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“I’ve written a GREAT book!”

 

Really? You have? Well, don’t be the one to say so in your ads. One of the things that will totally turn me off a book is an ad/promo like this one WHEN POSTED TO A WRITER’S SOCIAL MEDIA AND WRITTEN BY THE WRITER HIM/HERSELF: This is a great book for horror readers! OR This is a wonderful book for children ages three to five.

When I promote other writers’ books, I might very well say the same things, but when a writer says that about his/her own book, it sounds desperate or self-aggrandising. I mean, what writer doesn’t think his/her own book is great and wonderful? Still, let others toot your horn; don’t do it yourself.

Let your readers say how wonderful, amazing, insightful, awe-inspiring, great, moving, and hilarious (all words I’ve seen just in the last few months applied by writers to their own work) your book is.

Photo credit: Patrick_Denker at EveryStockPhoto.com

Giveaway for new Elizabeth Bear book!

http://melissawatercolor.blogspot.com/2015/02/steampunk-giveaway-karen-memory-by.html

I don’t often promote this way, but this is a great new book from a wonderful writer.  Go and enter for the giveaway, and if you don’t win, buy the book anyway. 🙂

GUEST POST BY LEIGH M. LANE

 

 

Mary Ann here: I’m turning over my blog to the amazing Leigh M. Lane today so she can tell you a little bit about her new novella, “Jane the Hippie Vampire: Love Beads.” I will be reviewing this book in a few days, too. Spoiler alert: I am enjoying it a lot. 🙂 Without any more yattering from me, here’s Leigh:

Jane the Hippie Vampire: Love Beads

Jane the Hippie Vampire: Love Beads

 

Why a Hippie Vampire?

It came to me one day, name and all, while I was brainstorming for a completely unrelated book, and immediately I shifted gears to explore the idea. What captured me was the juxtaposition of theme and composition. When people think “vampire,” usually the first images to come to mind are black-clothed, gothic icons; compare that to the imagery that comes with “hippie”: colorful, carefree, let-the-sun-shine-in, free-lovin’ burnouts. Stereotypes (as accurate or inaccurate as some may be) aside, Jane’s character came together surprisingly quickly, and I fell in love with her tortured yet quirky nature as soon as she hit the page.

Jane is the iconic flower child. She’s spirited, generous, and lives in the moment. Unfortunately for her, “the moment” has become one long trek spent seeking out a glimmer of light in a world of darkness. Still, she sees the good in people and does her best to be good to those around her—unless, of course, she’s got munchies of vampiric proportions.

Jane is a slight shift from my typical writing. I guess you could say her personality ended up shining through on multiple levels. She’s got a dry sense of humor, but she’s also tormented by her dark past. She believes in karma, and that point of justice drives her stories. She wants to do right by humanity, but trouble seems to follow her wherever she goes. She doesn’t let that get her down though; for Jane, life is an adventure, and I can’t wait to share more of her journey with you.

 

About Love Beads:

She’s broke and homeless. She’s a vegan. She’s undead.

Jane has had one hell of a time ever since she bumped into the wrong guy during the Summer of Love, but she’s taken it all in stride. Wandering from town to town, she seeks out the needy and the broken in hopes of breaking the curse that’s left her bloodthirsty and forever seventeen.

In Love Beads, Jane crosses paths with a middle-aged man who’s encountered her kind before—but he seems happy just to have the company. Of course, appearances can be deceiving, and his secret might just prove to be the end of her.

Love Beads is the first novella in the Jane the Hippie Vampire series.

Excerpt:

THE LATE AFTERNOON SUN negated any relief the light breeze might have offered, and the mottled shadow cast by the massive oak tree stretching overhead wasn’t much more helpful. Jane slumped on a park bench, dozing on and off, a wide-brimmed hat and boxy sunglasses obscuring her face. Her backpack sat beside her, one arm threaded through the shoulder straps to deter potential thieves, and she crossed her legs at the ankles. She wore a ragged pair of blue jeans and a Doobie Brothers tee shirt so old the applique had cracked and faded beyond recognition. Her bare feet were calloused and in desperate need of a good scrub.

She’d find a decent place to crash soon. There was at least one Good Samaritan in every town, and they were usually easy enough to spot. Patience was the key. That—and a practical sense of when the local heat had decided she’d overstayed her welcome. Hanging around anywhere long enough to be recognized was a bad thing. Recognition led to suspicion, which led to a slippery slope that began with harassment and ended with the gas chamber. She’d seen it happen before, and it was a pretty hellish fate for those on the difficult side of killing. There was no respectable place left in this world for vampires, not at least that she’d found, and it was not at all hospitable to a burned-out flower child who couldn’t seem to pull her head out of the sixties.

