Jean Marie Bauhaus

Here’s a quick and random Friday Five to update everyone on what’s happening in my corner of the writing and publishing world.

1. Last Friday, I submitted Eucha Falls to a horror anthology for consideration. As of today, their submission tracking system says it’s #705 in the queue and their average response time is 20 days. And so I wait…

2. I’m still taking a break from Radium Town as I work my way (slowly) through Holly Lisle’s latest free course, “How To Write Flash Fiction That Doesn’t Suck.” By the time I’m done with it, I should have a new flash fiction anthology ready to publish, with a couple of stories set in the Dominion-verse.

3. Otherwise, I’m pondering the future of my writing career and the path I want to take. As much as I enjoy self-publishing, the entirely DIY model is SO much work — really, I can’t overstate how much work is involved in producing your own book, especially if you care about quality — and my marketing reach is pretty limited. I’m thinking about shopping the Dominion trilogy around to some publishers, or maybe even some agents, to see if I can get it picked up. Even a small indie publisher would lift a lot of the burden off of me and extend my reach.

4. Along that same vein, I’m considering serializing Radium Town. I think it would lend itself well to serialization, and if I could get it into the Kindle Serials program, I could be earning on each episode (not to mention building a fan base) as I write the novel. I need to do more research before I decide on that, though.

5. I don’t really have a five, but Friday Four sounds lame. Oh! But I guess this counts as a #5 – if Eucha Falls gets accepted to that anthology, then I will be mightily encouraged toward writing more short stories for paying markets and seeing if I can turn that into a regular income stream. But I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself. Let’s just wait and see how EF does for now.

In other news, we’ve had a lot of wicked weather this week, with more expected this afternoon and evening. Last night, a major storm passed right over us, with enough rotation to make the rain fall at odd angles while it dumped a bunch of hail on us, before moving a few miles southeast and turning into a full-blown tornado. Some roofs got destroyed in Broken Arrow, but nobody was hurt, thank goodness. I hope tonight’s weather stays on the mild side. Or misses us altogether. If you’re in Tornado Alley today, stay safe!

And my Birthday Book Sale is still going strong! You can pick up my scary-fun ghost story Restless Spirits, which seems to be picking up a bit of a following, or my significantly more angst-filled “vampires staving off a zombie apocalypse” drama Dominion of the Damned, at a steep discount. E-books are only 99 cents* and paperbacks are down to $9.99* through Sunday. Get ‘em here, here, or here.

*Those are US prices, by the way. They’re also discounted on the international Amazon and Barnes & Noble sites.

Now I am going to get dressed and ready to be taken out for Chinese and birthday sushi. NOM.

So I’m staring down the Big Four Oh on Saturday, and to kick off this new chapter of my life I’m having a sale on all of my books. From now through Sunday, all of my e-books, including Restless Spirits and Dominion of the Damned, are only 99 cents on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and the paperbacks are only $9.99. If you’ve been planning to pick up one or both of my books, now’s a great time to do so. It’s also a great time to recommend my books to people you know, which would be the best birthday present you could give me.

Today the Indie Spotlight falls on fantasy author Nichelle Rae!

Nichelle Rae, fantasy’s newest author, was born and raised in Massachusetts. Her love for writing began when she was 14 years old and she wrote short stories about meeting her favorite music group at that age. She received so much praise and complements on her writing ability that it quickly became a passion of hers. Throughout the years she has gotten much praise from peers, professors, and professional author’s she’s had a chance to work with about her writing and her ability to put emotions into text.

The White Warrior Series is her debut fantasy series she’s publishing as an independent author which will consist of seven books total. Nichelle already has begun three more fantasy series that she hopes to publish in the future after The White Warrior Series.

When did you first know that you wanted to be a writer?

