Monday, December 31, 2012

NEW YEAR GOALS: #books #contempromance #Fitzgeralds #Guardian Legacy @ednahwalters @yaednah_walters

So what does the future hold for you? Any plans? Goals? Resolutions? I hate resolutions coz I never fulfill them. Goals are good coz you need one even if it is a tentative one.

Here is my to-do list for 2013. What do you think?
  • Write 6 full-length books-finish the next GL book, write the next 2 Runes book (these are YA, 80,000 words), 1 paranormal adult romance (a new series,) and the next 2 Fitzgerald books (adult contemporary romance)
  • Write 2 contemporary novella (YA)
  • Save the world at least 3 times (that's what my paranormal series are about, men and women saving the world from total annihilation)
  • Find a publisher for my picture books (not really a priority but I keep putting this off)
  • Cure world hunger one child at a time (my family is planning on supporting a child in an orphanage in Kenya, $35 a month this year)

It seems like a daunting list, but I’m at that place where I’m certain I can do all 5 things. 
Eight books, LOL, I'm pushing it, but hey, they say dream big, right? If I make it, I'll be Queen of the Bookdom. If i don't, I can say I tried. Will start working on one next week.  I'll give myself 6-8weeks to finish it.
In the meantime, let me know what your plans are.
Winner of Mid-Winter HOP is: DARLENE (hope you got my e-mail)

Here’s to 2013!!!

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

New Release: AIN'T TOO PROUD TO BEG by Chicki Brown #mustread #newrelease #ebook @chicki663

 I'm excited to announce the release of AIN'T TOO PROUD TO BEG by my dear friend, former critique partner and best selling author Chicki Brown! I love Chicki's writing and adore her books, which tend to 
be entertaining and thought-provoking. 


And her latest book has hit the shelves!


 AIN'T TOO PROUD TO BEG is a story about Hollywood film star Vaughn Breland, and physical therapist Trenyce Clark. When a man loses everything he values, can he find something more precious in return?

Hollywood film star Vaughn Breland has wrecked his beloved Lamborghini, lost his latest movie role, the use of his legs and possibly his fabulous good looks. He’s depressed and mad at the world then he meets Trenyce Clark, his new physical therapist. Trenyce, and her beautiful three-year-old daughter, give him a new outlook on life.
 HERE IS A TEASER
 
“Any other questions?” The statuesque therapist asked.
I shook my head.  She touched my arm, and I could’ve sworn I felt a familiar stirring, if it hadn’t been for the pain pushing it away. My good eye studied her face. She was definitely attractive, and she smelled like good perfume. Could even be beautiful with her hair and makeup done. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet.” 
“We can talk about this another time. I don’t want to tire you out. If you need anything else, just have one of the nurses contact me. My office is just upstairs. Please give serious consideration to putting off the move to California.”
The second she left the room, Devon said, “I’m with her, man. Craig was serious about his offer. It would be cheaper and safer, even though I know the idea of staying here in Ski-ville doesn’t thrill you. But you’d be living in luxury.”
Finally giving the option consideration, I said, “I guess I would need a nurse.”
“Yeah, until you can get around by yourself. I’m sure the hospital can arrange private duty. Do you want me to check into it for you?”
“I’d appreciate it, man.” I hesitated. “But I don’t want her as my physical therapist. You got me?”
“Why not?”
“For one thing, I don’t want a woman.”
Devon’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding me?  You, the lover of all things female?” He snickered.
“Not when I’m incapacitated.”
“I just met her. You’d change your mind if you saw her.  She’s beautiful. If I was single, I wouldn’t need to be convinced to let her massage me.” That got a snort from me. “Since when have you ever had a problem with a beautiful woman?”
“Look at me, Dev. I can’t even take a piss by myself, and for all I know, I might look like Freddy Krueger under these bandages. Not very sexy.”
“Oh, that legendary Breland pride is getting in the way. Tell me why you need to be sexy with your therapist. You wouldn’t start working with her until you’re on your feet anyway. Maybe they can find you another PT. One that’s less attractive.” Devon snickered. “It’s up to you, V. Just tell me what you need me to do.”
“Get Dr. Liu for me. He can tell Ms. Carter my decision.”
“All right, I’m going to the nurses’ station to see if someone knows where to find him. You’re such a punk, you know that?” Devon exited the room on a laugh.
The expense of transport back to L.A. had made my decision for me. Although it had been years since I’d lived under someone else’s roof, I decided to take Craig up on his offer.

SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR...RUN AND GET YOUR COPY!!!!

