S.M. McEachern's Blog, page 5

Worlds Collide Book Blitz & Giveaway

Not to be outdone by Sunset Rising, Worlds Collide (Book 2 of the SR series) is going on its own Book Blitz with Xpresso Book Tours This is actually the first time WC is going on tour and I’m really excited about it. I still have readers getting in touch asking me when is book two coming out?! Well, it’s out! And high time I announced that, too. I’ve supplied Xpresso with three excerpts from Worlds Collide and an author interview with lots of info on Book 3 (I’ll post it on this blog as well, so stay tuned). For the tour I’m hosting another Giveaway because, honestly, they’re a fun way to market. Not only does it give me the opportunity to give my readers a chance to win, but I get end up meeting tons of new people along the way. (Oh, and Sunset Rising is on for the promo price of just 99 cents!).

Here’s a quick update on what I’ve been up to: writing, writing, writing Book 3! Seriously. Not kidding. I’ve immersed myself in Book 3. I’m pretty sure Sunny and I are bestfriends now, which is kinda frustrating for my real, live BFFs. Yikes! But I’m committed to a January release date, so I’m putting my head down and getting ‘er done. I’ve also written another satellite story, which I’ll post soon, AND I had the chance to interview one of my research resources, Chris Kratt. Who better to brainstorm with about a post-apocalyptic creature world than one of the Kratt Bros?! It was a fun interview and I hope to do more like it in the future (nanotechnology anyone?).

Thanks for stopping by! Now back to writing…

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“Worlds Collide” (Book Two) Book Blast and Giveaway!

It was pointed out to me that I’m always showing off Sunset Rising, and forget about Book Two, Worlds Collide.  I need to do something about that.  Beginning September 18, 2014, Worlds Collide (Book Two of the Sunset Rising series) will go on a Book Blitz with Xpresso Book Tours  If you’re a blogger who would like to join the Blitz, please click on the Xpresso link and add your blog (with my heartfelt thanks!).  Of course there will be giveaways for everyone to enter!

Keep checking back here for updates

Cheers – Susan

$50 iTunes Giveaway! – Winners Announced

While I’ve been busily writing Book 3 (tentatively entitled, New World Order), the number of people entering the $50 Giveaway and signed copies of Sunset Rising has been escalating! And so many people have been in touch with me on Goodreads, Twitter and Facebook, that I’m just blown away. Wow! Thank you everyone for all of your encouragement! You know, there are times during the writing process when I question myself, and thoughts like, what am I doing? Will anyone even care if I write this book? enter my head… and then I get your emails, your praise and your reviews and I know exactly why I want to finish this book. Although it sounds like a cliche, thank you.

For all you ebook lovers, especially those with iPads, iPhones, and iPods (like my household!), there are only a few days left to enter to win the $50 iTunes Giveaway. I wish you good luck!!

UPDATE:

Congratulations to the winners of the giveaway:

Heather B. – Grand Prize Winner of $50 iTunes giftcards

Kathy Whitney – Signed paperback copy of Sunset Rising

Alexandru Rusu – Signed paperback copy of Sunset Rising

Thank you everyone for participating!!  Now I think it’s time to do a promotion for Worlds Collide  

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$50 iTunes Giveaway!

While I’ve been busily writing Book 3 (tentatively entitled, New World Order), the number of people entering the $50 Giveaway and signed copies of Sunset Rising has been escalating! And so many people have been in touch with me on Goodreads, Twitter and Facebook, that I’m just blown away. Wow! Thank you everyone for all of your encouragement! You know, there are times during the writing process when I question myself, and thoughts like, what am I doing? Will anyone even care if I write this book? enter my head… and then I get your emails, your praise and your reviews and I know exactly why I want to finish this book. Although it sounds like a cliche, thank you.

For all you ebook lovers, especially those with iPads, iPhones, and iPods (like my household!), there are only a few days left to enter to win the $50 iTunes Giveaway. I wish you good luck!!

