It's Release Day For My New Novel!

It's Release Day for my latest novel F#@! BOMB -- and I couldn't be more excited! I have a nice number of guests attending tonight's Facebook party. Plus, I've gotten good feedback so far from people who've started reading it.

I always hope my work will do well and will sell, but even if it doesn't, I'm proud of this book. I put so much of myself into it and am pleased with the result. I'm also very grateful to my "team" for helping me. My editors Diane, Amy, Rachael, Tom and Elaine gave me great suggestions and my designer, Shane Morgan, made the novel look beautiful.

Tonight's FB event should be a lot of fun, so be sure to stop by! I'll be giving away Amazon gift certificates, copies of my book and some of my handmade wire wrapped jewelry:

I'm also having a couple of "guest stars" drop in to add a little more excitement. It will be an opportunity to connect with other readers, as well as to get to know me a bit better. :-)

I hope to "see" many of you tonight online. Meanwhile, please read and review F#@! BOMB, as well as REVENGE OF A BAND GEEK GONE BAD and LOVE NOTES. Thank you for your support!

Last Day Of My Blog Tour!

It's the final day of my blog tour and it's ending with a nice review of BAND GEEK up at Sweet Southern Home. Thank you, Carrie, for hosting me! Readers, be sure to comment on her post so you can have a chance to win a prize of a CD and earrings!

To be honest, this all-review book tour has had mixed results for me. On the one hand, it's been GREAT because BAND GEEK has gotten so many wonderful reviews and I've enjoyed getting that feedback. I now have more reviews up on Amazon and Goodreads, which will only help me in the longrun, and the positive comments have bolstered my confidence in my writing. I truly, truly appreciate these bloggers for taking the time to read and then write about my book (some even posted reviews on multiple sites for me). Indie authors need all the help they can get when it comes to marketing and I think it's great that these bloggers are doing so much to help writers. At the end of this post I'll again link to all of the sites that hosted me; I encourage all of my readers to check out these blogs because they're written by some very thoughtful and intelligent people. A BIG THANKS once again to Goddess Fish and everyone involved!!!

Unfortunately, sales of my book are still slow. I've blogged about it, posted links on Twitter and Facebook, and have even included links on sites like Stumbleupon. And yet it's been kind of dead this month and I'm not sure why. I'm wondering if perhaps I needed to offer a different kind of prize in my blog tour, maybe something other than a CD and earrings? I thought that my gift is cool -- something handmade and different, but I see that a lot of other authors on blog tours are offering things like Amazon gift cards. Perhaps the next time I should follow the pack a bit more and do something that will encourage more people to check in and comment on the blog posts -- even if I am using some bribery, LOL. Oh well, live and learn, I guess. What do you guys think? What sort of author "prize" makes you want to participate in a tour?

The good news is that these bloggers' reviews will be up on their sites and Amazon for the longhaul so this can only help my book. It's helping me as a writer, too, because I've gotten many different perspectives on BAND GEEK. It sort of felt as if we were part of a round-table discussion! So while an all-review blog tour may not guarantee sales for an author, it certainly offers many other positives.

Once again, here's a list of the blogs who participated in my tour:

YA Book Addict

Unabridged Andra

Andi's Young Adult Books

My Neurotic Book Affair

Buried In Books

Musings From An Addicted Reader

Sweet Southern Home

Long And Short Reviews

Rogue's Angels

The Life (and lies) Of An Inanimate Flying Object

Paranormal Book Club

Please read and review REVENGE OF A BAND GEEK GONE BAD, 4.6 stars on Amazon!

Writing A Novel: Making Characters Different And Interesting

Woo hoo, BAND GEEK got another great review today! This one is from Shari at My Neurotic Book Affair. Make sure you comment on her post so that you can get a chance to win my CD and handmade wire wrapped music earrings.

So far, almost every reviewer -- even the ones who haven't cared for my book so much -- have mentioned how much they like and relate to my narrator, Melinda. This makes me so happy because while writing her, I came to love her (and Josh) almost as if they were real people and put a lot of work into making them come alive. I'm pleased that others are enjoying them as much as I enjoyed writing about them.

Now that I'm working on my next book, I'm still trying to get to know these two main characters, Sadie and Griffin. One of my biggest challenges is writing a narrator who's interesting and relatable -- but has a different voice from Melinda. It's taking some work because the girls have some similarites: like Mel, Sadie is overweight (though much more so), is reserved and a bit of a loner, hasn't had much experience with dating, and has musical talents (in Sadie's case, she sings). I put a bit of myself into my characters so it's not surprising that all will pick up some of my real-life traits. But being a writer means you have to "write what you know" and then expand upon that. Sadie's background and homelife isn't at all like Mel's; plus, Sadie is experiencing her first year of college, so the setting is shaping this newer character. I'm still finding her voice, but it'll happen soon enough.

