YA Indie Carnival ~ Songs That Inspire Stories in My Head

Music is one of those things that really gets the creative wheels turning for me. Scenes in my head come to life. Bands that really conjure stories in my head are: 30 Seconds to Mars, Black Lab, Andrew Belle, Parachute, and Snow Patrol.

I just found this one, and had to add it to my post. Close your eyes and listen. I see Ethan and Danielle together and kissing...or whatever...just as long as it's sappy. LOL



With Open Your Eyes, by Andrew Belle, I see the romantic parts of the story, as well as the sad...I see Ethan and Danielle waltzing...



When I listen to Weightless by Black Lab, I see Tessa and Christian from Fair Maiden...



Until next time....And as always, take a moment to check out my other carni friends at YA Indie Carnival.

1.Laura A. H. Elliott author of Winnemucca & 13 on Halloween
2.Bryna Butler, author Midnight Guardian series
3.Heather Self
4.T. R. Graves, Author of The Warrior Series
5.Suzy Turner, author of The Raven Saga
6.Cheri Schmidt, author of the Fateful Trilogy
7.Rachel Coles, author of Into The Ruins, geek mom blog
8.K. C. Blake, author of Vampires Rule and Crushed
9.Patti Larsen, The Hunted series and The Hayle Coven series
10.Amy Maurer Jones, Author of The Soul Quest Trilogy
11.Dani Snell's Refracted Light Reviews
12. Fisher Amelie, author of The Understorey
13.M. Leighton, Blood Like Poison Series, Madly, The Reaping
14.Kimberly Kinrade, Bits of You & Pieces of Me, Forbidden Mind
15.Madeline Smoot, Missing, Summer Shorts, and The Girls
16.Cidney Swanson, author of Rippler
17.Gwenn Wright, author of Filter
18.TG Ayer
19.Melissa Pearl, Author of The Time Spirit Trilogy
20.Heather M. White, author of The Destiny Saga
21.Roots in Myth, PJ Hoover
22.Courtney Cole Writes

YA Indie Carnival ~ On The Rise ~ Why do you love YA Fantasy?

Of course I have my own ideas as to why this genre is growing like mad. I feel YA Fantasy gives us a mental break from daily life. I feel it crosses over well because there seems to be a gap in the market for clean, or mostly clean romance. I know not all YA is clean, but it does tend to be cleaner than most adult. I think the popular YA movies are part of this too, it seems like people want movies they can take the whole family to, and maybe it's the same way with books? Anyway, that's just my opinion, but I'm curious about what your reasons are for reading YA fantasy/romance. So post a comment and tell me!!! Especially if you're not technically a young adult any longer, like me. :D

Why do you love YA Fantasy so much?
Is it because you're still young at heart?
Or is it because you feel YA tends to be cleaner with just enough romance to satisfy the sappy side of you?
Or is it for a completely different reason all together?
Tell me! Tell me! ;D

Don't forget the Gratitude Giveaway Hop in the post below...Win Danielle's pearl necklace as mentioned in Fateful.

Until next time, my friends! But before you leave, check out my other amazing YA Carnival friends:

1. Laura A. H. Elliott author of Winnemucca & 13 on Halloween, Book 1 in the Teen Halloween Series
2. Bryna Butler, author Midnight Guardian series
3. Heather Self
4. T. R. Graves, Author of The Warrior Series
5. Suzy Turner, author of The Raven Saga
6. Darby Karchut, author of GRIFFIN RISING
7. Lexus Luke
8. PJ Hoover, Author of SOLSTICE, Blogging at ROOTS IN MYTH
9. Cheri Schmidt, author of the Fateful Trilogy
10. Rachel Coles, author of Into The Ruins, geek mom blog
11. K. C. Blake, author of Vampires Rule and Crushed
12. Patti Larsen, The Hunted series and The Hayle Coven series
13. Courtney Cole, author of The Bloodstone Saga
14. Amy Maurer Jones, Author of The Soul Quest Trilogy
15. Dani Snell's Refracted Light Reviews
16. Fisher Amelie, author of The Understorey
17. M. Leighton, Blood Like Poison Series, Madly, The Reaping
18. Abbi Glines, author of Breathe and The Vincent Boys
19. Kimberly Kinrade, Bits of You & Pieces of Me, Forbidden Mind
20. Madeline Smoot, Missing, Summer Shorts, and The Girls
21. Cidney Swanson, author of Rippler
22. Nicole Williams, author of Eternal Eden, Falling Eden
23. Gwenn Wright, author of Filter

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.)

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. ;)

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