Rod Raglin's Blog, page 28
July 23, 2018
Profound insights on writing presented with with grace, charm and wit.
Review: 
Ursula Le Guin describes Steering the Craft, A 21st-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story, as “A handbook for storytellers – writers of narrative prose and not for beginners.”
Indeed, it is not a book for beginners as much of what she addresses would be beyond the comprehension of novices. What it does concentrate on are those problems that challenge writers and impede the tone an flow of the narrative.
For example, she asks you to listen to the sound of your writing which involves diction and syntax.
Sophisticated consideration is given to verbs: person and tense, as well as point of view and changing point of view.
Indirection narration or what tells including avoiding expository lumps is discussed in depth.
There’s an excellent chapter entitled Crowding and Leaping which involves the necessity of focusing on some areas while leaping ahead in other parts while still following a fixed trajectory.
Steering the Craft is primarily a workbook with “exercise consciousness-raisers that aim to clarify and intensify your awareness of certain elements of prose writing and certain techniques and modes of storytelling.”
These exercises are challenging but illuminating. I particularly benefitted from one called A Terrible Thing to Do that involved writing a narrative of about 500 words and then cutting it by half still keeping the narrative clear and not replacing specifics by generalities.
The book also includes the best advice I’ve read on running peer group writing workshops.
This slim volume has profound insights on writing and presents them with grace, charm an wit. The goal, according to the author, is to help you develop skills that free you to write want you to write.
Or as Le Guin puts it so that you’re “ready to let the story tell itself; having the skills, knowing the craft so that when the magic boat comes by, you can step into it and guide it where it wants to go, where it ought to go.”
Original post:
rodraglin.booklikes.com/post/1776923/profound-insights-on-writing-presented-with-with-grace-charm-and-wit
June 16, 2018
Book editing – the rise of the machine (and the reduction in cost)
As an independent, self-published author you could spend thousands of dollars to have your book professionally edited, produced and marketed. Despite what you’ve been told it would not guarantee success, in fact, you’d be lucky if you sold enough books to offset the costs.
Knowing this has made me reluctant to pay for these additional services.
Some would argue that’s the reason I’ve had no success. I’m too cheap to pay for the services of professionals to design my covers and edit my manuscripts.
That’s at least partially true, but I maintain the real reason is I’m still not a good enough writer.
I’ve done a lot of stuff to become a better writer, and it’s worked, up to a point. What I need now is someone educated and experienced who knows more about the fundamentals of the craft than I do to make constructive suggestions on how I can move forward.
I need a skilled and credible editor.
With my last three novels, I’ve been fortunate to have three dedicated beta readers who have volunteered to read my manuscripts and found hundreds of typos, spelling mistakes and dropped words. They’ve improved the final product immeasurably and yet even after I incorporate all the corrections I still come across embarrassing errors.
But what’s worse, when preparing The Local Rag, my last full length novel, to submit to a competition, I noticed passages that were awkward and poorly written. They were examples of lazy writing, not digging deep enough, or, not having someone to push me to dig deeper. Someone credible who I trust.
There is a plethora of editing services on the internet from freelancers to large companies that tie in editing with other self-publishing services. For example BookBaby https://www.bookbaby.com/book-editing-services/
Copy editing as defined by BookBaby’s Editing Services site includes “a basic word-by-word edit that addresses grammar, usage, and consistency.”
Line editing according to BB is, “A more intensive structural edit that focuses on the finer aspects of language—the flow of ideas, transition elements, tone, and style,” as well as all the services performed in Copy Editing.
At BookBaby the cost of Copy Editing is $7.00 per page; line editing $10 per page. At 255 pages, it would cost $2250 to have The Local Rag line edited.
To recover that cost, I would have to sell 1,020 copies of the paperback edition or 1607 ebooks.
Well, that isn’t going to happen.
What about a computer program that is inexpensive (preferably free) and would at least eliminate most of the errors that were being missed by my beta readers and repeatedly by me?
ProWritingAid claims to be “your personal writing coach, grammar guru, style editor and writing mentor in one software package.” It also has a free version that allows you to upload articles to a maximum of 500 words.
I tried it and was impressed. I checked out a few others and liked Grammarly as well because it focuses on grammar and punctuation and ease of use.
I experimented by uploading chapters of The Local Rag first into ProWritingAid for style suggestions and mentoring(?) and then taking that version with the changes I made and putting it through Grammarly for one final check for grammar and punctuation.
