Category Bit of everything

Jun 17 2016

Think You Couldn’t Possibly Lose Your Amazon Publishing Account? Think Again.

Oh gosh. This is sad news. I got the AudioBook back in feb and it was one of my first few that I reviewed, and it was a good book… there’s no reason they should be thinking this of the writer… this is sad news for us all…. and I just signed up again for KU eeek

Becca's avatarThe Active Voice

There’s this indie author I know a little bit from the Kboards.com forum. Her name is Pauline Creeden, and she’s an ordinary midlister, like so many of us. I remember PMing her some time ago and gushing about how particularly beautiful one of her book covers is — the one for Chronicles of Steele: Raven.collection Here, I’ll include an image. Gorgeous, eh?

Anyway, today I tuned in to Kboards and noticed that Pauline had started a thread. It contained what’s surely the worst news possible for an indie author: Amazon had closed her publishing account. All her ebooks had been taken off sale. Permanently. Here’s the email she got from Amazon:

We are reaching out to you because we have detected that borrows for your books are originating from systematically generated accounts. While we support the legitimate efforts of our publishers to promote their books, attempting to manipulate…

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Jun 14 2016

How to Create Memorable Fictional Characters

This is an excellent blog on character development and how to make them – yours. 🙂

verysherryterry's avatarVery Sherry Terry

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Have you heard of Huckelberry Finn? He’s been an unforgettable character since 1884. Memorable characters are what make stories great. They feel like real people, making the reader care about what happens to them.

You can have an engaging plot, cool stuff that happens, and tons of conflict, but if you don’t have a great character the readers can care about, your story is lacking. Love them or hate them, readers want to care about your characters.

Make Your Characters Jump Off the Page

For the characters to pull the reader into the story, they need to feel like real people. Your characters need to be three-dimensional with a personality, a past, a family, secrets, a job, friends, and hopes and dreams. A good way to do this is to answer these four basic questions:

  • Who are they?
  • What do they want?
  • What’s standing in the way?
  • What’s the worst…

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Jun 6 2016

Audiobook Review – Modern Sorcery – 1

Modern Sorcery – The first Jonathan Shade novel – by Gary Jones, narrated by Joe Hempel I’ve been listening to some shorter pieces this last week, so I’ve not reviewed them here, ( a couple of erotic books as well, shock horror) but this one was a very pleasant listen, so it gets to come here.

As usual, some spoilers, but enjoyed this one, I’ll be listening to more in this series.

You can find the audio book here – http://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Crime-Thrillers/Modern-Sorcery-Audiobook/B0193XZ55E

———

“Head Turner”

Of course when you start following a narrator, you begin to see all the books they’ve done. this came on my newsfeed, and I thought okay why not. So I started to listen to it… I didn’t take much notice of the title, just more the ‘jonathan shade-novel’ and knew it was part of a series, I mean come on guys, the more series I listen to the more complicated my listening life is.

However, in all seriousness, I had no idea it was paranormal and no idea what this book entailed. So from the very first ‘Ester poked her head through the wall’ I was laughing at her, Jonathan and my own stupidity for not even realising this was paranormal. I presumed it was a normal PI kinda book. And I was very pleasantly surprised.

Joe does a great narration, and that’s one of the reasons why I picked this up. His characters stand out a mile, but I’ve gotta say that fact is marred by the ‘I said, she said’ you know when each character is speaking, and it got in the way a few times through this book. Of course not Joe’s fault, more down to the author. I could after listening to some of Joe’s other books tell this was an earlier version of him as a narrator, so I’ve still rated it according to all my thoughts.

What I really enjoyed about this book was the characters of course, Jonathan is a great guy, he’s his personal issues, and his life is plodding along, all until an old flame walks in and wants him to investigate the murder of her mother by her father. The murder itself is brutal and horrid to listen to, but it adds in some great tension. Naomi isn’t however letting Jonathan and his team in on all the facts and she’s quite the secret keeper. Of course only his team keep warning him that there’s something off with her and because he’s still got love blinkers on, he doesn’t listen till it’s too late.

I admit here, one of my fav characters, is Kelly, she’s the total kick ass woman we all love in these books, strong, not afraid to give an opinion and really not afraid to get stuck in and use what she’s got to get the information they need.

Ester comes pretty close as a great lovable character too. 🙂

I admit, Joe you’ve got me wanting the rest in this series, it’s action packed the characters are awesome, so much alive that you’d think they were real people. Goes all fangirl at the great storytelling and narrator acting. Haha now I gotta go pick up the others.

May 31 2016

Squee! our AudioBook is live!

I’m super excited, after all our hard work and waiting it’s live today!

http://www.audible.com/…/The-Secret-King…/B01G9D0W2C

Blurb – (think you know but here it is) hehe

Kendro, King of the Aonise, can do nothing to prevent their sun from collapsing, consuming their home planet, Letháo, in a single fiery blast. Running out of time and options, he evacuates the entire population, setting off into the unknown galaxy in four crowded ships. Under constant danger from their ancient enemy, the Zefron, treasonous dissent seeps into his inner circle. Threatened inside and out, Kendro struggles with whom to trust, until a mysterious vision finally brings hope to the distraught king.

And it’s the LAST day to grab the ebook for free!

http://myBook.to/TSK

I promise I won’t post about it so much now it’s out. Normal everyday stuff and writing stuff will resume. 🙂

~

Dawn

May 30 2016

Author ShoutOut – Patreon for Midnight Redemption

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MIDNIGHT REDEMPTION
“A love that stands the test of time, stretching across every lifetime….”

Rayven, a young Nildörian nobleman encounters the mesmerizing, Armarra, an ancient and powerful elven vampire late one night as he journeys to the home of his beloved fiancée.
Drawn into Armarra’s seductive web, Rayven finds himself surrendering to the ancient beauty and awakens anew as a vampire.

Rayven and Armarra cut a bloody swathe across the realms of Véneanár, leaving death and destruction in their wake. However, Rayven, leaving Armarra after an unforgivable betrayal, eventually returns home to the city of Cil-Gariah after centuries absent and is confronted by the ghosts if his past, not for the first time.

In a land on the brink of rebellion Violette, is forced to hide her magical abilities and true lineage from the narrow minded people of Cil-Gariah.
She works in her father’s tavern, taking care to evade unwanted attentions from the loathsome Gideon Halverston, youngest son to the steward of the south, even as rumors of a string of brutal murders whisper through the city.

Violette has accepted her fate long ago, until one night she is rescued from a vicious attack, by an enigmatic stranger, and her life is forever changed.

She wears the face of Rayven’s lost love and he finds himself inexplicably drawn to her, even as his past and Violette’s present collide, threatening to destroy them both.

This is the story of a love that stands the test of time, stretching across every lifetime, spanning the ages, but always ending in tragedy. Can Rayven defeat the curse that has been unwittingly set upon them and have the courage and tenacity to ultimately save his soul mate?

Murder, suspense, reincarnation, magic, love, and lust come together to make Midnight Redemption a serial you do not want to miss…

https://www.patreon.com/ErrinKrystal?ty=h

And  Follow any of these social media links also to keep up to date 🙂

https://errinkrystal.weebly.com

http://errinkrystal.wordpress.com

http://www.facebook.com/ErrinKrystal