Shiloh Walker's Blog, page 104

More blog stop stuff…

I’m over at Smexy Books today, talking about how BLADE SONG ate my brain. It really did. You also have another chance to enter the Blades and Books give away…

I have a few more pics to post, too.

We went to Central Park and down to see the Statue of Liberty.  We didn’t go out to see the statue, and I didn’t get any good pics of her, but here are some from Central Park and Battery Park.

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They’ve got this really cool wall art in the subway tunnels…that was by Central Park.

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Some of you know that my husband is an Alaskan Native-he’s actually Inupiat, if I recall correctly. He’s an Eskimo. This is the statue of Balto, in Central Park. Balto, and a bunch of other sled dogs and their mushers were the heroes for a small Alaskan village in 1925.

Stuff… lots and stuff…and … look! Look what I did!

So… over here, you can meet Kit. And enter the Blades and Books giveaway…

And HERE… you can read an interview about Mica and Colby and stuff…Also! enter ANOTHER giveaway…

AND!!! LOOK!

Image via Janelle Denison

IF YOU HEAR HER won the Booksellers Best Romantic Suspense!

The Shining

I’ve never watched THE SHINING.  Not until last night.  It was good…suspenseful sort of horror instead of what we get now with just blood blood blood.

But I gotta say… man, Wendy in that movie?  Um…I wanted to shake her. I kept thinking…you can tell a man wrote this. She’s sitting around letting him control her, even though she knows something is screwed up…even though her kid is in danger?

Now, I’m not saying all men think this way, but yeah…you can tell a dude wrote it.  Because, damn it, if it that had been me and I knew my kid was in danger? The man’s head would have been smashed with a ballbat like…um.

Well. Never mind.  But anyway.

I watched it.  It was mostly good.

Image via IMDB.

Today’s stop & another chance to enter

I’m over at Kindle-aholic‘s blog and she’s got the Rafflecopter widget up, which means… ANOTHER CHANCE TO ENTER!

It’s just over a week now until BLADE SONG is out, too.

Have you ordered it?  Pretty please…?  :)

Amazon | BN | iBookstore

More pictures…

On Thursday, we went to the memorial for the Towers.

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That’s one of the new towers going up.

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One of the walls.

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Another of the pools

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This is just from walking around.

 

NEW YORK CITY… and a new stop…

Today I’m over at Scooper Speaks…

More pics!

After Sleepy Hollow, we headed into New York City.  It was July 4th. Laura Ann Gilman was awesome enough to help us around town on our first day.

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This was my first look of NYC…

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Times Square!

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Fireworks…

On authors respecting copyright

Now…I wanna talk about pinning.  There’s been some talk on twitter, facebook, etc about using images on blogs, etc.  I see a lot of people using images on their blogs, or just randomly posting them and many of them have caused me concern.  I’ve even seen people taking stock photos-they still have the watermark on them-and using those as their ‘hot’ photos.

The talk has gotten heated lately because author Roni Loren actually had some problems over an image she had up on her blog.  The photographer discovered it and wasn’t happy.  I understand this.  How often do authors get furious over piracy?  It happens to me…oh, weekly?  We can’t expect others to respect our personal property without respecting others.

The blogging thing, that’s easy to fix, although I know it’s not easy to find free pics of sexy guys…but you can find free pics.  A lot of stock photo sites have free images.  Dreamstime Free/Free Stock Images is one source.  I use those  a lot.  Book covers always work, if you’re talking books.  If you’re talking movies? The movie industry is going to see that as advertising…that’s not an issue.  You can find images.

One concern are sites like pinterest & tumblr though-these are very much image focused.

Some are talking about deleting their boards, their tumblr accounts altogether.  I understand that, too.  It’s possible to respectful of what you pin, but it takes more work.

I set up rules for myself, and basically so others realize I am trying to respect the rights of others.

 

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One of my boards is entirely devoted to a photographer who gave me the okay to use his images…Trey Ratcliff.

My recipe board?  I looked for recipe/food sites who already used pinterest and I started to follow them.

I searched photographers on Pinterest and followed some of them, but I only follow those who post their own images, not just those who pin pics they like.  If it’s their content they are pinning, they know what’s going to happen once it goes up on pinterest.

My character inspiration boards are just a hodge-podge of images from IMDB (movie data base) and Trey Ratcliff, with some images from shopping sites like SteampunkCouture, and some from Pinup Girl Clothing. There are images from a model site that’s on Pinterest and they post their Model of the Day pics…I like those.

