Bestseller For A Day August 17th - In Leah’s Wake

Today, August 17th, is Terri Giuliano Long’s big day! Her award-winning novel IN LEAH’S WAKE, is the featured book for BESTSELLER FOR A DAY. The premier promotion of the Indie Book Collective, BESTSELLER FOR A DAY is designed to push indie authors to the top of the Kindle charts!

(Don’t have a Kindle? Grab a FREE Kindle app here.)

What does all this mean exactly? How does this involve me? What do I do?

For you, the reader, it’s easy AND fun! Today through midnight:

1.  Go to Amazon.com and purchase Terri’s eBook In LEAH’S WAKE for only 99 cents! (The normal price is $2.99 so you save two dollars.) Terri loves when readers save money! They can buy more books! Like these 4 breathtaking bonus buys, on sale this week ONLY for just 99¢ each: BELLA, THE TRUST, SOPHIE & CARTER, and CHASING AMANDA

2.  Your purchase helps show the big boys in NY publishing houses what indie authors can do! Every purchase improves Terri’s ranking on the overall Amazon chart. Our goal is to get her eBook, out of the millions of eBooks, onto the Kindle Top 100!

IN LEAH’S WAKE, the BOOK BUNDLZ 2011 BOOK CLUB PICK, has already hit #7 on the Barnes & Noble Nook Bestseller List! And #14 on Amazon’s Books/Parenting & Families/Family Relationships chart! How awesome is that? Terri’s positively amazed! She had to pinch herself to prove she wasn’t just dreaming!

The Top 100 chart takes serious firepower! To do it, she needs your help!

Please shout her out to your Twitter stream, Facebook friends, friends and family, even your dog. Reviewers have called IN LEAH’S WAKE: “a stellar debut,” “engrossing, “a book for our times.” One reviewer said: “no one who reads this book can remain untouched or unmoved.” Another said Terri’s writing is “superb, compelling, and leaves a serious impact!”

So…what are you waiting for?

3.      Once you purchase her book, head over to the Bestseller For A Day site and enter to win a brand new KINDLE – Terri’s way of showing appreciation for your effort and support!

4.      Wait! There’s more! How about this? 4 MORE AMAZING reads – only 99¢ each! BELLA, by D.C. journalist Steve Piacente, a hotbed of danger and intrigue in the U.S. Military. THE TRUST by Sean Keefer, an award-winning, knock-your-socks-off legal thriller. CHASING AMANDA, a luminous, must-read thriller by award winner Melissa Foster. And, last but definitely not least, SOPHIE & CARTER, a rocking YA romance by Wonder Woman Chelsea Fine, one of Amazon’s hottest new authors!

5.  If you’re still not sure you should part with that buck and maybe win a brand new KINDLE, here are 45 – yep, 45 – outstanding 4 & 5-star reviews that may change your mind. It’s hard to part with your cash in this economy. We get it completely. Look at it this way: your 99 cents is an investment in a powerful and compelling family story, a great read. What’s more, it’s an investment in all indie authors trying to prove their worth.

Terri appreciates all the love and support you’ve shown her these past few months, pushing IN LEAH’S WAKE up the charts and onto the Barnes & Noble Nook Bestseller List. We can’t wait to see what Wednesday brings!

Please go directly to In LEAH’S WAKE now to purchase Terri’s book or to the BestSeller For A Day site for more details. If you have questions or comments, feel free to email Terri at terri@tglong.com or visit her blog. You can also catch her on Twitter or Facebook or Goodreads. When she’s not writing or gabbing with friends on a social networking site, she can be found at Boston College, where she teaches creative & nonfiction writing.

Comments welcome! Retweets and mentions greatly appreciated!!

Interested in participating in Bestseller For A Day as a Bonus Buy book? We’re always on the lookout for great indie books to include in our promotions! What’s required? You must be available in eBook format, be on Twitter, and have a blog. Want more info? Contact us at indiebookibc@gmail.comfor more information!

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The Indie Book Blowout powered by IBC and the 99¢ Network!

THIS Labor Day Weekend, September 2-5, prepare your e-reader for Bargain eBook BLISS!

All ebooks! All genres! All at 99 cents! All Labor Day weekend long.

Plus a chance to win a KINDLE just by signing up for the newsletter!