Not only have these two programs eliminated errors, but ProWritingAid has also prompted me to improve things like passive writing, sticky sentences and shows me where opportunities to show rather than tell.
A year’s subscription to Grammarly cost me USD 139.00. I found 25% off coupon for ProWritingAid to bring my annual fee down to USD 37.50.
I plan to ask my beta readers to comment more on the story, now that they don’t have to worry about what amounts to proofreading. Addressing issues like was the opening compelling, did you find the main character sympathetic, was the dialogue authentic, what parts were boring (bogged down in back-story), what parts were exciting (if any), plot glitches, and overall, how could the story be improved would be illuminating.
Frequently, traditional publishers will release a work of fiction by a famous person. Because of author’s fame in other endeavours and the curiosity factor of the public, it’s a guarantee that the books by these first-time authors will make money. I make a point of reading these books to remind myself that even the best editors, the most creative cover designers, and a full-press marketing campaign complete with a book tour can’t make a bad book good.
The most recent example of a “celebrity book” that all the professional services in the world couldn’t save was Crying for the Moon by Mary Walsh, a comic icon in Canada.
The next one likely one will be Full Disclosure, the first novel, a thriller, by the former Chief Justice of Canada, Beverley McLachlin.
You’d think these authors, who have risen to the top of their profession, might have some insights into areas you and I don’t. Maybe they do. But most are long on hubris and short on writing craft and whatever inside information they have isn’t worth the effort of reading their book.
I’ll find out if this is the case with McLachlin by and by; I’m number 134 on the list to borrow her book from my local library.
This is the long way of saying editing services, online or provided by a real person, without a doubt will improve your writing. But no matter how much you pay them they can’t make a silk purse out of sow’s ear.
I take some consolation in that.
Stay Calm, Be Brave, Watch for the Signs
Website links associated with this blog:
BookBaby Editing Services https://www.bookbaby.com/book-editing-services/
Grammarly: https://www.grammarly.com/
ProWritingAid: https://prowritingaid.com/
Author’s Amazon Page https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B003DS6LEU
Original post:
rodraglin.booklikes.com/post/1766328/book-editing-the-rise-of-the-machine-and-the-reduction-in-cost
June 9, 2018
Do targeted email blasts generate sustained book sales?
Do targeted email blasts generate sustained book sales?
In the ongoing quest to find effective marketing tools for my nine novels and two plays, I’ve compiled a list of over two hundred email addresses of those who have expressed some interest in my books. Sending them an email has become part of every book launch.
My email blasts consist of three themed emails space two weeks apart. Each one offers the coupon code for a free e-book edition of the novel.
The response of my last blast was: opened 20%; clicked 6%; reviews 2
Many sites provide a similar service for a fee. For $25.00, Free Kindle Books http://fkbt.com/for-authors/ will include your book in a daily post to 750,000 addresses of which they claim 100,000 take action or about 13%. Take action does not mean buy, read or review your book.
Is this a good way to market a new release? Will it enhance sales of my backlist? How to tell?
Why not take a look at the results of another author, Matt Manochio http://www.mattmanochio.com got from email blasts.
In his blog 2015 blog entitled Lessons in Advertising my Ebook, Manochio meticulously documented his experience http://www.mattmanochio.com
I have no idea how I came upon this information, but it is a caution that once you post on the internet, it never goes away.
To summarize, he used fourteen sites, spent $500 and sold approximately 1100 books @ 99¢. After the publisher’s cut (he wasn’t self-published), he concluded he broke even.
He also got some amazing short-term results with his book hitting #411 on the paid Kindle list and single-digit ranking in its respective genre. These numbers, however, were not sustained and currently, the book he was promoting is on the Amazon Best Sellers ranking at #2,012,826
So often authors spend money thinking the payoff will be in future and sustained sales. More likely it’s about numbers – you’ve deeply discounted your book and sent to hundreds of thousands of people. Some are going to open it, some even read it. It’s about percentages not whether you’ve written a good book or not.
Was there a net gain in this case?
Looking at the author’s website and considering what he’s written since, and where his books currently rank I’d say no, though it does sound like he had a hell of an exciting ride for a couple of weeks.
Will I consider email blasts in the future for my books keeping in mind that some of my books may not be eligible on some sites since they don’t have the required number of reviews or may not be considered to have a professional cover?
Maybe. In some cases it less expensive than sending a paperback edition of your book to a reviewer.
