Loni Townsend's Blog, page 28
October 29, 2014
This World Bites Blog Tour – Are you signed up?
Cera Chronicles: This World Bites is off to the editor! I’ve set the release date for January 19th and am now planning the tour. You have the opportunity to help out by signing up for a tour stop. I’m giving away free ARCs to anyone willing to do a review.
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Are you signed up yet?
The post This World Bites Blog Tour – Are you signed up? appeared first on Squirrel Talk.
October 24, 2014
Gold Wins!
The poll numbers are in, and the winner is… GOLD!
For the purpose of tallying, I threw out the responses that didn’t give a definite answer.
Location
Gold Votes
Green Votes
Direct Questioning
2
2
Blog
12
1
Google+
29
6
28
5
Mythic Scribes Forum
1
2
Total
72
16
Tidbits of other advice came in, such as adding something more to make the gold more harmonious. I came up with splotches (a failed attempt at gold flecks, but I’m still working on them). I also changed the color of my name (a few people recommended this), and added a semi-transparent gradient behind the title (Carrie Butler suggested this). Sorry, Milo, I haven’t figured out the right settings to stretch War out to the length of Thanmir just yet. 
This is where I am currently at:
What do you think? Are the gold splotches a good addition, or do they detract? Any further suggestions?
The post Gold Wins! appeared first on Squirrel Talk.
October 22, 2014
Appetizers for Every Letter
Holly Sinclair gave me a free copy of her amazing cook book, The ABCs of Appetizers, in exchange for an honest review. I enjoy cooking, when I have time. It seems like I don’t have much of that lately. The wonderful part of this cookbook is the ease of making the recipes. I got to throw things in my mixer and let it do the heavy lifting.
Here are some of the recipes I tried:
Kalamata Olive Spread This was my favorite. The blend of salty and creamy made my tastebuds tingle. I had to go look up kalamata olives, and was surprised I already had a jar of them in my refrigerator! Go figure. My husband likes to buy random snacks he thinks I’ll like, and the olives made the impulse shopping list. With the parsley from our garden, garlic from my mother-in-law’s garden, and groceries we always keep on hand, this one recipe was easy and low budget. All I had to buy was a pack of cream cheese and the baguette.
Easy Chicken Cheese Ball Like the name says, it is easy. It’s also fun. I got to mash it in my hands and roll it around. Who says not to play with your food?
I did have to buy more of the supplies for this one, since we don’t keep cream cheese, pecans, and canned chicken on hand. My best friend gave her thumb’s up of approval, and then took half of the remaining cheese ball home to her husband.
Topped Taters This one is great if your attention is divided between entertaining a 4 year old and feeding a 1 year old. I set the potatoes to boil, and came back 20 minutes later. Slice, gouge, and top! We ended up having a surprise guest that night, and this made an excellent treat for him to snack on. Now if only cleaning my house was as easy…
If you want in on this delicious goodness, you’re in luck! One commenter on this post will win a free digital copy of this cookbook. To enter, just leave a comment. If you want to leave a comment but don’t want to enter, add “I hate food” to your comment. The winner will be announced on October 31st on Holly’s blog.
But if you can’t wait…
The ABC’s of Appetizers
This book contains 50 of the best appetizer recipes. Included are classics (like Caramelized Pear over Brie), favorites (like Wonton Wrappers), and her own creations (like Jambalaya Spirals).
Cost: $2.00 ebook
Where to get it:
Kindle | Smashwords ibooks | Barnes & Nobles
Holly Sinclair, who goes by Southpaw on the Interwebs, finds cooking cathartic. The recipes she’s created and collected grew into cookbooks. Holly’s trying her hand at fiction and food seems to creep into most of her books.
Holly Sinclair Cookbooks, the website
HR Sinclair, the blog
Join Holly on the rest of her Blog Tour, each stop features a different cookbook and a chance for a free ebook!
You can join in the fun by signing up for the End of Tour Foodie Blog Hop!
Talk about a fond food memory, describe your disasters in the kitchen, post your favorite recipe or pictures of food, or do anything food related. Sign up here.
What are your favorite appetizers? Which one sounds the best?Are you hopping on board with the End of Tour Foodie Blog Hop?
The post Appetizers for Every Letter appeared first on Squirrel Talk.
October 17, 2014
Cover Title Color Choice
If you saw Wednesday’s post, you saw I was considering updating the title appearance on my cover. Most agreed that the metallic, beveled look made a greater impact. Aldrea suggested using a different color.
I’ve adjusted the lighting so it comes from the correct direction, and made the text fit the e-book size.
Which color do you like better? Gold or Green?
And don’t forget, Thanmir War’s 99¢ sale ends tomorrow!
Tweets for your convenience. 