This is a slightly complicated question. I always enjoyed writing from the day I realized people loved my work. But writing was always just something I enjoyed doing, nothing I really considered as career option. It’s taken years of praise and complements from a variety of people, peers and professionals, on my writing abilities to think it might be something worth pursuing more seriously. The moment I really made the decision to be a published author, was right after I sent out a sample of The White Warrior series to some close friends of mine. I was just looking for some critiques but the resulting excitement, and overwhelming praise really lit the fire for me to go after this; even if only to get my book out to these close friends of mine who suddenly wanted it so badly.

I guess there wasn’t really a defining moment of when I decided I wanted to be a writer, it’s just something I’ve always done and enjoyed.

What do you find easiest about writing? What the hardest?

The easiest thing about writing, for me, is my characters. They come to me so easily it’s sort of frightening. I understand them immediately when I start a new story. I know how they will respond to situations and progress the story along with their reactions. This might sound super weird but I sort of build a relationship with them while I write. I come to care about them as people. I worry about them when they enter a situation that seems to be too much for them, and I’m relieved when they come out the other side of said situations. I legitimately fall in love with every character I create. I cry if they die and rejoice when something good happens.

The hardest thing about writing is marketing your work. It’s difficult to get the word out and have people listen. Fellow authors are usually concerned with getting their own writing out that they can’t pay much attention to other authors. On the same token, the general public isn’t going to listen to a nobody debut novelist. It’s hard to be heard.

Talk a little about your debut novel “Only a Glow”.

“Only A Glow” starts the journey of Azrel, Rabryn, and Ortheldo across their land in hopes to save it from another age of the evil Shadow God’s rule. Azrel’s journey however, isn’t just across the land she lives in, but it’s a journey of healing and self-discovery that she needs to take.

It’s a journey of accepting who she is and to do something great with it. The end of the book isn’t just about whether she wins or loses the battle to save her world (though that’s still a huge part,) but also to see if she can overcome her own self-hatred and become everything she was born to be. Or to see if she will fail and destroy herself, thus the world becomes destroyed with her. It’s also interesting to see how she overcomes some obstacles and how she often fails at overcoming others.

How would you describe the success of your book so far?

Surprising! I’ve gotten some really stellar reviews in my email, in Facebook messages, on Amazon and Smashwords! I average about 3 – 5 downloads every day on Smashwords. It’s slow going but I was prepared for that. I understand that it takes a while for an unknown author to get on the radar, if I’m meant to be on the radar at all. If not, well, I love writing and I’m going to keep doing it because life doesn’t make sense if I’m not writing. Being successful at what I love to do would just be a bonus. I’m not doing it for the success; I’m doing it because it’s what I love. I will get all 7 of my books in this series out whether the world wants them or not, because I want them.

Can you give some tips for other Indie Authors regarding the writing and self-publishing process?

First, and the most important advice I can give from my limited experience as an indie author is this: While you’re writing your book and getting it ready to publish, find as many bloggers in your genre (even some that are not in your genre) as you can and become fast friends with them. Bloggers ARE the marketing tool for independent authors! You cannot get the word out about your book without them. Blog shop and blog shop a lot.

Second, when self-publishing a book you have got to read up on what is needed and required. Do your homework. That is the best advice I can give. Don’t jump into this blind. You could save yourself a lot of time and hiccups/issues. When I started going full force with getting this book out, I did it in 5 months, which is pretty good timing I think considering everything that needed to get done…which was a lot!

Finally, do your book your way! Get advice and ideas from people and successful authors but ultimately do your book how you want it done. Your uniqueness will make your book stand out and it will truly be your own. Make sure you are happy with it, not that anyone else is happy with it, because it’s your book, no one else’s. You have to live with it and look at it forever, so make sure you love what you’re seeing.

How can readers connect with you?