Some Email blast sites:
BookSends https://booksends.com/expanded_guidelines.php
EReader News Today https://ereadernewstoday.com/bargain-and-free-book-submissions/
Buck Books http://buckbooks.net/
Free Kindle Books and Tips http://fkbt.com/for-authors/
Digital Books Today https://digitalbooktoday.com/
BookBub https://www.bookbub.com/home/
Stay calm, be brave, watch for the signs.
Amazon Author Page https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B003DS6LEU
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100013287676486
Original post:
rodraglin.booklikes.com/post/1764852/do-targeted-email-blasts-generate-sustained-book-sales
May 14, 2018
Great editing tips, well presented
Review:
Okay, so 20 Editing Tips from Professional Writers is promo material for ProWritingAid, an “editing tool that highlights style issues and compares your writing to the best writers in your genre”. It’s even written by the founder Chris Banks and editor of the ProWritingAid blog, Lisa Lepki.
Does that mean it’s all about flogging their site?
Yes, with almost every editing tip there’s an explanation on how ProWritingAid identifies the issue so you can make the appropriate edits.
But what about those twenty editing tips?
Surprisingly, at least for me, they are all excellent advice and well worth the not-so-subtle sales pitch for their product. And as a bonus, each tip is presented in an easy to read info-graphic style and comes with examples.
I downloaded this e-book free using a link provided by BookBaby. https://cdn.prowritingaid.com/ebook/ProWritingAid_EBook.pdf,
If you prefer you can pay for it – it’s worth it and less expensive than a subscription to their site.
Original post:
rodraglin.booklikes.com/post/1668746/great-editing-tips-well-presented
Free and Easy Book Launch Basics
What’s more disappointing than launching a new book and getting no sales and no reviews?
Paying hundreds if not thousands of dollars for someone to launch your new book for you and getting no sales and no reviews.
Cold-Blooded, Book 2 in the Mattie Saunders series was launched with a pre-order on Smashwords on January 15, 2018.
The Mattie Saunders Series is what I now go back to when I’m between, or need a break from, the major novel I’m working on. Mattie is a modern young woman dealing with new adult issues of relationships, career and family as well as addressing the contemporary challenges confronting society.
I’m actually taking subjects right from the nightly newscast and examining them from a fictional perspective. Because my overriding concern is wild places, plants and animals there’s also a subplot that examines this problem as well.
In Cold-Blooded Mattie deals with the opioid crisis, a crumbling relationship and the exploitation of reptiles by the exotic pet trade.
This series of novella’s are fast paced, somewhat irreverent and short – about one hundred pages.
The book was published on February 23, 2018, as an e-book on Smashwords and Draft2Digital and as an e-book and paperback on Amazon.
At that time I sent out approximately two hundred and thirty-four emails to members of my Advanced Reading Team with a coupon code for a free download of Cold-Blooded from Smashwords. Follow up emails went out March 4th and 13th.
The launch continued with giveaways on BookLikes and LibraryThing beginning March 18. I use these two sites because they don’t charge you to offer your book for free like Goodreads that now charges $119.
If I ever thought I’d have to pay to give my books away I may have reconsidered becoming an author.
I used Goodreads prior to them charging to list giveaways and despite having a far greater audience than these other two sites I never found it generated more reviews.
After a month, BookLikes had two people requesting Cold-Blooded and LibraryThing had twenty-six.
I use free coupon codes on Smashwords with both my ARCs and giveaways so I can see how many actually redeem the coupon. Totally coupons offered, 271. Totally coupons redeemed, 27.
To date, marketing for Cold-Blooded has generated two tepid reviews and no sales.
It is now May 13th and I’ve just generated a free coupon for The Rocker and the Bird Girl, Book 1 in the Mattie Saunders Series, on Smashwords. The strategy is by offering the first book in the series free, readers will purchase the second book. Here’s the link if you’re interested. It expires June 3, 2018.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/727720
I’m likely going to enroll The Rocker and the Bird Girl on KDP Select so I can take advantage of offering it free for five days over the course of the three month exclusive commitment to see it that will generate any interest in Cold-Blooded.
What’s the take-away?
This is classic book launch marketing, something you can easily pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars for and I did it all free.
Okay, I got zero results, but if you’re and Indie Author and considering investing in marketing your self-published book ask yourself, why should you expect a different outcome? Unless you’ve got a real good reason, consider going the free route as outlined here or you’ll likely learn the hard way what’s more disappointing than launching a new book and getting no sales and no reviews.
