Allison B. Levine's Blog, page 9

Release Party

Last night was my release party and it was wonderful.

Mostly because it was some of my closest friends and some new friends getting together to hang out and drink and talk about my book.  I was nervous all day yesterday because I'm not a good mingler however I'm starting to get much better at it than I used to be.

I just felt bad that I didn't spend equal time with everyone there it was overwhelming but in an awesome way. I was ecstatic about the turnout. I seriously couldn't have asked for a better party. Except some people were definitely missed that couldn't come but I totally understand.

Now my plan was to take lots of pictures of the event and post them on here but around 9:00 ish I realized that we never took not one photo.  So then the trusty iPhone came out (not mine), we got a picture and I have to say it's one of my faves. So here is the one picture from my amazing release party. Again, thank you who came, all who couldn't come but gave me a card (shout out to Jenny Chocolate) and for all who missed it–we need to get together soon because I miss you!

Check out my GoodReads Book Giveaway!!

STARTS TOMORROW!!!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

A Demon Love Story Part One

by Allison B. Levine

Giveaway ends March 14, 2012.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter to win

 

Letting My Dork Flag Fly!!!

Today is a big day.

Tonight is my 'coming out' party better known as my Book Release Party–A Demon Love Story Part One: The Obsession is dropping for realsies tomorrow. Valentine's Day!

So my dorkness is this…are you ready…are you sitting down, most likely.

I made a soundtrack.

I can almost guarantee that not one person that reads this will know one song on this soundtrack, but I love it!!!

Here it goes:

A Demon Love Story Part One:  The Obsession–The Soundtrack

1. A White Demon Love Song– The Killers (Believe it or not this song most likely helped me name this book I was struggling with a good title and I think I heard the song once and it stuck–thank god its a good song!)

2. Sexy Boy– Air (Liam's song)

3. I Get Nervous– Lower Dens (The first meeting)

4. Toxic– Yael Naim (It's a remake of the Brit song and I just love it, it's eerie and sexy)

5. Sick of the Shame — Film School

6. Youth Haunts– Weekend (Keeps with the theme of the book)

7. Meyrin Fields– Broken Bells (I picture this playing during the Christmas party)

8.  Alter Ego– Tame Impala (This too)

9.  Winter Rose (The Bees Remix)– A Band of Bees (I gotta throw an awesome reggae track in there to show jah love!)

10.  Do You Wanna Touch Me–Joan Jett (self-explanatory)

11. Truss Me– Lower Dens (This song is so sweet and dark and sexy for sexy time)

12.  Suffer for Fashion– Of Montreal (For the sisters chapter)

13.  Sundown Syndrome–Tame Impala (I just really like this song for all things)

14. Two Small Deaths — Wye Oak

15.  Blood Barons– Crystal Stilts

16. Women– Wolfmother (Big ups to my love of hair metal)

17. Shopping for Blood –Franz Ferdinand

18.  Hospice Gates– Lower Dens (Love LOVE LOVE this song couldn't live without it)

and to close it all out appropriately…

19. Killer–Obits (I totally see this as the ending credits theme!)

And there you have it, the dorktastic soundtrack for my book.  If you listen to it while you read the book it will change your life like when you watch the Wizard of Oz listening to Dark Side of the Moon.  HA I'm just kidding–it's cool though.

If you're looking to have a listen just let me know I love making mix tapes!!

 

The Adventures of Mr. Bacon

I have to share this with everyone.  This is from my extremely smart and talented nephew Christopher.  He wrote flash fiction about Mr. Bacon (he's 11) and I think he's going to do so many great things as he keeps growing!!  So feast your eyes on the amazing Adventures of Mr. Bacon By Christopher:

The Adventures of Mr. Bacon

 By

Christopher my nephew

Mr. Bacon was cooked in radioactive cooking spray as other foods were and after he was put on a plate he got up and started running and talking and ran into the refrigerator.

He has little red boots and a red belt with a tooth pick sword and a red and black hat with a black feather in the side of the hat

As the sun slowly rose one Tuesday morning a species of bacon got out of his package and his name was Mr. Bacon

Then one of the grape sisters came running towards Mr. Bacon yelling "help one of my sisters are getting taken help" so Mr.bacon ran with his trusty sword El Stickitor and jumped on the gape sister as she was screaming for someone to help her; about 2 minutes later they were put down and they saw a bunch of other fruits that they had never seen before. Hey hi hey Jo look new partiers. Yo Bob crank up those tunes!

 

 

 

Failure is a Four Letter Word

I'm feeling really down on myself today. I feel like I've failed. I feel like I'm pimping my book harder and more annoying than I've ever pimped anything in my life.  I'm just not reaching people. I'm at a loss.