Check it out NOW! www.indiebookblowout.com

Authors, to get your ebook listed in this phenomenal event, just click HERE for details. The cut off date for entrance is August 26th!

Guest Post by Author Boyd Lemon

Digging Deep: A Writer Uncovers His Marriages

By Boyd Lemon

Twelve years after my third divorce I began writing a memoir about my marriages.  Digging Deep: A writer Uncovers His Marriages has just been released by the publisher, Outskirts Press.*  My journey in writing the memoir was excruciatingly painful, but in the end healed me and brought me the peace that I had never achieved by simply “moving on” after each divorce.  I believe the book can help others to deal with issues in their own relationships.

The impetus for writing the memoir came from a suggestion by the then 26 year old woman whom I call Kate in the memoir.  After 40 plus years practicing law in California, I had moved to Boston to live platonically with Kate, a singer-songwriter attending a music college in Boston.  Guided by her critiques and encouragement I had written a dozen short stories before I left California and continued writing short fiction and a few essays in Boston.

I wanted to write, and I knew I needed a change from life in California where my four children and grandchildren lived.  Boston is a writing city, and I had always enjoyed it when I had visited.  Kate could continue helping me with my writing.  She is a talented writer and teacher, despite her youth.

I didn’t go to Boston intending to write a memoir.  I was itching to write a book, and, of course, a novel came to mind.  When I mentioned that to Kate, she suggested I write a memoir about my three marriages.  “There’s gold there,” she said.  Encouraged by Kate, I started drafting the memoir, not having any idea how it would make me feel.  I finished the first draft six months later.  It was painful reliving the incidents of conflict in my marriages and how it affected my four children, but I had no idea how painful what was to come would be. 

When Kate read the draft, she said it didn’t work, that I could do better.  She advised me to throw it away and start over.  I needed to understand and write about my role in the destruction of my marriages, she said.  I realized she was right.  With her help, the help of another mentor, the great writing teacher and writer, Natalie Goldberg, and dogged persistence, I began digging and meditating and agonizing and thinking and digging some more, and what I came up with as I wrote shocks me even now.  What I had buried was astounding.  The process was excruciating, but in the end healed me.  I learned that writing can do that.

I submitted it to three different editors, in addition to Kate, and a proofreader and revised it numerous times.  Rather than wait the months, sometimes years, that it takes an unknown author to find an agent and then a publisher, I sent it to an author services, print-on-demand publisher, Outskirts Press.  They were a pleasure to work with and put up with my numerous changes and edits before I finally approved the final proofs.  

At the urging of several artists, I used a drawing that I had done of myself for the cover.  That was a thrill to see in itself.  I am hopeful that people will be attracted by it, buy the book and benefit by it.  Relationships these days are terribly difficult, and I feel privileged to write a book that I think might help people understand and deal with their relationships.

*Digging Deep: A Writer Uncovers His Marriages is available on Boyd Lemon’s website, http://www.BoydLemon-Writer.com in print and Kindle formats, or, if you prefer, Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and by order from your local bookstore.

Thanks for visiting Boyd, best of luck with the book!!

Patricia

Interview With Author Kait Nolan

I love your book covers, especially on ‘Blindsight’, did you design them?  Where did you get them done?

Oh heavens, no.  I don’t have that kind of skill with graphic design.  My cover artist is the fabulous Robin Ludwig of Robin Ludwig Designs.  She’s incredibly talented and manages to take the often incoherent description from the authors and turn it into awesomeness.  She’s very reasonably priced and absolutely worth every penny.  Professional cover art is the one area that I absolutely DO NOT believe in skimping on to try and to DIY. A good, professional cover is worth its weight in gold. 

Can you tell us what your new book, Red, is about?

Red is a paranormal YA novel outside my Mirus series. 

Elodie Rose has a secret.  Any day, she’s going to turn into a wolf and succumb to the violence that’s cursed her family for centuries. Living on borrowed time, she can’t deal with brooding bad boy Sawyer, who’s named himself her protector.  But she doesn’t just have the curse and an unwanted bodyguard to contend with.  Someone knows what she is and is determined to exterminate her family line.  Will she survive this madman?  And if she does, will she be the first to survive the curse?

I see that you have ‘Forsaken in Shadow’ available as an audio book.  Could you please tell us where you can get this done or describe the process.  Do they sell well?