Stay calm, be brave, watch for the signs.
Links associate with this blog:
Author Amazon site https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B003DS6LEU
Link for free copy of The Rocker and the Bird Girl https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/727720
BookLikes http://booklikes.com/giveaways
LibraryThing https://www.librarything.com/more/freebooks
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway
Draft2Digiatl https://www.draft2digital.com/
Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/
KindleDirect Publishing https://kdp.amazon.com/
Createspace https://www.createspace.com/
Original post:
rodraglin.booklikes.com/post/1668732/free-and-easy-book-launch-basics
May 11, 2018
Burdened with excessive detail, Orfeo drifts to a predictable, melodramatic conclusion
Orfeo
By Richard Powers
Peter Els is a composer of new music, an old man, a adjunct professor who has been put out to pasture. When his dog, Orfeo, his only companion, dies suddenly he’s so distraught he mistakenly calls 9-1-1. He abruptly ends the call which brings the police to his home only to find he’s been passing his time cooking up variant biological strains in his kitchen laboratory.
Is this crackpot a bioterrorist? When the authorities come to investigate, Els goes on the lam.
Author Richard Powers has the narrative go back and forth between Els’ past and the present until they converge. Gradually a picture emerges of the a man obsessed with music, music that sounds like noise to most people.
I was never sure if Els was a genius, delusional, lazy or just stubborn, but his obsession manages to wreck every career opportunity and relationship he comes in contact with.
As a protagonist Els is not sympathetic, he’s frustrating.
Powers burdens the story with extensive passages about experimental music and minute details on musical composition. It’s excessive and redundant as are his passages of transcendence the composer feels when in the thrall of his muse. The plot seems to drift as if the author wasn’t sure where to take it and the conclusion is as predictable as it is melodramatic.
Throughout the book the author has inserted intrusive sentences presented in a different font and separated from the text by bold lines. I had no idea what the quotes were referring to, who they were by or what part they played in the story other than pulling me out of the reading experience.
Original post:
rodraglin.booklikes.com/post/1667710/burdened-with-excessive-detail-orfeo-drifts-to-a-predictable-melodramatic-conclusion
April 28, 2018
…and those who can’t, teach.
Review: 
I began reading Nickel Mountain by John Gardner because I wanted to see if one of the most renown teachers of fiction could actually write as well as he expected others to.
Gardner felt that aspiring to be an author was almost akin to a “higher calling” and required rigorous study and practice. As well as hard work and sacrifice such a career choice came with duties and responsibilities.
The most important of which is telling the truth, and not just getting facts right, but making sure your fiction is believable and not perceived by the reader as a lie. Foremost it must “affirm moral truths about human existence”.
Well, okay. That’s quite a tall order so I was curious to see if his fiction reflected all that high-minded stuff.
Henry Soames is middle-aged but acts and thinks like an old man. He runs a truck stop restaurant by himself on a lonely highway. Everything about him is depressing; he’s morbidly overweight, he’s got a bad heart, he’s filled with self-pity and shows it, he blames his overbearing mother and failure father for his station in life. This guy is your classic victim and one of the most unsympathetic protagonists I’ve ever encountered.
When an acquaintance suggests Soames hire his teenage daughter to help run the place he agrees. Why does he agree when there’s no indication he needs help and is about as misanthropic as a person can be? Gardner doesn’t tell the reader.
Which is interesting because the relationship between Henry Soames and Callie, his sixteen year-old employee is at the crux of the story.
Technically, Gardner starts with promise – his opening sentence is brilliant. However, he delays the inciting incident until it’s almost too late, and when it is revealed it’s tepid.
Good fiction according to Gardner “creates a vivid and continuous dream” for the reader, but his writing is difficult and complicated, not at all vivid and continuous.
Since I abandoned Nickel Mountain at page 33, I can’t say whether moral truths about human existence were ever affirmed, but for the pages I did read I can affirm the story was depressing and monotonous, filled with insignificant details I imagine the reader was supposed to infuse with meaning, meaning which bordered on creepy.
My conclusion is that rigorous study and endless practice is indeed necessary for an author, but it’s obviously not a guarantee he’ll write a good book.
Original post:
rodraglin.booklikes.com/post/1662361/and-those-who-can-t-teach
April 20, 2018
Eco-Fi: Writing as a moral act
“True art is moral. We recognize true art by its’ careful, thoroughly honest search for an analysis of values. It is not didactic because, instead of teaching by authority and force, it explores, open-mindedly, to learn what it should teach. It clarifies like an experiment in a chemistry lab, and confirms.”
