Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Why I Write
Fascinating Quotes from Famous Authors
“I got a rejection letter from an editor at HarperCollins, who included a report from his professional reader. This report shredded my first-born novel, laughed at my phrasing, twirled my lacy pretensions around and gobbed into the seething mosh pit of my stolen clichés. | As I read the report, the world became very quiet and stopped rotating. What poisoned me was the fact that the report’s criticisms were all absolutely true. The sound of my landlady digging in the garden got the world moving again. I slipped the letter into the trash…knowing I’d remember every word.” – David Mitchell |
“I want to write because I have the urge to excel in one medium of translation and expression of life. I can’t be satisfied with the colossal job of merely living. Oh, no, I must order life in sonnets and sestinas and provide a verbal reflector for my 60-watt lighted head.” – Sylvia Plath |
“I have advice for people who want to write. I don’t care whether they’re 5 or 500. There are three things that are important: First, if you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublished journal that nobody reads, nobody but you. Where you just put down what you think about life, what you think about things, what you think is fair and what you think is unfair. And second, you need to read. You can’t be a writer if you’re not a reader. It’s the great writers who teach us how to write. The third thing is to write. Just write a little bit every day. Even if it’s for only half an hour — write, write, write.” ― Madeleine L’Engle |
“That’s why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. You can’t control life, at least you can control your version.” – Chuck Palahniuk |
I'm happily married to my wonderful partner of eight years who’s been my rock since I had to give up full time work due to an illness. She’s supported me all the way in my venture as an author, and even though I may not be the most talented writer in the world, she always gives my books an A+. I've had many jobs in my life but nothing comes close to letting my sordid imagination flow through my fingertips and into my eBooks – I love it and hope I can continue with it for as long as possible. Aside from writing, I love to watch movies and if I'm not at my keyboard I can normally be found in the den, or out in the countryside walking our two gorgeous dogs. I feel blessed to be able to ‘work’ while enjoying myself and I hope you will enjoy reading what I write. | I intend to keep on publishing books for as long as I possibly can and I hope you will continue to read and enjoy them! As the light is against the darkness, so are you and I against The Shadow." HERE is one of the most extraordinary stories that we have read in a long while. It is sure to arouse your wonder and excitement. Such an attainment would overshadow all else in the realms of book world. Shadow of the Torturer is the first book in an epic fantasy series that features fast-paced action, compelling characters, and a breathtaking world that will make you want to snatch up the whole series. This is not your traditional fantasy novel. Grab the first book in my next fantasy series today! |
“I don’t remember deciding to become a writer. You decide to become a dentist or a postman. For me, writing is like being gay. You finally admit that this is who you are, you come out and hope that no one runs away.” – Mark Haddon |
“Writing eases my suffering . . . writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence.” – Gao Xingjian |
“In the big picture I write for an audience of people I’ve never met. By the final draft I’m looking for anything in the prose that’s prospectively boring to strangers.” – Lionel Shriver |
“I write with a sort of grim determination to deal with things that are hidden and difficult, and this means, I think, that pleasure is out of the question. I would associate this with narcissism anyway, and I would disapprove of it.” – Colm Tóibín |
“I believe there is hope for us all, even amid the suffering – and maybe even inside the suffering. And that’s why I write fiction, probably. It’s my attempt to keep that fragile strand of radical hope, to build a fire in the darkness.” – John Green |
“When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.” – George Orwell |
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Friday, August 28, 2015
Shadowhunters
Follow the adventures of Simon Lewis as he trains to become a Shadowhunter! Like The Bane Chronicles, the Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy.
Series is written by Cassandra Clare in collaboration with fellow authors and friends, Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson, and Robin Wasserman, and will be released once a month as a series of ten e-novellas. Click "share" in the widget and copy the embed code to add the Cassandra Clare countdown widget to your blog and website and you'll always know when the next Shadowhunters book is coming out! Shadowhunters is an upcoming ABC Family television series based on The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare. The show was officially picked up to series on March 30, 2015, by the network... When Clary Fray's mother has disappeared, Clary joins a band of Shadowhunters; demon killing hunters, and gets caught up in a plan to save the world...
