Saturday, December 3, 2016

Need your help

via GIPHY

If you've been following me for a while, you know fantasy is where my heart is. I took a bit of a vacation this last year to write contemporary romance, but my newest adventures are back to my roots. It kind of seems odd to call them my roots since I've been writing for four and a half years, but I suppose roots works.

What does this have to do with anything? Probably nothing now that I think about it, but I finished up my lovely From Earth to Oblivion and decided to try Kindle Scout again. As of a few minutes ago, that campaign is now live. CLICK HERE TO NOMINATE!

This will be my forth campaign with the program, which if you don't know is kind of a popularity contest for authors to try to get their books published by an Amazon brand. I have never been good at popularity contests. In fact, I have probably come in last at every popularity contest I've ever been in, but I'm not giving up on trying to get my books out in front of more people and Kindle Scout is kind of a baby step for me to try to do that.

From Earth to Oblivion is the longest book I've written. That's not really important, but I'm kind of excited about it. The cover has evolved and the summary I had to come up with is limited on words, but I bundled my submission together and sent it in. You can read the first few chapters and see how it's come together at https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/H3J6AKMOFYRE.

I need all the clicks on nominate I can get, so if you're feeling generous, please share the link. I'll try to post updates on how things look to be going, but it's hard to judge for sure using their tracking metrics. The key is to be in the hot and trending as much as possible during the next 30 days, so I need to rally some support. The good news is that if the book is picked, anyone who voted will get it for free. I hope that's good news anyway. :)

Monday, November 21, 2016

Goals for 2017

I know it's not even December yet, but like every year, I'm starting to think about what I want to get done next year. Part of me misses the days when I wrote a new book every month and moved on to something else. It often takes longer than writing the book itself to go through and try to get a book ready to publish.

I just looked back at the list of things I wanted to get done last year, and it looks the Five for Fighting series took away from me getting the Argonauts and Daughter of Gaia series third books. I was happy to get Nightwalker tied up, though, and it looks like I'm right around the goal I have in my head to write six books a year. One of those books may not be published until early next year, but I have written it.

So, what do I want to get done in 2017? We'll move Argonauts and Gaia right along and hopefully check those off the list. The book I mentioned having written, but not yet publishing, has at least 3 other books to follow it, bringing me up to five books on my radar.

That being said, I know my mind doesn't always stay committed to a straight course of action when it comes to writing. That makes it silly for me to try to make any kind of commitments, but I always like to give myself a challenge.

Well, it's a day off work for me and I'm making cupcakes and watching romance movies, so I should probably get back to that. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving for all of those of you who will be celebrating the holiday this week.

Saturday, November 12, 2016

Yes, I am still alive

With the days getting darker earlier and more often, my writing seems to have followed suit. After finishing the fifth story in my fun hockey series, I've gone back to my more paranormal roots and added some time travel into the story I'm working on now.

As with most stories, this one started as a dream that took on a life of its own. It's been a fun story to write and I'm now to the editing part. As I hope you know, I often share my works in progress between two different sites, hoping to get reaction and feedback. I'm only through the initial edit up to chapter sixteen as of this moment, but hope to get the other fourteen chapters done within the next week.

Links to check it out if you wanted to see where my not-always-sane mind has ended up: Wattpad | Write On

And a brief blurb and the working cover, just for fun.

Krinla has only ever known one way of life – a sheltered one. As a Dracul princess, she believes that’s the way things are. Knowing that doesn’t mean the desire to feel freedom isn’t something unknown to her. Trips outside the fortress she calls home happen occasionally, just not as often as the almost eighteen-year-old wants.

That all changes the day Krinla starts smelling something out of place.

It takes her a while to track down what the sugary smell is. When she finds the man behind it, her life starts on a roller coaster ride hundreds of years in the making.

Will finding Hunter solve all her problems? Or will the couple learn that finding each other only leads to sorrow?


Sunday, July 24, 2016

Plugging away

So yeah, it's been a while since I've posted anything new. Life has been crazy busy, including me having to travel for my day job and doing enough yard work that I'm starting to think maybe I should change professions. Because of those things, it's taken me a little longer than I like to finish my latest book, but I'm excited to say The Nightwalker Fights is in the closing stages of editing.

I'd of course love to find a few more people willing to take a look before publication to let me know if you think it finishes the plot line up or if I'm leaving a bunch of loose ends (you all know how to get a hold of me, right?) Other than finishing it up, I'm trying to decide where to go next.

I love my paranormal/sci-fi/weird books, but my contemporary romance series is doing better than I ever hoped my books would do as far as sales. Well, technically, we're talking free reads from people here because they're enrolled in Kindle Unlimited and I get paid when people read pages, and you guys have been reading lots of pages.

I had enrolled some of my other books in Kindle Unlimited before, but it never had a great payoff, so I'd kept the distribution open. With the Five for Fighting series, even before I put the books in Kindle Unlimited, they seemed to kind an audience on Amazon, making it a pretty easy decision for me to switch to allowing people to read through the program.

All that being said, I think I'll jump to finish the fifth book in that series, hoping for a middle of September or so release day on it and then figure out where to go next. I have all sorts of ideas for new books, but I really want to get the series I've started finished up before moving on to the next thing.

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Self-publishing can be exhausting

When I started out, I thought there was nothing to writing a bunch of words and then uploading them somewhere for people to find - and it seemed everyone was doing it. I'm savvy with technology, so formatting a Word document and putting together a cover seemed simple enough to do. But I'll tell you, in about four years I've learned there's a lot more to it than just slapping things together and uploading to Amazon or Smashwords or Barnes and Noble or any of the many different places you can upload.

