Awesome Cool: You Can Preview My Book Right Here!

Amazon just rolled out an embed feature with their book sharing choices and I just had to give it a test run right here!  So if you've ever wanted to PREVIEW Loving Ashe without leaving this site, check out the preview below.

So where can you find this option? Right here:

You'll find it on the right side of the page, underneath the Buy box (at least on my Mac, that's where I see it on the website version).  They also have a HTML option for Wordpress.com sites which don't usually allow certain frame html on their page.

It's Cover Reveal Day for "A Collateral Attraction (Fire & Ice Series 1)"

When hippie Billie Delphine joins her sophisticated twin sister, Blythe, in New York for a vacation, the last thing she expects is for Blythe to disappear with embattled heir, Ethan Kheiron, or be involved in an embezzlement scandal. So when Ethan's brother, Heath, suggests they work together to find Blythe before the scandal is exposed, Billie agrees, even if it means entering a whole new world of personal shopping sprees and private planes, where millions of dollars hide decades of lies.  

But a life of luxury, no matter how temporary, is no match for the years of unresolved differences between sisters. And even as Billie fights the attraction she feels for Heath, she knows that they're all just pieces on someone else's game of power, where some of them are more expendable than others.

Cover designed by @Dani_CoverArt

Can You Really Pitch Your Novel on Twitter? Apparently, Yes

A few months ago, I read about someone who sold her screenplay on Twitter for up to six figures.  When I told one of my massage client this, he asked, "how could anyone pitch anything using only140 characters?"

Well, I had no idea either.  And when an author pitch event happened on Twitter a month ago and everyone was telling everyone not to favorite any of the pitches (that's reserved for the publishing house; if they do fave your pitch, then be ready to submit your manuscript), it scared me enough not to even understand what was going on or how it worked.  Two fellow authors did do the event and their pitches got picked.

So anyway, as of this morning, I can now say that I do have an idea on how it's done.  And it's not as nerve-wracking as I thought it would be, though narrowing your blurb to less than 140 characters can be tricky and you'll need to craft a few versions of them to tweet out.  I only tweeted the best one I could come up with out of 6 versions.

What is nerve-wracking is when your pitch does get faved by a publisher, as mine did during this morning's pitch event.  It got faved five minutes after I tweeted it.

So what's next? Well, I'm supposed to send them the first four chapters of my manuscript and they'll let me know if it's good enough for them or not.  I still need to see what else they'll need besides those chapters and work from there.

And whether or not the outcome is positive or not, I did get to learn what all the pitch madness is all about on Twitter and not be overwhelmed or intimidated by it when it happens again.  And to answer that question whether someone can really pitch a novel or a screenplay in less than 140 characters?  Yep, it can be done!

Growing Pains of An Indie-Author

I'm still trying to navigate this overwhelming new world of marketing for writers, especially self-published writers like me.  There's so much to do that I have to keep a notebook and jot down all the notes, all the websites, all the tips that everyone else swears will work to promote your book - turns out I'm such a visual-kinesthetic learner that I have to actually jot down, scribble, sketch the ideas on paper before it makes its mark a bit more permanently than just plain reading or watching some how-to video on Youtube.   And while my notes are constantly growing, the toughest part will be the execution of these tips successfully.

And in the process of the execution, there will be mistakes.  And because I'm easily distracted, there will be lots of mistakes.

Take Loving Ashe for example, which is going through a re-release party of sorts in mid-November, when the paperback version will be released.

When I first published Loving Ashe, it was to no fanfare at all. Why? Probably just excitement, but part of the reason was that I wanted to gather reader reviews on sites such as Amazon and Goodreads, even Smashwords.  Then barely one month after publication, I made the decision (as an experiment) to have the book exclusive to a Amazon's Kindle Direct Select or KDP for 90 days.  I figured, I'd see if that would help increase my sales.  It's also part of the Kindle Unlimited lending library.

With only one month left to go in the 3-month term, I've un-checked the box that says "Automatically renew this book to KDP in another 90 days..." because while there are sales, right now 1 book per day and sometimes 2, when I went to check my Smashwords dashboard, I found out that I made more money selling Loving Ashe on iBooks, Barnes & Noble, and even Scribd in less than a month than I have on Amazon.

And I also hate having all my eggs in one basket.

There are also many people who refuse to buy from Amazon, and from among my bodywork clients alone, I've counted 6 people alone.  That's 6 sales I would have lost - and am losing - while my book remains solely on Amazon.

So starting November 10th, Loving Ashe will be back up on Smashwords and made available to other retailers like iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, though I think Scribd is out of the running if Loving Ashe is categorized under Romance since they've pulled out romance books from their library. Turns out, romance readers were driving their company model to the ground - they were gobbling up more books in a month than was financially feasible.  I'm actually a Scribd subscriber and one who barely has enough time to read any of the books that I've earmarked in my library. Most of the books I read on Scribd happens to be Charles Bukowski's poetry - go figure.

