3rd Annual Summer Treasure Hunt: Dig for Clues and Win! Contest

Welcome to our 3rd Annual “Summer Treasure Hunt: Dig for Clues and Win Contest!” This is becoming an exciting tradition, both for our sponsors and hopefully for all of you! 29 writer friends and I have banded together to present a month-long contest where we will give away a prize a day for the entire month of June. That’s right! 30 awesome prizes, running the gamut from books books books! (romances, fantasies, mystery/thrillers, inspirationals, children’s books, and various non-fiction), as well as Amazon gift cards, a Mary Kay gift set, a vinyl lettering gift certificate, a hand-sewn weekly planner with ribbon bookmark, a crocheted book tote with matching cell phone case, and again for you aspiring authors, TWO free edit/critiques of a partial manuscript. Many of the giveaways are open to International entries, though always check to be sure before you enter for a particular prize.

And how exactly do you enter for these amazing prizes? By following these rules:

SUMMER TREASURE HUNT RULES:
You can send in one entry for each day’s prize, or only for those prizes that strike your fancy. The rules are simple:

(1) Go to the website or blog indicated for each day, find the answer to the question for that day, then email the answer with your name and AND MAILING ADDRESS to jdipastena@yahoo.com. I promise you will not wind up on any mailing lists. This is only to facilitate the receipt of your prize. All entries will be deleted at the end of the contest.

(2) Please send a separate entry for each day and type the day you are entering in the subject line. (Such as: Summer Treasure Hunt, June 1; Summer Treasure Hunt, June 2, etc).

(3) Deadline for each day: Midnight PST

(4) The winner will be contacted and announced on the day following the deadline.

All winners will be drawn by www.random.org.
You do not have to wait until the designated day to enter. You can start sending in your entries right now, or begin entering at any point along the way. And check back here each day between June 2nd – July 1st to read the names of the winners.
If you have any questions, please email Joyce DiPastena at jdipastena@yahoo.com.
And now…let the treasure hunt begin!

Click here to view the daily prizes and blog addresses (with hotlinks) to all the fun!

I sponsor on June 8th and I'll be giving away a signed copy of Fateful.... But don't miss out on the days before and after me!

FRACTURED - Now for Sale

The Fateful Trilogy continues with Fractured. Now available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. No, it’s not called Fractured because Ethan and Danielle break up...in case you were wondering. Unlike some romance novel heroes, Ethan would never leave Danielle.

Kindle Users - Purchase here for just $2.99

Nook Users - Purchase here for just $2.99

They had thought they’d escaped most of the danger surrounding them, when in truth they’ve made it worse by unintentionally sparking a civil war amongst vampires. Many vampires want to protect them for discovering the cure to the curse binding their kind. However many more want to destroy them for that same discovery.

Ethan’s and Danielle’s struggle for survival intensifies while they sink deeper into the midst of this danger. The romantic fairytale bliss they once had will soon fracture under the pressure of the curse....

Kindle Users - Purchase here for just $2.99

Nook Users - Purchase here for just $2.99

Print versions will follow in about 30 days

Print versions of Fateful will soon be on their way.

Update on Fractured

I wanted to give everyone a little update on Fractured. This is the sequel to Fateful, book 2 in the Fateful Trilogy. The cover is done. Formatting for Kindle and Nook are almost done as well. I'm waiting on a few more of my editors to get back to me and once I make those final editing changes the book will be posted. The hope is to get that done sometime tomorrow, Saturday and get the book posted on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I'll be at their mercy then.....and their approval process can take anywhere from 24-72 hours to approve and post the book.

I'll put a little blurb here and on Twitter when I upload. And then of course the Website, This Blog, and Twitter will have posts once the book is live!

Thank you to everyone for your purchases of Fateful and Fair Maiden.

Two contests to enter! Don't miss out!

First check out Tifferz Book Review to win an eBook copy of Fateful. This contest ends on the 31st and all you have to do is leave a comment to enter.

Then, I’m having a review contest which I’ll announce as soon as I have pictures of the prizes... So check back soon!

Fateful Book Review by Tifferz

Fateful on Tifferz Book Review! If you're looking for something good to read, and need someone else's take on it to decide, I recommend her delightful blog!

"Tifferz Take-
Okay guys we have a Must read new author Cheri Schmidt. I can honestly say I love this book and can't wait till the next two come out! Yup we are lucky this is the first book in the three book series! I was quickly pulled into this story and loved every minute of it. Cheri is a very creative writer and knows how to tell a story. This book contains magic, vampires (good and evil) lots of passionate kissing (this is a clean romance), fairies, suspense and some unexpected twists! This book is for everyone. I really enjoyed how Cheri told a modern day story with an excellent plot and romance. You will not want to put this book down. Worth every penny. A must to own. I will be reading this one again very soon. As I can't seem to get the story out of my mind!!!"

