Interview with Michael Meyer

Can you give us a brief overview of your latest book?
I have published two novels on Amazon Kindle. THE SURVIVAL OF MARVIN BAINES is a short novel about real life and whimsy, as they collide head on with a man's midlife crisis. The book is fast paced and filled with colorful characters. Marvin Baines' humorous adventures take him on a journey through which he finally realizes what is really important in life. Funny at times and yet serious too, a winning combination about life, marriage, and coming to terms with one's own quandaries and foibles as midlife suddenly rears its head.

THE FAMOUS UNION is a tongue-in-cheek look at the dismal economic situation currently taking place on a small California college campus, where tough financial decisions bring about severe disruption and hilarity to a once very proud institution of higher learning, the home of the Famous Union Fighting Orchids, whose motto is and always has been, "Just wait until next year." It is a rollicking romp through the halls of academia.

Did you try the traditional route to publishing, i.e. querying agents/publishers?

My wife recently purchased me a Kindle, and I thought it would be great to get my work our there immediately and see what happens. I am 64 years old. Traditional publishing could take a long time to see my work in print.

Do you belong to a critique group? Have they helped improve your writing?

No, I don’t, but I spent 40 years teaching writing on the college level. I am recently retired. I am now able to show rather than to tell.

What factors influenced your decision to self-publish to Amazon?

I had read that Kindle sales were quite a bit stronger than those of opposing e-readers.

Did you hire an editor to review your manuscript before publishing?

As a retired English professor, I did all my own editing.

What have you’ve learned during your self-publishing journey?

Writing is fun, but marketing is work.

Besides Amazon, are there any other sites where your books are for sale?

Presently, my two books are only at Amazon Kindle.

What’s next for you?

I am presently at work at a thriller set in both Germany and Saudi Arabia, two of the many place in the world where I have lived.

New Release: STAKED by Sandra Edwards

Book Blurb:
Ava Valentine is a time-traveling bounty hunter from the distant future. She's chased her fugitive back to present-day New York City, where she hopes her new contact will lead her to an uneventful capture. What she's not expecting is to get mixed up with a man she suspects is a vampire.

Dexter Stone is a mysterious soldier of fortune. He holds an allegiance to few, and has a reputation for selling out anyone if the price is right. His word is good though, and once he chooses a side, it'll take more than monetary gain to sway him to the other.

A run-in with an unsavory person from Ava's past forces the pair into an uneasy alliance. And soon, Ava will discover that she could be Stone's saving grace-or his downfall. 

Buy Links:

US Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0052MSYRW
UK Kindle: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0052MSYRW
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Staked/Sandra-Edwards/e/2940012611826
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/61863

Book Excerpt:

The door creaked open and the hairs at the nape of her neck rose amid goose bumps. Some strange magic was at work.

Lucien? No. Not Lucien, but somebody equally as dangerous. Could Ava’s contact be a vampire? 

Uh oh.  

She fought the urge to look at the figure claiming a seat at the bar, leaving an empty stool between them. An overwhelming scent trickled over her and drew her in with the ease of a fishing lure. Definitely male, and possibly vamp. 

The desire to look at him needled at her, but it wasn’t a good idea even though she wanted to in the worst way. Was he a vampire, or wasn’t he?

Ava didn’t like messing with vamps. Still, he had another thing coming if he thought she’d give up her bounty.

She glanced in the mirror behind the bar and wrestled with the urge to preen her hair. The chestnut color looked browner than usual and she prayed it didn't look as drab as her reflection portrayed in the subdued lighting.  

Pathetic. Either Ava was pitiful or this guy was a vampire with superpowers. She hadn’t even looked at him but he’d already wielded an intoxicating influence over her.  

His image in the mirror resided just outside her peripheral vision—whoever said vamps don’t have reflections was probably a vampire poking fun at some Mortal.

Ava tried to look at him in the mirror in an offhanded way. His dark eyes caught and tangled her in a mixture of turmoil and curiosity, even though he wasn’t looking at her. A wave of lust washed over her, followed by a powerful need to move to the empty stool separating them. She wanted this guy. She wanted him in the worst way. This desire she was feeling was stronger than anything she’d ever experienced—even the attraction she used to feel for Lucien.

Damn it. She was a goner. 

The magnetic stranger was talking to the guy sitting on the other side of him, and paying no attention to Ava whatsoever. She lowered her head and inched it to the left until she had a good view of—his boots. 