– John Gardner, On Moral Fiction, 1978
Okay, so this is a bit high-minded, but still it’s something I aspire to in my writing.
I’ve tried to write strictly commercial fiction, but my characters and plots won’t let me. At some point they tell me, “Hey, I’m not that shallow, superficial person and I won’t let you portray me as such.” At this point the vapid story I’ve been writing takes an unexpected direction and everything gets out of control and I’m back dealing with three dimensional characters in complicated situations that test their integrity.
Or at least I’m trying to.
How then does a writer, if so inclined, build their fiction on strong, ethical ground?
I subscribe to the method suggested by Carol Bly, Author of The Passionate, Accurate Story: Making Your Heart’s Truth into Literature. She suggests that even before beginning to write a story, consider composing a “Values Listing,” a written record of the things that are most important to you.
Then, throughout the writing process ensure these values continue to be identified in your work. That means these values are present in the issues and conflicts your characters confront and that they themselves are grounded in or address these same principles.
Here’s the Value’s Listing Questions. My answers are in capitals
VALUE’S LISTING:
1. Two goals or values which make life good or bearable or would if they were in operation. PRESERVING ENVIRONMENT/ ENCOURAGING THE HUMAN SPIRIT
2. Two goals or values which cause injustice and suffering or lessening of joy. WEALTH/MATERIALISM and the NEED TO CONTROL
3. Two missing goals or behaviors. As a child, you thought grown-up life would have these. Now that you are an adult you don’t see them around. HONESTY/INTEGRITY and RESPONSIBILITY/CREDIBILITY
4. Two injustices you see about you and should keep an eye on, even on your wedding day. RACISM/DISCRIMINATION and DESTRUCTION OF WILDERNESS
Considering my the list of my values, it’s not surprising four of my novels could be categorized as Environmental Fiction, interpreted as a story of any genre; romance, mystery, literary, etc., with a subplot that addresses an important environmental issue.
In writing ECO-FI my hope is readers will be entertained by all the elements of a good story and will also come away a little more wiser about the environmental issues important to me and that effect us all.
ECO-FI TITLES:
SAVING SPIRIT BEAR – What Price Success?
LOVING THE TERRORIST – Risking it All
MAD MAGGIE – And the Wisdom of the Ancients
FOREST – Love, Loss, Legend
This stand-alone series will be part of my back-list promotion throughout 2018 and 2019 that will include upcoming FREE book days on Amazon. To be included in free offers of my existing books or the opportunity to receive Advance Reading Copies on new work, consider joining my ADVANCE READING TEAM at http://eepurl.com/cj5wjj
Buy links for these books include:
Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B003DS6LEU
Smashwords – http://www.smashwords.com
Draft2Digital – https://www.draft2digital.com
Original post:
rodraglin.booklikes.com/post/1659278/eco-fi-writing-as-a-moral-act
March 25, 2018
Book Awards – To compete or not to compete?
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To compete or not to compete?
Does entering writing competitions achieve anything other than deplete your bank account and inflate others?
Maybe – for the few who win, place or show.
Last year I researched contests, this year I’m entering them.
Why?
My writing career is going nowhere and doing the same things and expecting different results is a definition of insanity, right? So to delay that diagnosis last year I sent East Van Saturday Night – five short stories and a novella to maybe a dozen traditional Canadian publishers hoping they could take some of that grant money they get from the federal government and publish my book. Indie authors get no respect, and in most cases don’t deserve any, but traditionally published authors get it whether they deserve it or not.
Most didn’t even bother to reply, a few sent generic rejections and one, Thistledown Press, actually wrote a letter saying “while your writing is fresh, visceral and intuitively captures the rawness of youth and the dark energy of East Van, we do not have an audience presently to support such work.”
Nice, but no cigar.
This year I’m thinking some recognition from a notable contest might generate some interest among readers and publishers. At the very least I could use the phrase “award winning” or “shortlisted” to stimulate my webpage and social media sites.
I began by submitting The Death You Choose, a story about a senior who realizes he has dementia and decides to take his own life rather than be relegated to the living dead, to Writer’s Digests’ Short Short Story contest in January.
The fee was $30 and the submission was an online so no additional costs were incurred.
