Kim Iverson Headlee's Blog: Book Musings from the Maze of Twisty Passages, page 5

#RomanticTravel to Lake Arrowhead and spotlight on Deadly Alliance by @RowlandKathleen

I used to love traveling to Lake Arrowhead as a kid when we lived in southern California! The air was so fresh and crisp compared with smoggy, doggy LA. Now I live in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia -- not nearly as high as the geologic newbie San Bernadino range, but half a century later the fond memories remain.

Today I have the distinct pleasure of welcoming back Maze contributor Kathleen Rowland, whose novel Deadly Alliance takes place in Lake Arrowhead, CA!



Deadly Alliance

Genre: Romantic Suspense

Synopsis:
Finbar Donahue, former Army Ranger, walked on the wild side in Iraq, but now he lives in the shadows. After his evasive partner, Les, was shot in a random drive-by, Finn discovers cash is siphoned monthly. He fights to keep his investment company afloat. When the late partner’s girlfriend, Amy Kintyre, applies for his bookkeeping job, Finn suspects she knows about his company drain and hires her.

Amy needs a nine-to-five with free evenings and weekends to get her fashion design business back on track. She unearths Les’s secret bank account and alerts Finn. Freezing of the money laundering account sets off havoc within an Irish gang. Amy witnesses a gang fight between a brutal ISIS fundraising organization and the Irish. Desperate to escape a stalker’s crosshairs, she seeks refuge with Finn. As danger heats up, sparks fly hotter.


Excerpt:
“Gotta bounce,” Kira said. “Get to work.”

“I will.” Amy pulled out a notebook and jotted down a to-do list ending with the file with various size patterns. After a half-hour of regrouping and rethinking, she stopped tapping her pen. Kira Radner took a chance on her, but to turn this chance into a reality, she needed evenings and weekends to make the deadline.

Last Sunday while pouring over Craigslist classifieds, she’d zeroed in on Finbar Donahue’s bookkeeping ad. After her inquiry, his head accountant sent her a message. She still favored the toe she stubbed after her in-box pinged.

Thanks to what happened, the call from Kira, she needed Finn’s job. Her mind raced to her third interview for his nine-to-five. Tomorrow morning, if all went well, she’d land the regular-hours job, tailor made for her time frame. She ran a hand through her hair, picturing the arrogant know-it-all with a never-ending string of women hanging on his arm.

Handsome wasn’t the word to describe Finn, her late, ex-boyfriend’s partner. She’d been around Finbar Donahue enough to know he looked at his world as if he were the Almighty himself. The former Army Ranger made her way too nervous. She tensed up to such an extent, her voice broke.

Romance wasn’t part of this equation. Her dream to launch herself, stitch by stitch, came down to landing the job. On a mission, her goal was simple. She closed her eyes and prayed tomorrow she’d nail it.


Buy Deadly Alliance at Kindle US ~ Tirgearr Publishing ~

Kathleen's thoughts about romantic travel:
How about romantic travel to Lake Arrowhead, California, where Deadly Alliance takes place? Fall colors mix with evergreens around this pristine mountain lake. Bring a picnic basket and rent a pontoon!


About the Author:
Book Buyers Best finalist Kathleen Rowland is devoted to giving her readers fast-paced, high-stakes suspense with a sizzling love story sure to melt their hearts. Lily’s Pad and the Intervenus Series: A Brand New Address and Betrayal at Crater’s Edge are sweet. Deadly Alliance and her work-in-progress, Unholy Alliance, are contracted with Tirgearr Publishing and written for adults.

Kathleen used to write computer programs but now writes novels. She grew up in Iowa where she caught lightning bugs, ran barefoot, and raced her sailboat on Lake Okoboji.  Now she wears flip-flops and sails with her husband, Gerry, on Newport Harbor but wishes there were lightning bugs in California.

Kathleen exists happily with her witty CPA husband, Gerry, in their 70’s poolside retreat in Southern California where she adores time spent with visiting grandchildren, dogs, one bunny, and noisy neighbors. While proud of their five children who’ve flown the coop, she appreciates the luxury of time to write.


Click HERE to subscribe to Kathleen’s Newsletter 
Follow Kathleen via: WordPress | Blogger | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon |


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Angusel returns home in Ch 14/Sc 3a of RAGING SEA by @KimHeadlee #amwriting

Twitter has unjustly blacklisted my blog as a "spam or malicious" website.

I have no idea why. My content is neither spam nor malicious.