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Sunset Rising $50 Giveaway and 99 cent Deal!

Remember I said that I’ll have to do something to mark the occasion of Sunset Rising and Worlds Collide being available with all eBook distributors? Well, your wait is over. Something is here and it’s here in the form of $50 iTunes giveaway AND two signed paperbacks of Sunset Rising (signed by me, of course! Not my pet rats…seriously…cross my heart). The giveaways are hitting an internet near you via the popular and very attractively laid-out website I am a Reader Not a Writer. It’s totally worth the click. And if ALL THAT isn’t enough to celebrate the occasion, I’ve also asked Vook to drop the price of Sunset Rising to just 99 cents from August 7th to August 13th, 2014. Yes my friends, that’s less than a buck! You’d be doing me a huge service if you let all your family, cousins, friends and maybe even people you don’t like very much know about the sale (just don’t tell the people you don’t like very much about the giveaway…the less people entering, the better chance you have of winning!). Grab your 99 cent copy here:

iBooks, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo

And without further ado, here’s where you enter the Giveaway: (Good Luck! And for my fellow Canadians, Bonne Chance!)

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Life, the Universe and Pinterest

Some say I’m slow to conform (yes, I am still learning how to use my iPhone), and in effort to get with the times, I joined Pinterest.

Finally.

So many friends have told me that Pinterest is THE place to be on the Internet and anybody who’s Somebody is on Pinterest. Well, I want to be Somebody just as much as the next guy, so I navigated my way to this popular hangout and read the introduction:

Join Pinterest to find (and save!) all the things that inspire you. 45 seconds to join. 25+ billion pins to explore.

Now we’re talking! I don’t have a lot of time, so 45 seconds was right up my alley. I even had my choice between using my email to join or my Facebook account. I chose FB, my hands practically clapping together in anticipation of creating a Pinterest page so full of beautiful, intelligent, and witty scenes that it would rival even the most devout Pinterest guru (I’m not mentioning any names, Elizabeth, but you know who you are). And I was only 45 seconds away…

The welcome page pops up and tells me it’s going to take me on a tour of Pinterest. Okay.

Pins are visual bookmarks that people save on Pinterest.

Good to know. Let’s keep going.

Collect recipes, travel ideas…whatever inspires you.

Woohoo. Let’s get to the good stuff.

Each Pin links back to the site it came from.

Okay. I’ve got it.

What are you intesested in?

I don’t know… books?

Now for the fun part…to finish up the tour, find something that interests you.

And BAM! Just like that, the promised 25+ billion Pins to explore pop up.

Are you freaking kidding me? Forty-five seconds to join? Really? Because I think they actually want me to start choosing what I want to Pin from the billions of images now cluttering up my computer screen. Where do I even start?? There are so many!!

So I do what anybody who’s Somebody might do and start Pinning. I choose an image I like, click on it and Pinterest tells me it’s going to link back to Somebody I’ve never heard of before and I don’t know if that’s a cool thing to do or not, so I don’t Pin it and choose something else instead—a book posted by Random House. I’m feeling good about it, because I’m pretty sure Random House won’t mind if I link back to them, and click Pin it.

Pinterest lets me know its going to link back to Random House.

Sure, I’m fine with that. Go ahead and Pin, I click.

Pin it?

Yes, I click. Pin it.

Create a Board?

Um…do I need to create a board? I don’t what the hell a Board is, but I think I’ll create one. Probably, I have to. I’ll name it…YA books. Pin it! I click.

Are you sure you want to Pin this?

Yeah, I’m sure I want to Pin it. Pin it! I click, my finger pressing down harder on the mouse in the hopes Pinterest might understand my urgency to Pin it. And maybe in my impatience I might have clicked something else, because I seemed to go back a few steps…

Do you want to Pin this?

Oh. My. God. YES I WANT TO PIN THIS! CLICK.

