategies seem to stand out.

1: If you have a book launch, signing, or other big event you want to draw people into, this could be a free easy way. If I had set my daily budget to $40 and my per click to $0.25, then I probably would of gotten about 250 visitors in that two day period. If that sounds appealing to you, then go for it.

2: If you don't want to draw a lot of people at once but rather over time at an inexpensive cost, then try the "trickle" method. If my $0.05 numbers hold out over a long period of time then I will pull in ~15 people a day over the course of almost 4 months, for a total of 1600.

If you use the free credits Google offers, you're getting free, no risk advertising for your site. Remember that these figures are for the keywords I chose, and that the cost for keywords can very greatly depending on their popularity. $0.25 may get you great placement for these words, but no visibility on more popular terms.

If you do take advantage of the Google AdWords credits, please post back here and let me know what keywords you picked, what they were costing you and your results!

People in India Love Free Online Romance Novels

Why should you care that Indians love free online romance novels? Because in late July of this year, Amazon announced that it would be releasing the Kindle in India early in 2012. When I first read the news on Konrath's Blog I started to do a little dance. We have a huge head start, as India already loves Lizzy Ford.

Lizzy has discussed in several places about how we decided to release all books she planned to write this year for free in an attempt to build a back-list and a fan base. If you've read those articles, you know our plan is so far working better than expected. We can 100% take credit for that little bit of careful planning. What we didn't see coming was that the country with the second most downloads of our free romance novels would be India.

Earlier this year, in an effort to build a fan base, I scoured the internet and put Lizzy's books on many different websites catering to free eBooks. Whenever I went to check our numbers, the United States always had the most downloads (no surprise there) but #2 was always India. That's when I first learned that Indians love free online romance novels. I thought that made sense; while only 11% of Indian's population speaks English, 11% of a billion people is still quite a few people.

The exciting part comes when you realize that people in India don't have a mechanism for paying for eBooks right now. Amazon hasn't set up shop yet. The only people with Kindles are ones who had them shipped over from the United States. Indians don't just want free online romance novels because they're free, they want them because they're the only romance novels they're able to get in eBook format right now. How do I know that the Kindle will help sell a lot of eBooks in India? Because Amazon thinks it will. They have rooms full of people much smarter then I am crunching the numbers and deciding to go into India with full force.

I really don't know how much our sales will increase once the Indian Kindle is released. A 10% bump in all of our sales would seem to be a safe estimate. That doesn't sound like much but a 10% boost for doing absolutely nothing is pretty darn powerful. I also think there's a chance it could be more then 10% after seeing our stats on Alexa.com the other day.  Our website showed up as being the 464,679 most visited website in the world. Our ranking in the US is 81,277. As I started to close Alexa, I noticed there was a second flag and number beneath the U.S. flag. Alexa is now telling me that our site is the 291,309 most visited website in India. That's pretty cool! We don't even have a ranking in the United Kingdom but we do in India.

I checked India's version of Google (Google.in).  It shows us in the top 10 for several good keywords. Things like this make me even more excited about India's potential.

In the United States, a romance novel by Jude Deveraux is going to sell a lot more then a romance novel by Lizzy Ford, because Ms. Deveraux has name recognition and a huge fan base. I'm sure some of those advantages already apply in India, and I'm sure Amazon will be giving the top selling authors quite a push.  But it also seems like the early period after launch could be a state of flux that leaves those willing to fight for market share able to grab a bigger piece than they've been able to acquire in the U.S., where reading habits have been formed through books bought on store shelves and in airport gift shops.

While I'm still figuring out what steps I plan to take (if any) to try to increase our profile in India, I think the main lesson we learned is that – by using non traditional distribution methods -you may end up reaching markets you never anticipated.

Lizzy interrogates the Queen of Fire and Darkness, Shea MacLeod

"Everything's better with dragons." Meet Shea, an ex-pat living in London who launched her first urban fantasy/paranormal series, the Sunwalker Saga, in June, and is launching her Dragon Wars series in December.  From the first sentence of her debut novel, Shea immerses you into the middle of the world she's created through awesome sensory writing, which is an underrated skill for today's writers.  You'll find you have no choice but to keep reading, because you become part of her worlds. She succeeds at keeping the reader engaged through a mix of sassy characters, fun dialogue, awesome action, and mysterious, hunky men.

Shea's books:

Tell me what readers should know about Shéa MacLeod, the creator of the Sunwalker Saga.

She's a quirky, chocoholic bibliophile with a penchant for talking about herself in third person. 

 What inspires you to write?

 I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure there's no cure for it.

 If you had a perfect writing outfit, what would it be?

 Pajamas and no bra.

How do you define success as a writer?

Having my books published and out there being read (and loved) by complete strangers, which means I'm already a success! 

Does your family read your books?

If by family you mean my mother, hells no (My cousins read them, though)! 

 What's the #1 piece of advice you'd like to give other indie authors?

It comes from Stephen King: If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.

What's the hardest part of writing a novel, in your opinion?

Convincing myself it's not a piece of absolute drivel and that I shouldn't just shove it in a drawer and go hide under the covers.

The Sunwalker Saga

Tell me about your plans for the Sunwalker Saga, e.g., how many books you're planning, if there are any short stories/novellas coming out, etc.

The Sunwalker Saga will have a total of 6 novels.  The first two are already out and the third will be out around Christmas time.

There will definitely be some short stories.  In fact, the first Sunwalker Short will be published in THE HALLOWEEN COLLECTION FROM THE INDIE ECLECTIVE

this October!  It was totally unexpected, but it just flowed.  There is also another Sunwalker Short in the works which will be out later this year.  I have no idea how many shorts there will be, we'll just see how (and where) my muse takes me.