Maybe it's because I'm brand new and NOBODY knows me. But all I ask is to have interest peaked, interaction of some sort…something…just a bone thrown.

I have a few hardcore supporters I can't even tell you how much that means to me, honestly. And if you are the only ones then I will accept that because you are all awesome.

Did I peak too soon? Am I approaching this wrong? What the hell am I doing that is so forgettable?

I'm venting I feel all alone right now there are way more important things going on with my friends today so I'm alone in this feeling sorry for myself.

Let's see if anyone even reads this.

If you read this I would like for you to comment even if it's "yeah I read this and you do suck".

Please make me feel like I'm doing something.

 

Huge Leap of Faith

Today I started getting my feet wet with review requests.  My book is genred (I just made that word up) as Paranormal Romance and I think a little bit Urban Fantasy.

So I started with those authors and reviewers first.  These are the people that are going to read my book and hopefully love it and give me glowing words of encouragement.

Or they can tell me that they wouldn't even line my book in their cat litter box.

But should that fear make me not take the plunge–absolutely not.

I read a blog today how writers are introverts. Did I not say this before? It's so true and now I feel totally validated. Not that that helps anything. I can fake extroverted though…I think.

At least I'm going to try like hell!  Ok First shameless plug.  A Demon Love Story Part One: The Obsession available now!!! Here…in the Buy A Demon Love Story Page!!!

And another shameless plug. Vote for A Demon Love Story on Goodreads!!http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/9088.Best_ADULT_Urban_Fantasy_and_Paranormal_Romance?format=html&page=5

Every vote means the world to me!

 

Resurrection

I was rummaging around my room a few weeks ago looking for a short story I wrote in my first year of college. I never found it. I think it's gone to the 'moved way too many times' abyss and lost forever.

However, I also found old journals from eek the 90′s those were super depressing macabre times right?

So I decided to take those short stories and get them onto my Mac in some sort of .doc format.  I'm in a writing mood these days which is nice I really haven't been.  I was waiting til the release of my book and see how it was received to decided if it was worth it to continue writing. I still don't know how my book has been received. But I realized I'm still going to keep writing.

Writing to me was something to do when I had nothing to do. It was a hobby of mine for such a big chunk of my life.  Now I want to make it a little more important than just a hobby.

So coming soon is a novella I wrote my first year of college in Incline Village, NV.  I called it "Soul Mates-ish" it's a story of a girl's journey from adolescence to adulthood and everything that can possible go wrong between those stages of life.  It's a tale of drugs, sex and self loathing–self deprecation–self discovery–and most importantly self-centeredness.

In my patented (not really) sarcastic voice style. Hopefully you all will enjoy it.

Hello, Amazon!

My editor, publicist and most importantly my friend Julia created this beautifully sexy announcement for the release of my book.  Please take a look and give me your feedback!!

 

February 13, 2012

Calling all Locals!!! All friends and family!!!
You're invited to A Demon Love Story Release Party – Click here to RSVP
 http://new.evite.com/services/links/6R533SBX3G

It's been 3 days

Since my book was released into the wild. I'm still kind of in denial that it's happened!

I'm still consumed with making sure that the Kindle version is corrected (so sorry to anyone that already purchased it, it had some kinks to be ironed out.)  I'm still waiting for the day when I look on Amazon.com and see my book come up…it's still only bringing up Kindle version. And I'll know I really made it when I see it at Barnes & Noble.com

I was thinking about this.  Self-publishing vs. Publishing with a 'real' publisher.

Self-Publishing:

You have to do everything yourself.  Formatting, Book Cover, Marketing.
You can take your time writing the next book.
You have to work really hard to sell books to make money.
You control all of your own success.

Publishing with a 'real' Publisher:

They take all your creative rights away and the book is no longer yours.
You get an advance and are required to write X amount of pages in X amount of time.
You get money up front–you only get more money if your book sells. If it doesn't you lose that money or get your contract terminated.
You just have to show up and sign things everything is done for you. Which sounds like a plus which it is, but then again I don't own the book that I wrote, so that spoils it.

So in conclusion–I'm really happy I went with self-publishing.

I wish I knew this existed years ago–I have notebooks full of novellas–all I need to do is type them up, format them and get those puppies covers!

The possibilities are endless!  And I can't say enough how grateful I am for my friends and family who love me enough and support me to show a genuine interest in this accomplishment in my life.  Thank you all, I love you all so much!!

Just FYI if someone called me up today and said we want to publish your book for 5 or 6 figures I may just rethink everything I just said.