Friday, May 3, 2013

Interview with upcoming author Ada Slowe!

I am extremely pleased to share this interview with you from upcoming author Ada Slowe!

Her debut novel, The Power of Love, launches August 15th, 2013. Be sure to check it out!


Hi Ada! Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

I’m not like any twenty year old I know, in fact I’m very different than most my age. While most people my age like to party, and go out, I like to stay in with my laptop and write. That’s not to say I don’t know how to have a good time, because even a writer needs a break sometimes. I’ve got amazing friends and such a great support system, and I don’t know where I’d be without it.
I grew up in a small town called Newfield, New York. At the age of fourteen, I moved to Florida, which is where I met my inspiration to become a writer. I’ve been writing since I was ten years old but It wasn’t until I met my former English teacher, Shay Kastanis, that I decided I had it in me to pursue it as a career. She’s supported me since the moment I told her I wanted to be a writer and I could never ask for more than that.
I discovered my talent and love of writing at a little shy of the age of ten. Young, right? I hear that a lot. In my opinion though, it doesn’t matter the age, it matters of how great the story is. And without writing, I honestly don’t know where I’d be. Writing isn’t just a hobby for me, it’s a passion, and it’s my reason for breathing. People say we’re all put in this world for a reason, and well writing is mine. It’s the one thing in my life that I can always count on to make me happy. I was introduced to writing because of events that were occurring in my life when I was a child, and I found it to be a great outlet.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Escape with Author Katheryn Lane!



Today I am so excited to have Katheryn Lane as a guest blogger! Thank you so much for being here. Katheryn is the author of the fantastic romance series The Sheikh's Beloved. My wife is a fan, and said I better get her over here for a guest post or interview :) I am so glad she had time today to join us. Without further ado, please welcome Katheryn!



Sheikh Romance Novels: Fantasy versus Reality?

First, I’d like to say thank you James for inviting me to your great blog to talk about my romance novels and share some chips and salsa with you (sadly only in a virtual sense!)

I’ve just published The Sheikh’s Beloved, a romance novel in two sections: Adored By The Sheikh and Treasured By The Sheikh. It’s about a young woman who’s travelling back to the England after visiting her mother in Australia when her plane is delayed in the Middle East due to a volcanic eruption. The ash cloud from the eruption results in all planes being grounded for several days and the heroine, Tassie, is forced to stay in the Middle East. However, she soon meets a rich handsome sheikh who’s only too willing to offer her some local hospitality!

My previous romance novel, The Desert Sheikh, is also a sheikh romance in which the heroine, Sarah, is a British doctor working in one of the more remote parts of the Middle East. On her way to the airport she is kidnapped by a local sheikh and taken off to his Bedouin camp in the desert. My first published romance novel, The Royal Sheikh, was also a sheikh romance! It’s about an architect who accidentally meets a wealthy sheikh known internationally as the Playboy Prince. 



Saturday, April 6, 2013

The Leibster Award!



This is a fun way to start my weekend! I've been nominated for the Leibster Award by Wayne L. Murphy. Thank you so much Wayne! Everyone head over to his blog and check it out! I believe there is a Virtual Ebook Fair going on, so don't miss it.

Click here to visit Wayne's blog :)

For those of you who don't know what the Leibster Award is (I was one of them!), Wayne has this helpful info on his blog:

"The Liebster Award is for bloggers with under 300 followers and the rules of the award is that the nominee must link back to whoever awarded them, write 11 random facts about themselves, answer the 11 questions from the award giver, and then nominate another 11 bloggers and make up 11 questions for them to answer. It's a great way for new and undiscovered bloggers to meet new people, get more followers and find some blogs that they want to follow."

Okay, let the fun begin!

11 random facts about me:

 1. I served in the US Army as a light infantryman, stationed at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. I loved it!
2. I married my high school sweetheart, and we are still best friends.
3. I own a woodworking business.
4. I've lived lots of places, but the majority of my childhood was spent in Sitka, Alaska.
5. My wife and I drove 18-wheelers together for a while.
6. I could eat chips and salsa with every meal, every day.
7. I saw a chupacabra :)
8. I enjoy lifting weights.
9. I love Sci-Fi TV shows like Battlestar Galactica, Stargate Atlantis, and Eureka. I think cancelling the show Firefly was the worst mistake FOX network ever made, and Joss Whedon is my hero for making it into the movie Serenity.
10. My wife and I love playing all the Halo games together. We play on the weekends, and we call it our Halo wars!
11. If I ever get rich, my one frivolous, wasteful thing will be that I will never wear the same pair of socks twice! I love new socks :)

My answers to the 11 questions:

1. Where would you like to travel?
I would love to go to the moon! Seriously, that would be amazing. 

2. If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?
Flying. Oh, I would definitely fly!

3. What was your first car?
A 1972 Trans Am, and I wish I still had it :(

4. Who is your favorite author?
It is a tie between Stephen King and Robert Jordan.

5. Do you prefer cold or warm weather?
This is a hard question! I used to really love cold weather. Growing up in Alaska, living in Montana, I have always liked it. But lately, even though my wife and I are still young, I find myself wishing for warmer weather ;)

6. When was the last time you built a snowman?
Believe it or not, just a couple of months ago. My wife and I made little tiny ones in the backyard, and then our dog mauled them! He was Snowzilla!