Concert Fix
Drone On & On
You can also use them to shoot ducks, chickens, or turkeys if they also invade your privacy.
Snake River Shooting Products makes a shotgun shell specifically for shooting down camera drones…
Guy Shoots Down Neighbor’s Drone, Gets Sued, Loses
When a drone enters your property without permission, you can't just shoot it down without getting into trouble. If a drone enters your property and you don't want it there, you shouldn't shoot it down unless you want to pay for it…
Friday, August 21, 2015
Newest Book --- Shadow Master ---
Twitter’s Periscope Amasses 10 Million Users in Just Four Months
http://t.co/GbASMHiu8B
Twitter’s Periscope Amasses 10 Million Users in Just Four Months
— Terry Richardson (@Intoxcy8me) August 21, 2015
http://tinyurl.com/qyrqwr6
Twitter’s popular live video streaming app hit a major milestone this month when it surpassed 10 million active accounts and 2 million users on Android and iOS.
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Free to self-publish an ebook.
Create an interesting cover:
When it comes to e-books, everything starts with the cover image. Creating an eye-catching, professional-looking cover that also looks good small (it has to stand out as a thumbnail image, since it's being sold online) is easier said than done, but it can really make a difference in terms of sales. Ideally, you should hire a graphic designer who has some experience creating book covers. From a production standpoint, an e-book cover is easier to create than a cover for a print book (you just need a JPEG with decent resolution), but it shouldn't look out of place among traditionally published e-books. I can't tell you how many bad self-published covers are out there.
Avoid any outfits that don't let you set the price:
This is one of the cardinal rules of self-publishing an e-book. You must be able to control the pricing of your e-book. If you want to sell it for 99 cents, then you should be able to sell it for 99 cents.
Marketing is all about creating awareness for your e-book:
I don't have any secret marketing tips to offer, but what I can say is that you can't sell a book if no one knows it exists. Most of book marketing is simply about creating awareness and you need to do that however you can, whether it's through social media or blogging or passing out fliers in the coffee shops.
E-book publishing options:
Here are the three big questions to bear in mind with e-book creation: first, what is the easiest and most cost-efficient way to produce an e-book? Second, where will it be distributed? And third, how much of a cut do you get? With those in mind, let's take a look at some of the more high-profile options available currently. I'm limiting it to these options because I want to keep this as simple as possible.
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)
This is Amazon's e-book publishing platform, and if you think you're going to sell a lot of e-books, you should figure out a way to upload your file (book) directly to KDP and avoid using any sort of middleman or e-book "aggregator" that takes a cut of the profits. If you're a true DIY person, you can create your own cover (though if you're not a professional designer, it's better to hire a pro) and format your e-book using free software tools such as Calibre.
Smashwords
Smashwords, one of the e-book pioneers and largest distributors of self-published e-books, with more than 125,000 titles from over 40,000 authors, is very much a DIY operation. You bring your Word file and cover image, upload it into the company's "Meatgrinder" tool, and in a matter of minutes, you create your e-book in just about every format you'd want. You can then sell that e-book on Smashwords.com or have the company distribute it to most of the major e-book sellers, including Barnes & Noble's eBookstore, Apple's iBooks, Sony, Kobo, and Baker & Taylor's Blio and others. Smashwords also has deals in place for having its authors' e-books distributed to libraries.
BookBaby
BookBaby, the sibling of CD Baby (Brian Felsen is the president of both operations), has a slightly different business model from some of its competitors. Instead of taking a cut of your royalties, it makes you pay a fee of $99 upfront, then charges you a yearly fee of $19 per title you have in its system. It also offers print publishing services.
Barnes & Noble's PubIt
Barnes & Noble's PubIt self-publishing operation offers similar features to Amazon's KDP, but the two platforms do have their differences. Barnes & Noble has set the PubIt royalty rate for authors at 65 percent of the sale price for titles priced $2.99 and higher. The rate falls to 40 percent if you choose to go lower than $2.99 or higher than $9.99, with B&N setting 99 cents as the lowest allowable price and $199.99 as the highest. (For books priced under $2.99 or over $9.99, you actually earn more by distributing your book to B&N through Smashwords, which pays 60 percent list for all prices 99 cents and up.