I can’t find out who won, but obviously it wasn’t me, however, the fee might have been worth the exercise in editing a story about four times too long down to the required 1500 words.
Next I entered The Jacob Zilber Prize for Short Fiction sponsored by Prism, a literary publication put out by The Creative Writing Program of the University of British Columbia.
I was ambivalent about this submission because I feel there’s an inherent bias in favour of submissions from fellow academics, and that’s not me. I mean how would it look if someone without a degree in Creative Writing won a contest sponsored by a Creative Writing Department?
However, they kept extending the deadline which I interpreted as they were light on submissions, which means my work might have a better chance. Publication in literary magazines can fast track a career. I know it’s hard to believe, but in Canada it’s true.
So I sent in East Van Saturday Night and the Paper Shack, two short stories from the anthology that traditional publishers have all but given up on.
Why two? The entry fee for one was $35, and only an additional five bucks for a second one. Again, an online submission so no additional costs.
Results are pending.
I chose my novel Abandoned Dreams to submit to the Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards in the category of literary fiction. Here’s where it starts to get expensive and that question about sanity begins to arise again.
Submission fee is $99.00 CA plus you have to send a paperback so add $20 for the cost of the book and shipping.
The submission process was the same for The National Indie Excellence Awards to which I submitted a paperback edition of Mad Maggie.
By the middle of April I plan to submit Forest to The Book Pipeline Competition which seeks material for film or television adaptation. They want approximately the first 5,000 words and full synopsis (1-3 pages). I think a good movie about Sasquatches is long overdue, don’t you?
And once I finish this blog I’m going to submit The Big Picture to the 2018 Readers’ Favorite International Book Award Contest to get their early bird discount of $89 USD. I going in this competition primarily because I like that “all entrants receive a mini-critique which will provide ratings on five key literary areas: appearance, plot, development, formatting and marketability.”
If you lose, at least they tell you why?
As the year progresses I might even enter more contests – until I run out of money, or go back on my meds.
Want to preview the books I’ve entered? Go to my Amazon Author Page at
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B003DS6LEU
Readers’ Favorite Annual Book Award Contest
https://readersfavorite.com/annual-book-award-contest.htm
The 5th Annual Book Pipeline Competition
Stay Calm, Be Brave, Watch for the Signs
30
Original post:
rodraglin.booklikes.com/post/1652832/book-awards-to-compete-or-not-to-compete
March 19, 2018
Win one of 100 copies of Cold-Blooded – The Mattie Saunders Series Book 2
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The second book in The Mattie Saunders Series, Cold-Blooded, has just been released and you can enter to win one of 100 free E-Book editions on BookLikes until April 15, 2018.
In Book 1, The Rocker and the Bird Girl, you’ll meet the heroine, Mattie Saunders, a twenty-something, slightly eccentric loner who loves birds and so far has devoted her relatively short life to the rescue, care and re-homing of exotic ones people keep as pets, like parrots.
The sanctuary her grandfather left her is out of funds and in an effort to raise some money so her birds won’t be homeless yet again, she reaches out the Bodine, the lead guitarist of the bad-boy rock band Seditious. She’s learned Bodine has a pet Macaw and since she assumes he’s fabulously wealthy hopes he’ll by sympathetic and use some of that wealth to help these precious creatures.
Telling you more would be like shooting myself in the foot since I want you to buy the book.
In Book 2, Cold Blooded, Mattie receives a call from Liz, an old friend from high school, asking if it’s possible to temporarily board some reptiles at Saunders Bird Sanctuary. The Reptile Refuge where Liz volunteers has been closed be police while they investigate a suspicious death that took place on the premises.
Mattie’s not concerned with the circumstances and sees it as an opportunity to reconnect with Liz as well as help some animals in distress, but she soon discovers it’s not just the displaced inhabitants of The Reptile Refuge that are cold blooded.
Cold-Blooded also addresses contemporary issues including love, friendship, family, the rescue and rehabilitation of exotic pets including birds and reptiles, and the devastating impact of the opioid epidemic.
Links associated with this post;
Link to BookLikes Giveaway http://booklikes.com/giveaways
To purchase The Rocker and the Bird Girl, Book 1 in The Mattie Saunders Series as either an E-Book or Paperback go to my Amazon Author Page at
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B003DS6LEU
Stay calm, be brave, watch for the signs
30
Original post:
rodraglin.booklikes.com/post/1651507/win-one-of-100-copies-of-cold-blooded-the-mattie-saunders-series-book-2
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