Funds for Japan - stats

As promised, the stats for the copies of WolfSong sold for proceeds going to the Japan relief. For some reason the screen grabs are not co-operating though, so I've copied & pasted the figures.

First though, a massive thank you and a bit of a mini-rant.

Thanks to the bloggers and Indie authors who got on board, whether for this or similar projects, and blogged, face-booked and tweeted about this.

The mini rant is in two parts - one at the darlings who seem to think that No, Japan really doesn't need or want any help, thank you very much, including this post at Reuters titled "Don't donate money to Japan."
Let me know when your space ship lands, Mr. Salmon. I'd like to introduce you to Planet Earth. You know, the one we actually live on, where people realise that everything involved in helping out a country in this situation takes money. A lot of it. Whether the donations are earmarked for Japan or not is immaterial; the cost is still liable to outweigh the generosity of the givers.

The second part is partially aimed at myself. Why?

One of the comments left on Naomi Clark's live journal entry about this. To quote: "I'm not saying you're doing this for the same reasons, but be careful of using tragedy for your own ends."   

The link the poster attached leads to an article about a backlash against Microsoft and their campaign.

I'm sure the poster had the best intentions. But that comment left me feeling like I'd been punched in the stomach.
 Maybe the person who wrote that hadn't actually read the details of what we were trying to do. Maybe they missed the part where all profits went straight to the fund, & are somehow under the impression this benefits us.
Of course, now that I've thought about it, I'm not sure how this benefits me personally. I haven't sold a huge amount of books this week - I never expected to, and that wasn't the point.
The point was to try to give in the only way I knew how.

But the result was that I let that comment get to me; to the point where after I read it, I couldn't bring myself to tweet or facebook or blog about the fund raiser any more.
 And right now, I'm kicking myself, because I let someone put me in the same mental category as the scum out there who are scamming for donations. That nasty taste in my mouth? It's regret.

Amazon.com:

03/05/2011	WolfSong	J H Sked	B004OEKG3E	3	0	3	35 %	0.99	N/A	N/A	N/A	1.05
03/19/2011	WolfSong	J H Sked	B004OEKG3E	4	0	4	35 %	0.99	N/A	N/A	N/A	1.40

Amazon.uk:

03/05/2011	WolfSong	J H Sked	B004OEKG3E	3	1	2	35 %	0.62	N/A	N/A	N/A	0.44
03/12/2011	WolfSong	J H Sked	B004OEKG3E	2	0	2	35 %	0.62	N/A	N/A	N/A	0.44
03/19/2011	WolfSong	J H Sked	B004OEKG3E	2	0	2	35 %	0.62	N/A	N/A	N/A	0.44

Nothing, unfortunately, on the other sites, although I've heard from other authors that there is sometimes a reporting delay. If anything changes, I'll update here:

Channel	Sales Reported Through	Balance Adjusted Through	Accrued Sales (reported, not yet payable by retailer)
Smashwords.com	Today	Today	N/A
Amazon	Pending	Pending	None
Apple	Jan 29, 2011	Jan 29, 2011	None
Barnes & Noble	Jan 23, 2011	Oct 31, 2010	None
Diesel	Feb 28, 2011	Feb 28, 2011	None
Kobo	Jan 29, 2011	Jan 1, 2011	None
Sony	Feb 26, 2011	Sep 30, 2010	None

Weekly Round-up

I'm posting this a bit earlier than normal, since I'm going to try and get a bit of writing done as well as the next Uni project.
I got ambushed by the head-cold fairy on Friday, so the entire weekend has been spent feeling sorry for myself and whimpering into a pile of tissues.

Travel
Just London this week. My overnight bag is sulking in a corner, feeling neglected.

Technical Malfunctions for the week
Where to start on this one?
I haven't used the net book this week, so nothing to report there. The rest of the appliances in my life have tried to make up for it though:

iphone - decided to hiccup gently and give me hysterics about halfway through the week. The screen went black, with the Circle of Doom permanently revolving over it. No matter what I or LSH did, it would change. This included holding down the power button to try to switch it off, removing the sim card - you name it, we tried it.
 I thought it was broken. When I shuffled sadly into work the following morning and showed it to a colleague, he fixed it in about 20 seconds. By holding down the power button..
Home pc - not content with booting me off the internet for no apparent reason, the screen now suddenly pixelates and freezes. If I force a hard shut down & re-start, its fine. I've de-fragmented, run virus scans, the works. Any suggestions (Jeff! HELP!!) would be good here.
Work pc - Let's just say my entire IT department is currently avoiding me. (Maybe I shouldn't have asked for a machine that would cry if I slapped it?)
Work elevator - the last time I used it, it made a strange croaking noise and bounced when it reached my floor. I'm currently using the stairs.
Washing Machine - took a note from an old Stephen King story and tried to chase me across the kitchen last night. The bloody thing lunged at me. This is not something you need to experience at 1 a.m, while desperately needing to visit the bathroom.

Study
Group work done. I'm now ploughing into the solo assignments. Been having some great philosophical debates with my brother via Skype over the different areas, which is really, really cool. Anything that lets my inner geek out is fun.

Writing and stuff
Had a bit of  a drive this week, along with a couple of other awesome indie authors, to try to raise funds for Japan. I'll post the stats separately, as promised - not a huge amount, but every little bit helps.
Fighting with the vamp story, so I'll leave that and come back to it later, have a couple of other shorts I'm playing with as well.
Indie book blog posted my interview yesterday. Gotta say - it's really weird reading an interview with yourself. It feels slightly unreal, like one of those dreams you have when you get a really bad dose of the flu. Really, really cool, but weird.