I think it's common for an author's characters to take on certain similarities because they're all coming from the same place: from that author's imagination. My favorite writers have managed to share their voices through their creations -- and mix things up just enough to keep me guessing and wanting more.

Please read and review REVENGE OF A BAND GEEK GONE BAD.

Publishing On Kindle: Finding Inspiration

Well, this is it, folks. Today is technically the last day of my virtual blog tour. Tonight, I have a radio interview with the Angels And Warriors show at 9 ET/6 PT in the US, so feel free to call in with questions about BAND GEEK or my writing career.

Meanwhile, I'm continuing to work on Novel No. 2, though I haven't had much time to write this week with Thanksgiving. Not that this was a bad thing since I've spent the past few days with family and friends. I love working from home, but I have a bad habit of working from sunrise until sundown. I need to take more days where I just put work aside and have fun.

My mind is always going, though, so my books were never far from my thoughts. On Wednesday, I went to the city with my friend who is doing a chapter-by-chapter read on my second novel. I know that I'm at least on the right track with my story because he told me that he's really getting into it. Then when I started to share the details of upcoming chapters, he was like, "No, don't tell me. You'll ruin it." This made me feel really good because it said that he was invested enougb in the story that he cares and wants to have something to look forward to.

I also got some more inspiration for my main male character over the weekend. In my story, that character has to make some tough decisions when he goes against his parents' beliefs. I met someone who's had to do this in real life and it was interesting to hear about what he had to go through for real. I'm impressed with his courage and hope that a similar kind of bravery shines through in my character.

It got me thinking that perhaps I should write my book from two points of view. Right now the female is the narrator, as is the case in BAND GEEK, but I'm wondering if I should switch POVs each chapter? I'm not yet sure... but it might be fun to play with that concept. I've read other novels that use that technique, some which work very well and others not so much.

A final reminder: today is the last day that you can sign up for my giveaway of a book, CD and pair of earrings so check into my virtual book tour to do so. And don't forget to read and review REVENGE OF A BAND GEEK GONE BAD!

Book Excerpt And Giveaway! (And Random Thoughts On The Presidential Election)

My Virtual Book Tour continues! Today, I'm featured on Bookalicious Travel Addict (love the name!). This time, I share an excerpt of BAND GEEK and readers get yet another chance to win some cool prizes in my giveaway: a FREE copy of my book, a FREE autographed copy of my CD FLUTE PATH and a FREE pair of my handmade music earrings with Swarovski crystals. All you have to do is click on the links provided at the end of the post on Bookalicious and those prizes can be all yours!

In other news, it's Election Day here in the United States. In my youth, I was never much into politics, but I've become more passionate about certain issues as I get older. This election is seriously feeling like a sports game, with fans rooting for their "team." Perhaps it's because many of us are now on Facebook, but I feel like more people are into the election this year than in years past -- and I think that's awesome. Even though not all of my friends and I are on the same page when it comes to politics, I still think that we should all get out and vote. One friend waited in line for four hours in Florida; another, who recently became an American citizen, got to vote in his first Presidential Election. It's stories like that that remind me how lucky we are to have this opportunity and how important it is to take advantage of it.

Of course, you can never travel very far in New York City without running into some interesting characters. Maybe it's because I'm always looking for the next story, but I always seem to encounter oddballs. This morning, I was riding our local bus when I heard the off-key warblings of some guy behind me. He was listening to Van Halen's "Jump" and singing along to it. Fine. I was happy to see him enjoying himself. However, every time the titular lyric, "jump" came up, he'd well, actually jump. On a very crowded bus. Nice!

At the polls, I encountered Big Burly Line Cutter. He and his group of friends attempted to slice through the line -- just when I was about to get my voter card. But I quickly zipped in front of him, blocking his path to the table. He glared at me and got into line behind me. I was really proud. I tend to avoid confrontation, but I refused to let this idiot cut me off. Stopping him was a very Melinda-like (my narrator in BAND GEEK) thing to do.

I'm debating whether I actually want to watch the election results tonight. I'm so nervous! I feel that same jumpiness that I experience when watching a gymnast attempt a routine on the balance beam. I might just turn off the TV and work on my writing. It is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) after all. Then again, I probably won't be able to stay away...

If you need to relax while waiting for election results, please read and review my novel REVENGE OF A BAND GEEK GONE BAD.