I am a huge Twitter nerd and I’m ashamed to admit it. I’m on every single day. Follow me Twitter and we can chat. You can also contact me via my website or you can just email me at Nichelle_Rae@yahoo.com. Thank you so much!

~~~

Thanks, Nichelle, and best of luck with your newest book!

If you are an indie author and you’d like to the Indie Author Spotlight to shine on you, click here to read the submission guidelines!

Finally! Without further ado:

Eucha Falls

Part Five

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

It was lunchtime when Shane returned to pick her up. They grabbed microwavable burgers at the gas station where they stopped to fill the car on the way out of town, but even then it was late afternoon before they reached the stretch of highway that led to the park.

“You’ve still got it programmed into the GPS, right?” Melanie asked as she consulted her map.

“Yeah. Our turn should be coming up soon.”

Melanie looked up from the map and looked out at the highway. Up ahead, she saw a billboard coming into view, and as they grew closer she recognized the ad for the marina. “This is it.”

Shane slowed the car and took a right turn, and they heard the familiar crunch of gravel under the tires. But after a few yards, as the gravel gave way to black tar pavement, he stopped the car. “This isn’t right.” He looked behind them, where they could still see the highway and the billboard. “Wasn’t there a Dead End sign?”

[...]

2013 looks like it’s going to be an interesting year for my writing and publishing agenda. I fear that it’s not going to be a very productive or eventful year; not because I don’t have any projects in the works, but because work is threatening to keep me too busy to market my books or write and publish new ones. Needless to say, this is frustrating, and also somewhat ironic. Out of all of the things I know how to do, writing fiction is the only one that I actually want to have as a lifelong career, and yet it’s the one I’m able to devote the least time to, because as of yet it brings in the least amount of income. It’s hard to justify setting aside something that does pay the bills to make time for something that doesn’t, you know?

Heavy sigh.

I do, however, have writing and publishing goals. I don’t know if I can call them 2013 goals, because it’s doubtful that I’ll be able to get to all, if any, of them this year. I have no fewer than four fully-formed novels in my head currently, all of them vying to be my next project. These include the aforementioned Radium Town, my Weird West Steampunk horror adventure; a romantic paranormal thriller that’s sort of a follow-up, but not really a sequel, to Restless Spirits, although it might have some cross-over; and the next two sequels to Dominion of the Damned, which, surprise, is actually a trilogy.

I keep going back and forth on which one to focus on next. Both common and business sense seem to dictate that I should stick with the Damned series until it’s done, while that world is still fresh in my mind, and also to appeal to all of the genre series fans, of whom there are many. And part of me wants to keep going, but part of me also really wants to take a break from that world. There are legitimate reasons for focusing on each of the others, too. I’m considering just powering through the rough drafts for each of them and then going back and editing them in turn, but that will pretty much guarantee that I spend all of 2014 editing and revising, and probably won’t have a new book come out until late next year at the earliest. Although I suppose I could always work on short stories if I need to write something fresh and new.

At any rate, I am hoping to pull my Faeries in Hollywood novel, The Hero Factor, out of the trunk and dust it off and polish it up for release later this year. And I’ll also be finishing and polishing Eucha Falls for e-book release in the next month or so. So it’s not like 2013 will be entirely void of new releases.

And in light of the fact that self-publishing is a lot of work (really, if you’re still on the fence about self-publishing, I’m tempted to advise you not to do it if you don’t have a budget for hiring people to edit, design your cover and layout, help out with marketing, etc. because it cannot be overstated how much work goes into this stuff if you DIY it), I’m also considering alternative routes to getting my books out there. I’m not ready to jump back on the traditional-publishing wagon yet, but I am thinking of maybe submitting to some small press indie publishers, just so someone else can do all of that other work and I can focus mainly on the writing.

I’m also thinking about entering Dominion into a couple of contests. There’s the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, which seems basically to be American Idol for indie writers; and the IndieReader Discovery Awards, which doesn’t guarantee a publishing contract for the winner, but looks like great exposure regardless of whether I won. The latter contest has an entry fee large enough to be potentially prohibitive, though, and the former looks like a lot of time and work just to prepare my entry, and as things currently stand I don’t know if I’ll be able to make the time to prepare an effective pitch. So we’ll have to see.