The best thing about the whole publishing experience has been the community involved - the writers, the bloggers, the readers.  I love what I do as an Indie author and the people involved, 99% of whom I'd never have met if I hadn't taken the step of publishing WolfSong this year. So many people who are all so supportive of each other, who want you to do well and hone your craft.  Where else do you get this?
So yes - I'm (usually) broke, frantically busy, and occasionally feel like I'm playing whack-a-mole to keep track of where I am. I also think I am very, very lucky indeed.  

Funds for Japan - author update, and ChristChurch

C.E. Grundler has joined up to the #write4japan drive and is generously donating sales from Last Exit in New Jersey , her fast paced, off beat action adventure  - for the month so far as well as the next week. You can swing  by and pay her a visit at http://cegrundler.wordpress.com or follow her on twitter @cegrundler. You can also pick some really interesting info on all things boating related.

The amazingly talented Naomi Clark, author of Demonised, Night & Chaos and Ungrateful Dead is donating all of the income she receives from both Night & Chaos and Ungrateful Dead between now and Sunday 19th March to World Vision to help with aid in Japan. Follow her on twitter @naomi_jay, and swing on over to her site at http://naomijay.blogspot.com . (A coffee alert on both might be in order, Naomi has a frequently evil sense of humour - just what you need to perk you up.)

There are a bunch of other authors out there trying to raise money, awareness of fund raising, or both. Their generosity is humbling, and gives an old cynic like me hope for the future of the human race.

New Zealand Update
Gordon Ryan, author of the Pug series, is raising funds for his home town of Christchurch via e-book sales. Although the New Zealand quake has been overshadowed in the media by the sheer scale of the Japanese disaster, the survivors in Christchurch also need support. Gordon has a number of books out, from political thrillers to historical fiction, so you can really sink your teeth into his writing. He publishes in e-book and tree-book format, so there really is something for everyone. Visit his website at http://www.gordonryan.com

Raising funds for Japan - calling all other Indie authors

The images from Japan are heartbreaking. For all the problems we might have, the majority of us still have homes, clothing, and access to food, water and medical supplies as needed.
Despite being one of the most resilient nations on the planet, Japan is going to need a lot of help over the next couple of months, if not years. Being cash poor, I can't afford to donate money.
What I can do, though, is donate every sale from WolfSong for the next week (maybe longer if I raise some decent funds) to the Red Cross fund.

So that's every cent of author profit from the sale of the e-book (tree version is still way off, I'm afraid), from every site it's on, once the sites have taken their cut. If you're an author and you'd like to join in, please do. It doesn't matter if it's for a couple of hours, days, or the full week - every little bit will help.
Give me a shout in the comments or the join the twitter feed #write4japan.

I'll post the stats and amount raised here next Sunday - let's get the ball rolling a bit.  I'm keeping the price as is, simply because there are a lot of people in the same financial situation - unable to donate the amounts you want to, but able to fork out between under a dollar (0.99c) or pound (0.71p)  a pop.

The links to all the sites are below:

Amazon.uk - £0.71
Amazon.com - $0.99
Smashwords - $0.99
Diesel  e-book store- $0.99
Sony e-book store - $0.99

Weekly Round-up

Crazy busy (again!!) with university stuff, so let's get down to it:

Travel:
Leicester, which is starting to seem like my second home. No other travel planned for a couple of weeks which is good - I love seeing my guys, but am totally exhausted right now. Barring something really evil happening, the next time I travel any distance will be April, when I'm flying to Australia - more on that later though.
I anticipated another evening of hunt the decent restaurant, so when my friend offered to take me home & cook a meal before I went back to the office I jumped at the chance.
Dinner was salmon with a slice of Emmental cheese, wrapped in pancetta and roasted. Followed by home made fruit crumble and custard. It was a very happy little Aries that waddled back to work later that evening. More than I usually eat in a week, and absolutely to die for.

Technical Malfunctions for the week:
Not too bad this week - my iphone is doing some weird stuff & I tend to suffer from Angry Bird rage, especially when the screen doesn't seem to recognize that I'm touching it. Since I read the screens are based on reading electrical impulses, and I wasn't wearing gloves, this freaks me out a bit.
The TV at the hotel was rolling - this is one of the reasons I hardly ever end up watching TV at a hotel; there is always something going pear-shaped with them. I'm actually not allowed to touch the remote control at home, as LSH reckons I'm the kiss of death. One day I'll post the saga of what happened to the computer shop when I went to buy my net-book..
The elevator at work tends to go in the opposite direction to the button I've pushed at the moment - a bit irritating, but I can live with it.
My home pc still insists on disconnecting from the net on a frequent basis. I have no idea why.

Study

Making headway; I'm about to post my draft of the group assignment to the forums for review. Then we have a week to put everything together.
I volunteered to type everyone's notes into one document (it's called masochism. I also type pretty fast), and then one of my classmates gets to put the slides together.

Books
Finished Night and Chaos, by Naomi Clark. Oh, my. This lady is good! Of course, it means she's going to cost me a lot of money in the future, since I'm going to be buying everything she releases..

Finished The Abbey, by Chris Culver. 5 stars all the way - from what I can tell this is his first book. I can't wait for the next one. Good, solid crime writing. At the moment it's sitting at 0.71p on Amazon - get it before the price changes. Hell, get it if the price does change. It's worth every penny & more.

Finished River Marked, by Patricia Briggs, the latest in the Mercy series. I love this series, and thoroughly enjoyed the book.

Haven't started anything else yet due to university work.

Writing and stuff
Time wise, I haven't had much chance to write this week. The deadline to get the uni stuff done is just too tight, and I desperately need to finish.
I get extremely cranky when I can't write, which is never a good thing.