Typical footwear of twentieth century bikers. It was hard to say if it was his normal attire or a trite disguise. Seasoned Levi’s clothed his long, lanky legs and dragged her attention up to his athletic torso covered by a black, skintight T-shirt. Bronzed muscular arms rested against the bar. Long, slender fingers loosely encircled the beer bottle Phil had placed in front of him. Ebony-black hair had been tied into a pony-tail and hung down his back nearly to his waist. Several inches longer than her own, Ava marveled at the perseverance it took to grow it to such lengths. His face, chiseled and clean-shaven, was as bronze as his compelling arms that were capable of....

Geez, he was good to look at. And most definitely a vamp. Who else could bewitch her like this? Hell, he hadn’t even looked at her yet and she was already under his spell.

Finally, he turned toward her. Self-preservation urged Ava to look away before their eyes met, but she couldn't. His deep coffee-brown eyes latched onto her gaze and held it with some infinite, indefinable power.

She’d been hoping against hope that her talent for reading emotions would confirm or deny her suspicions. Was he or wasn’t he? He could hide among the shadows of the night and cast as many spells over her as he could conjure, but his vampire attributes would still be there, camouflaged.

****

Author Bio:

Sandra is  an award-winning author with eclectic tastes. She writes in a variety of genres such as paranormal (mostly time travel and reincarnation), contemporary, and suspense. Her books often push the  envelope and step outside the boundaries of conventional romance. She lives in the U.S. (west coast) with her husband, two kids, four dogs and one very temperamental feline.

  

Review of THE GIFTS: A Jacody Ives Mystery by Linda Prather

5 of 5 stars

Gavin McAllister is a lost tortured soul, some say the very definition of a writer, but with a twist, evil knows him. The demons raging inside him send him gruesome dreams of rape, torture and murder, always with the same message. "You're too late McAllister." His only weapon to save his sanity is to write the stories down using his alter-ego Jacody Ives, to uncover the secrets and solve the crime. He is a best-selling author. He has the Gift.  

Call it psychic, intuition or gut feelings, Gavin is also determined to use his ability to help the FBI, specifically, his step-brother Rob and his partner Carl,  catch bad guys. But there is one twisted sick murderer that they haven't been able to catch for five years--The Mother's Day killer.  The killer always leaves a calling card at the scene of the murders taunting the FBI and Gavin has made it his mission to catch this guy.

From the opening scene of the book, the author does a fantastic job of reeling you into this paranormal mystery, keeping you on the edge of your seat while the story unfolds with one twist after another.  Ms. Prather is a master storyteller slowly filling in Gavin's backstory--he is a twin who was separated at a young age-- and when Rob introduces Gavin to his girl, a piece of the puzzle clicks into place for him.  Cory Larson is his long lost twin, adopted one day ahead of him.  Now she's back in his life and Gavin feels a modicum of peace, that is, until Cory becomes the Mother's Day killer's next victim.  Now catching the sicko is personal.  

Clues of Cory's last known whereabouts lead Gavin to a seemingly peaceful town of Glade Springs. Every town has its secrets and Glade Springs is no different.  Gavin is determined to uncover every last one of them if he has to, much to the displeasure of Sheriff Sarah Burns.  The dreams are worse than ever and time is running out, but there's a difference. This time Gavin knows the killer's next intended target, but will it help him get there in time?  

The tension and suspense in this book are definitely high-octane and will keep you up late at night turning the pages as fast as you can to find out what happens.  Just when you think it's safe to stop, another explosive scene is a page click away.  Highly recommended.

  

Blog Streaking with Thea Atkinson

For the month of April, fellow author, Thea Atkinson is streaking through 30 blogs and flashing us a piece of fiction. I generously offered her a space today so she could expose a piece. My blog will be back to normal tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy and follow the links at the end to see who she flashed yesterday and who she will flash tomorrow. Feel free to leave a comment to let me know if you enjoyed the streak, and you are welcome to tweet it or share it on Facebook. You can also follow the chain through twitter with the hashtag #blogstreak

Rosary Braids

By Thea Atkinson

http://theaatkinson.wordpress.com

Seven months ago I had hair. They tell me it'll grow back eventually, although it might curl like licks of flame around a dried out log of pine. It might even come back in patches. I don't care if it ever grows back. He liked my hair, and now that the chemo has devoured it like a hungry Labrador retriever, he finds other ways to amuse himself and leaves me alone.

