Roland Yeomans's Blog, page 132

IF YOU ARE NOT IN TODAY, YOU ARE IN THE WRONG PLACE

"The Past is not permanent but changes with the stories we tell ourselves of it.  

Tomorrow is precious because we have not yet made any mistakes in it." 
 - Mark Twain

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LY15Y0W/
TODAY: MY BIRTHDAY!!


WHAT LAYS AHEAD:
MONDAY the 10th!
ALEX CAVANAUGH! http://www.alexjcavanaugh.com/ Look for his CASSADAWNcoming soon!      My DON'T BUY MY BOOK Blog Tour continues on Alex's iconic blog.  But it is so jam-packed with neat articles ...
Don't blink because you might miss me!      WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12th:    http://crystalcollier.blogspot.com/ Crystal Collier  pens clean reads in fantasy/sci-fi, historical, and romance varieties,  with the occasional touch of humor, horror, or inspiration.  She practices her brother-induced ninja skills while teaching children. Watch out for her new book, TIMELESS, to be released in 22 days!! 

Wednesday, I will be visiting her blog to dodge, ah, I mean answer questions and speak a bit about my book!

MYSTERY GIFTS WINNERS FROM COMMENTS ON BISH DENHAM'S GUEST POST 
Misha Gericke wins
THE BOWL AND THE STONE



**

THE SILVER FOX
WINS THE AUDIOBOOK

Hey!  It's MY Birthday, and here I am GIVING GIFTS!   Not Fair!
Consider buying my 99 cent THE NOT-SO-INNOCENTS AT LARGE will you? 

HELL IS EMPTY ...

FOR ALL THE DEVILS ARE IN THE SKY

https://www.amazon.com/NOT-SO-INNOCENTS-At-Large-Roland-Yeomans/dp/1539385752/
Now in PAPERBACK
314 Pages for ONLY $8.50!
 What a great price for a paperback, right?

THE BOWL and THE STONE and MARK TWAIN!

October is my birthday month ...    and Meilori's is always interesting then.




 The ghost of Mark Twain sat down beside me at my table, ignored me, 

placed a paperback on the polished mahogany, and started reading intently.




 The ghost of Oscar Wilde, obviously curious as to what could so totally absorb his friend, 

plucked the book from Twain's hands, and looked at the cover:


"Evocative title and intriguing cover art," he murmured.

"Tarnation, Ostrich!  Give me back my book.  I was just getting to the good part!"

Ignoring Mark Twain (an art he had perfected over the decades), Wilde turned the book over and read the back.

"The Virgin Isles, is it?  I always wanted to go there in life.  I would wager that those islands are the only things virgin left in this ramshackle world."

He made a face.  "Who names a girl Sam?"

Twain snatched back his book. 

"It's set in 1962, Heathen.  And in those days, innocence still had a chance, don't you know?  And I visited St. John's when alive, and it is a lovely, wild place."

Twain smiled.  "This THE BOWL AND THE STONE reminds me a bit of my Huckleberry tale."

He opened the book.  

"Where was I?  

Oh, yes, Sam and her friend, Nick, were just about to visit the contrary hunchback, Trumps, about that there man who appeared and up and disappeared on them."

He sat back with a smile.  

"Pirates, exploring a 240 year old plantation gone to ruin, and life-changing danger.  No doubt about it, Ostrich, this book is a winner."

Oscar looked this way and that.  "Where is this Bish Dunham, Roland?  Your author friends always visit with their new books."

http://bish-randomthoughts.blogspot.com/
"She was wise enough to stay away from Meilori's during my birthday month.  But I am visiting her blog today about my own book."
Mark Twain looked down.  "Dang!  I was looking forward to meeting her and talking about her island days."
I smiled sadly, "She lives in the states now.  But her mother’s side of the family has been in the Caribbean for over one hundred years.  Bish was raised in the U. S. Virgin Islands. She still has lots of family living there whom she visits regularly."
Oscar asked, "Has she written any other books, Roland?"
"Two more actually," I said.  " You can find Anansi and Company: Retold Jamaican Tales and A Lizard’sTail, at Amazon.com."
Mark Twain wrote in his lazy scrawl on a scrap of paper and shoved it to Oscar.  
"To learn more about Bish, Ostrich, you can visit her blog, Random Thoughts, at www.http:/bish-randomthoughts.blogspot.com.
She can also be found on Facebook:  www.facebook.com/BishDenham/Author 
Twitter @BishDenham
And Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6439315.Bish_Denham


Oscar sniffed proudly, "I am a poet, Clemens.  I refuse to twitter!"

