Christina Bauer's Blog, page 75
September 19, 2015
Book Review: REBEL by Elle Casey
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September 15, 2015
My Portia Scrapbook
Portia’s hair turned out to be more white-blonde, but the look on this model’s face captures something about her that’s really essential to me. While her parents are very confident and tough, Portia is more open and vulnerable.
Speaking of her parents, this picture shows how I think Myla and Lincoln would look by this time in their lives. The rough edges have settled into something more regal and otherworldly.
Portia spent most of her life in libraries, trying to learn magic to end the spell cast on her. This is a pic of Kate Winslet reading. I like the intensity here.
Portia would never go crazy with Swarovski crystal and eyelashes, but the magic cast on her did leave her with markings around her eye. I really liked this tribal pattern as it was a bit feminine as well.
Portia meets the dragon emperor, Tempest. I like the gentleness of this kiss. Tempest is a badass with powers over lust and wrath, but he is very sweet to Portia and cherishes her.
More of that cherishing vibe.
You knew the dragon pics were coming, didn’t you? Portia has to go on a quest that involves releasing magical energy.
Love this one with the fire dragon! Go Portia!
And here’s the cover. Yeah!
More scrapbooks, woo hoo!
Maxon
Prince Lincoln
More Prince Lincoln featuring kissing
Xavier
Myla
Reperio Demons
The Furor
Ghouls
Igni
Archangels
You can see tons more Angelbound inspirations at my Pinterest Board. Like honestly, I have a problem.
The post My Portia Scrapbook appeared first on Ink Monster.
September 10, 2015
Cover Reveal Inside: CURSED (Book 1 of the Beholder Series)
CURSED will be released on March 29, 2016 and is available for pre-order now at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and Kobo.
Description
Although Elea’s the most powerful necromancer in history, she’s spent most of her nineteen years imprisoned in the Midnight Cloisters. Enchanted manacles keep her unique brand of soul magick in check. While the guards and initiates seem contented to torment her, the Cloister’s Mother Superior is obsessed with finding a safe way to destroy Elea, both body and soul. Escape seems impossible until a handsome hunter named Asher offers to help. Elea takes a chance and soon develops feelings for the mysterious stranger. However, Asher may not be who he claims. Then again, Elea may not be, either…
The post Cover Reveal Inside: CURSED (Book 1 of the Beholder Series) appeared first on Ink Monster.
September 9, 2015
Angelbound ORIGINS is on sale!
To celebrate the launch of PORTIA on October 27th, Angelbound ORIGINS (A bundle of books 1-3) is now on sale for 99-cents! Offer ends September 15th.
Amazon
B&N
iBooks
Kobo
The post Angelbound ORIGINS is on sale! appeared first on Ink Monster.
September 1, 2015
PORTIA eSampler Free on Amazon!
Some folks asked for the same at Amazon…And now it’s live!
You can download your free sample chapter of Portia on Amazon here or visit the following URL: http://tinyurl.com/portiaesample. Feel free to share the good news with anyone else who might be interested. If this works out, we’ll look toward sharing sample chapters for future releases.
Thanks as always for your support and feedback…I’m looking forward to sharing the rest of Portia on October 27th 
The post PORTIA eSampler Free on Amazon! appeared first on Ink Monster.
August 28, 2015
CURSED Cover Reveal–Friday 8/28!
ABOUT CURSED, Book 1 of the Beholder Series
Although Elea’s the most powerful necromancer in history, she’s spent most of her nineteen years imprisoned in the Midnight Cloisters. Enchanted manacles keep her unique brand of soul magick in check. While the guards and initiates seem contented to torment her, the Cloister’s Mother Superior is obsessed with finding a safe way to destroy Elea, both body and soul. Escape seems impossible until a handsome hunter named Asher offers to help. Elea takes a chance and soon develops feelings for the mysterious stranger. However, Asher may not be who he claims. Then again, Elea may not be, either…
Pre-orders are live! Please visit Amazon, B&N, iBooks, and Kobo. Add to Goodreads here!
ABOUT THE REVEAL
Want to see the new cover? Please visit the following bloggers and social media sites this Friday, August 28th. Huge thanks to the great team at Xpresso Book Tours for putting this together!
History from a Woman’s Perspective
Musings of the Book-a-holic Fairies, inc.
The post CURSED Cover Reveal–Friday 8/28! appeared first on Ink Monster.
August 27, 2015
What I Know About Being a Data-Driven Publisher
So, in the interests of sharing best practices, here’s what I know about being a data-driven publisher.
1. Quality only gets you to the door
I come from a high-tech background, and I’ve seen a ton of start-ups fail even though they had great products. As I think of it, having a stellar offering only gets you up to the door. What steps you past the threshold is crafting a solid business plan.
IMPORTANT: I’m not talking about using data to develop your product. As Henry Ford said, “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” What I’m talking about is using data to answer questions about how to take that product to market:
Who is interested in this book?
How many of those people are out there?
Where are they?
How do you reach them?
How much do you need to charge them to stay in business?
Knowing all of the above, when should this book be brought to market?
You only get one chance to launch something. I find that having what’s called a Go To Market Plan gives you the best chance of success. In software, those are written by folks called Product Managers. The Marketing Communications people then put those plans into action. We follow that model at Ink Monster.