LSH finished her copy of WolfSong and wanted to see what happened next. Made my day, although the first draft is nowhere near ready for beta reading yet, so she is currently sulking a bit.

Smashwords downloads took off this week thanks to e-book week. The site was incredibly slow up until Friday though - if you were trying to download a copy and couldn't let me know, I'll make a plan for you.

On Amazon.uk I hit the top 100 under epic fantasy for 2 days. I have no idea what, if anything, this means sales wise - I think you need to hit the top 100 overall for this to be a sales thing. But it sure felt good.

There's been some discussion on different blogs about being able to write full time. I'd love to. The thought of making a living from my writing, and not being so broke I have trouble paying attention (which is my usual state) is wonderful. Since to date I think I've made around $5 in total, I'm keeping that under the Sweet Dreams file. However, should the gods of Kindle change their minds and decide I'm about to become a mega-seller, I won't complain at all.
Considering most authors work a day job their entire lives, and in the current economy I'm actually happy to have a job at all.. Shrug.
 I don't write for the money, which is just as well. Even if I never sold another book, I wouldn't stop writing (although I would be a bit depressed about it).

 I'd love to end up like Amanda Hocking or J A Konrath, two of the top e-book authors out there. Maybe it will happen. But keep in mind that guys like that worked damn hard to get to where they are; nobody waved a magic wand at them and said "Okay, snookums. You're rich."
Too many new indie authors seem to think they'll be rich and famous in a matter of weeks. Unless you hold a winning lottery ticket - um, no. No matter what genre you publish in, (or how you publish for that matter) this is the real world, where you have to pay bills, and rent, and buy food. Stuff like that.
Word of mouth takes time to build up, your Amazon check won't come through for a while, and quitting your day job on Monday because you published your first e-book on Sunday is a horribly bad idea.
Please don't do this to yourself.  Reality bites, and sometimes she has rabies.

Strange Days

The last couple of months seem to have been one disaster after another, either natural or man-made.

Egypt rumbled, Libya is going up in flames, Somalia right behind it. Zimbabwe has been sliding into it's own private hell for a couple of years, thanks to the mad man running the show, but started to escalate again this month. These little horror-shows are man-made, and part of what humans have done to each other since we figured out how to walk upright and, oh look, here's a big rock. Let's see what happens if I hit Og on the head with it..

Then we have Mother Nature, apparently suffering from the worst case of PMS in history.
The quake in New Zealand, wild fires in the USA, snow storms that killed dozens -these are just off the top of my head. Now Japan, wounded and bleeding while the rest of us watch in horror.
Lately, it feels like the planet is scratching itself like an itchy dog, and we are the irritant.
 All we can do, if we are lucky enough not to be in the impact zone, is send aid, sympathy and care to the survivors, thank any god we believe in that we are not the ones suffering - and wonder when our turn will come.

It kind of puts the walking suicide known as Charlie Sheen into perspective - although it doesn't say much about us as a species that we've spent a couple of weeks watching someone self-destruct as entertainment.
 I keep wondering what will happen the day that man finally gets it right and over-doses - are we going to have the hysterical finger-pointing that happened after Michael Jackson and Anna Nicole Smith left this world? Because if any charges are made, the entire damn planet is culpable - we are all just following the story on our t.v screens and twitter feeds, giggling at someone who is playing a pretty public game of Russian roulette.

Weekly Round-up & first fun contest

My home pc is still channelling it's inner Regan MacNeil. So far, though, it has not managed to throw up on me, for which I am incredibly grateful. I'm not really a fan of pea-soup, anyway. However, in honour of my history with electronics, and considering the fun I had with them this week, they've now earned a place of their own in the weekly round-up.

It was a pretty busy week, and both really, really good and frustrating ..

Travel
I hit Scotland this week - Glasgow on Monday evening through to Wednesday morning, and Edinburgh Wednesday and Thursday. If you ever travel to Edinburgh, I thoroughly recommend the Hudson hotel in Hope street, and a great little seafood place called the Mussel Inn in the Rose street area. For once, Scotland was warmer than London - arriving back on Thursday evening was a nasty shock, temperature wise. London on Friday.

Technical Malfunctions for the week (also known as Computers Hate Me)

Home p.c. is possessed and has consistently booted me off the net every time I try to log on. Either that or the entire screen turns into a pixilated nightmare that won't budge, forcing a hard shut down and copious amounts of swearing.  However, seems to willing to let me complete this blog and do a bit of posting to university forum, so right now I'll live with it.

I have a net-book that travels with me. I need this little darling, both for working remotely and studying when I'm out of town. On Tuesday evening it started making a howling noise and got so hot I thought the key board was going to explode, and wouldn't switch off. When I finally got it off, and cooled down, it sat there and sulked. Cue me rolling on the floor and biting the carpet - no remote work possible, no study possible.

I tried it today - no problems. GAH!

My phone kept switching itself on & off, including on the plane.Since I'd physically switched the phone off - not to silent, off - this was disturbing. (Two weeks ago I woke up in Bristol to find the charger socket twisted and black - the phone had only charged to around 80% so that wasn't the issue - and I currently have to rely on computer charging.)

The possible highlight, though, was triggering the alarm at Edinburgh airport. I had no metal on me (not even a belt), and although I have metal plates in my leg they are titanium and shouldn't trigger anything. The end result though, was a very thorough pat-down by security. It's the closest I've come to a full body massage in months - strangely soothing. Although the woman doing the pat-down got the giggles when I told her I couldn't afford to tip..

Study
Frustrating due to technical hiccups. And finance still leaves me in a gibbering heap. I just want to pass that section. I do not want to have to repeat it, ever.

