Wednesday, December 12, 2012
The Free Books Continue
Three Ink Jockeys are back in the saddle---participating in another book giveaway, December 12 and 13. Check out www.freepartay.com for titles by Rebecca York, Patricia Rosemoor and Dana Marton, along with dozens of free books by other authors you want to read.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
We Have a Winner!
Congratulations to Ada Hui, the winner of the Book Derby $25 gift certificate. When we asked her about herself, she said, "My passions are reading
romance novels and sports - hockey is tops."
Friday, December 7, 2012
Bargains Continue
Thanks for participating in the Book Derby. Many of the books below are still 99 cents.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Welcome to the Book Derby!
The champions are out of the gate! Ink Jockeys announce their first ever . . .
BOOK DERBY
All books FREE or 99 Cents
TWO DAYS ONLY: December 5 and December 6
All books written by bestselling, award-winning, traditionally published authors who have broken out of the starting gate to publish independently. Join us at the ticket window.
WIN A $25 AMAZON GIFT CARD*
SCROLL ON DOWN. FILL YOUR KINDLE
Don't forget to send a few as gifts! You can specify delivery date on Amazon, so your gift is received at Christmas! Don't have a Kindle? Check out Amazon's FREE reading apps
CLICK ON THE LINK
BELOW THE COVER
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BOOK
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE & PARANORMAL ROMANTIC SUSPENSE -- 99c
ROMANCE -- 99c or FREE
THRILLER -- 99c
SHORT STORIES -- 99c or FREE
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE -- FREE
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PARANORMAL ROMANTIC SUSPENSE -- FREE
*We love to hear from our readers so please leave a comment. If you include the email address where you can be notified, you will be entered into the gift card drawing. The winner will be selected through Random Org. By entering, you understand that you may be added to Ink Jockey member's mailing lists. Your address will not be given to others and if you later decide you don't want to continue, feel free to unsubscribe.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Going It Alone... Or Not
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| Jenna Ryan |
I think I've been shy since I was born. So naturally, I had no idea there was such a thing as a writers' group. That being other people with similar goals who will listen, understand, commiserate and support as needed. When I decided to pen my first Harlequin Intrigue, all I had were the standard guidelines and a deep well of hope. Oh, and I was also madly in love with Dark Shadows, Frank Langella's Dracula and just about every Alfred Hitchcock movie out there.
But first things first. Before I jumped into the writing pool, I read as many Intrigues as I possibly could. I knew I'd struck gold when I picked up Anne Stuart's Hand In Glove. There it was, my idea of the perfect Intrigue. It was this story that prompted me to go dark and spooky. I set my first Intrigue in a Massachusetts wax museum, followed the guidelines, boxed up my 70,000 plus word manuscript and sent it off to New York. Four nail biting months and one horrific postal strike later, I figured that poor manuscript was probably lying in pieces at the bottom of a Dumpster. Imagine my shock when, out of the blue, I got 'the phone call'. Harlequin wanted my book! Was I good or what?
Well, let's say I was good enough for the moment. But tastes change, and a few years later, I wasn't the flavor of the month any more. Ouch, that hurt. It also completely undermined my confidence. Maybe I couldn't write after all. Maybe the whole thing had been a huge cosmic joke. I have to say, it was a great relief when the publishing wheel began to turn for me again.
It took a while, but in time I found one of those writers' groups I mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, I was still so very shy -- which is frustrating but difficult to overcome. Thank God for on-line connections and Patricia Rosemoor in particular. She invited me to join a really great group -- which led to another and another and -- you get the idea.
In the traditional publishing world, my 32 Intrigues have run the gamut from Jack the Ripper to a Paris Puppet Theater. Two of my Intrigues earned the Romantic Times Certificate of Excellence. Two others were named Best Intrigue of the Year. I've also been honored with a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for Romantic Mystery.
Although I haven't self-published a book yet, I'm excited to let everyone know that my very dark, supernatural, romantic thriller, THE ARISING will be ready to go in early 2013.
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| Available at Amazon.com |
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| Coming March 5, 2013 |
For anyone who has recently connected with the Ink Jockeys site, have fun checking out the Book Derby, December 5 & 6 with its Prizes, Discounts and Free Books. You won't be disappointed!
A Scary and Exciting Time
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Patricia Rosemoor |
I’m really happy to be able to make my backlist available to readers, who might not have caught those stories the first time around. I can't tell you how many times I've had readers ask me how to get titles they missed. I have a large backlist both of my Patricia Rosemoor titles, but also novels written with a co-author as Lynn Patrick, Jeanne Rose and Roslynn Griffith. Samhain is publishing most of the Lynn Patrick backlist, and Lynn Patrick is once more appearing at Harlequin for their new Heartwarming line. Backlist Jeanne Rose titles are available again at Amazon, BN and Smashwords.
My first novel was a young adult romance. It won the 1983 Golden Heart for Best Young Adult Romance. Unfortunately, I wasn’t at the RWA National Conference that year. A chapter mate called me to tell me I'd won and that the editor of Silhouette Young Love was saying that I was her new author. I had submitted the book to her and had done a rewrite to lengthen it, but the editor hadn’t called or written to say she wanted the book. So I waited for the call. And waited. And waited. And then gave up.
Three weeks after the conference, the editor finally called and asked if she’d made me an offer. I said no. She said she wanted to buy the book and hoped that I would accept her offer...because she’d already put it in production. A CHANGE OF HEART (by “RoseAnne McKenna”) was the only young adult book I ever wrote. Books that followed were romantic comedies, long contemporary romances, paranormal romances, paranormal historical romances. I was determined to continue to be published, no matter the changing market. As I said, I keep reinventing myself.
