Please Support Your Fav Author…

There’s much talk around the virtual water cooler in my publisher’s social media groups these days. The gist is this: an author gets more money (50%) when a reader buys a book or ebook from the author’s publisher’s website. When you make a purchase through other on-line book stores such as Amazon or Smashwords or Barnes & Noble, our slice of the pie becomes smaller.

So here’s my plea, as one of the thousands of authors vying for a reader’s attention: PLEASE SUPPORT A FAVORITE AUTHOR BY DECIDING TO MAKE YOUR NEXT PURCHASE AT THEIR PUBLISHER’S ON-LINE BOOK STORE!

I know, I know, you say you’ve got a specific ereader that takes you directly to the manufacturer’s virtual warehouse so you can wander though their vast shelves and get deals galore. Let me tell you, this book business is tough enough, BUT if you find an author who you connect to, love their prose, their voice, their platform, then wouldn’t it be justified to support these storytellers so they could earn a decent living and produce more of their written wares for you to read? I’d say that would be a win-win situation!

Below is a post written by author friend, Margaret Lesh, explaining about the misconceptions of ebooks, and the various types of ereaders out there:

http://www.storyrhyme.com/jcsblog/files/a4f95205f3cc0c0593dc80eaf091f014-229.html

Every respectable publishing company has all the formats available for different ereaders. Mobi (Blackberry), PRC (Kindle), Epub (Nook, Kobo, Android), and PDF (Window-based and Mac computers) to name a few. It’s a simple process, and may add one or two more steps when you purchase a book directly from a publisher. Don’t let that scare you off. Be brave. Grit your teeth. Download that book you’ve wanted to buy for so long, but have kept putting it off because the technology is a scary and new. Free programs such as Calibre make it easy-peasy to convert your ebook to be able to read on the specific ereader you own.

So there you have it. You’ve heard my plea. The choice, as a reader, is yours. And thankfully, it always has been.

Image: 123RF Stock Photo: 3244416

Victory is Normal(ish)

Well, the Back to School Extravaganza with my YA imprint Euterpe is over, and winners have been picked. I somehow lucked out and won a copy of Normalish by Margaret Lesh. Outstanding! First, I wanted to send a ginormous thank you to Susan Sipal personally for having me as a guest on her blog last week when I wrote about the Nottingham Caves. If you haven’t had a chance to read it, clink on the link. Cheers to you, Susan, and thank you for your generosity and kindness! Harry Potter fans may want to check out Susan’s blog, Myth, Magic & Mystery.

I also want to congratulate the winners of the Back to School Extravaganza personally. First, the winner of my prize pack, which includes a signed paperback of The Last Timekeepers and the Arch of Atlantis, an Ionic Power watch, trading cards, and wrist bands, is…Ruth Walker! And the winner of an ecopy of The Last Timekeepers and the Arch of Atlantis is…Laura Pauling! High fives to both the winners and thank you for entering the contest!

And now, I’d like to share the excerpt of Normalish, a young adult read which will be released through Musa Publishing this October…

Fifteen-year-old Stacy questions the strange world of high school, family, friends, love, and her role in the universe.

People tell you high school's so great and wonderful, but they're lying. It's mostly horrible and full of disappointment. It sucks. Your best friend abandons you. The jerk you're in love with pretends to be into you, and then the big dump. The boy you've really clicked with as a friend decides to go all crushy over you, so you break his heart just like yours was — smashed into little pieces. Your sister goes mental, and you get involved with an older guy who’s even crazier than she is (who you know is a very bad idea, but you do it anyway). Math only adds another stink of failure to the whole thing.

High school blows. Just ask freshman Stacy. She’d want you to know.