As you can see for yourself, my blog contains no advertising—not even Google's—and I do not use the Bloglovin' widget or any other plugin that slaps ads onto a blog without the blog owner's knowledge or consent. I carefully avoid displaying content that can be construed as offensive or immoral from a "relationship intimacy" standpoint.

Note how I bent over backward just now to employ a euphemism rather than include text that would show up in a keyword search and further support the TwitRNazis' erroneous position regarding the nature of my blog.

The only thing I can figure is that last month, a fake Google user account named "Blogger" posted a few spammy comments on three or four of my older posts, one spam comment per post. I deleted them as soon as I found them, and I have since instituted comment moderation, but apparently I didn't act fast enough to prevent my website from being blacklisted by the TwitRNazi bots. If anyone knows how to report spam accounts to Google, please do leave a comment to that effect, because I've been unable to find a way to do that. I will approve your comments as soon as I'm able so everyone may benefit from your advice.

The link to the Twitter website reporting page is (https://support.twitter.com/forms/spam). If any of you would like to help me appeal the unjust blacklisting of my blog by Twitter, please visit that link, select the button that reads "I can't tweet a link because Twitter thinks it's spam.", and then specify https://kimiversonheadlee.blogspot.com/ as the "Problematic link."

Thanks, and I hope you all have a much better week than I'm having. Hurricane Matthew—and the raging seas it's churning up—isn't helping matters any.

In today's excerpt from Raging Sea , Angusel isn't having a very good week either, though he doesn't yet know it's about to get even worse.


Previous excerpts of Raging Sea 
Chapters 1–6 in PERMAFREE Raging Sea: Reckonings  Chapter 7: Sc 1 | Sc 2 | Sc 3 | Sc 4 | Sc 5a | Sc 5b |
Chapter 8: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 2 | Sc 3a | Sc 3b |
Chapter 9: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 1c | Sc 1d | Sc 1e |
Chapter 10: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 2a | Sc 2b | Sc 3a | Sc 3b | Sc 3c |
Chapter 11: Sc 1a |  Sc 1b | Sc 1c | Sc 2 | Sc 3a | Sc 3b |
Chapter 12: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 1c | Sc 2 | Sc 3 | Sc 4a | Sc 4b | Sc 5a | Sc 5b |
Chapter 13: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 2a | Sc 2b | Sc 2c | Sc 2d | Sc 2e | Sc 2f |
Chapter 14: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 1c | Sc 1d | Sc 2a | Sc 2b |
Raging Sea Chapter 14, Scene 3a©2016 by Kim HeadleeAll rights reserved.
For the first time in a year and a half, Angusel was returning home.

To his birthplace, he corrected himself. “Home” had become a spartan barracks chamber. That circumstance would not be changing any time soon.

He marveled that Stonn seemed to remember the lands surrounding Senaudon, tugging at the bit and acting more fidgety with each passing league. It was all Angusel could do to keep him from bolting down the path ahead of the Pendragon and Centurion Cato and the rest of First Ala.

And why shouldn’t his horse be eager? Stonn had all the comforts of a familiar stable awaiting him, not derision and scorn.

Angusel straightened in the saddle, submerging his resentment. Whatever might happen, he would comport himself as one of Arthur’s soldiers, stoic and reserved.

That plan worked just fine, in fact, until the troop got to within hailing distance of Senaudon’s gate tower.

***

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… and each action this month is good for one chance to win a copy of any of Kim's e-books.
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The Business of Writing by @KimHeadlee: The Publication Plan #MFRWOrg #ASMSG

Jonas with quill pen. Public domain.
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. "Plans? We don't need no stinkin' plans!"

I couldn’t resist riffing on the classic line from one of my favorite comedies of all time, Blazing Saddles. This was pretty much how I viewed independent publishing when I dived into the waters in 2013, and I don’t recommend that approach to anyone.

There were many reasons why I didn’t lay out a publication plan, not the least of which being that my father-in-law had just died, my husband the high school math teacher was up to his eyeballs in teaching (not to mention grief) so the lion’s share of the estate’s administration fell to me, and I latched on to self-publication as a means of retaining my sanity through that complex and exhausting process.

The fact is that a publication plan can help you boost sales and maximize the return on your investment. And your plan doesn’t need to be expressed in formal terms if your memory is good, or if you want to bookmark this page.

The major aspects of the publication plan are prepublication, launch, and promotion, and each phase entails a slew of decisions, most of which need to be balanced against your budget, schedule, temperament, and writing career goals.