At any rate, that’s more or less what I’ll be working on for probably at least the next two years. Do you have an opinion on which book I should write next? Feel free to share it in the comments.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congratulations, Carol! I’ll also be sending an e-mail to confirm your win and find out where to send your prizes.

Thanks to everyone who made this Holiday Hop special, and special thanks to our ringleader, Cheryl Bradshaw, for all her hard work.

Welcome, Holiday Blog Hop visitors! If you’re looking for my Blog Hop Giveaway, click here! Or keep reading for a sneak peek at my new novel and a special Holiday Hop offer…

Dominion is out in the wild this week, folks… at long last. In lieu of posting the next installment of Eucha Falls for Story Time Tuesday (mostly because I haven’t yet had time to write the next scene), instead I thought I’d share a never-before-seen-in-public sneak peek at the new book. But first, here’s a handy list of everywhere it’s available.

The e-book is available on Amazon.com (as well as .ca and various international sites), Barnes & Noble, and Kobo .

The paperback is available on Createspace and Amazon. Createspace offers higher royalties, so if possible, I’d appreciate it if you’d buy it there, but you do what you gotta do.

What about signed copies? I’m glad you asked. Because this week only, during the Holiday Hop, if you e-mail me at jmbauhaus@gmail.com and let me know that you purchased a paperback, along with your mailing address, I will mail you a signed bookplate FREE OF CHARGE. Unfortunately, I can only make this offer to domestic US residents. If you’re outside of the US and are willing to cover postage costs, by all means, contact me for details. This offer is also in effect for my other novel, Restless Spirits.

And what about signed e-books? Yes, that’s right–signed e-books! You can request a free virtual autograph for your e-books at Authorgraph. And I will do my best not to make my virtual signature look like a drunken five-year-old drew it.

On to the excerpt…

The following is the entire third chapter of Dominion of the Damned. You can also read the first two chapters here.

[...]

Today is a big deal. Today, my friends, marks the official launch of Dominion of the Damned! Which means that you can now buy it (and if you have an e-pub device or prefer an actual book, I’ll let you know when it’s available in those formats, which it will be. Soon! Check back tomorrow)! But!

But one lucky reader can win a free copy, along with their very own version of the cute little guy pictured down below. Keep reading to see how.

For today also marks the beginning of the IWU Holiday Blog Hop! Which means that if you click here, you can learn how to win some SUPER AWESOME PRIZES, including your very own KINDLE FIRE, and an Amazon gift card, and more FREE BOOKS than you probably have time to read this year! And if you click here, you can find a list of all of the authors who are participating this week, ALL of whom are doing giveaways of their very own! That is a LOT of chances to win free book-related stuff! This is a good week to be a book-lover, you guys!

It’s also a really great week to support small businesses–i.e., indie authors and publishers–with your holiday shopping.

Grr! Arrgg!

As for my giveaway? As mentioned above, you can enter to win a virtually signed, electronic copy of Dominion of the Damned in your choice of Epub or Mobi format, along with your very own amigurumi zombie doll, hand-crocheted by yours truly. The zombie is approximately 4″ tall and will have his own unique set of “injuries”, and will come with a tag that is also signed by me.

You’ll receive one entry for each action that you complete below, via Rafflecopter (just click the link if the widget isn’t showing up). So the more actions you complete, the more entries you can earn. The winning entry will be chosen at random, and the winner will be announced this Friday, December 14th, as well contacted by e-mail or direct message. Which means that you have until midnight on Thursday night/Friday morning to enter.

So may the odds be ever in your… er, I mean, good luck!

I’ve been remiss in keeping Eucha Falls updated for the past few weeks, mainly because I haven’t time to write it. But I finally knocked out the next scene, so… here it be.

Eucha Falls

Part Four

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

“I have to show you something.” She and Shane both spoke at once as she opened the door to her room. They stood there blinking at each other, her with her hand on the door and him in the doorway with his computer bag slung over one shoulder.

She turned and headed for her desk, beckoning for him to follow. “Close the door,” she told him. “There’s something new on the video.”

“You should see this first.” He pulled up a chair and started unpacking his laptop. “I kept wracking my brain, trying to remember why Eucha Falls sounded so familiar, and I finally did some Googling. You’re not going to believe what I found.” [...]