Last time I entertained him, months ago, before I got the cancer, he had cursed at me. All I'd said to him was that he looked like a woman with that one fingernail he kept long on his right hand: the pinky. It was white and ridged because of his thyroid trouble -- overactive, like most of him -- and he used that nail, I knew, to scoop cocaine and press it delicately to his nostrils. Like a snuff sniffer from the 1800s except there was no way he could be a gentleman. Not by a long shot.

Like a woman, I'd said to him, because he had grown soft in the chest over the years. His breasts sagged. I chuckled, thinking he'd enjoy the joke, and he seemed to at first, reached out to me as we lay together on our bed, nude, both of us. He ringed my nipple with that nail. Smiled. Three seconds later my nipple hurt. Three after that, my scalp did. He so loved my hair, he took it in fistfuls. Handfuls that he yanked hard when he beat me, or wrenched when he made love to me. My hair was always in his hands, heated in passion or in anger.

He said hair made a woman beautiful. Any woman. And every one of them should wear it long. He has no patience for short, manly styles, although even with my hair long, I still couldn't escape having to fight back like one.

So it was no good to me, hair. It attracted him because it reached my waist. At first he treated me as beautifully as he said my hair looked. He touched me as softly as it felt. But that was years ago.

Sometimes now I wonder what the neighbours think when they hear him yelling at me in the middle of the afternoon. His voice makes the glasses rattle in the cupboards, his language so foul it would taste like rotten meat if it were a meal. Doesn't matter what starts the discussion, could be a simple question about what he wants for dinner. He calls me names.

I wonder if the spinster next door rocks in her chair when she hears him yell, spilling her rosary down her chest through her fingers, thanking God with each bead that she never married. I see her walking to church in the evenings. I'm careful to keep a kerchief over my head when I peek through the curtains so she doesn't catch my scalp winking in the waning light. She always scurries past my house, afraid I suppose, my cancer is catching.

I wonder, too, if he can be heard three blocks down where the pert 20 year-old waits for him with a negligee made of lemon silk. She has black hair. Curls. He comes home now and then with strands in his collar; the smell of her perfume creeps ahead of him when he opens the door. He doesn't see me sitting in the chair watching him, praying like that spinster from next door.

I'm invisible to him now, hailing Mary quietly, but fervently for that naive brunette, with each remembered lock. I pray she catches the cancer too.

april 20 jennifer lane

http://jenniferlanebooks.blogspot.com

april 21 deb martin

http://twoendsofthepen.blogspot.com

Rosary Braids

April 22 leah petersen

http://www.leahpetersen.com/


  

Review of FINAL VECTOR by Allan Leverone

 5 of 5 stars

Have you ever read a book that was so realistic that it scared you?  I don’t mean horror or true-crime, I mean a fictional book that affects you so profoundly that you keep looking over your shoulder to make sure the bad guys aren’t right behind you. 

This is the kind of book you’ll find with Final Vector by Allan Leverone.  The author takes an everyday guy with a regular job—Nick Jensen, air traffic controller at BCT, the Boston Consolidated TRACON in Merrimack, New Hampshire—and spins a tale of intrigue, murder and a band of terrorists bent on blowing the president’s plane out of the sky. I initially thought this book was going to be pretty similar to other thriller books I’ve read, but that’s not the case here.

The author does an excellent job of revolving the story around Nick and he makes you care about the guy.  Without giving anything of the plot away, Nick’s life is turned upside down by a personal tragedy.  That tragedy, however, is what sets the plot into motion.  The other characters could be anyone you’d pass by on a street in any city in America.  Tony Andretti, the Syrian born terrorist, has lived a model life in the USA for the past 10 years, waiting for his moment to shine and kill the leader of the free world.  He carefully recruits a band of home grown young men who are dissatisfied with America. These men more or less worship the ground Tony walks on whether is through true hero-worship or Tony’s own brand of intimidation, and they relish the thought of striking a blow against America.  Mr. Leverone gets inside these guys head’s and lets the reader understand how they think.  Lastly, there’s Kristin Cunningham, the cute petite FBI agent, who has been defying people’s expectation of her for her entire law-enforcement career.  The author bounces chapters between Nick, Tony and Kristin bringing the reader up to speed on their activities and slowly reveals how they are all connected. 