My first books were only read by one other person (a friend) and I hadn't gotten to the point where I was audio proofing my stories. That usually meant my homophone issues, my anti-contraction writing and other general grammar mistakes were my best friends. I think I've grown a lot in my writing to the point where my initial draft is at least ten times better than the final draft of some of those early books. I've also learned to seek out critique partners and beta readers to help me become a better writer.

I'm not even going to get into the marketing and advertising part of self-publishing, because that's something I'm still trying to figure out, and probably the most exhausting part. I sadly don't have money to do an all-out assault, but I do what I can on social networks to try to get my books in front of people.

Yesterday I published my thirty-second book that was at least 50K words, and I'm over halfway through writing the thirty-third. There was a time I'd write a book a month and read quickly through it a couple of times before publishing. Now, I try to take a little more time. I can still easily write 60K+ words in two weeks and call it a story, but I try to ship it off to a few other people to read after my first edit and wait about a month to gather feedback and read it again so it isn't fresh in my mind.

I guess what I've really learned over the years is that the "self" in self-publishing isn't really a solo effort. I try to do as much as I can by myself, but if I didn't have my critique partners, beta readers, the people I come in contact with on a daily basis who give me inspiration and the few fans I have, I would've probably given up as a failure years ago. I don't have crazy dreams of making best-sellers lists with every book I publish, but I know what I write has entertained people, and I think as a writer that's all you can really hope for.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Empty Net on Kindle Scout

Doug's story was approved for a Kindle Scout campaign. Frequent readers of this blog know this is the third time I've submitted a book and I'm really hoping the third time is a charm.

If you don't know how Kindle Scout works, it's kind of like a crowdfunding website without spending money. You nominate books you find interesting to get a publishing contract. In return, if a book is picked, you'll get a free ebook copy.

In honor of the campaign, and hopefully to get some more people nominating Empty Net, I've got a few things planned on my Twitter account (if you're not following me already, it's https://twitter.com/amberlynnbooks). Today I'm sharing some random quotes and tomorrow will be a little game of guessing who said a certain quote.

Here's a little teaser:


To check out the first two chapters of Empty Net and hit the nominate button, because you know you want to, head over to https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/2HLN0GZV7SND4

Sunday, February 28, 2016

February 28 - Quick update

So it's been a little while since I've posted, but I have been busy. I feel I say that a lot. I've put the finishes touches on Blue Lines and have the third book in the Five for Fighting series written. It will be called Empty Net, if anyone's curious - and as always if you want to get a sneak peek, in this case of Doug's story, let me know.

The fourth book is already calling, but I'm debating working on it and working on the third Nightwalker story. It's kind of weird this need to get back to one of my paranormal stories and the desire to stay in the contemporary romance world. The worlds can be so different and yet the characters are all like children to me. As weird as that may sound.

Since I have been playing in both worlds, I decided it was time to change up the dark scenery of this site. I'm not sure I'm satisfied with the new background, but it's purple, which of course is my favorite color. I guess that's just a warning that the site may look different from time to time as I try to settle on something that spans my various moods of writing.

Well, I think that's going to be it for now. Maybe I'll set up a target with Five for Fighting on one side and Nightwalker on the other and fire some arrows at it to see what to work on next.

Sunday, January 17, 2016

1/17/2016 Update

It has been a crazy two weeks. I've been so motivated to get Nelson's story written that in fourteen short days I had the rough draft all typed out. The word count currently sits a little lower than Game Misconduct, but the chapter length remained the same. I spent yesterday and today going through and doing the first edit - changing things in the beginning to match how it played out.

It ended up turning out better than the hot mess I thought was happening when I was typing along. Okay, a lot better. I'm usually skeptical when I do my seat of the pants writing (the only way I know to write). Almost every time I'm sure it's going to end up horrible, and every time I'm surprised.

So now it's on to letting some other folks take a look and tell me I'm crazy for loving the story. If anyone has a big desire for tearing me to pieces, I'm always looking for beta readers or critiquers who want to share what they think. Just send me an email at amberlynnbooks@gmail.com, and I'll send you a copy.

Otherwise, I'm hoping for a late March debut. I still have to write a synopsis for it, but it will basically be something like this (oh and check out the cover I've been working on - it helps to block the synopsis so you can read the spoiler alert)

WARNING: THIS MAY HAVE SPOILERS IF YOU HAVE NOT READ GAME MISCONDUCT - READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!



Nelson Palmer has a knack for finding drama in his life. You don't have to look any further than the fact that his sister once tried to kill one of his best friends to prove it. He thought he was in for a break from chaos, but when his oldest friend sends him a text saying she's pregnant, his life turns upside down. After a night out with his hockey teammates, Nelson isn't exactly sure what led to the pregnancy, but he's ready to take responsibility.

Annie Lake has loved Nelson for over a decade. She's watched as girlfriend after girlfriend came and went, without Nelson noticing what was right in front of him. She hadn't expected to get pregnant on the wild night he seemed to finally see her as more than friend. It was a dream come true for her, right up until the moment he woke up and had no idea why she was in his bed. Now Annie's left trying to figure out how to dodge a marriage of convenience.

Will Nelson and Annie be able to work things out? Or will the secret Annie has been keeping be too much for Nelson to handle?