Anyway, so if you haven't yet gotten your copy of Loving Ashe because you refuse to buy it from Amazon, which is the only place you can get it right now, don't despair.  November 11 (hey, that's 11/11!) is the date it will go back up to all the other online retailers and I'll be doing a happy dance then, too.  Now my only problem is figuring out how to get the paperback available from sites other than Amazon.  But then you can always buy that from me :)

The Inspiration Behind Loving Ashe

©Guylty

People often ask what led me to write Loving Ashe, and other than NaNoWriMo 2014, it started a year and a half earlier with a writing prompt about an elevator. At that time, publicity was in full swing for the lead actors of The Hobbit, namely Richard Armitage.  And after seeing a picture of him during one of the publicity events in New York, I wondered what would happen if my main character got stuck in an elevator with a handsome man whom she didn't recognize was an actor because she was feeling too guilty over something she'd almost done. A bit complicated, I know, but this was the premise for Elevator, the short story that was the result of the writing prompt.

A year and a half later, with the characters slowly coming into their own like fine wine, Riley Eames and Ashe Hunter were "born" just in time for NaNoWriMo14.  Ashe became much younger at 32 than Armitage (43) and Riley remained that magical age of 23 (kinda New Adult but kinda not).

The idea to keep Ashe an actor, giving Riley a little glimpse into his life in show business is based on my experiences as a massage therapist, visiting homes of people who worked in the business, from directors, producers, managers, agents and the actors themselves.  Some were older, and part of Old Hollywood as we know it now and some were even rappers who were also actors.  

The one thing that struck me about the actors though was that while they were known as one thing in the public eye, behind closed doors - even if those doors were mansions in Bel-Air or Sherman Oaks or Malibu - they were normal people like you and me.  Sure, they had more security, had game rooms larger than my entire house, and you often needed a map to navigate your way from one end of the house to the other.  But they were still normal. They had the same aches and pains as you and I do, watch the same shows and even read the same books.  They had their dreams, pursued them with a passion and had work ethics to die for.  But they also worried about their kids the same way I worry about my kids and most of all, they were just as insecure as you and me.  

It was a far cry from the tough, often bad-boy or bitchy image they portrayed on billboards, movies, or on talk shows.  

I'm sure there are many people in the "business" who aren't so nice, but so far, I've been fortunate.  In my case, it was meeting one man, a line producer, who got me "in."  So impressed was he with my bodywork (deep tissue techniques specializing in treatment of chronic pain, plus I do tend to talk when talked to), that he referred me to the star of the movie he was producing, who then referred me to the director of the same movie, who then referred me to another actor...and so on.  One person.  

These days, I've let go of the stars and the directors and the producers since marrying and starting a family but I can never forget the inside look they all gave me into their lives and their homes and their families.  The thrill of being recognized and called by your first name is something you can't describe, but at the same time, it's something you can't buy as real.  In the end, I was still their massage therapist and it was business.  I was also bound to client privacy so whatever they were willing to share with me was to remain with me and no one else.

Maybe they'll show up in my stories but luckily if something does, it's all pretty tame.  Or at least in my fiction it is.

Loving Ashe is now available to buy from Amazon.

The Morning After

It's the morning after I finished Collateral, my entry in SYTYCW15 competition and the delirium has finally subsided.  Reality has set in, and as I sit here in front of my laptop with its busted keyboard from too much writing and waiting for the coffee to kick in, I have only one thought in mind.

I'll never do that again.

Next time, instead of writing from scratch, and deliriously editing like crazy during the final days just to get to a decent word count, without even finishing the epilogue or last chapter of the novel, before hitting Complete while still wondering if the ending was right, I'm submitting a finished and edited work.  Not one that just got the NaNoWriMo first month treatment - nothing against NaNoWriMo as I've done it three years in a row but, well, you know what I mean.  I'm usually very attached to my characters but with this one, it feels like Heath and Billie were introduced to me and before I could warm up to them, they were quickly pushed out the door and out into the competition world to be judged.

So next time I hear of a writing competition, I need to go in prepared and just submit something that's already been polished.

Still, I really can't complain. I churned out a 90K+ novel in 88 days, pared down to 85K and after a bit of time away from it, I can return to it and start editing and adding in the bits and pieces that got left out from the rush.  The contest results don't even matter at all, because at the end of the day, I learned two things:

1. I learned how to do a blurb the right way.
2. I learned how to write according to a plot I had written down versus just pants-ing the story all the way. And for a self-admitted pants-er (converted from years of being an overdone plotter), that's a huge thing.  

So, I'm taking it easy the next couple of days, though there's still a lot of writing to do, as well as writing-related stuff.  I'm editing Loving Riley, my sequel to Loving Ashe, which I published in August, and while I finalize some things with the paperback version for Createspace, I'm working on a major change for Loving Ashe which I can't wait to share with you all soon.  

Loving Ashe

A booty call. A stuck elevator. A chance to move on. 

Three years after her ex-boyfriend dumped her for his Hollywood dream, barista Riley Eames' life has been on hold, plagued by questions only he can answer. So when he asks for a late-night meeting, Riley agrees, only to find herself stuck in the hotel elevator with dashing British actor, Ashe Hunter, who's in town to promote his latest movie.

 But even as sparks fly between them, it's going to take more than a celebrity romance to get Riley's life moving again, not when the answers she's been seeking finally come - and with disastrous results.

Amazon