Are you sure you want to Pin this?

I think the last time I was asked Are you sure you want to do this? that many times I was about to get married (although in all fairness to my mother, she never once asked). And now Pinterest has got me thinking—do I really want to Pin this?

No, Pinterest, I’m not sure if I want to Pin this anymore. In fact, now I feel like I’m standing on a bridge, about to jump off, and contemplating what awaits me below. Will my jump make me a Somebody? Or will a bunch of other Somebodies get pissed off at me for linking back to their awesome Pins? Because when I Pin Somebody else’s Pin, does it really make it MY Pin? Or am I just riding on the coattails of Somebody else’s Pinterest greatness? I’m scared.

In all honesty, I have a book to write and should’ve been writing it, but I hadn’t really expected my foray into Pinterest to last beyond forty-five seconds much less cause me to start contemplating the value of my life, so with a heavy heart I realized I needed to let go of the Pinterest dream. Get out before anyone knew I went there and tried to be Somebody. I mean, if nobody knew I failed, than it really wasn’t a failure, right?

You have a new follower!

I do?

You follow this person.

Really? How the hell did that happen? I wasn’t clicking anything! I had stopped all clicking and was in the process of climbing down off that bridge.

You have a new follower.

I have another new follower???

You follow this person.

WHAT THE HELL??!

Now I’m not only scared, I’m a little spooked. All those conspiracy theories about the government watching everything we do suddenly don’t seem so far-fetched. And if they can see everything we do…who else can?

Or maybe, because I signed up with Facebook, my FB friends got a notification I was on Pinterest. Which is probably more likely.

So now the word is out—I’m on Pinterest. And apparently my Board isn’t that empty since I logged on this morning and it’s FULL of Somebodies Pins so I don’t look like a loser. Not sure how that happened, but thank you Pinterest for saving my ass And thank-you Gina and Rebecca for following me there so I’m not all alone!

Oh, and just a heads up to any new followers—it might take me a while to actually set up some of my own Boards. Now that I know it takes more than forty-five seconds to be a Somebody on Pinterest, I’m going to have to wait until I’m finished writing book three. And you can rest easy about one thing…there will be no Pinterest my in post-apocalyptic world.

Happy Pinning Everyone!

Sunset Rising and Worlds Collide are now on iBooks :)

http://smmceachern.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Waterfall.m4v

Sunset Rising and Worlds Collide are finally available on iBooks! Yay! Once again, my apologies to those looking for WC on July 5th. I anticipated the path to iBooks and Nook would be straight, but it turned out to be twisty and there I was stranded in the woods with no internet to get directions.

Where was I that I was stranded with no internet, you ask?

In Vermont, hiking through the Appalachian Mountains, home of the Dome and Pit. It was a combined trip for book research (no, I won’t give you any spoilers) and spending time with our good friends who have a home up there and know their way around. We hiked through the woods, climbed rocky ledges, swam in waterfall pools and tubed a river through the mountains (no, not the river in the video…that would just be stupid). We also celebrated the 4th of July Vermont-style, complete with a parade, pie eating contest and amazing fireworks. To top off all the beautiful scenery and outdoor adventures, the people of Vermont are some of the friendliest on the planet. If you’ve never been, put it on your bucket list

After Vermont, we drove to the concrete jungle of New York City and caught a Broadway show (I LOVE live theatre!) and visited the 911 Memorial site (words cannot describe…) and almost ran smack-dab into as he exited the Rockefeller Center. And if you love people-watching (like me!) there’s no better place on Earth to do that than Times Square. Wow. Just wow.

The road trip is over and I’m home balancing the rest of my summer (we’re on vacation here in Canada) between family, friends and – of course – writing Book 3!  And I haven’t forgotten that I owe you a satellite story or two as well. I’m also working on a giveaway and will announce it soon, so stay tuned. It will include signed copies of Sunset Rising up for grabs :) I’ve contacted a blog tour organizer to help me out with it, so we just need to put it together.

