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

*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

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.

Available at Amazon.com

Coming March 5, 2013

Please visit my website www.JennaRyanAuthor.com my Facebook Page www.facebook.com/jennaryan.5201 my Author Facebook Page www.facebook.com/readjennaryan or tweet me at @JennaRyanAuthor

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

Patricia Rosemoor

This is both a scary and an exciting time to be an author. In little more than a year, publishing has been turned on its head. Authors can now be their own publishers with little to no investment, and that has brought a huge change as to how traditional houses -- or legacy houses as they are now called -- and how agents are reinventing themselves. As someone who has lasted in the industry for a squeak away from thirty years, I have reinvented myself multiple times. And now, with all the opportunities available to authors, I am keeping my fingers in every pie I can.

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.

Holiday in Crimson

See Me in Your Dreams

SKIN

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.

Pushed to the Limit

HAUNTED

Drop Dead Gorgeous

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

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.

Pushed Too Far

I don't know about you, but I grew up reading a vast range of stories, many of which didn't neatly fit one genre or another. My mom would take my brothers and me to the library, and I'd load up on books of all kinds. All the different stories made me feel as if there might be room in this magical world of books to write what fired –my- imagination, and at the ripe old age of seven, that's what I started to do.

FLEE

When it came time to choose a major at the University of Wisconsin, the only subject I could choose was creative writing. And in 2000, I published my first novel with Harlequin Intrigue. For eleven years, I had a blast writing a pulse-pounding blend of romance and suspense.

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.

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.

EXPOSED

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.

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!