Prepublication decisions to consider
The first aspect involves determining how many publication details—e-book creation, conversion, cover design, print edition layout, audiobook recording, etc.—you plan to handle yourself. I will share my thoughts about most of these details in future blog posts.The next most important considerations are whether to incorporate and establish your own imprint. Making these decisions ahead of time will reduce your headaches later and will allow you and your books to appear more professional to the reading public.Which edition formats will you be releasing for your book? The least expensive in terms of prepublication costs is the e-book, followed by audiobook, paperback, and hardcover. There is the matter of foreign-language translations, comics, and graphic novels if your genre lends itself to these types of editions, and then there are some of the more esoteric decisions such as large print editions.If you’re releasing your book as an e-book, are you going to stick with Amazon exclusively, or will you be releasing to additional platforms such as Nook, Kobo, GooglePlay, and Apple’s iBooks Store? Since Amazon accounts for at least 75 percent of paid and free downloads for most authors, there’s a certain logic to launching a new title in Kindle Unlimited to take advantage of free and “countdown” promotions. However, given recent developments with regard to their crackdowns on Kindle scam artists, I advise granting Amazon exclusive distribution of your books for no more than six months to minimize the risk of Amazon shutting down your account with no warning, recourse, or chance of reinstatement because you’ve been unwittingly victimized by a “click farm.”Are you going to pay for professional editing services or not? If you do plan to follow the wise path of hiring professional editorial services, keep in mind that you may need to schedule the delivery of your manuscript to the editor at least three months in advance of your target release date What release date are you shooting for? Publisher sites such as KDP, Kobo, Smashwords, and Draft2Digital allow the establishment of future publication dates so that your book can collect preorders. At the time of this writing, Nook Press does not. You can circumvent Nook Press’s limitation, however, by distributing your title to Nook using Smashwords, Draft2Digital, or another third-party distributor.How do you plan to build buzz about your book? Online using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or other social media platform? By scheduling a “cover reveal” or “preorder party” blog tour or Facebook event? As many of those options as your time, your budget, your family, and your heart can tolerate?If you have a smartphone, create an account at Square so that you can process credit cards for book sales at your personal appearances. This needs to be done at least a month in advance of your first in-person sales event to give them time to mail you the device (if you couldn’t find one on the shelves of your local Best Buy or Apple store) and for you to tinker with setting your price points, coding sales tax for your state, linking your Square account to your accounting software, and so forth.Establishing a separate bank account for processing online transactions such as Square, KDP, and other deposits, as well as for paying writing-related expenses is not mandatory, but I have taken this step as a precaution against online theft, and I do recommend it even if you don’t incorporate your writing business.
The book launch
Where do you plan to announce your release? On Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, your blog, or other preferred social media platforms? Schedule online events at least a month in advance.I strongly recommend scheduling a “release blitz” blog tour at least two months in advance of your planned release date to maximize the number of reviews your book will receive at the time of launch. Reviews cannot be posted for books in the preorder phase, so having reviews lined up and ready to post on launch day becomes crucial, since many book-promotion sites have minimum requirements for the number of reviews a book has (and often a minimum star rating) before they will feature it.Do you plan to announce the launch at a personal appearance such as a fan convention? If so, then you need to have physical advertising material—bookmarks, book cards, or swag—prepared to hand out as well as any vinyl banners or other advertising tools you plan to display.
Promotion, some of which I touched on above, is an entire activity unto itself. I will cover in-depth advice regarding the various aspects of book promotion in future blog posts.


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All this month, you are invited to…

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— Leave a comment on any page of The Maze, especially if you have done the Twitter, Pinterest, and/or YouTube follow<

… and each action this month is good for one chance to win a copy of any of Kim's e-books.
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Gull feels a sudden chill in Ch 14/Sc 2b of RAGING SEA by @KimHeadlee #amwriting

Graphic overlay (c) 2016 by Kim Headlee. Welcome to October on The Maze!


The leaves are starting to turn, there's half a hint of coolness in the air (we've had a hotter than usual summer, so I'm still waiting for the promised break in thermometer antics), and the holiday madness hasn't quite hit full stride.


Ah, autumn. I love it! :)


In today's excerpt from Raging Sea , Gull feels a chill that has nothing whatever to do with the change in seasons.