A handful of adolescents infiltrated the park, putting an end to the peaceful quiet she’d been fortunate enough to have enjoyed for the last couple of hours. The disruption had been inevitable, and she took it in stride despite her exhaustion. She sat upright, watched the kids play flag football for a few minutes, and then donned her backpack and made her way to the sidewalk. It was a sunny day, not at all comfortable, and the heat instilled an aching desire to curl up on the side of the street and slip quietly into a coma. Such extended exposure would undoubtedly do just that—before it reduced her hide to burnt leather—so she moved as quickly as her sluggish legs would take her to the shady overhangs of the buildings across the street.

The town she’d found herself in was small and quaint, with boutiques and small shops packed within a tiny radius. The smell of fried food permeated from a nearby greasy spoon. She considered going in, but she only had a few bucks and some change on her. Moreover, a diner was far from ideal for mingling with the locals. Mingling was the objective; luxuries like food—“people food”—were secondary.

Not like food wasn’t a necessity in its own right, just like water and doobage. A girl could only go so long without her doobage. Life was mundane enough as it was. A little variety, beyond blood type, was all that stood between her and insanity.

About the author:

Leigh M. Lane has been writing for over twenty years. She has ten published novels and twelve published short stories divided among different genre-specific pseudonyms. She is married to editor Thomas B. Lane, Jr. and currently resides in the hot and dusty outskirts of Sin City. Her traditional Gothic horror novel, Finding Poe, was a finalist in the 2013 EPIC Awards in horror.

Her other novels include World-Mart—a tribute to Orwell, Serling, and Vonnegut—and the dark allegorical tale, Myths of Gods.

For more information about Leigh M. Lane and her writing, visit her website at http://www.cerebralwriter.com.

Love Beads is available on Kindle for .99: http://www.amazon.com/Jane-Hippie-Vampire-Love-Beads-ebook/dp/B00L0J8ROQ

 

Leigh M. Lane

Leigh M. Lane

Kai Viola’s New Book — 12 X 12 Guide to Social Media

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One of the few things that people talk about, when talking about brand and social media is that it’s a minefield.  People talk about everything from being completely overwhelmed, to not knowing what to do with their profiles.  And so, I wrote 12 tutorials (and a couple of bonus exercises to help people.

Each tutorial contains an introduction, the ‘basics’, the exercise, and then a bit about what your ‘solution’ should be.  They’re not designed to be the be all and end all of each network, but they are designed to support you if you’re struggling, or aren’t sure that you’ve covered everything.

I’ve kept the price low so that you can enjoy the book without feeling like you’ve had to pay a fortune for just a couple of tips too – though I could have priced it higher, I feel $0.99 is the right price for this.

Launching on the 28th February, until it’s available, you can pre-order from my blog page at Warpaint Marketing.

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12×12 – Your social media Primer

Looking for support for Facebook, Twitter, Triberr?  How about G+?
This book covers everything that you need to know about the very basics of each network.  Exercises to give you a chance to try your learning out, hands on.
Each of the tutorials is designed to be as easy as possible to access.
Originally started a set of articles for a website, the tutorials have evolved into a go to guide to the simple, quick way to build an usable, safe profile online.

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Kai Viola (http://authorinterrupted.com)

Kai Viola

Kai is a veteran online marketer.  She started in internet marketing, writing content for others, along with copywritten sales pages, then moved on to the indie writer’s community when KDP hit.  She’s been self-publishing since 2004 (mostly poetry), and has spent the last three years or so in the community, helping others with social media, writing tutorials and articles all over.

When not writing non-fiction, Kai’s planning novels, travelling for work and having a bit of an adventure in her life.  She’s the mother of two parents, owner and parent of two kittens, an artist and a dreamer.

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As the book is about social media, you might want to follow Kai to find out some extra tips.  Below are the various places you can follow her – remember too that these count as entries in the giveaway!

Book Blog | Personal Blog |Facebook | Book Facebook |Twitter | G+ | Goodreads | Pinterest | Triberr | Klout 

Buy the Book
(pre-order which will switch to Amazon)

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Win all of the books from the range, take part in beta support and get freebies before anyone else or a $25 gift certificate.  Check out the Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Kai is appearing on multiple blogs in the next few days – head on over to The Finishing Fairies for tour central, information and more!

Promotion of 12×12 Launch Tour is brought to you by:

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Join us for other book blasts at The Finishing Fairies mailing list!

I’m Sekhmet Press’s Woman in Horror today (24 February)

Yeah, I’m shamelessly self-promoting again. Sekhmet Press has made me their Woman in Horror for today. This link will take you to an article I wrote for them and an interview I did with them.

 

Sekhmet Press is a relatively new small press, but one that’s doing very well and gaining a considerable reputation for putting out a high quality product and treating their authors well.

 

Mary Ann Peden-Coviello, A Woman in Horror

 

Human Skull bansidhe everystockphoto.com

 

Photo credit: Bansidhe at everystockphoto.com

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