So there you have the top places to get your book published. Good luck in you endeavors to get your book finished.
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Shadow Master
When age of darkness fell upon the world, and wonder went out of the minds of men; when all the cities decayed to smoky ruins and the tall towers became grim and ugly, in whose shadow none might dream of the sun or of the moon, only one walked amidst the walls of the fallen people.
Horrible beyond conception was the change which had taken place in the vast expanse of the universe, as if the sun had lost its lustrous glow, and the fiery heat could not penetrate through the cold darkness.
Long ago, in a place where there was no darkness, there was what you call magic. A world that was once known, now had been forbidden; forgotten and all together lost forever from humanity; disappeared off the face of the earth.
Two souls made of one, divided by time, and reunited within their dreams. Worlds stand between them now, but fate is their guiding light, one glance bound them, one touch empowered them. Now, they have no choice but to finish the war they started lifetimes before...or they will lose it all.
The chance of being alone in the coldness of the dark void seemed more of a bearable risk than a life with her spirit in certain and utter despair, and though she made her entrance into this dark, dismal world, it glowed with no fire, no warmth to be found. So the dream Whisper had vanished, but the aura of the dream tainted her senses, an odor, a taste, an invisible color staining the darkness of her world.
Life goes on.
Along with the sentence “This too shall pass,” the line above is simultaneously the most pessimistic formulation of the way the universe works, and the most optimistic one. On the one hand, “Life goes on” indicates that we are capable of picking ourselves up after any tragedy and continuing with some kind of meaningful and useful existence, no matter how damaged we might be from our experiences.
There’s always tomorrow for dreams to come true.
On the other hand.
“Life goes on” does seem in our blackest hours to imply one dreary, torturous day after another, with no surcease till death, and an uncaring response from a heartless creation.
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Can't Fight This Feeling
Working on a new book and hopefully it will capture a large reading audience. Thanks to my many great fans!
Friday, July 24, 2015
Half Price Sale
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
"Wait and thy soul shall speak."
Monday, July 20, 2015
All the World’s a Stage
Sunday, July 19, 2015
GLORYHAMMER TO RELEASE NEW ALBUM
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Dream Quest Series
Analyze your Writing
Friday, July 17, 2015
Veil of Darkness
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Facebook Testing ‘Save’ Buttons for Videos
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Nightmares
veil-of-darkness-a-necessary-evil
Monday, July 13, 2015
Veil of Darkness
Sunday, July 12, 2015
The Dream Cycle 'Oath of Blood'
‘What does all this have to do with Sazz?’ snapped Blade. "Or perhaps if I told, how my people guard the gates between this world and the world of magic, a brotherhood sworn to guard the wall between the human world and the demon realm, have relied only on one another for centuries?"
"The same,’ agreed Blade. "They would laugh into my face, beat me for the intrusion, and lock me in their deepest dungeon for the rest of my days. No, there’s nothing that can be done. We stand alone in this fight…win or lose."
In her, he sees a strength he admires and a body he longs to caress. Yet demons are determined to break down the portal Blade has sworn to protect, using Sazz as their key. Now as a rogue sorcerer leads the enemy ever closer, Sazz and Blade have only one hope. Both must surrender to their darkest passions--and unleash their most dangerous, untested desires. -Which is more deadly, their passion or their power?
Find out in the upcoming book The Dream Cycle 'Oath of the Blood' coming soon. —Blade the swordmaster
Saturday, July 11, 2015
Dream Quest Series: What are you working on next?
The oldest, most divesting war of all time has found a way into the world, and is now inflicting itself on all of creation. Heaven and Hell are no longer the only settings for this terrible conflict. The story is taken a place right now on our planet in the 21st century. Angels and demons are among us. And they are bringing their war down upon us. A war in which we are insignificant; a war that we would not have thought possible and that will change our lives forever.