2. Beware of making decisions based on hearsay instead of data
Let’s say you have a great book that you want to launch, but none of the Go To Market questions above have been defined. In my experience, without a plan, they still get defined, but based on hearsay and hunches. Not good. There are two ways this happens, in my experience. First, someone inside the company supplies the hearsay information. In my life, this someone has most commonly been a sales superstar who’s rumored to have a golden gut. As a marketer, this is an unpleasant way to live, and it’s a situation I think many publishers (and editors!) find themselves in without making a conscious decision to be there.
The second kind of hearsay comes from outside the company. In other words, from what everyone else is doing. This is another recipe for disaster. I learned this lesson the hard way when I founded a company that made CRM software. I had customers paying me six figures for our solutions, but in the dot-com boom, everyone was going to venture capital for investment money. So that’s what I did, too. Wow, was that ever a dumb choice. If I’d focused on customers instead of investors, I might still be in business today.
3. Some data is better than no data
Let’s say you decide to collect some data. The next question that inevitably comes up is: “how can we get anything that’s really useful?” This bit is typically followed by twenty reasons why the data is somehow misleading or inaccurate.
Here’s the truth. I have never met anyone, anywhere, from any data-driven company who is 100% happy with their data. There are always caveats and asterisks all over the place. There are also always people who go to data in order to prove themselves right, not to learn what’s going on, hence the phrase ‘torture the data enough and it will confess to anything.’
That said, some data is ALWAYS better than no data. At a base level, you can get a ton of information by just picking up the phone and talking to a customer. Many survey tools are out there as well, which is how we did our first reader survey here at Ink Monster.
4. Have a Go To Market Plan
You knew this was coming, right? In my experience, the biggest thing that data drives is NOT the product, but the Go To Market Plan. In other words, most of the business data that I use asks how to position and drive what someone else has already developed. Every product gets a plan that goes over a period of years, end of story.
5. Build a relationship with your customer
This is another one that bears repeating. Asking a customer what they want doesn’t mean you have to do it. But handing over the keys of your customer relationship to any third party is a bad idea. In high-tech, we go to crazy lengths to get people to register their software with us. Do we have to do this? No. Our distributors would happily push information to the end user. However, that gives the so-called ‘disti’ way too much power. They can shut off our sales if they want to, and in the early days of high-tech, some start-ups died this way.
IMPORTANT: I am not talking about adding a buy button here, but the ability to independently get information to and from your end user. For example, if one disti goes out of business, you can tell your customer where to go next. In addition, direct information makes it possible to build a solid Go To Market Plan. Every book holds years of sweat and worry inside its many pages. IMHO, every volume deserves a fair chance at success, and therefore, a thorough Go To Market Plan.
The hardest part about all of this is getting started. Change is terrifying, whether you’re an indie writer or leading a large company. Hopefully, this blog post gives some ideas on how and why to take the leap. Good luck and happy Go To Market planning!
More publishing stuff:
What I know about ebook publishing
The post What I Know About Being a Data-Driven Publisher appeared first on Ink Monster.
New Series Cover Reveal–Friday 8/28!
ABOUT CURSED, Book 1 of the Beholder Series
Although Elea’s the most powerful necromancer in history, she’s spent most of her nineteen years imprisoned in the Midnight Cloisters. Enchanted manacles keep her unique brand of soul magick in check. While the guards and initiates seem contented to torment her, the Cloister’s Mother Superior is obsessed with finding a safe way to destroy Elea, both body and soul. Escape seems impossible until a handsome hunter named Asher offers to help. Elea takes a chance and soon develops feelings for the mysterious stranger. However, Asher may not be who he claims. Then again, Elea may not be, either…
Pre-orders are live! Please visit Amazon, B&N, iBooks, and Kobo.
ABOUT THE REVEAL
Want to see the new cover? Please visit the following bloggers and social media sites this Friday, August 28th. Huge thanks to the great team at Xpresso Book Tours for putting this together!
History from a Woman’s Perspective
Musings of the Book-a-holic Fairies, inc.
The post New Series Cover Reveal–Friday 8/28! appeared first on Ink Monster.
August 24, 2015
Sample Chapter of PORTIA Now on iBooks
:::happy dance in chair:::
This is what it looks like on my screen:
It looks even better after three mochas, which is how I see it every day.
And this is what it looks like on iBooks:
It’s live, it’s really live!
So, that’s it. If you folks like this sample stuff, then I’ll do it some more on future releases. I may even make Aileen do it, too, mwah hah hah! You can get to iBooks from this URL: http://tinyurl.com/portiasample
OK, back to writing!
The post Sample Chapter of PORTIA Now on iBooks appeared first on Ink Monster.
August 22, 2015
New Series Cover Reveal update!
ABOUT CURSED, Book 1 of the Beholder Series
Although Elea’s the most powerful necromancer in history, she’s spent most of her nineteen years imprisoned in the Midnight Cloisters. Enchanted manacles keep her unique brand of soul magick in check. While the guards and initiates seem contented to torment her, the Cloister’s Mother Superior is obsessed with finding a safe way to destroy Elea, both body and soul. Escape seems impossible until a handsome hunter named Asher offers to help. Elea takes a chance and soon develops feelings for the mysterious stranger. However, Asher may not be who he claims. Then again, Elea may not be, either…
Pre-orders are live! Please visit Amazon, B&N, iBooks, and Kobo.
ABOUT THE REVEAL
Want to see the new cover? Please visit the following bloggers and social media sites on this Friday, August 28th. Huge thanks to the great team at Xpresso Book Tours for putting this together!
History from a Woman’s Perspective
Musings of the Book-a-holic Fairies, inc.
The post New Series Cover Reveal update! appeared first on Ink Monster.