NEW WINNERS!

New Prizes Have Been Awarded!

FOR BEING ONE OF TWO NEW COMMENTERS ON MY TOUR POST FOR ELIZABETH CRAIG
Nicola Burggraf has won the audio book of HUNTER'S MOON!



THE TWO WINNERS FOR THE MYSTERY PRIZESFOR MY TOUR POSTON DENISE COVEY'S BLOG
Lee McKenzie won Denise's Kindle book of UNDER THE TUSCAN MOON!
 Dianne K. Salerni has won the audio book ofDEATH IN THE HOUSE OF LIFE

Congratulations to each winner!
If more people comment on both blogs,more prizes will be awarded!
 Only 99 cents!  https://www.amazon.com/NOT-SO-INNOCENTS-AT-LARGE-Roland-Yeomans-ebook/dp/B01LY15Y0W/

ARE BLOG TOURS LOSING STEAM? IWSG post

Say Hello to DENISE COVEY!
https://denisecovey.wordpress.com/
Denise C Covey is a native Queenslander from Australia’s Sunshine Coast, 
but her travel bag is always ready for that next overseas trip. 

 When she’s not working as an educator, she travels. 

Her novella, Under the Tuscan Moon was inspired by adventures in Tuscany,
 with its medieval villas, its hill towns bordered by gates and parapets,
 its noble past and its magical forests. Imagining those forests during medieval times saw the birth of her vampire series.


My next stop on my DON'T BUY MY BOOK! Blog Tour
is on her wonderful blogwhere we speak of poetry and lies.
Pay her a visit, will you?

Have you wondered if Blog Tours  are things that have become passe?
A good blog tour is a fine way to build your brand 

and establish some credentials with your target audience. 

If you can get on blogs and websites that actual READERS follow, 

then it is a great way of overcoming the "unknown author" problem. 

Blog tours generally don't equate to a huge uptick in immediate sales. 

 Rather, they raise awareness of you and your brand with the audience. 

Someone may not be looking to buy your book that very second, 

but the next time they go to buy a book they will be more likely to think of you.


THERE IS NO MAGIC PATH TO SUCCESS 

All we can do is knock on as many doors as possible.  Blog Tours are an excellent way to do that.
But each post must be different, must be entertaining, 
and must be aligned with the theme and motif of the blog you are visiting.
There must be some worthwhile reward for each visitor to each post.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LY15Y0W/

Take my own DON'T BUY MY BOOK! Blog Tour ...
From the comments on each of my visits, my computerized name selector will draw two names
And I will give TWO DIFFERENT MYSTERY PRIZES to those winners.
Each set of prizes will be different and customized to the blog I am visiting.

Take my post for Alex Cavanaugh on the 10th ...
One of the mystery prizes will be the audio book of his CASSASTORM!
You ask what the TWO MYSTERY PRIZES for my post on Denise's blog will be?
Hey, that's why I call them MYSTERY PRIZES!!

FIREFLY_ HOW IT TEACHES US TO WRITE A NOVEL SERIES

WRITING A NOVEL SERIES HAS ITS CHALLENGES

It is hard NOT to think that FOX worked to kill the excellent series, FIREFLY.
Guess in what order they aired the episodes? 
2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 4, 5, 9, 10, 14, 1. 
That's right: they aired the PILOT LAST!! 
The episodes, 11-13 were unaired.
No wonder FIREFLY got low ratings. 

But those who watched the series enjoyed it immensely.

THE WHY OF THAT TEACHES US  HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL SERIES 

1.) THEY HAD A GOOD TIME
 The tales were a novel blend of Sci Fi with the Old West:
 It creates an interesting environment and themes the show with a rustic sci-fi air 
with events like transporting cattle, a train heist, and even riding in a covered wagon,
 add to that superior technology, spaceships, and creepy science experiments and you have the fantastic world that is Firefly.
All done with a great sense of humor.
Sometimes you had to work to figure out the tapestry of the universe ...
BUT so do all of us in the real world where lies masquerade as "facts."


2.) THEY CARED ABOUT THE PEOPLE
 The relationships felt real.  The dangers were ever-present -- not over at the end of a program.
In a series, you deal with the up-close crisis, but you leave the true storm, brewing dangerously over the horizon.

