Free Author Interview: Sarah Spann

Author Name: Sarah Spann

Where can we find your book? Wildflowers Come Back is available in ebook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, iBookstore, Kobo Books, Sony Reader Store, and Diesel eBook Store. It is also available in paperback at Amazon.

How much does it cost? The ebook is currently listed at $2.99 while the paperback is currently listed at $12.99.

Tell us a little about your book. Wildflowers Come Back takes readers on a haunting journey through an historic, haunted Santa Fe inn. The story follows Lyss–the snarky female protagonist who habitually lives her life according to the expectations of others–as she navigates through the shattered pieces of her life after the break-up with her long-term boyfriend leaves her jobless and living in a cheap motel. However, Lyss won’t be down and out for long. Just as a new year begins, Lyss is presented with the opportunity to start over with a live-in position at the High Desert Crest Inn; an opportunity which takes her down a path that will forever change her life. She will discover her gift, the trappings of sin and the outlasting effects of karmic bindings, as the past comes back to haunt her. In the meantime the resurgence of a serial killer in Santa Fe has left everyone on edge. Has a murderous cult–once believed to be dormant–reawakened? Only one person can help stop the violence, but she doesn’t even know how to help herself. Will Lyss listen to the voices that haunt her? Or will she trust the one person who can’t be trusted? You'll have to read the book to find out.

Do you have any upcoming projects? Yes. I am currently working on the sequel to Wildflowers Come Back which is titled Wildflowers Come Back: Karmic Flames. It is set to be released in March 2012.

What has your journey as a writer been like? It has been an exhilarating ride filled with amazing highs and not-so-fun lows. There have definitely been days where I questioned my own sanity. However, at the end of the day it truly has been a fun journey.

Why did you choose to self publish? I was excited by all the changes in the publishing industry and the strides so many indie authors are making. I have a very entrepreneurial geared mind and personality, and the self-publishing route really compliments that for me at this point in my life and career.

Would you do it again? Yes, for sure. It hasn't been easy, but I take great pride in the path I have chosen for my career.

Please share some advice to help future authors. I guess my advice would be that you're going to have bad days, and you need to remember that's okay. Just remember that your lows don't define you. Stay confident and be patient. Don't rush things.

Is there anything unique about yourself that you would like your readers to know? Readers should probably know that I can talk and sing with my mouth shut. While that has absolutely nothing to do with my writing, it's still kinda awesome-ish. 

Author Bio:


Author Sarah Spann is the type of person who doesn’t have a favorite color. A gypsy at heart who was raised on country music, green chile and change.

Since 2007 Sarah has worked as a freelance writer specializing in travel and style. She has written articles, web content and blogs for individuals, small businesses, and large corporations. In addition, she spent a year working as a pop music journalist and editor. In September 2011 Sarah published her debut novel Wildflowers Come Back as an indie author.

When Sarah isn’t writing or designing she can be found dining on gourmet food, spending time at the opera, and taming lions. Well…not really. Actually, you can find her making a mess in the kitchen as she tries out new and impossibly difficult recipes, watching all of her favorite shows and/or football on TV, and playing with her lazy, fat cat.

Forbidden Release

My teen fantasy ebook, Forbidden, has just been released as a soft cover print on demand book for only $12.99

Book Description:
Roseline Enescue has been called many things but there is only one name that had endured for over three hundred years. Vampire. A myth so deeply rooted in fear and false beliefs that it has turned humans against all Immortals.

Trapped within an abusive marriage to Vladimir Enescue, the man responsible for the Dracula myth, Roseline's soul cries out for freedom. Willing to risk everything for the chance to live a normal life, Roseline escapes her husband's clutches and flees to America. She enrolls in a prep school with plans to slide through senior year unnoticed.

But Roseline's hopes of remaining off the grid are shattered when she meets Gabriel Marston. Fear keeps her teetering on the edge of agony as she fights the forbidden bond that holds them together. As their lives entwine, Roseline soon discovers that Gabriel is much more than he appears.
I have had some great reviews for Forbidden and am really excited to see where this book takes me. 

