The Apocalypsies: The End (of the month) Is Nigh!

The Apocalypsies: The End (of the month) Is Nigh!: Time for another good news update! Congratulations to the YAmazing Race With MGnificent Prizes winners, and thanks to everyone who playe...

The Apocalypsies: Friendship and Writing through Stress

The Apocalypsies: Friendship and Writing through Stress: Writing can be a solitary. We sit in front of our computers. Stare at it. Smirk at it. Stick out tongue out at it. Cry at it. Curse at it....

Lyla Lee: Music Challenge

Lyla Lee: Music Challenge: I'm crawling out of the revisions' cave today to enlist in the fun challenge issued by Jani over at Life Debatable. This was the prompt: ...

Ebook cover for Rachael Becoming Red

Update: Release date moved to March 10, 2012.

My novel isn't coming out until February 20, 2012 but here's the cover. After trying to create a cover by myself (total fail) and using another ebook cover artist (won't name her out of respect but her work was poor) who thought I was too dumb to check on the progress and cancel crappy work, I found nataliepink. Her order page on Fiverr seemed well done but I was still a little wary due to my past experience with another cover artist who had very nice ebook samples but herself did terrible work (I cancelled after the seller refused to communicate with me when I made it clear the cover needed a complete overhaul). But nataliepink was different. From just going back and forth with her before ordering it was obvious she wanted to help. After I ordered we worked together in finding the best layout and characters for my cover. The process went so smoothly it actually was done a day earlier. Below is the end result and I'm certain the art and ebook creating impaired and not so impaired can agree it looks awesome and was worth paying just five bucks.

Turning the Pages: Switched by Amanda Hocking

Turning the Pages: Switched by Amanda Hocking: Switched by Amanda Hocking Published: January 2012 Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin Available: Amazon Blurb : When Wendy Everly was s...

Agape Love Designs & Photography: I Crack Myself Up

Agape Love Designs & Photography: I Crack Myself Up: I've been seeing these ecards a lot lately... they make me laugh. Since I'm so hilarious, I thought I would add to the collection. ;) My ...

Newt Gingrich Criticizes Media

Newt Gingrich had some choice words for the media.He denied ever asking his ex-wife for an open marraige and and repremands the media for focusing on that instead of the campaign.

God is Good

I watched two gospel programs that epitomized what I'm currently experiencing with my writing and also my life. God speaks to us in mysterious ways and I could feel that he was using these preachers to tell me that everything would be alright and the changes I needed to make in my life.

On Joel Olsteen (on Daystar -660- at 1pm), the pastor spoke about Christians being blessed under God. That we had huge reserves of favour. We only had to have faith no matter the circumstances. He spoke of Job, who never cursed God during his terrible trials. The faithful servant of God was later rewarded as many have read in the bible. Pastor Olsteen also spoke about a true miracle where a woman was rescued after her car went underwater. A man dived in and got her out but all the car doors and windows were still locked. She couldn't get out, yet somehow this man who dived in found her. No one could explain how it happened. Joel have credit to the favour of God and I agree completely.

I took from the televised service that God had favour over me. It gave me solace since I still carried some guilt over not publishing my ebook in January. Everything will work out and God will bless me for my efforts. You never achieve anything through despair or giving up. It's by keeping your head up and persevering. To be a published author is a dream of mine. I'm already a published writer with published poetry in the literary supplement Bookends and articles both online and in newspapers.

The next program I saw was The Potter's Touch with Pastor Bishop T.D. Jakes. I had changed the station around 1:32pm to BET Gospel (659). He spoke of life taking shifts and that we need to be ready for change. I was definitely readying myself for a shift of going to church again and being an indie author (among other things). This service touched me and I really believe I was told to get ready for a change in my life during the coming months.

Sunday has been a good day. I plan to do some serious rewrites tomorrow and will not allow my novel to be delayed beyond February.

Belated New Year Post

My first blog post for the new year. All other posts this month have been from other sites. enjoyable sites of course. First off I'm glad to be alive another year and give thanks to God our saviour. Life is a precious gift and religious or not we all should respect and tresure it.

Also my novel Rachael Becoming Red will be delayed until February 20, 2012 the earliest. I had some issues with the state of the book and would like to write more and make changes. I am still happy that I decided to self publish some of my novels. While I have no animosity towards the traditional way, I do think some books need to be self published in order to get out into the world.

Traditional Publishers have to make money to survive, so they have to accept books for publication that achieve that purpose. Also authors have to give up a lot of power when going traditional. The perks are many of course, including having an experienced team getting your book noticed and hopefully purchased. I have novels that I'd gladly publish through that route. But RBR and the Red Series aren't among them. I wanted to write these novels the way I wanted and pair up characters as I saw fit. Some choices I made might not go well with traditional publishers. I mean who fainted at the end of Hunger Games Series when Katniss ended up with Peeta? I love the series but I want to be a little more surprise left field.

Plus I want to do more promotion in the way of propely setting up websites where visitors can communicate with me and be better informed about my work. My  Goodreads account has next to nothing about my book and I've just been using it to senter competitions and expand my reading list. And don't get me started on Facebook. But I am doing just fine on Twitter and my tweet on my novel being delayed was quickly retweeted. I know it takes a lot more than just marketing to be successful in indie publishing. There's also the fact that you need to be accessible to your potential fans and keep visitors to your site and pages abreast to how the novel is going as well keeping them interested in you personally. An interesting person will intrigue readers more than a boring one. Unless your book blows them away so much they forget who you are. I don't think that's what authors aim for. The blown away part itself though, that's what we want. A lot.

Writing will always be my true love. Those who know me know I love it and those who know and don't like it....not my problem in the grand scheme of things. My advice to everyone is to find something you love and go for it. You might not get famous or even noticed. But happiness and fun are about joy, not noteriety. And that's what I want first from writing, the joy of doing it. Everything else is just gravy.

Amanda Hocking's Blog: Book Birthday!

Amanda Hocking's Blog: Book Birthday!: Today was the day that Switched came out in bookstores. Here are some pictures of Switched in bookstores: That's J. L Bryan's son John...

Michael's Babble: A message from Nermie to Mr. Giggles

Michael's Babble: A message from Nermie to Mr. Giggles: Mr. Giggles, I saw you last night. I don't know what you were planning to do to Michael with those scissors, but I'm keeping my eye on y...