Tag Archives: bookworm

You Can’t Have Too Many Fairy Godmothers!

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When you saw or read the story of Cinderella, who did  you cheer for? Was it the poor servant who was given a chance at love?

Or was it the fairy godmother who made it all happen?

How about Pinocchio? Did you cheer for the boy made out of wood, or did you want more screen time for the blue fairy who performed a miracle for the boy to live?

And Sleeping Beauty? In the Disney movie, the three fairy godmothers stole the show with their comic relief.

For me, I loved the magic behind the story. I loved the fairy godmothers!

Hidden CoverLast November, I published a quirky fantasy book about a pregnant fairy godmother who ventures to the forbidden human world to find her child’s father (Hidden: A Pregnant Fairy Godmother’s Journey…) I didn’t think too hard as I wrote it, just having fun along the way, creating places like Prosthetics-R-Us, meals like platapus eggs and meatloaf, and a character who said Dibbity, Dobbity, Doo!

This story was a much needed break after finishing  novel that I struggled with for nearly a year (The Secret Lives of Superhero Wives.) It’s only novella length (about 30,000 words) but tells an entire story.

As ridiculous as this story was, it was my fourth published story and the first one that my 13 year old daughter read. (I had to promise her there were no swear words in it!) Hidden was never meant to have any other stories in this world, but after my daughter finished the story, she kept asking me to write the story of Ciera (my main character’s) baby.

Well, I’m leaving the story of Kamda (Ciera’s daughter) to my own daughter to write (she’s about 3000 words into the story,) BUT I did write another story in the Fairy Godmother Universe.

Why?

Because you can’t have too many fairy godmothers!

legends of the veil

My newest addition to the Fairy Godmother World is titled Trapped: One Fairy Godmother’s Impossible Love… It’s less quirky, but just as fun. It’s another novella length work that’s currently only available in the Legends of the Veil anthology. Once again, I wrote it as an escape from a current project (The Angels of Sojourn Series.)

This novella tells the story of Mila, a fairy godmother who’s been in love with Lincoln, a human, since she was six. Now, nearly twenty years later, this human is getting married, and Mila finds herself faced with an impossible decision.

This story stands alone and you can read it independently of Hidden.

So, what’s next?

I’ll give my daughter a year to come up with the story of Ciera’s daughter, Kamda…if she doesn’t finish it, I’ll be writing it when I need a break from whatever project I’m working on. In the mean time, I’m busy planning a Christmas story and plotting out a new series involving something a little different for me…aliens.

Thanks for reading!

Copy of Discover More of the Angels of Sojourn with these FREE books

Participating in an Anthology

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Recently, I’ve participated in my first anthology. From a marketing perspective, I’m so excited about this project! I’ll tell you more about that further down in this blog post.

First off, I want to tell you about this anthology. It’s done! You can grab a copy of Witch or Treat HERE. It’s 99 cents for a very limited time, then the price will go up — but still be very reasonable for a 600+ page book. There are stories from fifteen different supernatural cozy mystery/clean romance type authors.

Witch or Treat

Here’s the blurb:

It’s All Hallows’ Eve, and these witches are getting wild!
Just in time for Halloween, some of your favorite authors have teamed up to bring you more than 600 pages of mystery, magic, and mayhem.
Whether it’s a trick or a treat, these witchy tales will surely get you in a spooky state of mind!

The Case of the Exploding Luck Pumpkin – Nikki Haverstock
Cats, Bats, and Talking Hats – Danielle Garrett
One Spell of a Night – Regina Welling and Erin Lynn
‘Tis the Season to be Creepy – Sonia Parin
The Supernatural Life of a Superhero Wife – Joynell Schultz
The Mystery of the Halloween Mask – Ani Gonzalez
How to Date a Witch – Cate Lawley
Hexing the Ex – Ruby Blaylock
Costumes and Cauldrons – Amanda A. Allen
Harper Grant and the Poisoned Pumpkin Pie D.S. Butler
Witches & Stitches – Ava Mallory
GoB (Game of Bones) – Pearl Goodfellow
Howling Ian – Karny McFlynn
Bubble, Bubble, Here Comes Trouble – Tegan Maher
A Dark Root Samhain – April Aasheim

~ ~ ~

Okay. Now for more info on putting this together and the effects on marketing.

I found this anthology in one of the Facebook promo groups I’m in. If I wasn’t diligent in watching that group, I would have missed it. I joined right away and told myself I’m getting a story done for this project.

