Tag Archives: goodreads

2012 Wrap Up! News and Looking Ahead

Whee, 2012 is almost over! Dear friends, what have you in store for 2013?

  • I plan to write the sequel to Shifting Pride, tentatively titled, FRACTURED PRIDE. I’m about 10,000 words into it, so, YAY! LOL!
  • I am editing TSAVO PRIDE, a short story spin off to Shifting Pride. It’s going to be a self-pubbed FREEBIE, so STAY TUNED! 😉
  • I’ll be editing ZODIAC COLLECTOR in the coming months so it’s ready for publication next winter.
  • I’ll be editing various other projects to shop ’em ’round.

I’d like to give a BIG THANKS to all the blog tour participants for both New Pride and Shifting Pride. I’m honored and thrilled that you’ve dedicated your time and efforts to help me spread the word about my debut series!

Because of you guys, Shifting Pride almost broke 10,000 on the Amazon sales ranking (at 13,620). Woot!!!

I’m also totes stoked about Shifting Pride hitting #6 and New Pride hitting #24 on the Goodreads Best Unknown YA Books listopia! Thanks for your votes–and keep ’em coming! 😉

Before I go, I have a question/request.

Would any pubbed author–self, small press, traditional, etc–be interested in a review swap? I’m game to swap novellas or novels with you in an exchange for a review on Amazon, Goodreads, B&N, and/or blog!

EDIT: PS–Sizzling Hot Books reviewed New Pride, the prequel novelette. Check it out! 😀

Writer Wednesday–How Do You Review?

So, I’ve been watching my writer friend, Kendall Gray, on her journey of self-publishing. I’ve been lucky enough to read an ARC of INHALE, the first novel in her JUST BREATHE trilogy and, man, I just want to shout it out to the world how AWESOME Kendall’s writing is.

If you don’t believe me, check out the book trailer HERE.

Awesome, right? Seriously, you need to pre-order the entire series NOW. *waits while you go to Amazon*

*squints at screen to make sure you’re at Amazon’s website*

Okay. Glad you’re back.

What makes me love INHALE so much?

The characters are clear. They are goal-directed (sorry, that’s a psych term, but you’d be surprised how many characters are just wandering around their novels like post-lobotomy schizophrenics). They have faults. There’s great smexy scenes. There’s a TON of action and conflict.

All those things keep me reading on. It keeps me thinking about the characters when I’m not reading. I even picture myself hanging out with the main characters, Gavin and Zoe. In Australia. On the beach. Yeah. And heck, if I can picture myself hanging out with the characters, that means their writer has made it into my inner circle of favorite authors.

(Pssst, that includes YOU, KENDALL!!!!!!)

We know books sell based on word of mouth (yes, there are other things, but go with me on this one). So, I wanted to review INHALE. I wanted to support Kendall.

I wanted to really capture how I felt and why it was important for me to recommend INHALE to other people.

…And then I realized I kind of suck at writing reviews.

Why?

I worry about writing spoilers. I worry about sounding trite or saccharine. I worry about rambling aimlessly (sort of like what I’m doing now). I worry about not conveying the essence of my reaction.

So, I wrote about what I liked (as I just did above) and left it at that. Better to be short and sweet, than ambling and confusing, no?

Still, I feel like my review fell short.

*sigh*

Now I open the forum to you.

How do you review? Is there a certain template you follow? Do you only write positive reviews? Or do you “tell it like it is?”

Check out Lydia’s response to the Sisterhood of the Traveling Blog topic of the uses (or misuses) of Prologues!