The hardest one to monitor is my JUST CUZ board. A lot of geekery/hodge podge gets in there.  Some of the interet meme type things that come from movies and such.  But I do think many of those fall under fair use…A snippet from a Labyrinth movie with CALL ME MAYBE lyrics…

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I think you can use it respectfully, and responsibly.  It takes more work.  Sometimes I’ll pin something that I realize shouldn’t be up there-it was linked from google or the site didn’t attribute, etc, and I’ll end up deleting.  Yes, it’s work, but the boards are fun for me.  As long as they stay fun, I’ll do it.

But as writers, we can’t expect others to respect our work if we aren’t returning that courtesy.

We Are Family… (snippets and a reader Q)

Bunches of stuff today!  The Blades and Books blog tour...next stop…A HIDDEN HAVEN. Don’t forget that some of the hosting blogs also have the rafflecopter widget up and those places, you can enter just by leaving a comment…MULTIPLE entries!

Today’s Saturday Snippet… it’s all about family.  (there’s also been some questions about Broken, and since Fragile comes first…well, it’s a nice seque.  Question is answered at the bottom!)

From Fragile…releasing in mass market in August

 

Set – up… Luke is former military…they just buried a friend.  Quinn is his twin brother.

Luke found Quinn in his cramped apartment two miles away, soaked to the bone and sitting on the floor in the living room.  He still wore his Class A uniform, the tie askew, jacket unbuttoned.  His head rested against the couch and he didn’t stir even when Luke flicked on the lights and came to sit down beside him.

“You regret leaving?” Quinn asked after a while.

Luke shook his head, replied softly, “No.”  He shrugged restlessly, his eyes roaming over the bare walls of the apartment.  No pictures, no calendars, nothing but bare white walls.  Empty.  “I miss you.  Sometimes the guys.  But I don’t regret leaving.”

Quinn closed his eyes. “I’m glad you’re gone.  Today, saying bye to Adam–kept thinking if you’d stayed, it could have been you we’d been burying.  Four of us, man, four of us gone and I keep thinking I’m damn glad my brother ain’t with us any more.”

Luke snorted.  “Yeah, and I keep worrying I’ll get a knock on my door.  I don’t want to bury you, Quinn.”

“You won’t.”  There was an odd edge to his voice and Luke glanced over, saw a weird light glittering in his brother’s eyes.  “Dying’s too easy.  I don’t ever get the easy way.”

“Jeb said a woman got killed.”

Quinn jerked like somebody had stabbed him with a branding iron, coming off the ground in one fast move.  He crossed the room in long, erratic strides, coming to a stop by the wall where he braced his hands against it and lowered his head.  “Don’t, Luke.  I–I can’t……” his voice broke.

Grief swamped him, all but broke him.  Luke could feel it radiating off his twin, could the echo of it swarming through him as he slowly stood.  Quinn edged away as he heard Luke coming, spun around and gave him a wild eyed stare.

“Leave it alone, damn it,” he snarled.  “Get the hell away from me.”

Luke shook his head.  “You know I can’t.  You want to get mad, go ahead.  But I’m not leaving.”

Quinn abruptly sagged to his knees.  Luke settled down beside him and as Quinn started to cry, he slid an arm around his twin’s shoulders, felt the sting of tears burn his own eyes.

For the longest time, there was no sound but Quinn’s low, harsh sobs.  Then they faded away to erratic, unsteady breaths……and then silence.

“You find what you’re looking for, Luke?  Did you ever find it?”

Read More…

More people on the snippet tour! (Q about BROKEN addressed below the links)

Megan Hart:Read in bed!

Leah Braemel

Jody Wallace

Eliza Gayle

Mandy M Roth

Lissa Matthews

Mari Carr

McKenna Jeffries

Myla Jackson

Taige Crenshaw

Delilah Devlin

HelenKay Dimon

Lauren Dane

TJ Michaels

So…. I keep getting emails asking:

Q: Will Broken be going in mass market?

A:  Well…that’s kind of up to you guys.  Fragile is the first title, and if it does well in mass market?  Then yes, Broken will probably be released in mass market as well.  If it doesn’t? Then probably not.   So, um…well?  GO BUY!  ;) If you want to.  But, in all honesty, it does boil down to Fragile‘s success.  The better it does?  The more likely you all will be to see the second book in mass market.  You can preorder here…

BAMM | B & N | Book Depository | IndieBound | Amazon | Powell’s

If you’re into ebooks, yes, the price should drop on it after the mass market version is released.  :)

Next stop…

It seems I’m giving a photo tour at the same time that I’m posting my Books and Blades tour…next up, I’m over at KA Burton’s site…have you checked it out? Follow the books and blades link for info.

So, after we left Pennsylvania, we headed to New York.  First stop?

We stopped in this little town…

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Sleepy Hollow, guys. Of Headless Horseman fame!

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That’s the tombstone of a soldier from the Revolutionary War.