Are you #reading? Thanmir War is on #sale for $0.99. http://ctt.ec/f7jb4+ #fantasy #book
Enjoy #fantasy? Pick up Thanmir War while it’s on sale for $0.99! http://ctt.ec/efz9U+
The post Cover Title Color Choice appeared first on Squirrel Talk.
October 15, 2014
Cover Play
I’ve been playing with covers lately, particularly Isto’s cover. I want to go with a series look, but have been struggling with how to portray the images (stone background, symbolic clan mark). Right now, it looks like a horror novel.
But in the midst of my playing, I got side-tracked title manipulation. I wound up with the Niniers banner you see at the top of this post. My friend Dani said it was very Game of Thrones. My boss thought the ‘S’ looked like a dragon. The style would go very well with book three, Sovereign, and if I splashed a bit of red on it, it would work for Isto too.
But then, I’d want to change Thanmir War too. That’s not a bad idea, since Joel Friedlander said I’ll need better typography for Thanmir War’s cover to really pop.
Since there’s no harm in trying, I toyed with it.
I changed the font sizes to tighten up the space between words.
It’s still wrong. The gloss on the metal is from the wrong direction. It should be coming from the top right, not the left. It’s also too dark. And too wide (it overstretches my e-book boundaries).
That aside, do you like the metal look better than the solid color? I figure if the popular opinion is yes, I’ll slowly “damage” the metal as the titles progress, ending with the jagged look you see in the Niniers banner.
Oh, and if you haven’t heard, Thanmir War is on sale for $0.99 on Amazon!
To help spread the word, I have clickable Tweets.
Are you #reading? Thanmir War is on #sale for $0.99. http://ctt.ec/f7jb4+ #fantasy #book
Enjoy #fantasy? Pick up Thanmir War while it’s on sale for $0.99! http://ctt.ec/efz9U+
I don’t want to hog all of the news, because there’s a lot of great things going on.
Crystal Collier‘s new book, Soulless, has hit the digital shelves.
Carrie Butler is doing a super helpful blog series called Breaking It Down.
The talented authors at Untethered Realms have released their Twisted Earths collection!
Julie Flanders released The Turnagain Arm, a prequel to Polar Night.
Like I said, a lot of great stuff going on!
Have you picked up your copy of Thanmir War yet? Which cover title do you like better? Do you like to play and create graphics?
The post Cover Play appeared first on Squirrel Talk.
October 12, 2014
Thanmir War On Sale!
Tell your friends! Share with your neighbors! Thanmir War is on sale for $0.99 this week!
The Earth Clan has declared war and a landscaper is at the dead center of it.
Derek thinks his chronic headaches are the worst of his problems.
He’s wrong.
He wakes up in the middle of an unknown forest, surrounded by a couple dozen dead men he has no memory of killing. His only way back to society as he knows it is MaTisha, an amnesic woman with the power to transcend world boundaries.
But going home isn’t as easy as he had hoped, not when MaTisha is sought by two opposing armies prepared to do anything to keep her from the other side.
Derek finds himself caught in the center, mixed up with mercenaries and guardians. And now, he’s been possessed by a murderous alter ego with a personal mission to keep MaTisha safe. He wants nothing more to return to the life and family he loves.
But his alter ego has other plans.
Here is the link to the book on Amazon: http://amzn.to/1fDBYzl
Or you can click here to tweet.
Do you have a suggested twitter line? Let me know and I’ll add it. If you want to post it to your blog, I would love you for it! I even created a Media Kit for your convenience.
The post Thanmir War On Sale! appeared first on Squirrel Talk.
October 10, 2014
Featured Photo Friday
Wednesday morning, I woke early (okay, not much earlier than I typically do) and climbed up the ladder to the playset my husband has been building for the kids. There I stood in the quiet, wrapped up in my fleece robe, staring at the sky and the blood moon eclipse.
Now I don’t have a telescope, so this photo doesn’t show the stunning detail M. Pax was able to capture in her photo. But for a girl standing on a homemade playset in her backyard in the middle of town, it’s not too shabby.
This featured photo reminded me of my friend, Dani. She’s working on her novel which may or may not have a werewolf in it.
Oh! And please know, I’m running a week-long sale on Thanmir War for $0.99 on Amazon, starting Sunday. So if you’re planning posts for next week, I’d love for a shout out.
Did you get to see the blood moon eclipse? Are you normally up early? Read any good werewolf stories lately?
The post Featured Photo Friday appeared first on Squirrel Talk.
October 8, 2014
Monsters, Myths, and Mayhem
It’s time for an update post! Woohoo!
On Monday, C. Lee McKenzie wrote blog post about log lines. I’d already planned this post with the log lines I have, but now I think I need to revise. What do you think?
Monsters
By saving his wife, he condemned his world.