And...I just finished the cover for Fractured, the sequel to Fateful. As soon as I'm done with edits it will be released. Soon....

Sales Update

So at the beginning of the week I mentioned my sales numbers in this post - 1 Month 2 Books over 211 Sales. Well this week has been sort of crazy....

As of this evening, 8:45 PM on Saturday, Amazon is showing this:

Amazon Bestsellers Rank:

#990 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

#31 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Children's Fiction > Literature > Love & Romance

#35 in Books > Teens > Literature & Fiction > Love & Romance

#59 in Books > Teens > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy

To get to this point I went from 211 book sales to 489. We'll probably end the day around 500 or more.

A big thank you to all who have bought the book. I'm truly humbled. I hope I have provided some fun entertainment for you. Book #2 in the Fateful Series, called Fractured, will be out soon.

And another Thank You to Joe Konrath for inspiring me to take this route!

My Book Covers - Fair Maiden

Now a bit about the cover for Fair Maiden. Once again I created this entire cover in Adobe Photoshop. I also took many of the pictures. The model is a young women my daughter knows and a friend of the family.

For the dress I bought the material a year ago hoping to use it for this the cover. I found a pattern I liked and sewed the top together. It's decorator fabric and is extremely thick. The back, sleeves and sides of the dress have rivets and it laces all up together. After pounding in over 80 rivets I think I may never do that again. Well, at least not with thick fabric like that. It's kind of too bad you can't see them in the photo, especially with how much work they were!


The bottom of the dress is just an extra piece of material draped across the model to look like a skirt. She was wearing jeans under it. The material is so heavy it wouldn't really make a very good dress.

HER HAIR!!! - The model has beautiful hair but not quite long enough for what I had in mind, or quite blond enough. A large portion of her long locks have been added just for the picture. All of that was done in Photoshop. It took quite a while to get it looking just right. Her hair alone probably consists of about 9-10 layers in Photoshop.


The wall behind the bed, the castle out through the window are all stock photos or images I obtained the rights to. Again, brushes were used from Brusheezy and the most prominent one is from Lileya.deviantart.com She really has some great stuff!

This cover took quite a while to design and it's made up if over 80 layers in Photoshop!


It should be noted that wedding dresses in medieval times were not white but looked very similar to this style. The only thing not quite right is that her sleeves would have been long and they are described that way in the book. However, it wouldn't look balanced graphically if I had done them long for the cover. The rebellious side of me made them quarter-length for artistic reasons. ;)

Courtney's Chitter Chatter

Fair Maiden has been reviewed by Courtney. On her blog she says, "I have a desire to find YA books that are clean and Christian Fiction books that are great but not to preachy!" If you want to find good clean reads, then her blog is a great place to check out.

Some of what she said about Fair Maiden:

"If I could give this book more like 4.5 stars I would! This is such a unique story line that I had no idea where it was heading. Completely unpredictable and very entertaining. From the moment you start reading Fair Maiden you get sucked in to this young woman’s life and wish you could help her. Tessa is a lovable character, she is so innocent and sweet and a tad emotional, but I guess anyone would be in her predicament. The Lord of Krestly Castle, Christian is a remarkable character also, he is manly yet sweet and very protective of his lovely ghost girl. I loved his terms of endearment for Tessa and I also loved the way he struggled with his feelings and desires for her!

There was so many twists and turns in this book it is hard to really describe what you are going to read about without giving away some of the juicy details but I found this to be a very fun, magical and romantic read. The ending is a surprise but very delightful. YA readers, fantasy and historical fantasy lovers will enjoy this book that I highly recommend!"

My Book Covers - Fateful

I thought I would take a moment and share a little background about one of my book covers. First of all I took most of the pictures associated with the cover. The picture of Big Ben was taken during my 2009 Anniversary trip to London with my husband. We stayed a few nights at a Marriott directly across from the Thames near Big Ben. We both love photography and took thousands of pictures on the trip.

The model on the right is my biggest fan, and she really wanted to be on the cover. I was happy to oblige.

The model on the left is a friend of hers. He was good enough to help a new and struggling author with her cover especially because the stock photo I had originally wanted was $500. Fateful is doing very well, but I still wouldn't be able to afford that price. And since I've worked many years as a professional photographer, I really didn't see the point in paying someone else that much for a photo I could take.

I used Adobe Photoshop to create the final product. If you are unfamiliar with Photoshop imagine those old over-head projectors when a teacher would lay one transparency over the top of another to teach a lesson. Photoshop works in very much the same way. This image has about 30 layers or more. The picture of Big Ben is the bottom layer. Built on top of that are the models, the moon, the glow on the moon, the text, a couple of texture layers and the graphic embellishment. Even a bit of stubble was added to the male model's face. There is some overall shading and smoothing done to blend it all together and this is the result.