Books 
I was lucky enough to win an e-copy of Naomi Clark's Demonised. If you read fantasy, urban fantasy, or horror, get hold of her work. As yet she doesn't write full-time, but if she finds the right audience I reckon she might start giving the big boys a run for their money. Talented lady. I'm halfway through Night and Chaos and loving it. She has a blog over at http://naomijay.blogspot.com/, swing by and give her a shout.

I also finished William Meikle's The coming of the King - loved that too. Another alternative history/vampire combo, and a great ride. You can find him at http://www.williammeikle.com. Much though I enjoy a lot or urban fantasy, I'm thoroughly enjoying the return of the totally evil vampire as a character. Nasty, but fun.

I'm still on Protector, by Laurel Dewey - reading slowed up a lot this week from sheer exhaustion. Text books don't count.

Writing and Stuff


Indie Book Blogger listed me in the top 3 books for February. I had a grin on my face all the way to Glasgow.


I got my first ever 5 star review on Amazon.uk today - I'm so chuffed. I've commented on each review so far, and will continue to do so no matter what the review says - nothing major, just a thanks for the review. If someone has taken the time to read my book and put their opinion out there, I just feel it's polite to thank them. So far, no bad reviews yet, although I'm sure that will come, and when they do I'm hoping I can pull on my big-girl panties, and thank the reviewer for their time and trouble in the same way.

The best part of the reviews is reading that people like your work. The most useful part is where they point out issues; so far two people have commented on introducing new characters, so it's definitely something to work on. If they hadn't mentioned it, I'd never have known, so I'm even more grateful.

Indie book blog has a  free coupon announcement for Jeffrey Pierce up, and an interview from Andrew Warwick, author of Tears of the Mountain and Winter Wolves.
Also worth mentioning again is Jeffrey Poole over at www.lentari.com - author of The Bakkian Chronicles. He is offering technical help for converting books to e-format, and unlike me, knows exactly what he is doing.

Fun Contest

If you'd like a character in the new vampire short story named after you or someone you know, post in the comments.
I have three names available - one male (semi-traumatised immortal with issues), female (spoiled, sadistic rich bitch) and boyfriend (busy sugar-daddy to spoiled rich bitch and a very small walk-on part).
The story is for the collection I'm releasing in May, and I'll send you a copy of the story as soon as it's done.

You can nominate yourself or a friend, or yourself and a friend - first come first served. If you don't want your name in the story but still want to comment, feel free - just state "no name please" in the comment.

=========
PS: The roast was brilliant. Table 7 in Chingford - worth the visit.

Sample Sunday - Chapter 13 from WolfSong

In honour of Sample Sunday, I've pasted Chapter 13 from WolfSong below. Enjoy!
LSH has Declared An Intervention and is hauling me away from the studies for a roast dinner at a little restaurant down the road..

Chapter 13

Amber sat bolt upright, staring at the others in shock.

“You have got to be joking,” she said.

Her captain shook his head, grimly. “We checked with Ricky. When Vianna told me she hadn’t seen him amongst the dead –“

Amber leaned forward and stared hard at him.“Tell me you did not show that boy what was in the village, Ariaan.”

“Not all of it,” Garliaan said hastily. “Just the faces.”

Amber rose from her chair and stalked over to the window, hugging herself.

“You bastards,” she said softly.

The males in the room winced. They would have preferred her screaming at them. Amber angry and loud, they could deal with.

Angry and quiet tended to be a problem with a hawk - especially this one.

“Amber-“ Garliaan tried, but she overrode him, still speaking in that low, icy voice with her back to them.

“Every member of this squad has had nightmares about Five Hands village, and we weren’t much more than a mop-up team. You decided to show a child who lived through that scene the dead faces of his family and friends? Sweet Mother!”

“We had no choice!” Ariaan snapped, his own temper beginning to rise. He felt badly enough without her rubbing salt into it.

“Explain.”

Garliaan looked at his captain, who nodded curtly.

“I went into his house, before we torched the village. The things in there..” he trailed off, then changed track. “Amber, he’d been planning a change for a long, long time.”

She turned to stare at him. “Go on.”

“The books and paraphernalia found were all indicative of someone who was trying to become a werewolf. Most of it was crap, but the incantations, exercises – all were geared towards a change.“

“Wait – he was trying to curse himself?” She shook her head in disbelief.

Apart from an exchange of a bodily fluid, the only other known way for a human to become a lycanthrope is a curse.

 There are reasons why it is not a good idea to piss off a black magician.

 “That’s insane!”

“I don’t think his sanity has been an issue for some time,” Ariaan said.

Garliaan snorted in agreement.

“But why?” Amber shook her head. “What human would voluntarily do that?”

“Power,” Garliaan shrugged. “If you’re a human it gives you that. You’re faster, stronger, a lot more dangerous. From what Ricky said, he enjoyed having people fear him. Most humans are terrified of werewolves.”

“Then the girl-“

“No, she was clan. We’ve contacted her people already.” Garliaan sighed. “I think what happened was, Scrout had been making all of these attempts, and he was getting desperate.”

“No good at magic either?” Amber guessed, and the big hawk hissed and tossed his head.

“The house was filthy.”

You cannot invoke serious magic in a dirty living area; it just will not work.

The grime and debris of human existence interfere with the vibrations of the natural world at the best of times. Add several layers of dirt on top of that, and you haven’t got a hope of something major happening.

“So when the girl passed through, he saw his chance and took it,” Amber said grimly. “That doesn’t explain his survival.”

“Actually, it does,” Garliaan contradicted her. “What’s the first law of survival?”

“Will power,” Ariaan answered.

