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Why more writers of color need to enter the ABNA’s
This year my book HEAVEN once again made it to the quarterfinal round of the ABNA’s (Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards) which meant the book was reviewed by someone contracted by Publisher’s Weekly. Long story short, I can use snippets of the review when promoting the novel. The ones I plan on using are “straight forward and emotionally raw story” and “starts off strong and develops a genuine emotional connection between Nevaeh and Joshua.”
The ebook HEAVEN I’ve had a great run with this novel. It reached #1 in a couple of sub-categories on Amazon (the category dance on Amazon is tough enough for indie writers, but especially frustrating for YA indie writers whose leads are characters of color. That’s a whole ‘nother post that I have to rant about).
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Updates on sequels and business moves
Excerpts from the sequel to Jukebox are almost done and I hope to have them up shortly.
JUKEBOX Volume II What’s surprising is how readers have responded to RAZHER.
Razher, the teen She-Wolf of Maori and African American heritage A bit of background on this novel. It was submitted to Alloy Entertainment (Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl) a few years ago and Alloy passed on it, but I always thought having a vampire who rises to Marvin Gaye and loves to dance, and pairing him with a Maori/African American she-wolf was a bit different than the usual paranormal stories. Adding more characters of color, like Andre Santana (Hispanic werewolf) and Havoc Xian (Chinese Gargoyle) plus an assortment of others might work if it found an audience.
And somehow, it has.
The release date for THE STONE BOY had to be pushed to next week, so I do apologize for the delay.
We’re doing location scouting for HEAVEN and trying to find the right dog(s) to play Myst.
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Woohoo! Thank you!! Thanks to you all!
Doing the happy dance because of this:
Heaven scores a top ten ranking! (Chart position at the time of this post. Amazon rankings change by the hour). 
HEAVEN ebook cover Okay, I know some readers may be thinking “what’s the big deal?”
Well, I’m chronicling the highs and lows of the behind the scenes with this book, and hopefully my experience can help anyone else who may want to self-publish. And since I don’t know how long this is gonna last, I plan on enjoying it while I can. Just to put things into perspective, I have to take the dog out and mow my lawn now 🙂
UPDATE!! UPDATE!!!
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Thanks to all of you for reading the excerpt of HEAVEN!
*UPDATE*
The ebook will be available later today.
As the writer (and co-writer on some of the YA ebooks) and also co-publisher, when something doesn’t read quite right, or a missed typo gets spotted, a joint decision is made whether or not to halt publication. We decided (my daughter and I) to do another edit before releasing the full ebook of HEAVEN this weekend.
Sneak Peek promo ebook of HEAVEN. PTSD, physically challenged hero My sincere apologies, because sales of the 11 chapter excerpt have been steadily rising, and we are thrilled. Thank you all so much!
HEAVEN excerpt sales data (Amazon sales rankings change each hour, screen grab taken just before this post was published) The full ebook of Heaven will be out this weekend, and we truly hope the love story between Heaven and Josh, and their bond with Myst, will become a fan favorite.
Pencil sketch of HEAVEN book cover -
What I’m up to . . .
Working on: Editing Love scenes
Listening to: Maxwell’s Whenever Wherever Whatever and Robin Thicke’s Lost Without You
For which books: HEAVEN and The Queen of Comedy
The Queen of Comedy takes center stage Excerpts from Queensrealm and the Queen of Comedy will be up this weekend.
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HEAVEN – the little story that could . . .
What a pleasant surprise! HEAVEN was first submitted to Amazon’s Break Through Novel Award Contest back in 2011. It made the quarterfinals but didn’t go any further. Though the ABNA Publisher’s Weekly reviewer liked the characters, the storyline didn’t grab them. Fair enough. It was shelved, but a decision was made to see just what the public might think, especially since the Vine reviewers on Amazon were very gracious and complimentary on the excerpt and blurb. Following up on a hunch (tastes are subjective after all) we decided to bring it back after a few tweaks in the story. However the excerpt under Free Chapter Views on this site and simultaneously on Scribd.com have generated the most reads out of all the other excerpts wikkidsexycool.com lists as a free read. It was supposed to be out in July, but didn’t quite make it.
September is more realistic. Looks like the editing won’t be finished until late October.
Heaven -
Scifi, Fantasy and Paranormal are on the way
The next few weeks will be quite busy for our small company. We’ve got a number of ebook releases in the genres of adult contemporary, historical and also paranormal and scifi/fantasy.
GAIJIN