Love is in the air!

Winter is a time of blustery winds, warm blankets, and book friends to fill your heart.

Friday, January 17, 2014

Rainbow's End

In my book The Counterfeit Bride Cassidy Flynn owns a bar and uses the profits from the bar to run her therapeutic horse ranch. Pegasus Ranch where both the children and horses grow wings.



The work Cassidy and her buddies do at Pegasus are all based on the work of one woman. Susan Shaw.




Susan Shaw is a woman with a dream and a mission.

She houses rescued horses, teaches autistic children how to relate with the horses, and she loves what she is doing.





Unfortunately, since the economy took a downturn she and her stables have been suffering. 


In order to continue her work Rainbow's End needs a sizable injection of money to see it through the next two years. Anything you can give will be a big help and will be appreciated.

Sue has started a fund raiser through gofundme.com, please give what you can to this worthy cause.



Cassidy wants to help too. So 10% of all royalties on The Counterfeit Bride in the month of January will be donated to Rainbow's End.



Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/16X28uT

Audiobook: 
Audible.com:  http://bit.ly/HSaQU1
itunes: also available on itunes!!!

Available in paperback through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.



Please help spread the word and give generously.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Teen Fury Trilogy is now Complete

Amanda Torrey began her writing career in elementary school as Amanda J. Sullivan when her not so short story "They Called It Dare Mountain" was published in Trumpet Club, Young Authors of America, Volume 2.

"Three cheers for your peers! Here are all the prize winning selections in this year's trumpet Club Young Authors of America Contest stories, essays, and a poem- written by boys and girls like yourself, and never published anywhere else but in this book. "Angel" by Ian B. DeMeritt, "Awful Day" by Michiko Hanao, "Kate Did It" by Eileen Markey, "The Weirdest Dream of my life. . . Part III" by Chris Joplin, "Brotherly Love" by J.S. Eldridge, "The Talking Iguana" by Andrew Eric Harrison, "Days on the Bus" by Ron Riske, Jr. "The Farmer's Choice" by Johnny Quinones, "My Fisby Friends" by J.J. Donahue, "Growing Up" by Naomi Anne Schaefer, "My Trip to School" by Mario Demasi, "A Wintery Day" by Luci Crawford, "They Called it Dare Mountain" by Amanda J. Sullivan."









Amanda managed to resist the siren call of her characters as long as she could, until Felicia hit puberty and the snakes started sprouting from her head.

Thus began the YA trilogy Teen Fury.

The first book Unleashed is currently FREE!



http://www.amazon.com/Teen-Fury-Unleashed-Amanda-Torrey-ebook/dp/B009VL6RZQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1389936009&sr=1-1&keywords=teen+fury+unleashed




The second book of the trilogy is a wonderful portrait of a young girl/woman who has lost her way.




The third and final book of the trilogy is about Felicia maturing and having to find herself in a world that has become alien to her.

This book is a must read for mothers and their daughters! (The young men in my life have also enjoyed reading the entire series.)






Amanda also has an adult novel in which she turns up the heat.




Amanda is currently working on a small town romance and I can't wait to see what she does with it.

To find out more about Amanda Torrey and her books visit her website http://www.amandatorrey.com/author/. Her blog is also on her website.


Sunday, January 12, 2014

How much is your work worth?

If I work as a waitress the federal government thinks my time is only worth $2.13 an hour. It is up to my customers to decide if I am worth more than that.

Writers do not get paid by the hour. If we did, even at $2.13 an hour our paychecks would be pretty sizable. It takes much longer to research and write a book than it takes to read it.


Once upon a time all an author need was paper, a feather, some ink, and an idea.



Then the typewriter was invented and every author had to make sure they submitted a clean typed copy, double spaced, on one side of good quality (10 pound stock) white paper.



Now we have the computer!




The equipment needed to write a story is not cheap. Not only do you need a good computer, one that will not lose all your work, but you need a writing program. (Which is an additional cost.)


Once you have bought all the equipment you need to write your book. You can begin researching the subject matter. (Even when you are writing fiction and it is about something you know, there is still a lot of research to be done!)

Some authors (like moi) like to have the source material close at hand and buy some of the research books they are going to use frequently. While others either don't like to do their own research or they don't have the time, so they hire someone to do the research for them.  (This adds $ onto the cost of writing.)

Authors who are traditionally published have agents and publishers that handle the rest of the expenses after they accept the book. The author will be paid royalties based on the amount of books sold and how much of a percentage their contracts specify.

Now . . . onto the Indie published author.

An Indie author has the expenses involved in buying the computer and research materials, plus many more expenses.

An Indie author must pay their beta-readers. (A professional beta-reader is more likely to tell the author the hard truths about what doesn't work in the novel.)

They must purchase their book cover.

Hire a copy editor (anywhere from $200-$1,000), a content editor ($500-$2,000), a proofreader ($100 and up), a formatter, and possibly a publicist. Plus they have to buy ads and run contests with expensive prizes and spend a lot of time on social media pimping the book.

Long gone are the days of writing on both sides of scrap paper with a feather and some ink.

The cost of publishing a quality book is not cheap.

Most authors still work their day jobs.

Write late into the night, or get up extra early.

Attend local writer's groups. (Another cost!)

Worry about their books being pirated.

 
They live in sweats and abuse caffeine.

It's not the glamorous life pictured on Murder She Wrote or Sex in the City, but it can be very fulfilling.


Find the magick!