Previous excerpts of Raging Sea 
Chapters 1–6 in PERMAFREE Raging Sea: Reckonings  Chapter 7: Sc 1 | Sc 2 | Sc 3 | Sc 4 | Sc 5a | Sc 5b |
Chapter 8: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 2 | Sc 3a | Sc 3b |
Chapter 9: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 1c | Sc 1d | Sc 1e |
Chapter 10: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 2a | Sc 2b | Sc 3a | Sc 3b | Sc 3c |
Chapter 11: Sc 1a |  Sc 1b | Sc 1c | Sc 2 | Sc 3a | Sc 3b |
Chapter 12: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 1c | Sc 2 | Sc 3 | Sc 4a | Sc 4b | Sc 5a | Sc 5b |
Chapter 13: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 2a | Sc 2b | Sc 2c | Sc 2d | Sc 2e | Sc 2f |
Chapter 14: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 1c | Sc 1d | Sc 2a |
Raging Sea Chapter 14, Scene 2b©2016 by Kim HeadleeAll rights reserved.
The merchant kicked a wee stone in the direction of the fleeing cat to convince it to keep going, and then started checking his handcart’s contents. Gull stooped to examine the child. A knot had begun to form in just about the same spot as before, if Gull’s memory proved sound, but he seemed otherwise unhurt.

Loholt—Eoghann, Gull corrected himself; he dared not alert anyone that he knew the truth—waited until his “mother” had arrived, panting and gasping and fuming, before throwing back his head and wailing as if tomorrow would never come.

“Hush, now, me little man,” Gull crooned in Breatanaiche. “’Tis nae as bad as all that.”

Eoghann, still sniffling, wiped his face with his tunic sleeve and cocked his head toward Gull, who offered him an encouraging smile.

“Thank’ee, good sir,” the woman said to Gull, looming over them both. “This one’s a hellion, and no mistake.” She gripped Eoghann’s wrist—harder than Gull thought necessary—and wrenched the lad away from him.

Gull stood and laid a hand on the woman’s. “He’s a good lad.” He gave that hand, which was holding the boy’s wrist, a firm squeeze, suppressing his satisfaction when he felt her fingers loosen to what had to be a more comfortable hold for Eoghann. “He just needs a boatload of love, and two boatloads of patience.”

The woman snorted. “And how many children have you raised, then?”

He couldn’t help but smile. “One son.” He nodded at the boy, widening his grin. “Exactly like him in temperament.”

She dipped her head in a parody of respect and stalked toward the street that angled through Port Dhoo-Glass’s inland gates.

Eoghann twisted around to wave at Gull. “Good lad… good sir,” the boy crooned as the widening distance made each word softer than the last.

Gull returned the wave, vowing to help this child even if it was the last thing he would ever do.

A sudden breeze chilled him, and he lowered his arm to chafe it.


***
All this month, you are invited to…

— Follow Kim on Twitter
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— Leave a comment on any page of The Maze, especially if you have done the Twitter, Pinterest, and/or YouTube follow

… and each action this month is good for one chance to win a copy of any of Kim's e-books.
Please enter often, and good luck!

October rambling from The Dawnflier of @KimHeadlee (Oct. 2016)

Garden City Beach, SC looking north, 9/28/2016 18:33 ET.
Photo (c)2016 by Kim Headlee.
Is it October already? Wow, where has this year gone? Oh I know: lots of stuff going on!

And, yes, I know: join the club. We have flip-flops. :D

In addition to the latest family doings, such as my youngest nephew getting married last weekend and my daughter moving into her own apartment off campus earlier in September, I've been up to my eyeballs in writing projects and personal appearances.

Speaking of personal appearances, I extend a special welcome to the dozens of you I met at my most recent personal appearances, including BW Country Store and Olde Salem Day! That last one was a scorcher, wasn’t it? But I had so much fun chatting with everyone—not to mention the record sales day in spite of the heat—that I’m all set to do it again next year, heat or no heat. I am also pleased to express heartfelt thanks to everyone who participated in my recent online Rafflecopter and Amazon giveaways.