“Exactly. He wanted this – he willed this. The others never stood a chance – the reason most infected victims don’t survive a change is because they truly don’t wish to. They consider it a curse worse than death.”

Amber closed her eyes briefly.

Oh, Seiren.

“So he took the form to fit the inner being. How charming,” she said bitterly. “But the thaarn virus should still have killed him in a matter of days once he changed.”

“Not if that was what he willed,” Garliaan answered softly.

They stared at him in horror, as what he was really saying finally dawned.

“You’re telling me we have someone out there capable of going thaarn and staying rational,” Ariaan said slowly. “Of spreading this willingly – and surviving?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” The captain finally sat down, mainly because his legs would no longer hold him up.

“I didn’t know. I’ve had to lean on my sources in the clans pretty hard to come up with this much, and I’ve only just managed to put the pieces together.”

“This has happened before.” Amber said flatly.

“Generations ago. It was contained in the clans, so we’d have no record of it.”

Ariaan stood up. “I’ll send messages to the rest of the squads. This bastard could be anywhere on the Crescent by now.”

“No.” Amber said quietly.

“We have to warn people, Amber.” He could feel the beginnings of a headache.

“Not unless you want to start a bloodbath.” She folded her arms, looking even grimmer, if such a thing were possible. “Unless you can guarantee that no human gets wind of this.”

“They’re the ones most in danger!”

 Amber unfolded her arms and brushed back a lock of her hair, then tapped a finger against her chin.

“What do you think will happen to the clans if the human population on the Crescent decides they’re a definite threat, Ariaan?”

Garliaan’s face paled as she continued, speaking softly and urgently.

“We can’t even make them see reason about us – and we can’t infect them.”

Her captain stared at her, then swung over to the door and kicked it. Several times.

“Shit! Oh, shit on this!”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“What, in the name of the four hells, do we do now?” He rubbed his face with his hands.

“Well, first, you’re getting me a new door,” Amber quirked an eyebrow at the splinters on the floor.

“And then?” Ariaan’s mouth twitched.

“Then we hunt,” she said, and her voice was very quiet and very cold in the heat of the room.

*******************

Weekly Round-up

Right. After the mother of all computer malfunctions, I finally have access to the internet again. I still have no idea what the problem was, but the connection suddenly died earlier this evening. Since I'm now way behind on both writing and university assignments, I'm going to post this, go for a bath, and gibber gently until the world becomes a nicer place.


Travel
Busy week on travel - hit Manchester, Watford and Bristol. I really like Bristol, it reminds me a lot of Edinburgh with the hills and old, old buildings. If I ever move south of London it would be my pick. The drawback to travelling to this extent? I woke up on Friday morning and it took me nearly five minutes to remember which city I was in.


Study
Was nicely on track until my computer decided demonic possession was the new way forward this evening. Since it is now working again, but appears to have either eaten the assignment I was working on (or transported it to some alternate dimension where I am filthy rich, skinny,  and confused as to why I suddenly have a partially completed power point presentation on stress appearing on my machine.), I am no longer screaming hysterically at a black screen and LSH has stopped hiding in her room.


Books
Apart from Amanda Hocking's Switched, which I seriously recommend, I've also finished The Vampire Kitty- cat Chronicles by Ray Rhamsey (great political satire with some real laugh out loud moments) and the latest J D Robb, Treachery In Death. 
I'm addicted to the J D Robb series, although the only reason I got this was because it was pay day  and I wanted to spoil myself. There is more than one reason Indie writers are burning up the kindle charts, and a big one is price. Great stories at less than £5? Sold. Anything higher on my budget makes me twitchy. So although the book was great, I'm unlikely to buy new releases from main stream publishers because of the price.
I finished The Emperor's Edge by Lindsay Buroker - great read & I recommend this one. I'm starting to pick my reading list based strongly on Indie Book Blogger's recommendations, which is saving me a lot of hunting for good new fantasy.
Currently reading Protector, by Laurel Dewey.


Writing and stuff
Worked a bit on rewrites for the next Crescent book. There are still a couple of paragraphs in the chapter I'm on that clunk a bit for me, so they might have to go. Still struggling with Fur, the vampire short. I think half the problem is the M.C. makes my hands itch. Wanting to bitch slap your protagonist is never a good sign..


Scott was an absolute sweetheart and re-posted his reviews to the new edition of WolfSong, which is brilliant.
 He has now joined twitter. You can find him under the user name @indiebookblogge.
 I did a second round of interview questions of my interview on Indie Book Blogger - we'll be giving away a copy of the book when he posts the interview, so quite excited and hoping this drums up a bit more interest. (Also known as  Praying to Gods of Kindle).


Jeffrey M Poole, author of The Bakkian Chronicles, is offering help on technical issues and formatting over at www.lentari.com - great looking site as well. Considering I'm about as technical as a small drunken goldfish, this is huge. Thanks, Mr. Poole!


Mood: Computers hate me.

New Edition of WolfSong

The re-formatted edition of WolfSong is now up on both Amazon.com and Amazon.uk. I really hope I caught all the formatting issues; I also really hope this fixes the issue I was told about on ipad readers.

I've just got through my first Amanda Hocking. All I can say is - no wonder she has sold the quantity of books she does. This lady can write!

Weekly Round-up

I'm keeping this one brief, it's been a very long day what with studying and having a minor panic attack over the finance assignment.


Travel
Leicester for 3 days. Gotta say I like the city. The guys I deal with there are probably the reason - people like that are why I love my job. Plus a really awesome fresh food market, and a weekly farmers market - if you're in Leicester on a Thursday, hit the town centre for some really good cooked food from the stalls.


