Kindle INDIEpendence Book of the Day

Synopsis: Kings & Queens is a gritty, twisty Young Adult mystery thriller. When 17-year-old tomboy Majesty Alistair can't budge police in her sleepy, rich town after overhearing two fellow students planning a church massacre, she aims to ID the nutjobs herself before they act. But, their agenda turns out to be far bigger than she ever assumed, and she becomes the centerpiece in a ruthless game that casts even her closest friends under suspicion.

Buy link: http://amzn.to/LWaqXa

When did you know you wanted to be an author?
I’ve always loved writing and majored in Jornalism Advertising, so I was aiming for a copy writing and design carrier. But I got bitten by the novel bug through my husband. He wanted to start writing short stories for publications and received all these query packets and he also took a remote writing class through the Stafford Institute and received a few of the books in the Write Great Fiction Series. I read them and was inspired with an idea for a novel and wrote away. After reading more and more books on craft, I realized my first book had major issues, so I wrote another one, Kings & Queens. I poured everything I had into this book and polished it up with the help of some awesome reviewers at thenextbigwriter.com. I now know, novel writing was what I was always meant to do. I am so glad my characters found me!

Why do you Indie publish?


I was shopping Kings & Queens to agents, and though I got some great feedback and some requests for partials and fulls, no bites. My book is good, but on the surface it doesn’t have that oooo concept right up front. The best part of it is the surprises that come in along the wild rollercoaster ride. And that’s a hard thing for an agent to sell to publishers. There’s no juicy sound bite, so to speak, there. I had some early readers asking me how my characters were doing and I wanted to know too. So, I wrote a sequel Sapphire Reign for fun, which opens ten years later, but after receiving some love for it, I decided it was too weird and different and good to get possibly stuffed because it doesn’t hit the same market. When a Big Sixer offers you a 2 or 3-book deal, it’s for one imprint and market. And I didn’t want SR to end up being just a self-pubbed companion book with a different cover and layout. So, my vision of success changed, being that I craved to go traditional through all the lovely gatekeepers, but that just didn’t work for this series. There was too much risk in that direction. So, I set out to find a smaller publisher that would give me more flexibility in doing what I wanted to do with the series. Me and my book are happily with Little Prince Publishing. I have creative control, flexibility and cool authors to support me. Oh, and I get all my royalties!

What inspired you to write your book?


The three main characters came to my mind first. I just pictured this girl named Majesty as a manager of a baseball team on which her two best friends, Alec and Derek, play. And each one commands her attention for different reasons. But, that’s all I had. Those three weirdos just stumbling around in my brain. That wasn’t enough plot for me. I needed plot. I crave plot. Something suspenseful preferred. But I had nothing. Then one night I dreamt I was running for exercise and overheard these two guys planning a church massacre and I escaped them in this little town. Boom! That gave me exactly what I needed and the location too. And then my story grew and grew into something totally unexpected and awesome. I’m kind of glad I had all that time to get to know and ponder my characters first. When the plot came to me, I was able to just write fluidly, with them popping off the pages.

What are three things you want people to know about you or your book?

Kings & Queens is a twisty, complex, gritty read. It is not for the faint of heart nor for those who prefer simple, breezy beach reads. It requires some mental thought and will take your mind on a whirlwind trip and back. If you’re looking for a read that doesn’t feel like anything you’ve ever read before, that’s suspenseful and weird, then this is the book for you.

What advice do you have for parents to encourage their kids to read more?

To study genres, skip around to some MG and YA blogs and look for what’s hot and interesting to other kids of that age. If your kids see you taking a vested interest in books and know that you’re on the look for cool books, rather than telling them what they can and can’t read, then you can engage on a new level and be excited about books together. Website: www.courtneyvail.com Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/kingsandqueensnovel Twitter: www.twitter.com/cvwriter

Kindle INDIEpendence Day Giveaway

Win a Kindle Fire for your kid...so they'll leave yours alone!

It is time for the second annual Kindle INDIEpendence Day giveaway. This year we have even more authors and prizes. Contest begins July 1st and ends July 7th!

Grand Prize: 1 Kindle Fire
1st place: 1 Kindle with special offers
2nd place: a choice of 20 free ebooks from the 29 participating authors
3rd place:  a choice of 15 free ebooks from the participating authors

There are tons of ways to enter including tweeting about the contest, following the authors on facebook or Twitter, blogging about the contest and even purchasing the participating books. Just fill out the rafflecopter form below!
This is also a blog hop. Be sure to visit the other blogs on the list and learn more about Indie authors of YA and MG novels. You can add your blog and get extra entry points as well!