Isto, Thanmir War‘s sequel, has been simmering for a while. The major rewrite I did in Thanmir War made it difficult to work out all of the finer details in the subsequent books. This has killed my writing productivity. I’ve scrapped well over 20K, and I’ve had to re-brainstorm all of the events. It’s currently sitting at 124K, and I wouldn’t even vaguely call it half done. Don’t worry, I’m a very verbose first draft writer when it comes to what I affectionately call the big books. Thanmir War was 203K before I cut it down to 171K.
Isto is my current writing passion and where I spend most of my writing time.
Myths
A lamp changes the lives of everyone it encounters.
The Seven’s first anthology is in the works! The contract is signed, my piece has been edited to approval, and everything is coming together.
The anthology is named The Ancient and revolves around the myth of Aladdin’s Lamp. We don’t have a cover yet, but I’m assured it’s coming.
Mayhem
A super-charged elemental must find a cure before her guardian turns into a zombie.
This World Bites has undergone its last major revision. I think. I fixed the awkwardly moving body parts (his eyes flicked to my throat), added and removed an intro, cut informational tidbits that created more questions than answered, and completely changed a secondary character’s backstory (though that doesn’t come up in this story). Now I need help with the blurb.
Cera has just landed on a new world and Michael, her guardian, has been bitten by a zombie and will soon join the undead ranks.
Everyone tells her there’s no cure, but Cera isn’t one to be deterred. She’s willing to face off with zombie hordes, demon slavers, and black market informants if it means she’ll find a cure for Michael. But it turns out, she’s not the only one hunting for something. Something is hunting her.
Do you have any feedback on the blurb? Suggestions?
Oh, and I’m going to take a shot at planning my own tour. Right now I’m thinking December (depends on how long it’ll take the editor). I’ve got Crystal’s blog post and Southpaw’s blog post handy as a reference. Do you think I should go for three weeks? Or is that too long? Is December a bad month for a tour because of the holidays?
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October 3, 2014
Featured Photo Friday
At the store, I found some gorgeous apples—the type I imagine the wicked queen offered to Snow White. Perfect for a featured photo.
Though I like the shot, I’m disappointed the stem was out of focus. Live and learn. But I needed other shots with my beauties.
I did a shelfie a couple of weeks ago. Then I looked at the others people have done, and I was jealous of everyone’s book shelves. I don’t have many physical recreational books. But I do have a handful of craft books that friends have given me for birthdays and Christmas. The apples seemed to fit with the educational theme.
Since I saw no nice way to inject myself into the photo, I decided I’d go with a different model.
She is far cuter than I am anyways.
Have you seen beautiful fruit lately? What’s on your book shelf?
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October 1, 2014
IWSG – HTML and E-Books – Quick and Dirty
When you’re on a budget, sometimes you want to do-it-yourself. That includes e-Books. With some practice, you can create your own e-Book with free tools. The two I use are Sigil and Calibre.
Sigil is an ePub editor that lets you build e-Books from scratch. It has two views: Book view and Code view. Book view is what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG), and Code view is for those more comfortable with editing HTML.
One of the dangers of Book view is using it in conjunction with an existing rich text editor, like Microsoft Word. If you type up your book in MS Word and paste it into Sigil’s Book view, it may look pretty on the outside. But beneath the covers, you might see something like this:
Do you know what that means? It means you have a heavily styled space (as in, you hit the space bar, once). There’s nothing of value in there, and it’s all courtesy of Microsoft Word.
That extra code isn’t necessary, not to mention it can create formatting issues in your e-Book (and other places). It’s not Sigil’s fault. Any WYSIWYG editor which converts text to HTML will do this, including WordPress and Blogger.
A quick way to clean HTML is to use one of the online tools. Since several pop in over time, try searching clean ms word html. Some will have options to get rid of those useless paragraphs and make your document web friendly. What do you lose? Font choice. But embedding fonts directly into paragraphs isn’t a good idea anyways, unless you’re sure it’s a CSS Web Safe Font. Otherwise, it’ll look horrible for anyone who doesn’t have that font installed. Plus, you have the option to embed fonts in Sigil.
How do you go from ePub to mobi (Amazon) format? That’s where Calibre comes in. Import your ePub into Calibre, and use it’s conversion tools.
That’s the quick and dirty way to create an e-Book. If you spend some time, you can learn other formatting tricks, such as using Small Caps, changing the indents, or adjusting justification.
Loni Townsend at Squirrel Talk
Author of Thanmir War
I give my permission for use of this entry
Title: Quick and Dirty HTML and E-Books
Topic: Publishing
Do you create your own e-books? How do you do it? Do you have any other suggestions?
This post is for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, which occurs the first Wednesday of every month.
You can find the sign up for the IWSG here. Today is the website’s 1 year anniversary, and to celebrate, they are creating an e-Book to assist other writers on the journey. Hopefully some people find my entry helpful.
Many thanks to Alex J Cavanaugh for thinking this blog hop up.
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