What is the inspiration behind all the wonderful creatures (dragons, vampires, Sunwalker, demons?) you feature in this Saga? Are you inspired by myth, legends, other fantasy writers?

I read and watch a lot of paranormal/scifi/fantasy stuff.  I've always been just a little bit obsessed with the paranormal and with myths and legends.  A great deal of what I write about comes from things I've read about or seen on TV.  Sometimes things come to me in dreams or that moment right as I'm falling asleep when my mind is open to all kinds of wonderful possibilities.  Of course, I can't leave anything alone, so if I am writing something mythological I have to tweak it a little bit to suit my own particular flights of fancy.

What's the story's main message?

Honestly, I'm not sure I wrote it with a particular message in mind.  Except perhaps that things (and people) are often not what they seem.  It's a reminder, in a way, to never judge a book by its cover. 

Who is/are the main characters?

The main character, as for all the Sunwalker Saga, is Morgan Bailey.  Vampire Hunter extraordinaire.

Of course, every Vampire Hunter needs her posse to back her up, so Morgan's got her best friend and natural born Witch, Kabita Jones, to watch her back.  And let's not forget the two men in her life; the sexy Sunwalker Jackson Keel and the tasty clairvoyant Inigo Jones.  ROWR!

Which character do you admire from this book?

Morgan, naturally.  She kicks some serious booty.  But also she's painfully human and fallible and she's the first to admit it.

Which character surprised you when you wrote him/her?

Actually, several characters surprised me.  I had plans and they didn't want to behave! 

I had to go back and rewrite part of Kissed by Darkness (Sunwalker Saga)(fortunately it hadn't been released yet) because the character of Trevor Daly (government liaison) took a HUGE turn I hadn't expected in Kissed by Fire (Sunwalker Saga).  It's an awesome turn, though, and I totally love it. 

Inigo Jones was never meant to play the integral part he does, but the boy just wouldn't shut up.  What's a writer to do? 

If you could be stranded on a desert island with one of your characters from this novel, which one and why?

Ohhhh … that's tough.  But I have to go with Trevor Daly.  Why?  'Cause he's HAWT, that's why.  And he's the only one Morgan wouldn't kick my butt over.

Which one would you definitely NOT want to be stranded with and why?

Alister Jones would definitely drive me bat guano crazy.  I don't want to give anything away for those who haven't read the book, but let's just say our personalities would clash.

What did you learn about yourself when you wrote this book?

That I might, just possibly, be certifiable.

Kidding.  Sort of. 

The truth is that my imagination never ceases to surprise me.  It's sort of an entity of its own.  I also discovered that I really, really enjoy torturing both my characters and my readers.  Bwahahaha! 

What's your next project?

I'm just finishing up the first draft of my next novel.  This one is part of a totally new series called The Dragon Wars.  It's a post-apocalyptic adventure with sci-fi and paranormal romance elements.  Also, there are DRAGONS!  It's called Dragon Warrior and it will be out toward the end of October.

I'm also working on the third book in the Sunwalker Saga, Kissed by Smoke, which will be out before Christmas.

Where can we find your books?

Amazon US: Kissed by Fire (Sunwalker Saga), Kissed by Darkness (Sunwalker Saga)

Amazon UK: Kissed by Fire, Kissed by Darkness

Barnes and Noble: Kissed by Fire, Kissed by Darkness

Smashwords: Kissed by Fire, Kissed by Darkness

Where can we find you? 

Your website

Amazon Author page

Goodreads

Facebook Author page

Twitter

Smashwords author profile

Free eBook Download of a Halloween Collection of Short Stories

Download for Free Here

This eBook is a collection of short spooky stories from nine indie authors in the Indie Book Eclective. The ninth story in the book is Rhyn Trilogy: Origins, by Lizzy Ford!!! It's now available for free download for your Kindle, Nook, iPad, eReader or Kobo.

Rhyn Trilogy: Origins, by Lizzy Ford: Gabriel's fate as an assassin seems set until he meets a courageous half-demon child named Rhyn, whose plight rekindles the humanity he thought he'd lost.

Other stories include:

Ralphie the Special Werewolf by P.J. Jones: Ralphie doesn't want to get snipped, but his pack is tired of watching him defile the sofa cushions. Now, he's got to find a mate by Halloween night—or else.

Sunwalker's Kiss by Shéa MacLeod: While searching for a magical bloodline, Sunwalker Jackson Keel discovers magic of a different kind.

The Village of Those Who Touch The Dead by M. Edward McNally: "All obligations will be paid. There are no exceptions."'

Haunting in OR 13, by Alan Nayes: Halloween never frightened Sara McCaffe, until she stepped into Operating Room 13!

To Taste of Shimmering Revenge by Jack Wallen: A vampire is awakened after four hundred years only to find his kind embarrassed and shamed by the rash of shimmery, hunky vampires on the big screen. His revenge will be sweet and tasty.

Magickal Vendetta by Heather Adkins – Revenge is a dish best served up in a pink saucepan for accident-prone blood witch, Gretchen. By harnessing the power of Halloween, she hopes to break the bond with the soulmate who did her wrong.

From the Keegan's Chronicles series: Haunted House by Julia Crane – Keegan, Lauren, and Anna find much more than they bargained for during an innocent trip to a commercial haunted house. Someone long dead awaits them on the second floor…

From the Gifted Teens series: Mind-Blower by Talia Jager – Kassia and Daxton's romantic picnic is interrupted by the arrival of creatures bent on her destruction. Will her powers fail her when she needs them most?