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The Halfway Point

So tonight is June 30th and we are technically halfway through the year. I've accomplished a lot of my writing goals (not so many of my marketing goals). At this point in my career, however, I have so many ideas that I just want to get written down that I don't feel bad concentrating more on writing than marketing. This is what I have done so far this year:
Published:
Shadows of St. Louis
Priscilla the Great 4
Priscilla the Great 5
Priscilla the Great versus the World
Priscilla the Great Omnibus 1

Writing:
Two short stories for different anthologies
The Saint Of Petersburg
Dark Marco vol 1

There are 184 days left in the year. My goal for the second part of the year is to keep on a strict 1,000 words a day schedule. That means I plan to write 184,000 more words this year. I've even decided how to allocate those words. I want three 50k word novels and then the other 34k words will be split between two short stories and Dark Marco Vol 2. I'm not saying that all of these will be published in 2012 since they would still need to go through editing and everything. But I am planning on publishing at least two more novels and two more short stories in 2012. With what has already been published and written, that would give me seven books published and four separate anthologies. Not bad. For 2013, of course, I will try to raise the bar even higher.

I have definitely found that I prefer writing to marketing. I think having more available content will eventually boost my sales organically. Sometime in August I will go back to pushing my public speaking career, but for right now, all I want to do is write.

Tip #58: The Other Amazons

Every once in a while I will have a giveaway and the winner will be international. It is always a hassle sending things overseas and it costs extra. So with my last giveaway winner who was in the UK, I decided to try something new. I logged on to Amazon.co.uk, order the books she won and sent them directly to her. I have Amazon prime so I didn't have to pay shipping and I didn't have to do any shipping myself. It worked out perfectly.

Tip #57: Radio Interviews

So I just had my first live radio interview yesterday. I was so nervous that I spent hours researching how to have a successful radio interview and then took notes on all the suggestions. When the interview started, I ended up not using a single one of them. I just went with the flow and did what came naturally. The interview took a completely different turn that I hadn't even prepared for, but since I naturally like to talk, I was able to just speak to the topics that were asked. There are a few tips that may prove useful in the future so I'll share.

Almost every source I found said to not use a cell phone for fear of the call getting dropped. But I was in Florida in a hotel room and I didn't want to pay long distance fees for a call to California. My husband noticed that we had great reception in the hotel room. I also noticed that on the very program I would be on, many people were calling on their cell phones so I decided to give it a try as well. There were no problems. Reception was great and the call wasn't dropped. So if you have great reception and are not moving around, I suggest going ahead and using your cell phone if you have to.

I made copious notes about the topic I was supposed speak on which was about working mothers and their relationships with their children. I ended up only using one note as the conversation took a completely different turn about integration in schools. Thankfully, it was a topic I was completely comfortable speaking about and I was able to plug one of  my other books.

I was able to get the host's email address and I plan on sending him a really nice thank you note for the interview. I suggest always doing things like this as it will help you the next time you need an interview or may even get you recommended to someone else.

Now without further ado, here is my interview:

Fire up the Future

In honor of the release of Priscilla the Great book five, I'm having yet another giveaway. The premise is that you have to name three things that are going to happen twenty-five years from now. Here are my thoughts:
 1. Flying cars - In my opinion, we are about 10 years to late on this. Come on, smart science people. Get to work on my flying cars. I want flying cars.
2. DNA based shopping - Instead of credit cards, we will be able to just swipe our fingers to make purchase. The good thing is that there will be no more identity theft. That bad news, I bet finger theft will go through the roof.
3. Smartphone implants - Our brains will become like human smart phones. We will be able to answer calls with a blink and post on facebook by twinkling our noses.

 What do you think? Visit Priscilla's blog and enter to win a Kindle Fire!

Authors in Bloom Giveaway Hop/Enter to win a Kindle/Enter to win a Nook

Traveling story phrase:

Line 40: We all want to be “picked,” cherished as the most beautiful creation of all.

Recipe:

INGREDIENTS:

1 pound lean ground beef 1 egg 2 tablespoons water 1/2 cup bread crumbs 3 tablespoons minced onion

1 (8 ounce) can jellied cranberry sauce 3/4 cup chili sauce 1 tablespoon brown sugar 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2.	In a large bowl, mix together the ground beef, egg, water, bread crumbs, and minced onion. Roll into small meatballs.
3.	Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, turning once.
4.	In a slow cooker or large saucepan over low heat, blend the cranberry sauce, chili sauce, brown sugar, and lemon juice. Add meatballs, and simmer for 1 hour before serving.

Now you can win a copy of The Queen Bee of Bridgeton by Leslie DuBois!



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Don’t forget to visit the other authors involved in the hop,
conveniently located on the linky below: