I've been spotlighted!

I've been spotlighted on Story Finds! Yay!! Come check me out! How exciting, my first real promo spot. Happy reading, ~Marie

Gerard's Beauty

Is finally live!

http://www.amazon.com/Gerards-Kingdom-Paranormal-Fantasy-Romance-ebook/dp/B008QPCII8/ref=la_B008J4SSIU_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1343678689&sr=1-2

Wow, what a long journey for me. I started writing 10 years ago, back then I thought everything I wrote was pretty brilliant, I soon learned there was a lot more to writing than stringing a couple of words together. It took skill, imagination, a passion for wordsmithing, and tons and tons of coffee!

This journey has not been easy, and it took many twists and turns along the way, but through it all I hope I've become a better writer and that someday I'll be more than an obscure author in a sea of millions, but someone you'll trust to take you to faraway places, laugh with, love with, and finally close your book with a smile and a happy sigh.

Thanks to all of you for your constant words of encouragement, I literally couldn't have done gotten here without it. Also know, as the great Alexander Pope once said, to err is human; to forgive divine. I'm sure, though I've scoured my works for months on end before daring to hit publish, there may be an error or two, or gasp! more... just know I take my work very seriously and do try to put out quality. When an error comes to my attention I will work to remedy the problem... so be patient with me as I travel this sometimes bumpy road of publication.

And now a blurb of Gerard's Beauty:

A not so classic retelling of Beauty and the Beast, as seen through the eyes of the villain...

Betty Hart has had it with men. Jilted in love, her life now consists of shelving books by day, watching too much Anime by night, and occasionally dressing up like a superhero on the weekends with her fellow ‘Bleeding Heart’ nerds. Men are not welcome and very much unwanted. Especially the sexy Frenchman who saunters into her library reeking of alcohol and looking like he went one too many rounds in the ring.

Gerard Caron is in trouble. Again. Caught with his pants down (literally) he’s forced to seek asylum on Earth while his fairy godmother tries to keep Prince Charming from going all ‘Off with his head’. Maybe, messing around with the King’s daughter hadn’t been such a great idea after all, not that Gerard knew the silly redhead was a princess. But his fairy godmother knows the only way to save his life is to finally pair Gerard with his perfect mate, whether he’s willing or not.

From the moment Gerard lays eyes on the nerdy librarian he knows he must have her, but Betty is unlike any woman he’s ever known. He thought Betty would come as willingly to his bed as every other woman before her, but she is a woman who demands respect and even… horror of all horrors… love. Is it possible for a self-proclaimed Casanova to change his ways?

 

Happy reading!

~Marie

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Six Sentence Sunday!

It's been a while, but now things are starting to slow down and I'm finding my groove again. :) So, here's my latest offering. Fire in the Sky, a post-apocolyptic/dystopian/paranromal/urban fantasy/time travel/romance.... umm, yeah, say that ten times really fast! Anyway, if that's not weird enough it's also notta a YA. It has so many elements of it and yet, the situations they find themselves in are sorta not YA acceptable. The 'kids' are also older. In their late teens, early twenties, so I guess this is more of a New Adult, except that's not even a real genre subheading. (I just love to be difficult!) *vbg*

So a tiny set up, one of the heroines of the tale is NOT crazy, she might kill with the sound of her voice, and maybe she has nightmares that foretells the future, but she's totally NOT loco. Unfortunately, no one believes her. Including her parents, she's been locked away in a mental asylum since age 5, and now the monster in her head keeps urging her to break free...

Sable gripped the bars, entranced by the dancing light. Maybe someday she could be as free as that lightning, as wild and untamed.

The nurse snatched the crushed cup out of her hand and twirled her around. "I said--"

"I know what you said," her voice was weak and scratchy.

He yanked on the chain attached to her neck, the one they claimed to only force her to wear for the safety of others; whatever, more like the bastards were mysogonistic, power-hungry freaks that got off on making her squeal in pain...

Happy reading!

~Marie

News

Gerard's Butler *fingers crossed* should be up for sale no later than Monday! YAY... how exciting! :) Also, here's the next best part... I'm enrolling it in the Kindle Select Program, which means 5 free days!

I'll let you all know when it goes free, I'm really hoping to have some success with this and hopefully start getting some name recognition.

I've got some big plans after this as well. I'm looking to release a full length single title paranormal: The Witching Hour (Grim Reaper Saga) by the end of the month August, early September. And another Single Title: Dream Weaver after that one. Lots of exciting things brewing in the land of Marie.

I know it probably seems like I'm writing much too fast, fact is I actually have an extensive backlist of books that go back 10 years! Books I've published before that have rights reverted back to me and books I wrote and didn't know what to do with and just stuck it away. I'm dusting off my stuff and hopefully it'll find happy homes inside Kindles, Nooks, Kobos... etc. :)

I also hit a milestone, for me anyway... today I sold my 50th book on Amazon. Exactly 3 weeks from the date of my first release. I know that's small beans, but hey... that's huge for me! Every little bit counts, yes?

Excited to do my SSS tomorrow and will be dusting off a book I hope to have uploaded by the start of next year: Fire in the Sky, my New Adult Crossover... the darn thing couldn't decide whether to be adult or young adult, so I'm jumping on that new adult bandwagon with this one.. anyway, it's a time travel set in the Old West during the time of the gold rush, Ancient Aztec, the Future (several hundred years forward...) mix in a heavy dose of super powered butt kicking, some romance, tons of action, thriller, mystery and that's Fire in the Sky! So excited to release that one, it's my baby and a true blood, sweat, and tears type of thing. The series is called Chaos Time and right now, as it stands, it's looking to be a 3 book series. But they're long, almost 400 pages for the first one and the second book (which I'm currently working on when I'm not working on my Kingdom Series) is looking to be roughly the same.

Have a great weekend!

~Marie

Huh?!

Am I getting old? Because I swear when I went to school kids didn't go back until after labor day started. And yet, my boy's first day of fifth grade is Monday. As in Monday July 30th! What??? When did schools start doing this? It's this insidious little conspiracy by the Board of Education (I just know it), it's called 'no fun for summer vacation campaign'. Pretty sure of it, look it up. *wink*

Anyway, we didn't get to do much this year. We didn't even do the beach. :( Which, you know, we're in Hawaii... I mean, the two should go hand in hand. But no, so we're praying to make up for it next year. (Look at me, already looking ahead to the next summer! I'm a weird Mom, I will admit...I love when my kids are home) we've planned Disneyland, the Grand Canyon, Bedrock City (New Mexico and no it's not called that technically, but it's what the locals call it..don't ask me the real name), and Branson, MO. So either this is the craziest plan ever, or one of the best summer vacations ever. Though, I won't be surprised if we wind up pulling a National Lampoon. *head desk*

Either way, I'm looking forward to it! And who knows, if it's funny enough I might even turn it into a book!! *snort* Silver lining any way you look at it, then again... if the Mayans were right, well, a girl can dream, right? *g*

Happy reading,
~Marie

Wow, what a week

Promise I haven't forgotten you guys. :) *bad me* You know how it is when family comes to town, especially when town happens to be one of the largest tourist mecca's in all of the world. You have fun! Sadly, they're getting ready to leave Monday. :( Which is a bummer, we always have fun, but on the upside I will be able to get back into writing/editing full swing again. Wonderful part is all the fun I had totally recharged my battery and last night I managed to bang out a good 5 pages in wolf's story, so yay me. ;)

In other news I'd planned to publish Gerard by the first and I'm still very much hoping and plan to get my butt in gear and work on cranking it out today. If I can finish up the last of my edits, I'll finally be able to get it formatted and then upload for sale. Though I don't have a crowd of fans clamoring for book 2 so not sure anyone will care just yet! LOL.

My plan is to get my five book series out first, then look at really promoting the thing hard. These books are novellas, not my usual forte, I tend to write and read longer stories, but it's much easier to write a 5 book series when they're novellas, I figured that was a way to get a good backlist happening while I work on my full length sequels. I've got 2 books that will be at least a 3 book series. I'm really excited to release both, but I know if you have several books out there you're more apt to start gaining fans then you are if you release one full length every year. That's not the best way to keep fans around, especially when you're as brand spanking new as I am.

Though I won't lie and say I haven't tried to do a little promoting, I did join goodreads and bought a very small advertising spot. More to test the waters, if this promotion doesn't work then I'll know not to throw 200-300 dollars at it, want to find the best bang for my buck. I know some writers keep saying just write, the amazon algorithms will eventually find you and as long as you've got good tag words that's all the promotion  you need, but I'm thinking that's not true for all books. I researched tags for Hatter and I can tell you this week I've gotten 5 downloads, 2 of them from the U.K. (which is pretty cool as I had no idea I was pubbing outside the US at all). But still, don't like those numbers at all. And maybe I'm just too impatient and it will eventually happen, but when I can't figure out how to get onto the scroll (buyers who bought this also bought that) list, I literally have no idea how to get that kind of exposure. So I'll keep tweaking it and hoping I'll eventually figure this madness out. :D

In the meantime though, I guess I'll just keep writing. ;)

~Marie

Six Sentence Sunday!

Hello all, welcome back! :D So another 6 sentences to Hatter...

Here we find Hatter explaining to Alice why he's all wrong for her...

It was easy to believe he was crazy when he looked like this. His smile became a frown. He looked at her and the madness evaporated. “I’ve lost my way, Alice, I’m no good. I’m lost in time, only pieces of myself. Do you understand?”

Poor Hatter... he wants her, but.... what will he do??? Hmmm... till next week. ;)

~Marie

Fun Factiod Friday!

Hi, all!! It's been a while since I've done a Fun Factoid Friday and today being Friday the 13th, well I think you can guess what this post will be about! :D Lots of facts concerning the 13th.

1. Paraskavedekatriaphobia (also known as friggatriskaidekaphobia). Is the scientific term for fear of Friday the 13th. Triskaidekaphobia is fear of the number 13.

2. It's not clear when or why Friday the 13th became associated with bad luck. The association may be biblical, given that the 13th guest at the Last Supper betrayed Jesus. His crucifixion was the next day, apparently a Friday. Or maybe 13 suffers from coming after the more-pleasing number 12, which gets to number the months, the days of Christmas and even the eggs in a dozen. (There are also 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel and 12 apostles of Jesus.)

3. Whatever the reason, fear of 13 has spread far and wide: Hotels and hospitals often skip the 13th floor, and even airports quietly omit gate 13 sometimes.

 4. If you think your Friday the 13th is likely to be bad, be glad you aren't a 14th-century Knight Templar. On Oct. 13, 1307, officers of King Philip IV of France raided the homes of thousands of these Crusades warriors, imprisoning them on charges of illegal activities. Though the charges weren't proven, more than a hundred died of terrible torture, according to "Tales of the Knights Templar" (Warner Books, 1995).

5. Fittingly, director of psychological thrillers Alfred Hitchcock was born on the 13th — Friday, Aug. 13, 1999, would have been his 100th birthday. Perhaps aptly titled "Number 13," a film that was supposed to be Hitchcock's directorial debut never made it past the first few scenes and was shut down due to financial problems. He allegedly said the film wasn't very interesting. (Meanwhile, Fidel Castro was born on Friday the 13th, in August 1926.)

6. Why does the Friday the 13th superstition stick so firmly in our minds? According to Thomas Gilovich, who chairs the department of psychology at Cornell University, our brains are almost too good at making associations.

"If anything bad happens to you on Friday the 13th, the two will be forever associated in your mind, and all those uneventful days in which the 13th fell on a Friday will be ignored," Gilovich said in a statement. [13 Superstitions & Traditions Explained]

7. President Franklin D. Roosevelt is said to have avoided travel on the 13th day of any month, and would never host 13 guests at a meal. Napoleon and President Herbert Hoover were also triskaidekaphobic, with an abnormal fear of the number 13.

