YA Indie Carnival ~ My Indie Idol

I'm moving in a few days, so I need to keep it simple this week. (Don't worry, wonderful readers, I'm working on Forever while boxing stuff up! I hope to give you a release date very soon.)

One of my indie idols is definitely John Locke. My husband purchased his book “How I sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months!”



I’ve been trying to do what he suggests, and one of those things is get lots of books out. I have three out now, and I have several more in the works. Of course this move isn’t helping my writing schedule much. Anyway, I was delighted when he started following me on Twitter the other day. Maybe many of you don’t know who he is, but for me it was like having a celebrity notice you! On his Twitter account he says, "I'm John Locke, the private investor and crime fiction writer, not the guy on Lost!" Hmm, now you'll know I never watched Lost because I know who John Locke the writer is, and not the guy on Lost.

I recommend his book for writers, and he just posted a great blog post for self-published authors...

“The world makes it hard enough for you to be successful, so you’re not going to see me piling on the negativity! Let others talk about the mountains. I’ll show you where the tunnels are! Others can talk about the raging rivers, I’ll point you toward the bridges! Yes, there are roadblocks in the land of self-publishing, but there are super highways, too.”~ John Locke

To read the whole thing, go here. www.lethalbooks.com

I have been disappointed with my US sales during the summer, but my UK sales have picked up. I don’t understand why. Even so, my sales have been great enough that I’m not going to lower my expectations. Going indie is still one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

I recently joined YA Indie Carnival and I'm really enjoying it. I'm linked in with a bunch of really great people. If you're looking for some entertaining YA reading, please check out any one of these blogs:

The Fuji Mermaid Dani Snell's Refracted Light Reviews
Leopard Girl Patti Larsen Author of The Ghost Boy of MacKenzie House, The Hunted Series and the Hayle Coven Novels.
Fire Breather Courtney Cole Author of Every Last Kiss, Fated, Princess, and Guardian. Also a contributing author in The Glassheart Chronicles.
The Magician Wren Emerson Author of I Wish and a contributing author in The Glassheart Chronicles.
Strong Woman Nicole Williams Author of Eternal Eden, and Fallen Eden. She is also a contributing author in the Glassheart Chronicles.
Champion Sword Swallower Fisher Amelie Author of The Understorey, as well as a contributing author in The Glassheart Chronicles.
Snake Charmer Amy Maurer Jones Author of The Soul Quest Trilogy as well as a contributing author in The Glassheart Chronicles.
Pretzel Woman Rachel Coles. Geek Mom. Book Reviewer Author of Diary of a Duct Tape Zombie, Whistles, Beergarden, Plagues, Bees of St. John, and Mushrooms.
The Giant T. R. Graves T.R. Graves: Author of Warriors of the Cross.
Woman With A Song That Hypnotizes Cyndi Tefft Author of Between
Jungle Woman P.J. Hoover Author of Solstice, The Emerald Tablet, The Navel of the World, The Necropolis.
Shape Shifter Alicia McCalla Author of the upcoming science-fiction novel Breaking Free
Tarot Card Reader Heather Cashman Author of Perception
Fortune Teller Abbi Glines Author of Breathe, and the upcoming Existence and Vincent Boys
Knife Thrower Cheri Schmidt Author of Fateful, Fractured, Forever, and Fair Maiden
Elephant Trainer Gwenn Wright Author of Filter
Ring-Leader Kimberly Kinrade Author of Bits of You, Pieces of Me and Forbidden Mind
Prestidigitator J.L. Bryan Author of Paranormals series- Jenny Pox. Tommy Nightmare & Alexander Death
Death Defying Darby Darby Karchut Author of Griffin Rising

Another Sample of Forever, Book3 in the Fateful Trilogy

Welcome to Sweet Saturday Samples! The last excerpt of Forever was so popular, I decided to gift you with another. If I gain a lot of blog followers from this, then I'll likely post a few more clips...maybe....

Told from Danielle's point of view:

A pleased smile captured his lips as he braced his hands on the trees at either side of her and leaned toward her for a kiss. She could see her reflection in his glasses as well as the flirtatious twinkle in his eyes. But instead of matching his mouth with hers, he shoved her backward into the leaves and bluebells and landed on top of her. “What—?” was all she managed as the air whooshed out of her lungs before one of the guards shouted, “Pixies!”

That’s when she realized Ethan hadn’t intentionally knocked her down; he’d fallen into her when Merrick shoved him down. Looking just as surprised as she was, Ethan shifted so he wasn’t squashing her with his weight but maintained a protective position above her. He also looked for his glasses which had slid off as they fell and then bounced off her cheek before tumbling into the thick undergrowth.

“Do you have salt?” Danielle asked as the little creatures entered her line of vision and their rotten-apple smell assaulted her nose.

When he jammed his hand into his pocket and tossed what looked like white particles of granular snow at a swarm of sharp-toothed and snapping pixies, she took that as a yes.

Ethan lifted his arms and came back down on top of her shielding her from another shower of salt thrown by the guards this time. Danielle closed her eyes as it pelted her skin not covered by Ethan.

When Ethan lowered his left hand to the ground to brace himself, lifted his head, and looked over his shoulder, she could see the guards battling against what looked like hundreds of pixies. The men tossed salt and smacked away the creatures attacking them. Merrick, who was the closest to her and Ethan, backhanded three at once as they tried to fly past him. The pixies went sailing like thin, snarling toys.

A huge crowd of them got past Merrick though. While the vampires swatted and tossed salt at the pixies, Danielle got a better view of what was attacking them. In truth, she’d never actually seen them this close up before. With their skinny bodies they looked something like stick bugs but they had little faces sort of like fairies, except a wicked twist of their lips made what could be smiles evil-looking. Instead of having brown skin, however, they were actually a pretty shade of pale-blue mixed with brown. That was the only appealing thing about pixies though. Miniature beasts closed in on them with claw-tipped hands raised and needle-sharp teeth exposed. Their smell became overpowering enough to make her sneeze. When her eyes blinked open again the pixies grabbed hold of Ethan’s backpack and pulled. Ethan let it slide free of his arms before he was dragged along with it. Danielle kicked out and managed to impact two of them, sending them flipping head over heel away from them. Ethan swung out with a fist too but they’d gone for his clothes this time and hauled him right off her.

“Ethan!” she screamed reaching for him. Danielle had no idea those things were so strong until then.

He swore and fought to get them off his clothes as his feet actually left the ground.

(If you haven't read the Fateful series yet, get them by clicking on the pictures below. Ebooks are priced at .99 and 2.99. Printed copies are around $10. Printed copies of Fractured will be availabe within the next week.)






For more Sweet Saturday Samples go here. (Please note that all of these samples are copyrighted by the authors and can't be copied or distributed without the author's written permission.)

More Updates or News or whatever you want to call it...

I’ll soon be posting an interview of Ethan done by guest blogger, Drew, my husband. This should be interesting... LOL

I’m typing feverishly away at Forever. I’m always surprised at how a story just takes on a life of its own.

A new version of Fair Maiden was recently uploaded. We found a few mistakes while getting it ready for print. It will be available in print very soon. And when it is, I’ll start selling signed copies via my website.

Thanks to Tifferz Book Review for the great review of Fractured she recently posted on her blog. Check it out...

THANK YOU to my loyal readers and followers. I aim to please and I’m extremely grateful for the support. I’ve just exceeded 10,000 books in sales and will be having another giveaway to celebrate. So watch for that too. (Also, thanks Joe Konrath! I couldn’t have done this had you not been so open and informative on your blog.)