Book news:
King Arthur's Sister in Washington's Court enjoyed several days at the number 1 spot on category best-seller lists at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo, and is still in the top 20 there at the time of this writing. Oh, and the categories? Mainly “time travel romance” and “science fiction/fantasy time travel,” though I’m still trying to figure out why Amazon put it into the “science fiction space marines” and “science fiction alien invasion” categories too. The mind does boggle. Thank you, everyone who helped to propel it to all those heights!What’s my next BookBub deal going to be? Either Dawnflight or Liberty , depending on which book they select for promotion next. Follow me on BookBub so you don’t miss out!After two weeks wrestling with subtitles, which is unusual for me, I have finally settled on The Business of Writing: Practical Insights for Independent, Hybrid, and Traditionally Published Authors . I am working on the final edits and hope to get it into retail channels later this month.Next up to bat will be completing the editing of Raging Sea: Enemies and Allies (The Dragon's Dove Chronicles book 3, part 2). I had hoped to have it available sooner, but… well, life. I’m pedaling as fast as I can, I assure you!Raging Sea: Reckonings is now permafree for Kindle, Nook, iTunes, and Kobo customers! What are you waiting for?
Upcoming appearances are legion this month:
Sunday, October 9, 11 a.m. – 3 p.m., Big Walker Lookout & Country Store, US Route 52 at the summit of Big Walker Mountain, Wytheville, VA.October 9 – 16 (online), Virtual FantasyCon 2016. Events conducted throughout the week on Facebook for various subgenres of Fantasy fiction.Sunday, October 16, 1 – 3 p.m., special “Meet the Author” book signing at the Connecticut Renaissance Faire, 300 Washington Ave., Hartford, CT.October 21 – 22, Rising Star 25, Bluefield College, Bluefield, WV. I'm presenting my Business of Writing Workshop, parts 1 & 2 as well as selling and signing my books.Saturday, October 29, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., Edwards Hall Room 117, NRCC Comic-Con 2016, New River Community College, Dublin, VA. I will have a vendor table and will be presenting The Business of Writing workshop part 1.
Chunk a pumpkin for me! Or not. :D

Thank you so much for your interest in and support of my work.

Kim Headlee
Sgeulachd ni sinn na’s mò. ~ Stories make us greater.


***
All this month, you are invited to…

— Follow Kim on Twitter
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— Subscribe to Kim's YouTube channel
— Leave a comment on any page of The Maze, especially if you have done the Twitter, Pinterest, and/or YouTube follow<

… and each action this month is good for one chance to win a copy of any of Kim's e-books.
Please enter often, and good luck!

The Business of Writing: That Thing by which Everyone Judges Your Book #MFRWOrg #ASMSG

The injunction, "Don't judge a book by its cover" was coined by an indie author who slapped together his own cover designs. 

dreamstime.com image 4513435
Silhouette at a Temple (c)2008 by Somyot Sutprattanatawin.
I'm just kidding, of course; the phrase has been around for decades—and the sad truth is that EVERYBODY judges your book by its cover. A great cover pulls in readers; a poor one can drive them away. Please trust me on this point. I've had professionally designed covers that have existed at both ends of the pull-push-reader spectrum.

What makes for a great cover design? That varies by genre, but the most common factors are:

Contrast. There is high contrast in the color scheme between the graphic images and text elements (author's name, book's title, etc.).Legibility of the thumbnail. What? The thumbnail? Absolutely, because in forums such as Goodreads, your book's cover will live or die by its thumbnail. To test this point, create a copy of your cover file and import it into, say, Microsoft Picture Manager. Then use the "Resize" option under the Edit menu to reduce it to around 80x120 pixels. If you can still read the title, that's great! And if your name is still legible, that's pure gravy.Unique manipulation of the stock model(s). This is a big point anymore, because there are ever so many books on the market, and vanishingly few models and poses available at the stock-photo sites. Find a cover designer who will go above-and-beyond to make sure that your cover doesn't look like your competitors'. Most of my covers—viewable here—have been designed by Natasha Brown of Fostering Success.
By the way, what does a "temple silhouette" picture have to do with book covers? Nothing, except that it was a cost-free, royalty-free stock photo offered recently by Dreamstime.com, one of the major stock-photo sites. Other stock-photo sites include:

Bigstock.comDepositphotos.comHotdamnstock.comIllustratedromance.comiStockphoto.comPeriodimages.comRazzdazzstock.com

Caution: In searching for the perfect image for your book's cover, make sure the photo does not come with an "editorial" license; that type of license is only good for non-commercial use, such as on blog pages. My book layout designer at Lucky Bat Books shared a horror story with me: one of her other clients had fallen afoul of the editorial licensing issue for a book cover and was obligated to pay a $1500.00 invoice.

Most of the aforementioned stock-photo sites have a checkbox so that you can exclude editorial-only licensed images from your search results. The license type you do want is "royalty free" (which, BTW, does not mean cost free; it just means that you pay a one-time fee to use and adapt the image however you wish).


The print book's "wrap" cover:

If your publication plan (more thoughts about that next week) includes releasing a print edition, then the wraparound ("wrap") cover is yet another decision with which you will be faced. Natasha and most other book cover designers offer this service as an add-on to commissioning an e-book cover from them, and this is the route I use most often.