If you are interested in purchasing a physical copy you can go to
https://www.createspace.com/3723015

For a $0.99 copy of the ebook you can visit my Amazon page:
http://www.amazon.com/Forbidden-The-Arotas-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B0063KE52K

Thank you to each and every one of you that you have supported me through this process.  You are the reason I write each day!

The sequel to Forbidden, Arotas, will be available within a month.  You can read the teaser for Arotas on my author blog http://www.amymilesbooks.blogspot.com/

book

Free Author Interview: Leslie E. Stern

Author Name: Leslie E. Stern

Where can we find your book?: All the usual outlets.  Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com, and if you want a signed copy you can go to my website leslieestern.com.  Let me also mention that the cheapest place to purchase the Kindle edition is to download it directly from my website.  The only place to purchase the hardbound edition is also from my website.

How much does it cost?: $14.95 for the paperback.  $24.95 for the hardbound.

Tell us a little about your book: Dr. Emma Weiss is a beautiful, intelligent, woman who moves to Savannah, Georgia and falls in love with gorgeous Jake Stanton and believes that he has fallen in love with her. Then she learns that he is actually a long-struggling drug addict. Thus, Emma inadvertently becomes entangled in a web of deceit, drugs, and the law. Can Emma cope with Jake’s addiction to drugs and more importantly, can she overcome her addiction to him?

Do you have any upcoming projects?:  My book of poetry "Images from my Soul" is available through all the usual outlets now. I have written the screenplay for "Betrayal Beneath the Spanish Moss" and it is being pitched in Hollywood as we speak.  My next project is "Living with a Legend", a non-fiction book of anecdotes about my step-father.  Iwao Takamoto designed about 85% of the characters at Hanna-Barbera, as well as worked on some Disney classics such as "Lady and the Tramp" and "Cinderella".  It's a heart-warming look at this gentle genius and is filled with drawings done by him and for him.  It's already gotten a great deal of pre-publication buzz.

What has your journey as a writer been like?: It's been a long and rocky road.  I have always written for my own enjoyment, having written my first short story when I was ten.  I spent my career in public relations, primarily writing.  I wrote "Dreams Surpassed", which is my first novel and I hope will be published after "Living with a Legend", I was young and hopeful.  When I wrote "Betrayal", it was a story that just had to come out.  I finished the first draft in three months, unlike "Dreams Surpassed" which was a five year proposition and still needs a major edit.  I was too impatient to find a publisher for "Betrayal", so I self-published.  Big mistake!  Even with years of marketing and public relations experience, it was still difficult.

Why did you choose to self-publish?: Impatience, pure and simple.

Would I do it again?:  Never!!  Too expensive, too much work, and little results.

Please share some advice to help future authors: Don't self-publish unless you can afford to hire a marketing firm to back you up and be prepared to spend a great deal of money on book tours without seeing a profit.  Go the traditional route and perfect your query letters to send to agents or publishers.  A small publishing house is still better than self-publishing.  Do an excellent proposal and get it out there.

On the writing end, start with a basic outline.  Don't just sit down and write.  You'll never get finished and you'll edit for the rest of your life.  An outline also helps writer's block.  There will always be a portion of the book you won't feel like writing.  Those are the days when you can work on a different part of the book if you have an outline.

book

Free Author Interview: Gill Shutt

Gill Shutt

You can find my book here: http://greyhartpress.com/our-fantasy-stories/the-legends-of-light/ where you can find links to all the e-book publishers who stock it. At the moment I’m afraid it’s only available as an e-book.

Cost is $2.99 or £1.71 but you can get the first of the six stories for free so you can try before you buy.

The Legends of Light is a fantasy saga written in six poems. Which sounds weird, I know, but the ancient people told stories in poetry form long before us writers came along with our prose. It’s the story of Elena the Fey and her family. Each of the poems is a story on its own but together they span four generations. They contain love, war, quests, you name it it’s in there and there’s dragons, elves, goblins, wizards and a couple of things never heard of before.