Some of the graphic designs are Photoshop brushes from http://www.brusheezy.com/ and/or 123freebrushes If you use brushes like this, I would recommend checking the copy right on each one to make certain they can be used for commercial purposes.

It takes a few hows to get it the way I want it...and it takes a bit of trial and error, even so, I immensely enjoy the process. Of course I hope you like the design as well.

1 Month 2 Books over 211 Sales

So it's been just over a month since Fateful was launched on the Kindle at Amazon. The Nook followed about a week later. Half way through last week I was able to launch Fair Maiden on both the Nook and Kindle. With those two books I ended last week having sold just over 211 books in about 30 days.

I might be old fashioned but I try not to do any work on Sunday. Yet I always get tempted to at least go look at my ranking and see what is going on. On Sunday morning, Mother's Day, I saw the following:

Fateful - Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#2,697 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#66 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Children's Fiction > Literature > Love & Romance

#85 in Books > Teens > Literature & Fiction > Love & Romance

Since dropping the price of Fateful to 99 cents, Fateful has gone from an overall ranking of 18,000 to the 3,000-5,000. Bouncing around in that range and going higher in the ranking every day. Earlier last week I would pop in and out of the Top 100 in Love & Romance. Then since Friday Fateful seems to have found a way to at least stay in the Top 100 somehow.

Seeing #85 in Books - Love & Romance helped start out my Mother's Day right. I'm so grateful to all those people who have spent money on my book. It may only be 99 cents to them, but to me it's just incredible!!

Fair Maiden and Fateful

My first book in the Fair Maiden Series is now available for sale.

Fair Maiden is a new series I'm working on and is a historical fantasy romance with a paranormal twist. I think you'll enjoy it.

Fair Maiden on Barnes & Noble for Nook for $2.99

Fair Maiden on Amazon for Kindle for $2.99

Description:
It's the Victorian era in England, but Tessa is from the medieval past. She awakens within a castle she has never seen before. Knowledge of her name also evades her. However, even worse than not knowing who or where she is, she cannot recall how she died or why she is dressed as a bride. Along with Christian, the earl of the castle she haunts, Tessa tries to discover who she is and break the spell holding her in a prison of death. They never imagined the curse keeping them apart is the only thing protecting her, until it's too late.

And Fateful, the first book in the Fateful Series, has been lowered to 99 cents for a limited time.

Fateful on Amazon for the Kindle

Fateful on Barnes & Noble for the Nook

Fictional people, real places - Van Kampen Gardens

Guest post by Cheri's husband....

So Cheri is very busy trying to get the 2nd book of the Fateful series, Fractured, released as well as finish the cover for both Fractured and Fair Maiden. As such, I'm going to take this opportunity to give you a bit of background on some of the factual places in Cheri's fictional book Fateful.


Like most books the people in Cheri's books are fictional but they are placed in real places, or at least environments based on real places, though probably tweaked by her imagination. In Chapter 4 of Fateful we are introduced to a place called Van Kampen Gardens.

To tell this story we'll go back to April of 2009. It was our 20th Anniversary and Cheri dreamed of going to England. With a large collection of frequent flyer miles and hotel credits from my business travels we cashed them in and spent two wonderful weeks travelling all over England.


Cheri was finished with Fateful, which was written some time in 07-08, and was looking for an agent or publisher. She had studied this garden remotely over the internet and we purposely picked this as a stop on our trip. This is a beautiful Garden. Unfortunately for us spring had not yet sprung so while the garden was beautiful, it had not fully bloomed.


Just as there is in the book there is a huge wisteria arch that runs through the gardens. Yet as you can see below there were no blooms or green on it yet.




And of course there was a maze. This is the archway and door that lead to the start of the maze.





And of course there is a tower in the middle of the maze.






The area of the gardens is very flat. And from the tower you can see the entire garden and of course the entire maze.





The tower has a secret exit that runs under the maze and deposits you into a garden that is hidden and secluded.



We sort of wished that we could have seen the garden at it's peak. I'm sure we'll try to get back here some day.




We visited the gardens twice in as many days. We took over 400 pictures. For a final bit of trivia it is very probable that many of Cheri's ancestors knew of this place. And even a bit strange, Cheri didn't know she had so many ancestors who lived near here when she chose the location for her book. She only discovered the connection afterward.

Cheri's Great Grandfather was born near here in 1824. For over 180 years prior to that her ancestors called the surrounding area just west of this garden home. In fact, her 2nd Great Grandfather is buried only about 4 miles from this garden. As we visited the area we had to wonder what those ancestors knew of this place and wondered if they had any interaction with it.

If you haven't already picked up a copy of Fateful go get it while it's on sale for .99 cents. It will not be at the price forever....


In closing I just want to say thank you to all of you who have purchased Cheri's book. Keep an eye out for some new books within the next week or sooner. - Drew