Createspace does offer a DIY cover-creation option with several components and choices. Since I needed to create several interim ARCs in the process of evaluating the art placement for my fully illustrated Twain sequel, King Arthur's Sister in Washington's Court , and its spine thickness changed as more art was inserted, I used Createspace's cover creator to take the e-book image and marry it with a coordinating solid color to form the spine and back cover. This option also permits insertion of an author photo on the back—into which spot I placed a different illustration from the book so that I could keep track of which ARC was which during the development process.

I have issues with Createspace's print quality, especially with regard to their cover-printing process and the fact that although they permit uploading art created in the RGB (red-green-blue) color space in addition to CMYK (cyan-magenta-yellow-black) color space files, red-dominant RGB covers look like mud most of the time. However, the fact that I can upload all the interiors and cover changes I wish at no additional charge is a fantastic deal not yet matched on a consistent basis by IngramSpark, my POD company of choice.

IngramSpark limits cover art files to the CMYK color space, thereby sidestepping the RGB issue altogether.

It so happens that IngramSpark is running a coupon special for free title revisions now through November 1st. For more details, please see their website. If the CreateSpace Kool-Aid is starting to gag you too, do give IngramSpark a look. I promise you won't regret it. :)


***
All this month, you are invited to…

— Follow Kim on Twitter
— Follow Kim on Pinterest
— Subscribe to Kim's YouTube channel
— Leave a comment on any page of The Maze, especially if you have done the Twitter, Pinterest, and/or YouTube follow<

… and each action this month is good for one chance to win a copy of any of Kim's e-books.
Please enter often, and good luck!

#VirtualFantasyCon2016 guest post: Family Paranormal Experiences by @KimHeadlee

This year I'm trying something different: I'm a participating author in Virtual FantasyCon 2016! If memory serves, I have signed up for the following fantasy subgenres:
October 9: Epic ( Dawnflight , Morning's Journey , Raging Sea: Reckonings ) and Sword & Sorcery ( Kings ) FantasyOctober 10: Sci-Fi/Fantasy Time Travel ( King Arthur's Sister in Washington's Court )October 12: Paranormal/Urban ( Snow in July ) FantasyOctober 16: YA  ( Snow in July and King Arthur's Sister in Washington's Court ) Fantasy
What is Virtual FantasyCon2016?

Virtual FantasyCon is a fun and interesting online event happening in October, and best of all it’s free. The location is your computer; Facebook, specifically. You can drop by any day during the event and check out the booths for that day. There will be authors, bloggers, editors, artists, and publishers to list just a few. There will be a Cosplay booth, Blog Hop Hunt booth, panel discussions, and a new booth this year, the Author Cache Sale booth.

The Author Cache Sale booth is only for the participating authors on the day of each event. Books on sale for $1.99 or 0.99 will be listed in the comment section for guests to find and buy. It is put together by lovely people like Carol March, Raven Williams, Denise Garrou, and others who have worked behind the scenes to make this event happen.

It’s a place to catch up on your favorite author and discover new authors. There is epic fantasy, urban fantasy, dark fantasy, children’s fantasy, and YA fantasy to name just a few of the different types of authors that will have a booth during the event.

To find out more about Virtual FantasyCon 2016, check out the following social media links:

Reader’s Corner Facebook event | Virtual FantasyCon website | Blog Hop Hunt website

I hope to connect with you there!


Family and personal paranormal experiences

My mother was psychic, I am psychic, and my daughter is psychic, so my personal paranormal experiences are legion and far too complex to describe here. Corner me at a con some evening, buy me a drink (anything with Peach Schnapps will do, thanks!), and I'll make it worth your while, I promise. :)

From my dad's side, however, comes an honest-to-God ghost story involving one of my great-grandmothers, a lady in the court of Tsar Nicholas II. She died about a week before the start of the October Revolution of 1917, and at dinner a few evenings later—before all hell broke loose and the family lost everything to the godless Bolsheviks—her ghost was seen standing next to her husband my great-grandfather, elegantly attired and with her hand resting upon his shoulder. It took him a few moments to understand why his daughters (my grandmother and her younger sister) and the family servants were gaping, speechless. Finally he turned in his chair and saw her too.

I have to imagine that the memory of that experience, as weird and frightening and confusing as it must have felt at the time, helped the grieving family through all of the bloody horrors of the years to come.