By reading the book blurb, it’s easy to see that everyone ends up at BCT, but that’s the only thing that’s easy about this book.  It keeps you on the edge of your seat, reading pages as fast as you can, to see what happens.  Trust me, it’s not the cookie-cutter kind of ending where the FBI comes in with guns blazing and saves the day.  No, it’s much more clever than that.  Nick, our everyday guy, has to figure out a way to disarm three terrorists, save his colleagues and live.  That’s a huge job and I highly recommend that you read this book and find out what happens. You will not be disappointed.

  

#SampleSunday - Visions, QUEST FOR NOBILITY

Today's SampleSunday, is from QUEST FOR NOBILITY.  Dyla Telkur is an empath who has dream visions that can sometimes portend the future.

Chapter 4 – Visions

The fire danced and crackled with life, seeking to devour anything in its path.  Three separate spurs raced around the warehouse, burning all they touched.  Boxes of all shapes and sizes became ash as the flames joined to become one intense hungry blaze.

She watched the scorching scene, riveted to the floor.  She turned her head, seeking an escape, but saw only shadows.  The flames were almost upon her when the walls disappeared.  She felt the heat closing in and tried desperately to free herself.  When she turned back, the flames surrounded her, engulfing her in an inferno of pain and torment.  Screaming, she felt the flesh melt from her limbs.

Dyla bolted upright in bed, awakened by an ear-splitting scream. Drenched in sweat and trembling uncontrollably, it took her a moment to realize that it was her own scream she heard and she shuddered in fear.

She clamored off the bed and fell to her knees.

“Oh no, oh no,” she whispered while rocking back and forth.              

Within moments, Darius came rushing into the room and found his sister on the floor.  Folding her into his arms, he made a telepathic connection and was immediately assailed by images of pain and suffering.  He had never felt such intensity through his link before, and he nearly staggered back at the blow.

“It’s OK, you’re safe,” he said softly, clutching her tighter.

It took Dyla several minutes before she came back to herself.

“Darius, I had a terrible vision.  There was a fire, it destroyed everything.”

Darius lifted her chin and met his sister’s eyes.

“I felt it when I touched you.  You’re safe now.  It was only a bad dream.”

“No, it wasn’t a bad dream, it was more than that.  I was there, inside it, feeling the heat of the fire.  It burned me.  I’ve never felt anything so horrible before.”

“Do you want me to summon the healer for you?”

“No, I want to talk to Mother.  She’s never mentioned having visions before, but she may understand what’s happening to me.”

Darius helped Dyla to her feet and slipped a robe over her shoulders.  A number of concerned servants stood standing in the doorway to the bedchamber watching the scene unfold.

Darius reassured them.

“It’s all right.  Go back to bed.  Everything here is fine.”

The servants nodded one by one and slipped away.

The twins left Dyla’s room and walked down the corridor to their parent’s bedchamber.  Dyla knocked lightly on the door. 

Silence greeted them.

“That’s strange.  They’re not answering.  I’m surprised they didn’t come when you screamed,” Darius said.

Dyla reached out, turned the door handle, and walked into the room.  It was empty.

“Where are they?”

The room was pristine.  The bed had not been slept in and there was no sign of their parents.

Dyla looked about the room, worry written on her face.

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

“It’s awfully late for them not to be in their chamber.  Where could they be?” Darius asked.

“Did you see them after the banquet?”

“No, I was with Ty.  What about you?”

“No.”

“I think you’re right.  Something’s not right.  Come on, let's get dressed."

"I'll only be a minute.  I'll meet you by your bedchamber."

"Sounds good."

Both Dyla and Darius ran to their bedchambers and emerged within minutes fully dressed.

"Where do we start?" Dyla asked.

"Let's start with Father's study.  If  they're not there, let's check in with Ronal.  Maybe he knows what’s going on."

            "I hope so," Dyla said


  

CHALLENGES AND REWARDS OF WRITING FANTASY by Tracy Falbe

The Challenges and Rewards of Writing Fantasy without Killing the Parents

Dead parents are a long established literary tradition, especially in fantasy fiction. Harry Potter is currently the most famous fictional orphan. And of course Frodo Baggins lost his parents and was adopted by his Uncle Bilbo. Cinderella was left under the domination of a wicked stepmother. Luke Skywalker thought both his mother and father were dead and then he lost his Aunt and Uncle.

