Caste & Outcast holiday weekend sale!

Any fun plans for the long holiday weekend? How about I help you decide. :) Both Caste and Outcast will be on sale, starting tomorrow! Here's how the pricing will work:

Friday: Outcast will be FREE & Caste will be only $0.99!

Saturday & Sunday: Caste FREE & Outcast $0.99

Monday: Caste $0.99 & Outcast $1.99

So if you haven't picked up your copy yet for Kindle, this weekend is the perfect time to do so! Happy reading, my friends!

--Me

I'm alive! I promise!

You all have been so beyond patient with me!

And I want you to know how much that means to me. Honestly. It’s been what seems like forever (and in the book publishing world, might as well be) since CASTE was published. So much has happened since then. A pregnancy, a baby, raising said amazing child, going back to work, weddings and vacations, dance competitions, and just mainly living life. I honestly thought I’d have all the time in the world to write the sequel and get it published, and that I’d be able to do it as quickly as I did CASTE. What a fool I was!

But a happy fool.

So, not only was I busy, but I’m also a procrastinator. Those two together are deadly to a writer. Not writing put me in a funk of not “feeling” like writing and not having my creative juices flowing. Which would make me put it off more. And more. And more. Until (what is it now, 2 years?), have gone by and I still don’t have a sequel for you. To top it all off, I’ve been promising blog posts to answer all of your amazing questions and have let you down. I will try so hard to change these horrible patterns in the near future.

But worry no more! I am working on the book. I’m outlining and editing and writing. And procrastinating. :) I just wanted to let all of you awesome readers know that Book 2 is coming. I am about ¾ of the way done writing it. After that come the edits, but that goes fairly quickly.

I already have the title and the cover. Want to see it? I’m super excited about it. Ready? Here we go!

--Me

Why the heck not?

Spring has officially been in town for a little bit, why not celebrate with a few teaser lines from Ethan's POV from Book 2??

I want to say nothing's changed since coming to Neech. 

I want to say we live in a world without the Corporation. 

I want to say we have a garaunteed plan to get Ajna back.

I want to say Karis and I are better than ever.

But I'd be lying. 

Everything's changed since coming here. 

The Corporation is stronger than ever. More deadly than ever. 

I have no idea if Ajna will ever come home.

Karis and I are nothing like before. 

This time, I'm the one with secrets.

I am off to dance now. Happy reading and writing, my friends!

--Me

Feels like Home

I have mixed feelings about Spring Break already being here. On the downside, it means that it's almost April already. On the upside, it means that I get mornings off at work and get to work on Book 2! (huzzah).

I've picked a new Starbucks to hang out at during these wee early morning hours to work on my book. It's close to the studio I dance at (feis preparation is going on, so we have some special classes this week). I think I kinda love this location. But, it's more for the people that come here. This is my second morning and I've seen the same group of old men (about five of them) that sit in a cluster of chairs, chatting with each other and greeting everyone that enters by name. It's pretty awesome. I love community like that.

Okay, that's it for now. Must continue to work on Book 2. It's taking me places I didn't think it would. :)

--Me

Freebee Friday!

Celebrating selling over 3,000 copies, CASTE will be free up on Amazon for Kindle until Sunday! Spread the word and enjoy! :)

--Me

Updates on CASTE

My decision to self-publish was the best decision I could have made for my book. It's been a little less than three months and I've sold around 3,200 copies of CASTE.

Wow.

Honestly, I didn't think I'd ever reach that number. I'm so excited that it's getting such a good response out there in the world. To celebrate this awesomeness, I'm going to do a little celebratory promo starting Friday. So check back here to find out what it is.

Now, onto what the majority of you want to know. Where's book two???

Book two is currently in my head and on paper. There's a lot more I want to do with this one. The storyline is a bit more complicated and involved and I want to make sure I get it just right. I sat down the other day and started writing again, and it felt marvelous.

I'm excited because a lot more backstory will be revealed. Not so much for Karis, but for Ethan and Rebeka. And we'll get a peek inside the Corporation's diabolical scheme and what, if anything, is going on in the Further. And we'll find out more about Akin's plans for Karis. Oh, we'll also get a new character to hate. Pearl. I'm excited beyond belief about that one. And, possibly (I'm still playing around with this one), a tug-of-war involving love, but not between who you're thinking.

Okay, quite a bit of a teaser paragraph there. :) I hope you enjoyed it.

Right now, there's not a specific month for a release date, just "2014". As we get closer to the date, I'll let you know. I'll also tell you guys the title and reveal the cover just as soon as I can!

Until then, happy reading, my friends!