***

I'm running a giveaway for an e-copy of Kings !
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All this month, you are invited to…

— Follow Kim on Twitter
— Follow Kim on Pinterest
— Subscribe to Kim's YouTube channel
— Leave a comment on any page of The Maze, especially if you have done the Twitter, Pinterest, and/or YouTube follow<

… and each action this month is good for one chance to win a copy of any of Kim's e-books.
Please enter often, and good luck!

Wee Eoghann chases a cat in Ch 14/Sc 2a RAGING SEA by @KimHeadlee #amwriting

Graphic overlay (c) 2016 by Kim Headlee. Please join me in congratulating my nephew Nathan and his new bride Jett who are getting married later today!

And please forgive me if today's post intro is short. I've had all sorts of family-crazy-trains running full steam from one end of the eastern seaboard to the other since before Labor Day, and they all seem bent on barreling through my mountainous little corner of Virginia.

Any prayers, thoughts, and positive vibes you would like to waft our way -- for the newlyweds as well as for the rest of the family -- will be most welcome and gratefully appreciated.

In today's excerpt from Raging Sea , Gull doesn't know it yet, but he has a crazy-train that's about to thunder into his station too.


Previous excerpts of Raging Sea 
Chapters 1–6 in PERMAFREE Raging Sea: Reckonings  Chapter 7: Sc 1 | Sc 2 | Sc 3 | Sc 4 | Sc 5a | Sc 5b |
Chapter 8: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 2 | Sc 3a | Sc 3b |
Chapter 9: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 1c | Sc 1d | Sc 1e |
Chapter 10: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 2a | Sc 2b | Sc 3a | Sc 3b | Sc 3c |
Chapter 11: Sc 1a |  Sc 1b | Sc 1c | Sc 2 | Sc 3a | Sc 3b |
Chapter 12: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 1c | Sc 2 | Sc 3 | Sc 4a | Sc 4b | Sc 5a | Sc 5b |
Chapter 13: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 2a | Sc 2b | Sc 2c | Sc 2d | Sc 2e | Sc 2f |
Chapter 14: Sc 1a | Sc 1b | Sc 1c | Sc 1d |
Raging Sea Chapter 14, Scene 2a©2016 by Kim HeadleeAll rights reserved.
Gull was haggling with a leather merchant over the price of a new pair of plain but tough bracers—constant wear obliged him to replace them far more often than a warrior ought—when stern shouts, gleeful squeals, and frightened yowls drew his attention. Across the square, a woman was chasing her wee son, who had dashed after a cat.

The lad’s hair was a familiar flame-red hue.

While keeping the family in sight, Gull concluded his business with the merchant, paying perhaps a bit more coin than he ought, but he hoped that the expediency would yield much more important benefits. He set off across the market square, fastening his new bracers in place as he walked, his pace and heading designed to appear purposeful without betraying his intentions.

The child, enthralled with his mission to capture his furry target, paid no heed when the cat raced between the wheels of a stationary handcart. He misjudged the cart’s height as he tried to dive after the cat and cracked his head against the sideboard. The impact caused the cart to shift, the rare glass vials and bottles it housed tinkling softly as if trying to decide among themselves whether to fall and break.

Dazed, the lad reeled backward, hand to head and chin quivering.

The handcart’s owner looked nigh as stunned as the child, no doubt more worried about his fragile wares; the gods alone knew what that glassware housed, but in his travels Gull had seen perfumes and expensive salves come in such pretty containers.

The merchant kicked a wee stone in the direction of the fleeing cat to convince it to keep going, and then started checking his handcart’s contents. Gull stooped to examine the child. A knot had begun to form in just about the same spot as before, if Gull’s memory proved sound, but he seemed otherwise unhurt.

Loholt—Eoghann, Gull corrected himself; he dared not alert anyone that he knew the truth—waited until his “mother” had arrived, panting and gasping and fuming, before throwing back his head and wailing as if tomorrow would never come.


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Stargazing in Australia and New Beginnings by Iris Blobel (@_Iris_B) #RomanticTravel

Photo credit: Drachenfels castle in Koenigswinter, Germany,
Depositphotos.com Image #74467597 c2016 by :jurajkovac,
Meme c2016 by Linda McLaughlin. Today on The Maze I welcome new contributor 
Iris Blobel and her novel New Beginnings !

Iris writes:

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to travel to the Australian Outback. One night, we sat by the campfire and with clear skies we were able to locate the Southern Cross, the Milky Way, as well as planets that were only visible due to the clarity of the atmosphere.

Since then I consider “stargazing” as very romantic.