Ditching parents when writing a story tends to be convenient. It frees main characters of normal obligations and forces them to be resourceful. Young adult fiction thrives on high parental mortality because its audience wants to enter an adventure unencumbered by parents. It's real spread your wings and fly stuff that meets some valid psychological needs.

But how do I avoid always laying the elder generation in the grave in chapter one? Two broad approaches for making narrative accommodations for fictional parents present themselves: 1) Find some explanation for ostracizing a parent from the story, or 2) Include the parent and explore the richness this adds to the character development of the offspring.

Suggestions for writing Mom or Dad out of the show:

1. Daddy is just not around. He does not have to be dead, but his relationship with the mother is ancient history and the character grew up without knowing the dad. Mom can be the one to skip town too.

2. Mommy and Daddy are in another geographical location and not present at the scenes of action. For example, Dreibrand Veta, the hero of my fantasy series The Rys Chronicles, is off conquering and exploring the unknown regions of the world while his parents remain in their distant ancestral home.

3. The character and his or her parents are estranged. This technique allows the parents to live in the same area as the hero or heroine, but something has occurred to make one or both sides sever ties. I am currently using this approach in a work in progress. I felt that a certain character needed to have parents in the vicinity, but I did not want these parents to barge into the narrative. Therefore I had them become disapproving of the main character. His bloody takeover of the city and the associated mob violence upset the parents so much they disowned him. The estrangement works well. I did not have to stoop to arranging their tragic deaths, and the main character has to live with the moral disapproval of his parents.

4. Sometimes the parents are actually dead. I do it sometimes. I am only advocating for not doing it constantly. Shan, a rys main character in The Rys Chronicles, does not have living parents. Their identity is a mystery but not a relevant one. No one really cares. He's over four hundred years old and far more concerned with his current ambitions than knowing who bore him.

Suggestions for including the parents in the lives of your main characters:

1. Parent as counselor. A mom or dad can be that special person a main character consults when he or she faces a dilemma. The character does not even necessarily have to do what mom or dad recommends, but scenes of consultation with a parent are a nice way to provide the reader with character insights. Most people run big decisions by mom or dad. It's a normal and believable thing to do.

2. Parent as antagonist. Making mom or dad the outright enemy of a character hits strong emotional chords with readers. Any person can relate to feeling anger toward a parent, and the concept of this animosity becoming bitter and irretrievable is quite compelling. An example from history is how Benjamin Franklin's son sided with the British Empire . Franklin was the traitorous rebel, and the son refused to be part of the revolution. Now that's a conflict!

3. Parent as supporting character. Some situations will benefit from taking the parent along for the adventure. A familiar example is the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indie's father becomes a central character in the story. This allowed the father and son to rehash old grievances, renew bonds, and learn to appreciate each other. 

Allowing fictional characters to have relationships with one or both parents can help characters blossom in a reader's mind and make them relatable. Throwing parents into the narrative mix is also a great way to increase tension. The hero has to save the world AND his father is mad at him. The heroine has just met Prince Charming BUT her mother doesn't think he's good enough for her. You get the idea.

I admit it can be liberating to enter a fantasy where the main character is free of parental balls and chains, but I think it is overused. Parents don't have to inject themselves directly into a story, but I prefer to at least mention them, and in my work in progress I've been actively making them part of the story with several characters. The additional relationships are adding pleasing nuances to the story. I've explored how rebellious youth gradually softens into respect and cooperation between son and father. I've engineered the destruction of a father-daughter relationship as a daughter endures the prospect of forced marriage and the brutal indifference of her father.

Another aspect about character development to consider is that a main character can become a parent. My fantasy characters have sex lives, and as years go by Mother Nature tends to get her way in the arena of reproduction. I like to write a warrior hero who has children. It raises the stakes and helps him see the good from the bad when politics and invasions sideswipe morality. The concept of a father or mother fighting for a child is a primal force, and I like to reach into these deep emotional realms when I write.

Unlocking the sharp feelings contained in the parent child dyad is a challenge for me as a writer. It makes things more complicated, but I believe that the results are more engaging and rewarding. There's a lot of raw power within these basic familial relationships, and simply casting aside that resource at the beginning of a story can be a waste.