I went through Perfect Voices, which is a fantastic company geared toward affordable audio book production.  They have several tiers of pricing available, depending on your budget and the ability to get your audiobook into several distribution channels that you, on your own, simply can’t. My experience with them was fabulous and positive, and I was thrilled with the final product.

Have you done or are you involved in legacy/traditional publishing?  If not, can you tell us why you choose the indie way?

I have not been traditionally published as yet.  I had always expected to go that route, as for years it was the only alternative.  When I wrote Forsaken By Shadow, I intended it use it to start building a following for myself and the series I intended to pitch to New York. Then self publishing exploded and suddenly it was a realistic means to make a living.  That’s all I ever wanted to do.  To be able to make a living and quit my two evil day jobs.  So I threw myself into building my platform (it’s never too early) and writing more.  The great irony was that right when I’d absolutely contented myself with the indie track, I was offered representation by the awesome Laurie McLean, an agent with Larsen-Pomada in San Francisco.  She’s very supportive of my self publishing efforts, and we’re going to be pioneering a new frontier…making a living via a combination of traditional and indie publishing. 

A Round Of Words in 80 Days looks inspiring.  How did all that come about?

I have an addiction to writing challenges, but most of them out there are impractical.  They expect you to check out of your life for two weeks or a month or whatever.  You’re supposed to spew words willy nilly at an incredible rate and put the book first.  That last part is the only thing they get right.  The problem with this scenario is that the point should not be to write a book.  The point is to BE A WRITER.  You need to establish good writing habits to put the writing first all year.  So instead of taking on a challenge to check out of life for a month, I wanted a writing challenge that recognizes that we all HAVE a life, and in order to be professional writers, we must find a way to make the writing a perpetual PART of that life. Establish HABITS, make it NORMAL.  And if Life Happens (as it is wont to do), you simply adjust your goals.  No beating yourself up, no feeling like a failure, just steady progress.  That’s what ROW80 is all about. 

Many writers have a difficult time in the beginning trying to decide what their genre is, do you think that it’s necessary to concentrate on just one or is it ok to have a few?

In the traditional world, genre is a huge part of branding.  Stephen King is synonymous with horror.  Nora Roberts with romance.  And while in the long run, it is great to be able to be counted on for a particular kind of read, I think one of the great things about the indie track is that it gives you more freedom to explore your options.  If you’re interested in several genres, go ahead and explore them.  You never know what’s going to click with readers.  I think the really important thing is to KNOW the rules and conventions of all your genres and deliver a good, solid, well-edited, well-written read.  Readers are more intelligent than they are often given credit for.  As long as you’re not crossing between two serious extremes like erotica and children’s fiction, I think you’re fine doing it all under one name. 

Any advice you can give for people just starting out?

·         Read as many books on craft as you can get your hands on.  I highly recommend Larry Brooks’ Story    Engineering and Debra Dixon’s Goal, Motivation, and Conflict. 

·         Read as many books, period, as you can.  From the good ones, analyze them to figure out what makes them work.  For the bad ones, figure out why they suck.

·         Never underestimate the power of editing.  Get as many eyes on your work as possible to find the errors and fix them before you put your work out.

·         It’s never too early to start building your platform.   Check out Kristen Lamb’s We Are Not Alone: A Writers Guide To Social Media.

·         Serve the work.  Put it first, take constructive criticism in the spirit in which it’s intended and figure out what will truly improve the story and make it sing.

·         Make friends.  Find a good, supportive crit partner who will tell you the truth, not just stroke your ego.  Check out Crit Partner Match. 

·         Remember that, traditional or indie, publishing is a long haul game.  Overnight success is a myth (no matter what rumors you may have heard).  A platform and reputation take time to build, so just keep putting one foot in front of the other and do something toward your dream every day.

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

--Ray Bradbury

"Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else." Gloria Steinem 

Thanks so much Kait.  Best of luck to you in your career!

Patricia

Indie Writers Zone

The Indie Writers Zone has been created to help the independent author with all the must have tools to facilitate a fabulous indie writing career.  All the stuff you need will be here plus advice from those who have bravely gone out into the unknown ahead of you.  From writing, formatting, editing and publishing info to author interviews and book reviews, together we will have a wild ride.  Onwards my friends...