Study
Gah. At least an hour most nights. I'm enough of a geek that I'm loving the textbook on work psychology (I've ended up reading chapters I didn't need to for the assignment, and thinking of buying the book in hard copy). So far, so good. Tonight though, I realised the finance assessment had been posted... To explain : Although reasonably intelligent, when I look at figures my IQ automatically drops about 80 points. If this was a  relationship, it would be the kind that ends with one partner sewing sardines into the other's curtains before leaving the house for the last time. I opened the assignment and read it, and pretty much hyper-ventilated on the spot. 
LSH (who is actually pretty good at figures) came through while I was rocking gently and hugging myself. She took look at the brief, turned and patted me gently on the arm, and said, "You're screwed."
Which, frankly, would be the most fun I've ever had with financial studies. 


Books
Finished CS Marks Elfhunter. Get it. This is going to be a classic people are still reading in 15, 20 years.
Finished  The Shadow Thieves by Anne Ursu.    Some real laugh out loud moments here; I'll be looking for more by this author.
Finished The Light of Eidon by Karen Hancock - this was free at Amazon (gotta love the free kindle stuff!). I didn't realise it was Christian fantasy when I downloaded it (although got that pretty fast in the book). It's actually not a bad story at all, although it did get a bit preachy at times. Still, no worse than a lot of-non-Christian fantasy gets, despite some really bitchy reviews on Amazon (some from Christian readers because it wasn't written to their ideal standards. WTF? Give the bloody woman a break.)


Currently reading The Emperor's Edge by Lindsay Buroker, for which I blame Scott at Indie Book Blog. (I read his review.) This is a lot of fun - it's kept me intrigued all the way so far & the price is good. Love the main character as well and as the plot is far from obvious I have no idea where it's going to - can't wait to find out though.


Writing
Still over the moon about my first review - although I'm now panicking that when the new version uploads it won't have any. I don't want to leave the old one up with the formatting issues in it - that's just shoddy and won't win me any fans. Not sure what to do here - I'll have to sleep on it.


Re-started the short story that died a couple of weeks ago - let's see if this one works better. It's hopefully a totally different spin on the vampire myth. 

New version of WolfSong uploaded

I've uploaded the reformatted version to Kindle - now need to wait until it goes live.

I've kept the price at 0.99c for Amazon.com. The UK price is linked to the US version so the price in the UK should stay at 0.71p. I have a better chance of getting an audience if the price stays low, so here's hoping it starts selling a bit more.

I'm wondering about changing the cover to see if that will boost sales a bit as well. I'm attached to that cover, but if it isn't working I'll have to re-vamp it.

WolfSong - first review on Amazon.com

Scott from Indie Book Blog was kind enough to review WolfSong and the review is posted on Amazon.com here.

It's my first ever review, and I was nervous.      

I read the review.

I read the review again.

Then I went to the kitchen and did a happy dance around LSH while making high pitched squealing noises.

Limped back to my room, (concrete floor + soft slippers = sore feet) and read the review again. Text messaged my folks (South Africa), my brother (Australia), friend (London).

Typed a couple of thank you's to Scott on the forum he started, as a direct response to the review, and on his blog (which I sincerely hope were coherent, because my brain was still doing back flips & giggling gently to itself) and decided to post this before crashing.

He gave me four stars (FOUR!! STARS!! OMGOMGOMG!!) and incredible feedback, both by e-mail and in the review.

Thanks to the feedback I'll be uploading a re-formatted version to kindle tomorrow - right now I'm so tired I'm having trouble focusing on the keyboard - and hopefully that issue is fixed. The other points he made (all valid) I'm going to do my best to fix in the next book.

He also gave a really good summary of the book; something I struggle to do, so I owe a huge thanks to him for that as well.

Mood: Happy, happy bunny!

Weekly Roundup

The day by day thing is getting a little old, & since I'm usually working more than a little boring, so I'm going to try it another way..

Writing news:
Uploaded Dim as part of Sample Sunday to Scribd here. Not sure if I'm getting the hang of the tweet thing yet or not, but it can't hurt.
Have gone through WolfSong with a fine tooth comb (again!) and hopefully fixed all the issues. Which I am still sulking over - the biggest gripe a lot of readers have about Indies is poor editing and formatting. It doesn't matter that tree books have the same problem (some of which are worse that the average indie book by far) - if we want to take on the big boys, we need to better than average. So I may have shot myself in the foot by missing the word runs during the last edit before I hit the publish button.

 Also found a free programme called Calibre through Guido Henkel's blog, so I'm going to run the entire book through that & upload it back to Amazon next week. Hopefully this will also fix the ipad formatting issue - crossing fingers & toes on that one. All the creator asks for is a donation if you can afford it - for a programme that seems to eliminate 99% of formatting issues, this is a bargain, and a cause worth supporting.

Tossing an idea around for a new short story - I tend to write at least the first couple of pages purely in my head to see if it will go somewhere. This one is being stubborn - I know the end, and most of the middle, but it's having trouble starting off.

Other
I seem to be losing weight (yay!) with the healthy meals LSH is feeding me. I'm going to have withdrawal symptoms next week - I'm away 3 days for work - but can't complain. If this carries on, I will no longer look like a  pregnant hobbit, which can only be a good thing. (On a slightly less pleasant note, the two of us discovered an very unwanted side effect of the allowed chocolate on this diet. Let's just say if someone lit a match in the room the roof would leave the building. Fast.)

University is keeping me busy most nights & at the weekends. The subject of finance still makes me feel like I've just lost 50 IQ points, but thankfully it's one of the first modules. As long as I pass it, I'm happy. Unfortunately, it means sacrificing a lot of promotion time on the net - c'est la vie.