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Washington Irving’s resting place. I was just…wow. I’m still just…wow.

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THE BRIDGE!!

Ahem. Okay. I’ll be mature now.

More pics coming up…

Another day, another booktour stop, another chance to win

So it’s another day, and another stop on the blog tour.

Today I’m over at Missyjane’s with an excerpt.  FYI, if you visit the blogs who are participating in the rafflecopter deal, leaving comments counts as another entry in the contest.  :)  Easy entries.  You can get multiple entries that way, (but only one comment per blog.)

Some pretty nice reviews are going up for Blade Song over at Goodreads, if you’d like to check them out.

Just a REMINDER to those who don’t normally read UF. This is NOT a romance. Yes, there is a romantic thread. Yes, there is a hot guy in it. (I kinda loved the character a little, but no, I’m not telling you more than that.) If you like paranormal romance, you might enjoy this. But please don’t expect this to be like my typical romances.

So…on paying for reviews, on rabid attack sites and other shit

FYI, this isn’t a post about attacking reviewers.  I don’t buy into that crap, it pisses me, I hate it, I can’t stand it.

However…I’m bothered by a site that supposedly charges authors for positive reviews, yet doesn’t really disclose that.

I’m bothered by the impression that some writers, especially new writers might think this is cool and that’s how authors do things. (My opinion…No, no, no, no, no).

I’m bothered by a site that then gets upset with the author who blogged about it…heaven forbid people actually know about stuff like that.  I’d think it should be discussed on the website that the reviews are are kinda bought and paid for, but hey.

It’s all a very screwed up mess, and you can see the cache of it right about…HERE!  Yes, I saved a screencap.  (You should be able to click on it to read the whole thing…the author removed it but google cache…well.  The internet.  It’s forever.)

To the newbie writers/aspiring writers who read my blog:

DO NOT DO THIS SHIT.  DO NOT PAY FOR POSITIVE REVIEWS.  DO NOT DO IT DO NOT DO IT DO NOT DO IT.  

Those negative mean-girl reviews that poop on the pony parade are not actually going to kill your career.  I promise you.

FYI, opinions are expressed in this post-my blog, I’m allowed.  Before somebody decides to rant at me about defamation, they might want to read up on what defamation actually is…Defamation of character…tends to require intentionally false statements.

Jane (a real lawyer) over Dear Author actually did a nice little breakdown of it.

 

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NOW…for the real insanity…

Because the Chicklit thing is just stupid, IMO, it’s not really insane.

Here’s some crazy.  FYI…I’m not linking to the site.  Like others, I’d rather NOT give the idiots who created the site any more attention than they deserve.  Instead, I’m linking you to Foz Meadows-Foz had done a pretty good run down on the issue.

Basically, a small group of people decided they’d ‘had it’ with the ‘bullying’ on goodreads.  What is their version of bullying?  ”Mean girls who write snarky reviews”.  (My opinion… this is BS.  Authors put out books for public consumption-they then face public opinion.  You want to write?  Deal with it.  It’s not always fun, but then again, who promised life was an easy ride?)

So, to ‘pay back’ those who write these mean reviews, they have, in essence, started stalking them (that’s how it appears, at least…they’ve ‘outed’ people, posted personal details, including names and pictures and home towns) and they claim they are doing this to ‘speak up against bullies.

Yes, because the exact way to speak up against bullies is to cyber stalk.

Carolyn Jewel has an awesome post about her thoughts on this, and although I’ve spoken my mind on twitter, I felt moved to the same.

In my mind, I have no doubt that the people running the ‘bully’ site are authors.  Nobody but writers are that attached to their books.  Most of us, though, have a functioning brain stem and we realize that people are actually allowed to form opinions, and hey, they can even hate our work.  That doesn’t constitute a negative attack.  We get that.

To those running the site?

Am I concerned about the fact that people think it’s okay to post personal information?  Yes.  I have young kids.  I protect them by protecting my privacy.

Aside from that, I’ve had a few unpleasant encounters that I’d rather never have again and that I’m not going into detail about, but it’s enough that I decided early on I’d do better by protecting my privacy.

I’m horrified by anybody who thinks it’s okay to post somebody’s personal info out there.  Women are very often the targets of crazy-ass stalkers and they don’t have to do much of anything to catch the attention of those crazy-ass stalkers.  FYI… they are crazy.  They don’t need a reason to fixate.

I’m absolutely disgusted by the shit taking place on that site.

For my readers/regular visitors, please do not go to the site.  Please.  They are a bunch of attention-mongering haters and every click feeds their need.  You can get the run down very well at Foz’s site, but I did want to speak my mind on this.  Silence perpetuates bullying and what they are doing?  Bullying in the extreme.