8. Mark Twain once was the 13th guest at a dinner party. A friend warned him not to go. "It was bad luck," Twain later told the friend. "They only had food for 12." Superstitious diners in Paris can hire a quatorzieme, or professional 14th guest. [13 Odd Occurrences on Friday the 13th]

Some interesting facts, I personally suscribe to the theory that the 13th got a bum wrap because of the Knights Templar, but I've heard several different stories.

I'll be uploading a new 6 sentence excerpt on Sunday, more from Hatter, but also some bits from my soon to be new release: Gerard's Beauty! :D Happy weekend all! :) I think me and the family will be heading down to Turtle Bay this evening, drinks, surf, setting sun... ahhh, it's a beautiful thing!

Happy reading
~Marie :D

Gerard's Beauty Update

So the sequel to Her Mad Hatter (Gerard's Beauty) is looking at a release date of August 1st, or there's about. The beauty of self publishing is that I get to be extremely fluid with release dates. At this point, I'm so new to the whole publishing thing that I doubt I've got many fans to make sad if I don't release by then, but that's the aim. Red and Her Wolf, the 3rd book in the series has yet to be written, although it is in the final plotting stage and should be released within 2 months. That's my goal... so lots of good vibes would be very much appreciated! :)

Tomorrow I plan to do a longer post! Stay tuned!!

~Marie :)

I should be writing!

OMGosh, I've developed a serious case of headbasketitus! Friends told me when I published I'd be refreshing that home page too many times to count, well it's true! Yesterday I pretty much sat in zombie mode in front of my computer and or Iphone and refreshed, refreshed, refreshed...

It's fascinating how the sale of one book can cause your rankings to jump up and down, up and down. Last night I went to bed with a ranking of 107k on amazon, then I wake up this morning and note it's now at 66k... however, I've apprently not sold another book. So, I have no idea what to make of that. Same thing has happened at B&N. I was ranked at 202k last night and now this morning it's hovering around the 111k mark. No books sold. How in the world they determine ranking when you're not selling, not a clue. I guess I'm not selling better than other not sellers. :p

Anyway, I'm thinking the obsession will stop now and finally I can get back to the work of writing book 3 in the series for all my many fans out there. *cough...mom and friends...cough...cough* :)

Happy reading!
~Marie

Wow!

I did it, I'm a self published author. Not the easiest road to hoe, but I got 'er done! ;) Though I could never have done it without lots of help and encouragement from friends and family, so to all of you thanks a ton!

Also, if any of you reading this would be willing to take a minute of time out of your life and do me a solid, I'd really be a happy girl. There's a thing called likes and tags on amazon, all you have to do is click on it and helps improve my sales ranking. That's it. You don't have to buy the book unless you want to. And ummm... if you want to that'd be awesome. ;) But no pressure. Also, if any of you have read the book through the betas and would be willing to leave me an honest review *note I say honest, I'm not looking for cheap 5 star ratings* I'd be thrilled.

Thanks so much!!!

http://www.amazon.com/Her-Hatter-Kingdom-Series-ebook/dp/B008IL48BK/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1341868749&sr=8-6&keywords=her+mad+hatter

I don't honestly know if you can do something similar on B&N, but if you can here's that link too:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/her-mad-hatter-linda-hall/1112006638?ean=2940014663366

Six Sentence Sunday: Her Mad Hatter

So in honor of my brand new release!!! Yay, that feels good to say... :D You can see the beautiful cover to the right of the screen. I'll be releasing a few excerpts from Hatter for the next few Sundays. But first my blurb:

Alice is all grown up. Running the Mad Hatter's Cupcakery and Tea Shoppe is a delicious job, until fate--and a fairy godmother with a weakness for bad boys--throws her a curveball. Now, Alice is the newest resident of Wonderland, where the Mad Hatter fuels her fantasies and thrills her body with his dark touch.

The Mad Hatter may have a voice and a body made for sex, but he takes no lovers. Ever. But a determined fairy godmother has forced Alice into Wonderland--and his arms. Now, as desire and madness converge, the Hatter must decide if he will fight the fairy godmother's mating--or fight for Alice.