Buy links:

Mid-Winter's Eve Give@way H*0*P*: SlowBurn(bk #1) MineUntilDawn (bk #2) KissMeCrazy (bk #3) #mustread #ednahwalters #TheFitzgeralds

This hop goes from Dec 21st-27th.
As usual, thanks to Kathy and Oasis for YA for hosting it

Winner of Christmas Blog Hop chosen and goodies mailed:
congrats to Brooke DelVecchio


WIN a signed copy of Dangerous Love, book #4 of the Fitzgerald family:




She has her emotions on a tight leash…

Born to a Las Vegas showgirl, fashion designer Faith Fitzgerald’s childhood was not easy, until her father found her and whisked her off to L.A. to join his wealthy family.

The rejection by some of her family members hurt, but Faith has moved on. Or so she thinks. She works hard and never lets her guard down, until the day she discovers that someone stole and sold her designs to her competitor and former mentor. To catch the thief and salvage her collection for Fall Fashion Week, Faith turns to her ex-lover, a man who works under the radar and gets results fast. The problem is she has not seen him since she dumped him so unceremoniously.

He’s laid-back and spontaneous…

When former-FBI-agent-turned-security-consultant Kenneth ‘Ken’ Lambert receives a call from Faith asking for his services, he sees a chance to payback the gorgeous designer for the way she used him then walked out on him. But then he learns that she is being victimized by a man whose idea of love is both dangerous and toxic, Ken pushes aside his personal agenda and agrees to help her.

As their investigation progresses, Ken discovers that Faith’s calm exterior hides a woman of character and strength, a woman on the verge of falling apart. Can he help her find the answers she seeks or will she accept his offer instead—acceptance, unconditional love and support?


ALSO AVAILABLE: Forever Hers (book # 5). Book Tour coming next month:



WHAT TO DO TO WIN:
1. Add Forever Hers on Goodreads
2. Join my Fanpage on FB
3. Leave a comment here about your favorite series...I love reading and could always start a new series you guys recommend (don't forget to leave your e-mail...it's how I notify winners)



****

Friday, December 7, 2012

CHRISTMAS WISHES BLOG H*O*P*: Don't miss #books #kindle #NookGlow, ove 150 authors @ednahwalters

 


Welcome! We are so happy to announce that 3 great Virtual Tour companies have joined together to bring you this wonderful hop. Book & Trailer Showcase (BTS Virtual Book Tours), Coffee Beans & Love scenes (CBLS Promotions), and Full Moon Bites (FMB Blog Tours) proudly presents the “Christmas Wishes Giveaway Hop”. There will be a couple of Grand Prizes – A Kindle Paperwhite, A Nook Glow, and a $90 choice Gift Card for either Amazon or BN. Both Tablets will come with a book bundle!!

 Christmas Wishes! Hmmmmmm!
– What to wish for –

Books and more Books – LOL

Since this the season for giving
I am giving away e-copies of all my books to one lucky winner, AWESOME RIGHT!




For a chance to win my BOOKS
just leave me a comment telling me what hottest book you've read this year and let me know which one of the books listed above you would really love to read.
For entry into the Grand Prize giveaway, use rafflecopter below for entry
Good Luck Everyone!
STOP BY OTHER AUTHORS' PAGES TO WIN MORE GOODIES


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Simon & Schuster Joins Forces With Author Solutions To Rip Off Writers


This article was originally written by David Gaughran. The article is interesting, but as always, the comments that follow are even more informative. Reblogging after informing the author.

Simon & Schuster has launched a self-publishing operation, Archway Publishing, contracting one of the most disreputable players in the business to run the show: Author Solutions.
We’ll get to that distasteful link-up in a second, but first let’s have a look at what Simon & Schuster are offering prospective customers (i.e. writers).

Fiction packages start at $1,999 and go up to $14,999. If you have written a business book, prices are saucier again: $2,999 to $24,999.

While the upper end of the pricing spectrum is obviously shocking, some of you might think that $1,999 isn’t too bad if you are getting a proper edit and a decent cover.

Not so fast.

That price tag doesn’t include any real editing, just an assessment which – according to their own website – is “not a replacement” for editorial services but “a preliminary diagnostic tool.”
But what if you need proper editing? Fear not! Simon & Schuster is here to help. For just $0.035 a word, you can have a thorough edit of your book. Which sounds cheap until you realize that a standard 80,000 word novel would cost you $2,800. So, in actual fact, the cheapest package, plus their edit, will set you back $4,799 for a standard length book.


As if that wasn’t enough, Simon & Schuster will also take half of your e-book royalties after Amazon and the other retailers take their cut – and pay pennies for print sales.

Not looking so reasonable anymore, is it.

“But wait!” I hear you cry. “Those Simon & Schuster editors might be pretty damn good.” Alas, Simon & Schuster won’t be lending any editorial expertise to this new operation; it will be run and staffed by… Author Solutions – the world famous repository of editorial talent.
In fact, the whole operation has been outsourced by Simon & Schuster to Author Solutions. In case you aren’t familiar with them, let’s go over a little history.