Like the rest of the world, (except China) I've been watching the situation in Egypt this week. Part of me is extremely glad another dictator has left the room. The rest of me is mourning the people that had to die for this to happen. Whether 1 person, a 100, or a 100 000 - the payment in blood is always too damn high.
My personal view on politicians is that anyone who wants that amount of power shouldn't be allowed anywhere near it.

Books
I was lucky enough to pick up Dreaming Anastasia by Joy Preble for free this week - the price has now gone up. I loved this - I'm waiting for pay day so I can get the follow-up.  Usually books written in the present tense irritate me - this was an absolute joy.
33 AD by David McAfee - a really cool take on the vampire myth; if you like an action packed read (call it swords & sandals) -  get this. Unfortunately, David has just made my books for pay day list that little bit longer.
I've already posted my review on The Judas Syndrome by Michael Poeltl, which I've been reading for a while. I'm going to be watching this author closely; I think there is serious blockbuster potential waiting to come out.

I'm currently busy with The Shadow Thieves by Anne Ursu. This is aimed at younger readers, but the sense of humour is wicked - I'm enjoying this.
Added to my pay day list is The Vampire Kitty Cat Chronicles. The sample should have come with a keyboard alert. The price on Amazon is pretty cheap; but since I'm doing my usual so-broke-can't-pay-attention thing, it has to wait.

Reviews by Request AKA Sheer, unmitigated terror

A couple of weeks ago, just after I bounced onto the Kindle Boards for the first time, an author posted requesting reviews. I happily accepted, based on the fact that a) I thought it would be good experience b) I'd get a free book and c) most importantly, it wasn't my genre. I read post apocalyptic fiction, I have never written it.

A couple of hours later, the book landed in my in-box, and I started to panic. I've posted about books before - but these are books I have bought and read voluntarily.

Who the hell am I, someone who at that stage had sold maybe ten books (slightly higher now, but not by much) to review an established author? Mike Poeltl has books selling - and already reviewed - all over the net, in physical book form and e-books. He has 2 books out and a third  due for release in 2012.

I have 1. An e-book. With NO reviews.

I've seen some truly vicious reviews on Amazon and other places. Some of them incoherent, some of them by people who never even read the bloody book to start with - those tend to irritate the daylights out of me. But others have been well written, spell checked - and rip the author a new one right off the bat.

I'm not prepared to do that. If I don't like a book, I'm not going to post a review. At the end of the day it's only my personal opinion. Why be a bitch about someone else's hard work? Somebody is going to open that page up, read what you've written - and either feel ok, pretty damn good, or like they just got punched in the gut. If I'm going to make someone cry over something I've written, I'd really prefer it to be fiction.

So one of my biggest fears when I started The Judas Syndrome was simply - what if I hate the book? I'd promised a review, after all - and if you don't keep your promise what are you worth, at the end of the day?

I read the book. Then I went back and re-read it. If I was going to post a review, I wanted it to be honest and thoughtful, not something I rushed through. This guy had spent who knows how long writing the book; it deserved some decent attention.
I liked it. It wasn't perfect for me as a reader - but it made me think about the situation the characters were in.

I e-mailed Mike back, who has waited patiently for a while, and told him what I wanted to say - good and bad.   I freely admit I was nervous about pushing the send button. I've heard of less than pleasant responses by authors to anything remotely negative, and I had a few issues with parts of the book.

I left the decision of whether or not he wanted it posted up to him; this is his baby I'm about to simultaneously pat on the head and swot on the butt.

The response was pretty much immediate, and very gracious; he thanked me for my time, my feedback,  and told me to go ahead and post it, which I did.

I then went and had a (very) large beer and watched Bedlam - fun stuff if you like a mix of pretty with spooky.
Overall this was a positive experience. But I don't think I'll be reviewing like this again in a hurry; my nerves just won't take it.

And finally - the review itself. I gave this 4 stars on Amazon uk; for me what pushed it over the three star mark was the main character, Joel and the brilliant way the author fleshed him out.
                                                                
                                                          ****

This is a pretty intense book that I think will polarise readers - they are either going to love it or hate it.
It deals openly with a number of subjects that more conservative readers will be uncomfortable with, including fairly prolific drug use and some fairly harsh language. Although the main character and his friends are teenagers, this is not a children's book by any means.

For me the book had some excellent points and a couple of jarring notes. I'll start with the negatives first, since I think firstly they are pretty minor & easily fixed in future books, and secondly - what I didn't like is not going to apply to everyone.

1) Too much back-story. The first couple of chapters could have been condensed without losing the overall feel for the characters. Got to say though - absolutely LOVED the first page - Joel speaks.

2) I had trouble distinguishing between character voices, especially where there was a lot of dialogue. To me this was because they all seemed to have the same style of speaking for long periods of time. Not always, but enough that I had to flip back a couple of times to check who was speaking.

3) A lot of dialogue came across more as personal philosophy or thought instead of conversation between people - interesting, but not something I come across often and it did tend to jar me out of the story a bit.

What I loved:

1 - The concept was brilliant. I've read a number of post-apocalypse type books; this one struck me as quite different to the run-of-the-mill stuff.

2 - Joel. For me this guy was the perfect anti-hero - difficult to like, remarkably easy to sympathise with. No attempt at covering his flaws or making him a saint. What really struck me was watching this guy devolve slowly into utter paranoia and self-hate, and eventually self-destruct in every sense of the word, while constantly trying to do what he thinks is right. Joel in the end is the personification of the apocalypse, and I thought this was beautifully done.

3 - Stinky. How can you not love a talking skunk/avatar?

4 - The ending. I really, really liked it - very powerful way to end this story, and for me it made perfect sense in light of both the book and Joel's character.