Upcoming projects include three more novelettes, short novels, whatever you want to call them. All fantasy but this time prose. I’m trying to get together a short free to go with each so everyone gets either a taster for what’s to come or just a free sample of my work. Next to come out is Endings, the story of Kiri and the death of the Stone God in who’s temple she was raised. I don’t want to give too much away. I’ve written a short about her parents and how she ended up raised by the Templers of the Stone God.

My journey as a writer? Up, down, round a few bends and more down than up. That just about covers it. I’ve had poems and short stories published here and there but nothing major. I’ve had enough rejections to paper the Albert Hall. Then I heard about Tim Taylor and Greyhart Press which he started up to publish his own work and then began taking on a few lucky others. To say I was surprised when I got the acceptance is putting it mildly. There’s nothing like the feeling you get when someone says ‘I really like your work’. In fact it was a bigger high than actually seeing my book on Amazon.

I chose a small Indie Press because I discovered that they usually read your work. The number of big publishers who email you within the hour saying it’s not what they are looking for is too many to mention. How do they know if they don’t read them? Tim has written a lovely blog saying how he never thought he’d publish poetry but once he read The Legends of Light he realised that fantasy and poetry go hand in hand, so he changed his mind. Indie Presses are adaptable and they care about their authors and the work they put out. Because there is usually only one or two people doing all the work they care more, it’s as much their book as the authors in that they have edited, got the art work and formatted it. And if it’s done badly then they don’t get any money and they don’t get the readers for other projects.

Obviously I’m doing it again as Tim has said yes to three more projects so I’m hoping to keep him busy for a while. By then I should have written some more. It’s given me a lot more confidence in my work. In the back of my mind there’s always been a small voice saying ‘Are you any good at this or should you just stop trying?’ Now I’ve shut them up I can carry on.

To all the future authors out there... keep writing, don’t give up because someone says no. Every piece you write will hopefully be building up your experience and making your work better. If you want to ask someone what they think... DON’T ask friends and family, they’ll love it, how could they not, they love you. But they can’t be critical which is what you need.  You need someone who doesn’t know you well and who can help you to improve on what you’ve got. And finally EDIT, EDIT then leave it in a draw, come back later and EDIT!

A fact not everyone knows about me is that I suffer from fibromyalgia which is a debilitating illness caused by too much of the pain transmitting chemical substance P in my brain and, they have found that the brain in fibro sufferers never shuts off so we never get a decent night’s sleep. The scans that show which parts of the brain are firing at any one time show that the area connected with sleep carries on working even when we are asleep so we never get the deep restorative sleep that ‘normal’ people get. And the parts that deal with pain are firing all the time as well. And small bump or scratch is magnified about five times for me. So I’m in pain all the time and constantly exhausted. When my youngest was little I had days when it hurt to give a hug and that tore me up inside.

Writing and read help me to forget about the pain and exhaustion for a while so, in a way, its therapy. But on the bad days I can’t concentrate enough to string a sentence together and if I try and type I just get a lot of corrections to do because my fingers hit all the wrong keys. Sometimes I can read but usually I find I can’t concentrate. It’s like those nights when you try and read before bedtime and find yourself reading the same paragraph over and over again without taking any of it in.

 

Here’s a short piece of the first poem

THE QUEST FOR ELENA THE FAIR

The hull of The Riever rode high on the waves

As the party set out on its quest.

Three knights and a squire, to care for their needs,

Looked seawards with hope in their breast.

The creak of the deck and the snap of the sails,

Pure white with a single gold flower,

And the shouts of the crew as they pulled on the ropes,

Began the long trip to the tower.

On an isle in the Sea of the Vanishing Mists

Stood a tower of clouds and moonlight.

When the moon rose up full, in the black of the night,

It appeared, glowing golden and white.

In the fullness of day no isle could be seen,

As the Vanishing Mists wrapped it round,

By the magic of moonlight alone it appeared,

White tower upon solid ground.

And there on the isle lived the source of the quest,

Fair Lady Elena the Fey.

Each knight carried hope they would win the maid’s hand,

Steal her heart and then bear her away.

For they all thought they knew what the lady required,

And each thought, alone, they were right.

One handsome and proud, one learned and grave,

While the other had muscle and might.

book