Anyway, I can always kill the parents later…

Author bio:

Tracy Falbe is the author of Union of Renegades, The Goddess Queen, Judgment Rising, and The Borderlands of Power that comprise The Rys Chronicles fantasy series. She's a Michigan native who spent 14 years living out West in Nevada and Northern California. To pursue a writing career she earned a journalism degree from California State University, Chico. When not pondering fictional realms, she likes to grow food, swim, hike, bike, go boating, and watch documentaries.

About Union of Renegades: The Rys Chronicles Book I - Have you ever looked at the facts of your life and realized your dreams won't come true? Have you ever looked into the unknown and seen opportunity? For Dreibrand Veta, a young officer in the Horde of the Atrophane Empire, these questions explode from his spirit in a fit of rage and launch him into an epic struggle. After he encounters a rare super race, the rys, he is forced to choose sides between passionate rivals and navigate his way through a foreign culture all while plotting to seize his own wealth and glory.

  

Fantasy readers can sample the first novel Union of Renegades by downloading a free copy from her website www.braveluck.com. Paperbacks available too.

All her fantasy novels are also widely available at major online retailers.

Smashwords http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/939   

Amazon Kindle http://www.amazon.com/Union-Renegades-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B003UES7U8/  

Barnes & Noble Nook http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Union-of-Renegades/Tracy-Falbe/e/2940000720509/   

Google Ebooks http://books.google.com/ebooks?id=ifNnT44l-KIC&dq  

Apple iBooks http://itunes.apple.com/en/book/union-renegades-the-rys-chronicles/id365801314?mt=11

Interview with Dawn McCullough-White

Briefly describe your journey in writing your first book. 

The first book I ever published came after years of writing novels (about 12) that aren't good enough to actually publish.  My first published novel is Cameo the Assassin a dark fantasy that follows the life of an unwilling assassin with some supernatural abilities.  I had written about Cameo from the time I was a teenager and several more times in my twenties, so I know her pretty well.  This time (age 37 at the time) I determined I was going to publish, though I didn't know how.  Then I got an offer for a friend, who is a professional editor, to edit my novel and another offer by a graphic artist to do the cover of my book for free.  Everything just fell into place as if I was supposed to publish this time around. 

Did you query agents or traditional publishers before publishing on Amazon?  Not with this book, although I have sent out a smattering of queries years ago and was pretty disillusioned by the process.  A good share of those queries were answered with form letters by people who had never even cracked open the novels.

What factors influenced your decision to self-publish?

I received advice from a couple different people, one self-published and doing well, and the other a well known trade card artist, to consider self-publishing and after looking at it that was the route I took. 

Did you design your cover art?  If not, would you care to share your graphic designer’s information? How involved were you during the creative process for your cover? 

My cover artist is Kurt Hanss.  He's a great artist and a good friend, and I believe I'm lucky enough to be the only author he's working with.  Here's his website:  http://www.hanssdesign.com/index.html

How did you feel when you got your first sale?  Are you pleased with sales so far? 

I was stunned when I received my first few sales, and yes I'm thrilled with my sales so far.  I spent a good twenty years writing novels no one (save a few friends) would ever read, so of course it puts a big smile on my face to think other people are actually writing my writing now. 

What is the biggest thing you’ve learned during your self-publishing journey? 

How to be my own advocate.  How to market myself and my novels. 

What kinds of social media [twitter, facebook, webpage, blog, writing forums] are you involved with trying to garner attention for your book(s)?  I have a Facebook fanpage and a website~  http://www.dawnmccullough-white.com  & a Facebook page.

Besides Amazon, are there any other sites where your books are for sale?

Cameo the Assassin  & Cameo and the Highwayman are offered for sale at Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, for Kobo, Sony, Diesel, iPad.  Cameo the Assassin is also offered in paperback at many other sites including Books a Million.

What’s next for you? 

I'm currently working on the 3^rd book in the Cameo Series, and after that I'm planning to write something new, although I am considering a couple other projects that may take place in the world of Cameo.

  

Writing Blogs

There was an interesting conversation going on over at Pimp My Novel about how unpublished authors who try to build a web presence are finding it difficult to get their blogs known. With over 18,000 writing blogs out there, how do you make your own blog read and more importantly known throughout the writing community?

I read a good number of agent and editor blogs and try to comment often. Perhaps if people see your name enough, they'll click on your link and become a fan. I know that I have found some funny and interesting blogs that way.

In the meantime, I will continue to post to my blog, facebook and twitter accounts so that when my novel is published, I'll be an old pro at this stuff.