Now back to writing. Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers – Susan

Sorry about the delay!

Hi Everyone,

A few people have emailed me looking for Sunset Rising and Worlds Collide on iBooks… sorry they’re not listed there yet!  I’m experiencing a few technical difficulties in transferring the titles to Vook, which is being compounded by the fact that I’m on vacation and internet is spotty  I promise I’m working on it!!

Speaking of vacation… if you’ve never been river tubing Vermont-style you really should go. It’s fantastic!

Cheers – Susan

Big Announcement!

I have a HUGE announcement to make. And no, it’s not the promised blog post about bananas (sorry for the let down…just breathe through it). It’s about publishing. Specifically, it’s about my series, the Sunset Rising series, soon to be available EVERYWHERE. Yes, you heard right. EVERYWHERE.

For all you awesome readers who were following me back in December (or was it January?) I blogged about reaching a crossroads with the eminent release of book two, Worlds Collide. I had taken SR down from the distribution platform I had been using due to some publishing issues and didn’t have another publishing alternative to get the book across all channels. So I did something that turned out to be the best thing for my writing career: I listed SR exclusively with Amazon via their KDP Select program. Best. Thing. I. Ever. Did. I love Amazon. They provide writers—all writers—with marketing tools unavailable anywhere else that, in turn, benefits readers with greater diversity in literature and lower ebook prices. That, my friends, is no small feat. Its no wonder Amazon is the biggest ebook publisher in the world.

So why am I leaving KDP Select? To go with a brand new, dynamic, young publishing company that will get my books listed across all channels. As much as I love Amazon (and I really do!), there was a part of me that felt super bad for not publishing Worlds Collide on all channels since early readers were able to download the first book in different formats.

I know you’re all sitting there thinking what happened? Get to the point! Well, the aforementioned Brand New Dynamic Young Publishing Company that contacted me about the SR series is called Vook. Probably you’ve never heard of them. That’s because they are Brand New. Still in beta phase to be precise. And I’ll be one of 50 (or up to 100) authors they’ll be representing during their beta period. So does this mean I’m with a publisher? Kind of. They are a hybrid-publisher, which means I get to keep all my copyrights and control over my books, but they’ll help me with distribution and marketing. Although admittedly, they had me at “distribution.”

My heavy conscience about early SR readers who own a Nook or Kobo is about to be lightened around July 5th when both books get listed at:

No, don’t click on them yet! The books aren’t available until July 5th, or shortly thereafter. I just wanted to show off the really cool logos that will soon be on the side column (or should I put them on the upper menu?) of my website. I’m going to have to do something to mark the occasion…maybe another Giveaway, but this time signed paperbacks of Sunset Rising? Or stick with a gift certificate? Both? Drop me a comment if you have a preference.

That’s my big news. I know I owe you all another Satellite Story, and I did start writing one, but then I got caught up in writing book three instead. It’s a juggle… especially since I’m on a timeline with book 3 to get it out before Christmas. I really envy writers that can pen an entire book every three or four months. Unfortunately, I’m the type that gets bogged down in research, checking facts (I’m a stickler to the point of being OCD) and constantly smoothing out character arcs. Hey, a lot goes into world building.

I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for stopping by!

Why is Grass a National Obsession?

Settle down. It’s not the kind you roll in paper and smoke. It’s the kind that causes family feuds over who’s going to mow it. Only don’t mow it when it’s wet and only water it in the morning, never at night, which means you need to mow it at night, when it’s dry, and for God’s sake, don’t walk on it—and then there’s all the chemicals you need to apply to it to keep it green and weed free, which eats up another Saturday you could’ve otherwise spent biking with your family and money you could’ve spent on a trip to Mexico.