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The Hatter, as always, slouched in his seat at the head of the table with a fist tucked under his chin. His dark eyes stared blankly into the night, distant, thinking... who knew what thoughts.

Hair disheveled, clothes ripped, but all of it with that flair of style that made it seem possible he’d contrived his appearance to look just so.

Danika had known him several years now, and each year he seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the quagmire of his mind. He needed a mate, someone to help offset the residual madness that built up like toxins in the bones without an outlet. A mate would force him to get out of his head

Wonderland was wonderful, but without a counterbalance, it could turn its inhabitants completely insane.

And there you go... if you'd like to see more, follow the link below! :D

Happy reading...

~Marie!

http://www.amazon.com/Her-Hatter-Kingdom-Series-ebook/dp/B008IL48BK/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1341768341&sr=8-5&keywords=her+mad+hatter

Hatter!

So my book, Her Mad Hatter will be the first of my offerings to the Indie world.... next week!!! I'm thrilled, nervous, excited, pukey... a wee bit more of the last one for sure. I'm not expecting fireworks, nor am I expecting to hit any bestsellers list, but I am more than thrilled to be putting myself out there finally. This kernal of an idea germinated almost 7 months ago, it took lots of blood, sweat, and tears (pardon the cliche) but I'm finally ready and couldn't be happier!

The cover is to the right here and done by Elaine of For the Muse Design. I think it really captures the essence of the story and hope it finds a happy audience. :)

Thanks to all of you who've cheered me along and I'll post a link and a blurb once it finally goes live!! My next SSS offering will come from Hatter, so be looking for that as well! :)

Much love

~~Marie

Encouragement

I read an article today on the Indie romance ink loop (and for anyone even remotely considering self pubbing, I'd highly recommend joining, invaluable info there) that touched on the subject of when is your book ready to publish and WOW, it hit all my weak spots. I've got a high, high fear of failure, I can literally be up one day, down the next and I also suffer with completely unrealistic expectations. I can have a book that's been sent to 6 betas, only 1 comes back negative... the beta has ripped it apart, told me it stinks and basically needs a total rewrite... but yet everyone else is in love, (or in like..lol).. but it's that one negative that makes me sick and unable to move forward. Why? Because I want everyone to love it and the fact that not everyone does irritates me. Unrealistic, we can't please them all. In fact, some of my favorite authors in the world (IE: P.C. Cast) has written some HUGE stinkers, in my mind. There's one book in particular that I seriously wanted to give a 1 star rating on amazon, but where I hated it... I saw others praising it as one of her best works. The article spoke of Shakespeare in particular and how millions of fans think he's the best writer that ever was, but there's still thousands of detractors. And that's true and I have to be okay with that, I need to be able to let it go and say... this is my book. Maybe if you'd written you would have done it differently, clearly... but this is how I did it and 5 out of 6 likes ain't bad.

So... after reading that I felt immediately better about self publishing and realizing I will get 1 stars, heck... my book might only rank 3 stars overall... but I CAN'T make it better, because that is my plot. The way I figure it, if my writing is as strong as it can be and the plot makes sense I'm just gonna have to be okay with certain readers disliking certain books. Happens to the best of them.

I'm so not a Nora fan... obviously I'm in the very very minority... something for me to think about and remember and I know I'll be okay.

Six Sentence Sunday #9

Oh wow! I'm late to post this today, lol... time flew and got away from me. :) Anyway, to pick up where we left off last, here's the next 6 in Pandora's tale: Death and the Crimson Night, slated for future release sometime in 2013! So without further ado:

“Two please.”

I turned and stared at a man trying to push two ticket stubs into my hands. He had his arm draped protectively around a petite little thing. With her big blue eyes and corn silk hair she reminded me oddly of a pixie. Fragile, too delicate to toy with, and a complete waste of my time. The man on the other hand was a different matter entirely.

There ya go! Have a great Sunday! :D