--Me

FYI on Caste

Hello! Hope you all had a fantastic weekend. Just wanted to let you (my readers) all know that we appreciate and value all constructive feedback and thoughts we get about Caste.

We heard some rumblings about the editing in the book (a repeated paragraph, small editorial errors, etc). And while that isn't uncommon for a book to have (even for Big 6 books), it is still undesirable.

We have sent it to an additional copy editor and believe we have fixed all the errors. The newest edition is uploaded on Amazon for Kindle and the print copy of the book.

Thank you for everyone reading, reviewing, rating, and spreading the word about Caste! I am still astonished and floored by the response and truly humbled and grateful.

In other news, I have been getting your questions (both on facebook and the blog here) about pronunciations, sequel info, and other things. I wanted to let you know that we're working on an FAQ to put up, so keep your questions coming! Time has just been short with the impending arrival of baby ANY DAY. :)

Until then, keep reading and sharing the love for Caste!

--Me

Contest winners!

Wow! What a weekend!

Caste did great for its big "premier", and I couldn't be happier. Thanks to everyone who helped spread the word about the book and the sale price. Here's a bit of a breakdown for the past five days:

• Currently sits at #7 out of all the Children's Sci-fi (the highest it reached was #4, and that was for a few days)
• Is in the Top 10 for Fiction Dystopian
• Is in the top 100 for Teen Fiction & Teen Sci-Fi
• For the 4th day in a row, Caste is listed as #1 in Amazon's Hot New Releases  for Children's Sci-Fi

Guys, seriously, this past week has been the best week. In celebration, I'm going to keep the price at $0.99 for the ebook for a bit longer!

Now, down to the winners of the contest! Ready? 

• Nicole
• Kiera
• Stephanie

Thanks so much for entering! I'll send you an email confirmation. Let me know where you want the book sent and I will send it on its merry little way!

Happy Monday, everyone!

--Me

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Win a copy of CASTE!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Promo price and a giveaway!

Buy it here!

CASTE has been out for a few weeks now, and I've gotta say, IT'S DOING GREAT! I couldn't be more thrilled with how it's going.

So, to help it out even more and get the word out there, I need your help. I'm doing a $0.99 promo (sidebar: what the heck happened to the cent sign? Anybody? I found it so useful) from tonight midnight (June 18th) until midnight Sunday, June 23rd.

How can you help, you ask? Simple. Reblog this, Tweet it out, Facebook share it, write a review/rate CASTE on Goodreads, Shelfari, BN.com, Amazon, etc (but please, ONLY if you've read the book, and give it an honest review/rating. I don't want to be one of those slimy, underhanded people that bumps their book's rating by cheating), put it on tumblr, etc. Share the links for each of those you do with me and for everyone, you'll get your name put into the pot once. At the end of the promo period I'll pull 3 winners and send you a signed copy of my book!

How does that sound?

Well, what are you waiting for?! Get out there and spread the word and win yourself a book!

--Me

CASTE is now available!

It's done! CASTE is now available and ready for human consumption!

Currently, the ebook is ready to go on Amazon, and the physical version should be there soon, as well.

B&N is next on the list and should be going up online in the next few days (they're a bit slower than Amazon).

iBooks and Google Books should be in the next week or two at the latest.

Guys, this is SO exciting! Now I hope I am forgiven as to why I've been so absent lately. So, go over and check it out and leave an honest rating/review, if you would be so kind.

Happy reading!!!!



--Me

Deep breaths

EEEK!!!!!

You guys!

The final proof of CASTE just came in. And it looks AMAZING! Looks like we're on schedule for a May 30th release date!

I can hardly believe it! :)

--Me

Updates!

How are all of you doing?

Me? I'm doing fantastic.

Baby is growing and will be here in 10.5 weeks and my book is less than a month away from being shoved out into the world!

I announced a little while ago that I'd decided to self-publish CASTE while still querying for an agent. The main reason for that was two-fold:

1. Why the heck not?
2. I felt like I was just sitting on my hands while querying and waiting for that elusive "yes".

I'd gotten several full requests, but nothing after that. Which is both encouraging and downright depressing. So, I decided to invest time and money into getting it done myself; and I have to say, I'm pretty darned excited. 

I have to wait for the proof to get back to me from the printer, and then do some online marketing/publicity/promo stuff (wish me luck with that), and then get to finishing the second in the series. 

This is kind of my first little, "Hey, guess what's going on?!" push. You are the first. Thanks for that. :)

That's all I have for now (oh, still wearing my heels through 7.5 months of pregnancy. I think that's pretty impressive).

Happy Thursday!

--Me