I don’t get it. Why is it so important to homeowners to have lush, green lawns? Its just grass! Even the name—“gr” and “ass” put together—tells you all you need to know about this high maintenance crop. I know, a few of you (probably guys) are thinking, Holy cow, what is she whining about? It’s not JUST grass for crying out loud! It’s an amazing expanse of green good enough to golf on and absolutely worth the time and money. What is she—some weird tree hugger? Yes, it has been suggested to me that I might like to hug trees, and to that I say: I’ve climbed several, planted many and cared for some, yet I’ve never actually hugged one. In fact, I wanted to say this very thing to my neighbor last year when, with a wave of his arm toward my front yard, he said, “Why don’t you do something about your Grass.”

He has the lushest, greenest lawn on our street. And he not only thinks I’m a tree-hugger, he thinks I’m lazy too.

For anyone reading this who doesn’t know me very well, telling me to do something is the best way to get me to not do it. Not that I’m not doing something. Technically, when I’m aware of the fact that I’m not doing something I consider that I am doing something because I’m not doing it deliberately. In the case of my neighbor, what I did was not touch the Grass. For about three weeks.

Now, before I continue I would like to preach…er, I mean point out:

Fertilizers cause algae blooms in our rivers and lakes, depriving aquatic life of oxygen and resulting in massive fish kills. In oceans, this is commonly referred to as “red tide.” Low amounts of fertilizers can actually build-up in aquatic life, which we eat and poison ourselves.


Weedkillers: Glyphosate is the most common ingredient in weedkiller products, and it is now being linked as the culprit for Autism and other chronic diseases. Anyone following the Monsanto case is probably aware of this.


Pesticides are, in one word, poison. The toxicity of any given pesticide is based on its LD (Lethal Dose) – a measure of the single dose required to kill fleas, or mosquitoes, or grubs (etc…the dosage increases with the size of the “pest”). But here’s the thing about pesticides: they are persistent. They never go away. They build up in our water supply where, every spring and fall, they get churned up in the Spring Turnover. Yep, it’s a real thing. All that warm and cold water mixing stirs up the stuff on the bottom of our lakes and rivers right into our faucets. Pesticides are linked to cancer, birth defects, liver and kidney damage, ect… (and by “ect…” I mean the long list of other stuff that can kill us).

Tree hugger rant done. Now back to my story.

Three weeks of not touching my Grass allowed it to grow just past my ankles since it’s not really Grass—it’s mostly clover. This infuriated my neighbor and, to be honest, raised a few eyebrows on my street. Why? Because not only is my clover considered an unacceptable alternative to Grass, especially when allowed to flower, but also all the lawns in the neighborhood were under siege by grubs and it was incumbent upon me to take up arms against this enemy. Aware of my love of trees, my neighbor pointed out that the grubs are the larvae of the Japanese beetle—an exotic pest that’s wreaking havoc on certain trees. I have an ash tree in my front yard.

What my neighbor doesn’t know is this: I don’t have grubs. The beetle needs loose, well irrigated ground to lay their eggs and, frankly, that’s not my yard.  Clover is a hardy, drought resistant plant that will grow just about anywhere, including my hard packed front yard. Grass on the other hand needs loose, rich soil that’s well irrigated and the roots are the favorite food for grubs, providing the perfect breeding ground. So, in their effort to keep their luxurious green lawns, my neighbors battle the beetle with pesticides all the while polluting their own water and food supplies.

So again I ask, why are North Americans so obsessed with having Grass? Plant clover.

For anyone who wants to read more about this potentially fatal past time, see the links below:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-fertilizers-harm-earth/

http://eartheasy.com/blog/2009/01/lawn-care-chemicals-how-toxic-are-they/

http://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environment/roundup-weed-killer-zmaz09djzraw.aspx#axzz32qVVd0mr

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/06/09/monsanto-roundup-herbicide.aspx

https://www.google.ca/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=spring+turnover&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&gfe_rd=cr&ei=gISDU8baA-mM8Qe7m4GoAw