I'd recommend it, although it takes time to get through. This is not a cute or fluffy book and there are some pretty hard hitting scenes in it that will stay with the reader for a while. 

Books this week

I'm not going to post the books I'm busy with for university (there's a limit), but even though my reading is going to slow down drastically, I've found some real gems this week.


Books I've read this week:


Joe Hill - 21st Century Ghosts - Wow. 5 Stars. I'd already read Horns and Heart-Shaped Box, and I love short stories, so I was looking forward to this. I'd put Joe Hill up there with Neill Gaiman and Stephen King; stuff that just keeps me coming back for more. 


Mike McIntyre - The Scavengers Daughter. I think this might be the first book from this author, & I'll be keeping an eye out for more. It's patchy in places but strangely addictive. I think this writer will be one to watch in the future.


James Roy Daley - 13 Drops of Blood. Another book of shorts. These ranged from what I always think of as "Creature Features" to the hysterically funny (crude, but funny). I showed LSH the last story & she bought the book based on that, so I'm not the only one. I won't give anything away but will state it's the most novel and disgusting way of dealing with vampires that I've ever read. Wouldn't read this particular story on a full stomach though.


Jon F. Merz - The Fixer- A fun read about a ninja trained vampire. The main character is an absolute riot.


Books I'm reading:


Still on Elfhunter by C.S. Marks, mainly because I don't want it to end. It's  my comfort read for Bad Days.
Just started AD33 by David McAfee - I loved the idea of  vampires vs. Jesus of Nazareth, this looks really promising. 

Weekly Round-up

Monday
Work in London today, so get home fairly early around 7). Log on to university and found 3 assignments now up. Promptly have valium moment. (To put this in perspective, 3 different papers on various dates from end of April until May. When you work full time, try to sell an indie book, are working on the next one and travel a lot, this makes for an absolutely frantic first semester.) Start  working through finance module. Go  to bath around 11 p.m. feeling like my brain is going to melt through my ears.
Tuesday
Work  in London again.  Log on to university. Gibber at LSH regarding coursework when she hauls me away from the p.c for dinner. LSH makes soothing noises, feeds me and lets me go back to bedroom (also currently known as Pit of Doom). Look up and realise it's 11:30. Lie in bath fantasising about winning lottery and chocolate. I'm eating a lot of fruit & drinking water by the litre to try to get energy levels up, with the result that my bladder wakes me up singing Ave Maria twice.
Wednesday
Cranky as hell. Zombie shuffle to tube station with LSH and promise to take tonight off from studying - Wednesdays are now officially my night off. Drink a lot of coffee at work. Get home, eat, bath, crash.
Thursday
Same  as Tuesday - rinse & repeat. 
Friday
Travelling again. While waiting for train at Paddington station am treated to delightful experience of guy sitting next to me and adjusting a certain part of his anatomy for nearly 15 minutes. Firmly restrain myself from telling him that if it takes that long to find, he has a problem. Guy then rests a large sandwich on the results of said adjustment. WTF? Was he trying to coil it into a frigging place-mat? Guy eats sandwich, reach into tracksuit pants every so often for further tweaking. Feeling mildly traumatised and wishing desperately for mind-bleach, I get to the train. Guess who is sitting at the same table on the train? Train is packed and seats are booked - I can't even move. Dial up Rammstein at full volume on iphone and try to pretend today isn't happening to me.
 Bit of a sad moment when I get to the office I'm visiting - they are relocating and one of the girls has decided she can't go with. Sad because she is one of the bright stars; I'll miss working with her. The team left in place though absolutely rock, so I'm looking forward to seeing what happens after the move.
Get onto a slightly earlier train than normal to head back to London. Some sort of issue means the train stops outside every station, at every station, and on occasion at random places on the line. I reach London way later than expected, too late to head back to office - by time I reach it, it would be after closing time. Decide to head home and catch up from there. Get home and electrics are out - meaning no computer, until nearly 9 p.m. 
Monday is going to hurt.
Saturday
Busy with coursework. Take an hour to tweak to shorts for the collection that I'm quite happy with, jump  onto Kindle boards and post  a review on Amazon for The Scavengers Daughter.  Get almost immediate  feedback from the author, which is seriously cool. 
LSH feeds me (Lamb & Apricot casserole type thingy from the Tony Ferguson diet - Yum!) and we watch True Blood while we eat.
Back to studying until around 3:30 a.m.
Sunday
Coursework. Updating blog; will be back to coursework immediately afterwards.
LSH has promised to drag me away from the pc for at least two hours  tonight, which will be a good thing. 


Mood: Busy, stressed, want my mom.

Amazon ate my author page

I tried to log onto Author Central to since my pic since a) it's old and b) I look like a gap toothed yeti in it. Nope. Author Central didn't want to know me. Anything electronic or computerised has issues with me; this isn't news to anyone who knows me. I have an entire IT division at work that flinches every time I walk over there.
So I've gone through the whole sad registration/biography/photo thing again.
Hopefully this one sticks.

The Horror!

I was browsing through WolfSong on my kindle and found a typo that I've never seen before. Two words somehow managing to run together. I know it happens - hell, I've seen it in top 10 traditionally published  books - but I am not a happy camper. I'm going to have to go through the whole book again and see if there is anything else that I missed.

 I've also had feedback from a lovely guy on the kindle boards that the formatting is all over the show on the ipad version. The problem is, I have no access to an ipad so can't actually tell what the problem is. I have no idea how to fix it.

I have an hour set aside later for writing; the rest of the day will be studying since the university course has started and the workload is massive for someone who works full-time. My inner writer is whimpering gently.My inner rent-payer is telling her to suck it up and move on.

Mood: Head. Desk. Repeat.