My favorite subgenre, the type of novel that composes more than half of my backlist, is romantic suspense. I’ve written 93 published novels, sold over seven million copies worldwide. Fifty-three of those novels were Harlequin Intrigues. RT BookReviews has honored me with two awards for Best Intrigue and two Career Achievement Awards recognizing my career as a romantic suspense author.
Currently, I am writing for Entangled Publishing's Dead Sexy line. I had a little fun writing Christmas romantic mysteries -- HOLIDAY IN CRIMSON and NIGHTMARE IN CRIMSON -- by killing Santa Claus. Twice.
So far, I’ve gone indie with several of my Patricia Rosemoor backlist titles, including SEE ME IN YOUR DREAMS, TELL ME NO LIES and TOUCH ME IN THE DARK, the first three novels in my bestselling series, The McKenna Legacy. (The most requested books by my new readers.) And I’ve written one original indie romantic thriller, SKIN.
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We Ink Jockeys are all traditionally published authors who also are producing indie work, whether backlist or original titles. We've banded together, hoping to entertain you endlessly!
Watch this space for our exciting Book Derby on Wednesday and Thursday, December 5-6. We'll offer readers Kindle books ON SALE at 99¢ ... and some will even be FREE! So come back and scoop up the bargains.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Pushing the Boundaries of Imagination
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| Click here to check out all my Kindle releases! |
It's a great time to be a writer and an even greater time to
be a reader!
As an author, I have more freedom now than ever before in my
career. I can choose to publish my books however I want, push creative boundaries,
go where no wo/man has gone before (yes, I'm a Star Trek fan <g>).
This freedom doesn't only give writers choices; more
importantly, it gives readers choices. One glance at Amazon.com (and other
ebook stores) and you can see how much variety is out there; far more than any brick-and-mortar
store had space to shelve or any publisher had the resources to publish before.
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| Pushed Too Far |
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| FLEE |
Finally after twenty-five books with Intrigue, I decided it
was time to push myself a little further. Or maybe a lot. Ebooks were coming into their own, and the possibilities were endless.
I teamed up with my friend J.A. Konrath, a man known for both pushing boundaries and bringing his wacky imagination to a variety of different genres, and together we started the Codename: Chandler series, an action-packed, over-the-top series of spy thrillers staring a super assassin known only by her code name (FLEE, SPREE, and novella EXPOSED are out now, with THREE and more novellas on the way). And earlier this year, I released my solo police procedure thriller, PUSHED TOO FAR. I've been having a blast, to say the least.
Ebooks have been great for me as a writer, but that's only a
small part of why I love them. My favorite thing about my Kindle is that it makes me feel like I
did as a kid, browsing through shelves of books that seemed as vast as my
imagination and picking out whatever suits my fancy; traditionally published books, indie published books, backlist books, and hidden gems.
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| SPREE |
I teamed up with my friend J.A. Konrath, a man known for both pushing boundaries and bringing his wacky imagination to a variety of different genres, and together we started the Codename: Chandler series, an action-packed, over-the-top series of spy thrillers staring a super assassin known only by her code name (FLEE, SPREE, and novella EXPOSED are out now, with THREE and more novellas on the way). And earlier this year, I released my solo police procedure thriller, PUSHED TOO FAR. I've been having a blast, to say the least.
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| EXPOSED |
What's your favorite thing about ebooks? And what boundaries have ebooks inspired you to push, either in reading choices or in the stories you write? And lastly, are you a trekker?
Check back on Wednesday, when we'll be offering some of our
books for 99 cents and FREE, to pick out whatever –you- feel like reading and comment to win a gift card! Spread the word!
Saturday, December 1, 2012
That
sounds so good I almost impressed myself just
typing it. LOL Well, a few shiny sentences can
cover a lot of gritty truth. The above bio is my
glamor version for press releases. My path to
publication, on the other hand, was nothing if not
unglamorous. I wrote for 13 years and completed 4
books (as well as writing a lot more that didn't
get finished), before I finally received the call
from a major NY editor. I was beginning to wonder
if I was being tenacious or just too stupid to
know when to quit.
When
the editor called, I was so nervous, I was
standing by the kitchen counter with the wall
phone, my knees shaking. I sure wished for a
chair. I sure wished for some paper and pen, too,
to write down all the things she was throwing at
me, like the possibility of pen names, deadlines
and contract details. I listened to everything in
a daze, hoping I'll remember half of it. After we
hung up, I realized the phone was cordless. I
could have gone and grabbed a piece of paper and
sat down.
Everything
worked out in the end. I looooove writing, and
would spend all day doing it if I could only break
my family of the pesky habit of wanting to wear
clean clothes and eat. What's up with that? My
wonderful assistant is Toby, a 6 mos old
goldendoodle. If I have free time between books
(I'm talking about a day here), I enjoy flea
markets, gardening and going on long walks in the
woods with my husband. He's my hero. He's served
in the Army, was a volunteer medic for years for
the free ambulance, was a volunteer firefighter,
and when I lost my office job and still hadn't
sold any books yet, he offered to sell his SUV, a
car he loves beyond words, and trade it for the
cheapest clunker he could find, so I could stay
home for a few months and see if I could give
writing a little more time. It didn't come to
that. I sold my first book, SHADOW SOLDIER, a
romantic suspense novel, just in the nick of
time.
I'm so excited about being part of our BookDerby on Dec. 5-6 and giving away a ton of 99c and FREE Kindle books for readers. How is that for a bargain? Make sure to check back in with us!
Dana Marton
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