We had months to write a story, and I came up with a short story that ties into my Superhero Wives World. It’s titled The Supernatural Life of a Superhero Wife. I wanted this tie-in as a type of cross promo. Let me tell you, at first I was wondering how I’d mix a witch with superheroes…but I think it worked! If you read the anthology, I’d love to hear your thoughts on my story.

All fifteen participating authors brought something to the table. Regina Welling did the cover and the publishing, Danielle Garrett did the blurb, Kate Baray worked on formatting & others are working on advertising. Having such a talented team like this makes it so easy to put everything together.

We published this anthology two days ago and have had over 1000 sales so far with only pushing to our own newsletters and social media. It got the Amazon “Best Seller” banner! I think that’s pretty amazing. One thousand people have a copy of something I read…and it happened almost instantaneously. A key point here is to make sure your writing style fits with the group. The goal is to share readers and find some new ones.

We want to get a BookBub ad for this anthology. Having a group of people together…and a seasonal story…increases our chances. My fingers are crossed. We published the anthology two months early so we can try for BookBub twice (you can only submit once monthly.)

Oh, and the best part? I met a group of fabulous authors who are full of knowledge. They’re giving me all these marketing ideas that I was oblivious to.

I’ll keep you updated as things progress. Thanks for reading!

 

How about you? Have you participated in an anthology? Your thoughts?

 

Are Physical Books Obsolete?

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are physical books obsolete_

Stop! Don’t hate me for asking that questions. Hear me out.

I’m a bit of a minimalist and read almost exclusively in ebook format. This year, while doing some spring cleaning, I donated a heap of physical books to charity. As I packed up some nearly out-of-date reference books, I shook my head at the amount of money sitting in that pile.

Don’t get me wrong—I love physical books. I love to hold them and admire their covers. I adore the feeling of cracking open the binding of a brand-new read, of the smell of old pages, and of seeing the deep creases in the bindings, showing me how many times I read each one. And if I wander into a library or bookstore, I could get lost inside for the entire day!

I began to think of a book I read as a teenager, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Those of you who haven’t read it, it’s about the firemen of the future. Their job is not to put out fires…but to start them, burning books. Will our future have any books to burn?

As I pondered this question, I turned to my newsletter readers and asked for their input. Their responses surprised me! Overwhelmingly, the answer was NO! THEY ARE NOT OUT OF DATE. Their passion for physical books overly evident in their responses. In fact, I felt I may have made some of them uncomfortable for even asking the question.

I had multiple responses telling me about their personal libraries with thousands of physical books. My favorite quote from one reader was that books are his “drug of choice.” Oh, so true!

Some of the other comments that I enjoyed were:

  • They’ll come back like vinyl records.
  • Physical books have become a treat, since we do so much on electronic devices.
  • Come Zombie Apocalypse and we’ll be happy for our library of books.

My readers gave me these reasons (pros and cons) of physical books vs ebooks. Check out what they had to say.

EBooks are our future! Physical Books are here to stay!
Space saving – the ability to carry around thousands of your favorites everywhere you go. It makes trip packing super easy. Need electricity – some readers have a short battery life.
Reading ease – the older we get, the bigger we need our fonts. Also, you can read in the dark. No stress – they won’t break at the beach or pool if they get wet or sand on them. Won’t shatter if dropped and not as many worries about being stolen. There’s also the sun-glare issue.
Convenient – easy to carry everywhere you go, especially if you’re reading on your phone. You never have to remember to bring it along. Pricing – the cost of a reading device.
Pricing – physical books have become so expensive…especially compared to many ebooks. Appealing to your senses – Tactile readers feel they’re getting more with a physical book? You can touch them…smell them.
Storage – physical books may mold if improperly stored. Reference/nonfiction books – Cookbooks and other reference books are easier to use in physical format.

 
Size – especially for epic fantasy readers, some of the books just hurt your hand if you read them too long. (From being heavy.) Some place can’t use electronic books. Jails. Sending books to needy places like some spots in Africa.

Reviewing the above chart, it looks like it was a tie, but even those ebook supporters were clear that physical books had a place.

So…with that said. What do you think? Are physical books disappearing?

Oh, did you want to know my thoughts?

I always look to the next generation. My children don’t have textbooks in school. Is that a sign of what our future holds? I think so. Sure, physical books will always have a place and readers who love them, but I believe our supply of them is shrinking, per capita. But this is just one gal’s opinion. The only way we’ll know is to wait it out.