AUTHOR SOLUTIONS

Author Solutions is the umbrella for (and owner of) several seriously shady self-publishing service companies (or vanity presses, if you prefer) – such as AuthorHouse, Xlibris, iUniverse, and Trafford.
Each of these companies has managed to achieve disreputable status on their own, but together they have screwed over more than 150,000 writers. Going through the full history of their rip-off schemes would require a book, rather than a blog post, so I’ll stick to the highlights.
The formidable Emily Suess has been covering Author Solutions for some time:
The short list of recurring issues includes: making formerly out-of-print works available for sale without the author’s consent, improperly reporting royalty information, non-payment of royalties, breach of contract, predatory and harassing sales calls, excessive markups on review and advertising services, failure to deliver marketing services as promised, telling customers their add-ons will only cost hundreds of dollars and then charging their credit cards thousands of dollars, ignoring customer complaints, shaming and banning customers who go public with their stories, and calling at least one customer a ‘fucking asshole.’
Read the above list carefully. Take a moment to consider it. This is the company that Simon & Schuster has hired to run their self-publishing operation – a company which was purchased by Penguin in July for $116m.

If you are unfamiliar with the charges above, this post will give you a little more detail.

PENGUIN

At the time of the purchase, some commentators expressed hope that Penguin would clean up this cesspool. Instead, Penguin gave Kevin Weiss – the head of Author Solutions – a seat on the board.
A seat on the board!
And the scammy behavior hasn’t stopped; in fact, some of it is getting worse. I’ve received reports of Author Solutions staff calling prospective customers and asking if they want to be “published by Penguin.” Yes, they went there.

Then, a month after Penguin’s purchase, Author Solutions were heavily criticized for their misleading marketing strategies by Victoria Strauss of industry watchdog Writer Beware.



Aside from the usual litany of dodgy affiliate programs and misleading “independent” websites, Author Solutions had now gone a step further: using fake people to tout their services. A social media profile for “Jared Silverstone” was decked out with a stock photograph, and sent out to hustle for Author Solutions – under the pretense of recommending them independently.
Since Fake Jared’s fifteen minutes of fame, I’ve seen similar “writers” and “publishing consultants” disingenuously promoting Author Solutions companies in various writing groups on Facebook. And they’re just the ones that slip through the net – the administrator of one popular Facebook group told me that she “turns away people like this all the time.”
The latest wheeze is even better: an army of spam bots, posting comments to writing and publishing blogs, attempting to both lead people back to AuthorHouse and boost SEO. I snapped a comment from one such bot on the blog of Porter Anderson last week (which hasn’t been deleted at the time of writing).


Thank you, Author Solutions. The world really needed more spam bots.


PREDICATED ON IGNORANCE


Before you say that any writer who gets suckered only has themselves to blame, you must consider that Author Solutions is extremely disingenuous about how they target customers.
They prey on people who don’t understand the industry. Their whole business model is predicated on customer ignorance – and they are relentless at exploiting that, hounding people with incessant calls, pushing every emotional button they can think of, until they crack.
And it works. The average customer spends $5,000 getting their book published – which is crazy money – and Emily Suess has received reports of writers being tricked out of tens of thousands of dollars. After all that, the writers don’t sell anything anyway, and what little they do make is often delayed or unpaid altogether.
I can’t say it any plainer: Author Solutions are in the business of ripping people off.
That’s who Penguin purchased. That’s who Simon & Schuster hired to run their self-publishing operation. That’s who the Author’s Guild partnered with to help their members get books back in print.

150,000 writers have already been duped by Author Solutions. That number is likely to increase significantly now that Penguin has legitimized the company by purchasing them and Simon & Schuster has validated their business practices by hiring them.
Let’s make sure no more writers get ripped off.

UPDATE 29 Nov: As you can see, this post has received a lot of comments. One in particular deserves highlighting, from a writer called Khloe on her experience with Xlibris (an Author Solutions company). She says:

“They told me that with Penguin buying them they could, basically, guarantee that penguin would look at my book and because it was so good (she’d read the first couple of pages) they would definitely pick it up – the next 50 shades I was told I would be!”

This is the second such report I’ve received of Author Solutions using Penguin’s name to try and snare writers. The last person was asked (by AuthorHouse), “Would you like to be published by Penguin?” and then was offered the standard AuthorHouse packages, but with all sorts of promises about how “Penguin” would market their work.
Make no mistake, this is on Penguin. They knew what they were buying. Let’s recall the words of Penguin CEO John Makinson on the purchase of Author Solutions (ASI).

“We spent time getting to know the people at ASI and their sophisticated operation,” Makinson said. “They have skills that can help us at Penguin.”

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

CONGRATS!!!!!

Dreaming of Summer Blog Hop winner is.... Congrats to: Rhonda D, send me your addy, so I can send you a copy of Forever Hers and an e-copy of Dangerous Lov