3.) THE WORLD WAS COMPLEX
Our world is multi-cultural.  It is just the way the times are.
In FIREFLY, Whedon didn't only make a space western, but he made a space western with Asian elements. 
He wove together 1850s settlers with Chinese citizens.
No matter what genre you are writing, put clashes of cultures in your tales and draw the reader in.




4.) CHARACTERS WITH A TWIST OF LEMON AND CLASH OF WORLD-VIEWS 
Oops. I got this whole section gold.  Sigh.
Fun characters are terrific to take a road trip with even if you do not know where you are going.
It is the ride that counts.  Make each one of your novels in a series fun to read ...
And folks will return for another trip.
In your world, you meet all kinds.  Make your novel world the same.
Religion, politics, sexual conflicts ...
They must seem real or your novel will feel flat.
Just do not show by your narrative which side you favor. 
Let your reader decide for her or himself.  :-)
 https://www.amazon.com/NOT-SO-INNOCENTS-AT-LARGE-Roland-Yeomans-ebook/dp/B01LY15Y0W/
Don't forget to take a 99 cent chance to enjoy my new Steampunk: THE NOT-SO-INNOCENTS AT LARGE!

THE WINNERS ARE ...

I will draw 2 winners  by computer program from those who comment  on each of my blog visits!

Each additional day Elizabeth has my post up,
another winner for a Mystery Gift will be selected!

Yesterday's winners of the Mystery Gifts are:


Hilary Melton-Butcher has won a Kindle copy of



L. Diane Wolfe has won a Kindle copy of

Oh, if any of you would like to buy my THE NOT-SO-INNOCENTS AT LARGE for 99 cents, I will not cry!! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LY15Y0W/ 

WHAT'S SO COZY ABOUT MURDER?

 What's so cozy about murder?
You definitely should ask Elizabeth Spann Craig!

She is the bestselling author of the Myrtle Clover series, 

the Southern Quilting mysteries, 

and the Memphis Barbeque mysteries (written as Riley Adams). 

She blogs at http://elizabethspanncraig.com/blog/

 named by Writer's Digest as one of the 101 Best Websites for Writers. 

She curates links on Twitter as @elizabethscraig 

that are later shared in the free search engine WritersKB.com. 

Elizabeth makes her home in Matthews, North Carolina, with her husband and two teenage children.

To receive a free ebook, updates, and recipes, sign up for her newsletter at http://eepurl.com/kCy5j

Which is why I am so honored to be starting off my DON'T BUY MY BOOK! Blog Tour on her great blog.


At the end of the day I will select two lucky visitors who comment on my book,  

via the computer program I used to select students when teaching

and I will give each one a different MYSTERY GIFT!  

For as many days as my post runs, I will draw one more lucky winner for another MYSTERY GIFT!

My new book is only 99 cents. 

 Sex, intrigue, betrayal, magic, and death ... and that is just in the first chapter!  

Give it a try, why don't you?  

Give an honest review and get another mystery gift!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LY15Y0W/
NOW, DON'T LET ELIZABETH'S VISITOR COUNTGO DOWN BECAUSE OF ME.
PLEASE VISIT HER BLOG!http://elizabethspanncraig.com/blog/

THE NOT-SO-INNOCENTS AT LARGE ... at last!

WELCOME TO OCTOBER! WELCOME TO MY BIRTHDAY MONTH!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LY15Y0W/
Welcome to my Birthday Book.Only 99 cents for the Kindle edition!

"Ghost of Mark Twain, here.
Come on, pilgrims, buy it as a birthday gift for the boy, will you?
Shameless I know, but us ghosts are past all shame!
I mean, have you ever seen a ghost blush?"

October is the month for myDON'T BUY MY BOOK! Blog Tour, as well.

FIRST WEEK SCHEDULE:
OCTOBER 3RD

Elizabeth Spann Craig:http://elizabethspanncraig.com/blog/

OCTOBER 5TH

Denise Covey:https://denisecovey.wordpress.com/

OCTOBER 7TH

Bish Denham: https://denisecovey.wordpress.com/


Two Mystery Prizes Will Be Awarded to Two 
Lucky Commentersfrom each blog the Following Day.

COMING SOON IN PAPERBACK TOO!

COMING SOON TO AUDIO

Hopefully in time for Halloween! Tell Me What You Think of the Sample. 
Do You Listen to Audio Books?
Why?
Why not? 
Available to Download Now

HUNTER'S MOON:
   Only $3.47!!  https://www.amazon.com/Hunters-Moon/dp/B01LZJXBD6/