New Beginnings

Genre: Contemporary Romance

The chance to start life all over with the help of a stranger.

Synopsis:

Twenty-two-year-old Sophie Levesque has been guardian to her eight-year-old sister Mia since their mother’s death a few years ago, and it hasn’t been easy. Luck comes their way when they inherit a small house in Hobart. Problem is, though, they don’t know and have never heard of Clara Bellinger, the testator. Settling into their new life, Sophie is still afraid it’s all a mistake.

Mark O’Connor, attorney in Hobart and the bearer of the good news for Sophie and Mia, curses himself for the lack of information about the testator. However, researching the questions gives him an opportunity to see Sophie again, and the more time he spends with the two, the more he realises that his life is missing something. And it’s not his casual lover Linda.

But then there’s Zach, Sophie’s sexy neighbour from across the road… and a very good friend of Clara’s.

Will unravelling the mystery unravel Sophie and Mark’s promise of a future?


Buy New Beginnings at Amazon US ~ UK ~ AU ~

About the Author:

Iris Blobel was born and raised in Germany and only immigrated to Australia in the late 1990s. Having had the travel bug most of her life, Iris spent quite some time living in Scotland, London, as well as Canada where she met her husband. Her love for putting her stories onto paper has only emerged recently, but now her laptop is a constant companion.

Iris resides west of Melbourne with her husband and her two beautiful daughters.

Next to her job at a private school, she also presents a German Program at the local Community Radio.


Click HERE to subscribe to Iris’ Newsletter 
Follow Iris via: Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Instagram |


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The Business of Writing: My Book is Bi-What?? (BISAC codes demystified) #ASMSG #MFRWOrg

Underground logo by transportation systems in London
c2012 by nanka-photo, Depositphotos ID, 9911981
EDITORIAL USE ONLY. There is no magic-bullet formula for getting your book noticed out of the millions of titles that are published each year.

The right subject matter categories and keywords, however, can help your work float to the top of potential customers' search results pages.

For assistance with defining keywords, I direct you to this post published earlier this year on The Maze. Today I discuss...


BISAC Basics
If you’ve spent any time defining your book’s information in Bowker, CreateSpace, IngramSpark, or any of the e-book vendor accounts, you’ll see the acronym BISAC, or Book Industry Standards and Communications. Managed by Book Industry Study Group Inc., BISAC is a list of several hundred classifications for identifying a book’s subject matter.

Amazon calls this classification the browse category and likens it to major headings you'll find labeling the aisles of a brick-and-mortar bookstore. It's an apt analogy.

As of this writing, the BISAC 2015 edition is the most recent list.

For the record, the BISAC category Non-Classifiable (NON000000) applies to books containing no subject matter, such as blank books. It is not intended for use with a book that contains multiple nonfiction topics or elements of many fiction genres. (Fess up: if I thought about applying it to one of my books, you considered the idea for yours too. :D)

Some distributors, like Amazon and Draft2Digital, kindly lead you through the selection process by giving you expansion choices when a BISAC code (e.g., Fiction, FIC000000) contains subordinate codes. Others, like Google, expect you to know the codes off the top of your head… or else you must know where to find the latest list.

I’ll save you the headache. The BISAC 2015 edition may be viewed via this page. If you write fiction, save yourself a click by starting here.

In theory, you may assign as many BISAC codes to your book as you wish. In practice, you must heed each distributor’s rules.

Amazon and IngramSpark, for instance, limit a book’s BISAC identification to two codes; with Kobo you may choose three. Nook Press, on the other hand, permits the assignment of up to five codes. Most third-party book distributors, such as Draft2Digital, will allow you to assign the maximum number supported by at least one of their partner e-tailers, but they advise you to make your selections in order of importance because not all e-tailers will accept that many BISAC codes for your book.

I’m not certain when BISG plans to publish the next BISAC edition, but I will endeavor to keep you informed when it does.

Best of luck with classifying your books!


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King Arthur's Sister in Washington's Court !

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***

I'm running a giveaway for an e-copy of Kings !
To enter, click HERE.

MailChimp subscribers to The Dawnflier receive exclusive giveaway opportunities.
Subscribe today so you don't miss out!
***
All this month, you are invited to…

— Follow Kim on Twitter
— Follow Kim on Pinterest
— Subscribe to Kim's YouTube channel
— Leave a comment on any page of The Maze, especially if you have done the Twitter, Pinterest, and/or YouTube follow<

… and each action this month is good for one chance to win a copy of any of Kim's e-books.
Please enter often, and good luck!