7. Who is your favorite actor or actress?
Bruce Willis...enough said.

8. At what age did you start writing or drawing?
Honestly, for as long as I can remember. My mom said I started writing little stories in grade school, and I've been doing it ever since.

9.What do you enjoy most about your art?
I love the ideas. That moment when you get an idea that you are so excited about you want to drop everything you are doing and run to the computer and start writing!

10. Who would you like to see in concert?
Metallica!

11. Do you know anyone you would take a bullet for?
Yep, my wife and my dog. I will say I think if I have time to jump in front of it, then they have time to move, but I would still do it!




My 11 questions to pass on:
1. What is something you have always wanted to do but haven't done yet?
2. If you were a Star Trek character, who would you be and why? (If you don't know Star Trek, don't admit it! Just make something up!)
3. What is one of your favorite movie scenes, and why?
4. Why did you choose writing? What drew you to it?
5. What is your favorite book?
6. Besides writing, do you do any other art? 
7. What is one of your craziest travel stories?
8. Skiing or lounging on a beach?
9. Coke or Pepsi?
10. Do you play a musical instrument? If so, which one? If not, do you want to?
11. Do you have any new writing projects that you can share with us right now?

11 Blogs I want to pass the Leibster Award onto:
Wanda P. Smith
 Jessica Samuels - The Writing Dreamer
Catherine Green
T.D. Wilson
Pezz Rambles
Eric DeBlackmere
Martha Emms
Amber Lea Easton
A. Wrighton
Roxanne Crouse
Pam Funke


I hope everyone gets a chance to check out their blogs! They all have something wonderful and interesting to offer.


Best wishes everyone, and I hope you had fun with this post!
James








 


Monday, March 25, 2013

The Work of Darko Tomic



As some of you may know, I love art! I really love fantasy art. The people who create these amazing images astound me with their skill and talent.

One of my favorite things as a writer is making my book covers. I get so excited when I know my book is in the final stages of editing, and it is time to get the cover ready. I can lose myself for hours searching through various artists' web pages. I know I can't be the only one!

Well, the third book in my Heirs of the Fallen Series, Shadow and Steel, is slated for release mid-April. My wife and I started on the cover a couple of months ago, but we just could not get it to look right. We decided to get help, and started searching through Deviant Art, along with a few other sites. That was when we happened across a web site called 99Desgins. They are awesome! You pick the package you want to pay for, submit your design brief, and start the contest. Graphic designers from all over the world can submit entries for your contest. At the end, you pick your winner! They have lots of info on their web page if anyone wants more details.



After signing up at 99Designs, my wife and I ran a contest, and that is how we met Darko Tomic. He designed the winning artwork for Shadow and Steel. He is amazing! I was blown away by how he seemed to know exactly what I wanted from my design brief. There is a scene in my novel where the main character is about to enter an evil place called the Throat of Balaam. I wanted that scene to be my cover, and Darko delivered!



In addition to the book cover, the images in this blog post are ones from the gallery on his web page here. You can also go to the 99Designs web site and look at his designs from various contests. He goes by the name paganus.



Another one of my favorite things about this whole process is meeting different people. Darko is from Belgrade, Serbia. He is a graduate of the Academy of Applied Arts, and he is an illustrator, sculptor, and graphic designer.

You can read his biography here, and I hope everyone checks out his work! I don't know about the rest of you writers out there, but I would be lost without these incredible artists; both for the inspiration they provide, and for the empty book covers I would have without them :)

Thank you Darko, and keep drawing!










Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Help Me Choose A Winning Book Cover for Shadow and Steel!

So in the midst of all my editorial work on Shadow and Steel, I've been trying to make the new book cover. This one has been hard because I wanted it to represent the Throat of Balaam, a scary place in the book! However my wife and I don't have the artistic skills to make original artwork...unless you count stick figures :)

With that in mind, I decided to hunt around for a graphic designer, and I came across www.99designs.com. Basically you submit your design brief (you describe the scene you want them to create), and many different graphic designers can jump in and create your artwork. After a few a days, you pick the finalists, who continue to tweak the design until it's exactly what you want. There is a lot of handy information you can read about on their webpage. So far for me this has been amazing, and the artists are fantastic! They are patient when you keep asking for changes, and they really seem to get what you are asking for. You do have to pay, but I am happy to pay artists for their work! And the coolest thing of all, you get an exclusive copyright license to use the image.

Now I'm going to ask for your help!! Oh, you knew there was a catch somewhere!! I would love it if you would click on the link below, and go vote for your favorite cover. You can even leave a comment if you wish. They are still making changes to the images, but I will probably run another poll right before I pick the winner. Thanks in advance for helping me out with this!

And for any authors out there desperately searching for an affordable yet awesome book cover, I highly encourage you to check them out!

Click here to vote:
http://99designs.com/book-cover-design/vote-8vrw6h



Thursday, January 24, 2013

Are You A Chaser?



Dream Chaser Seeking Dream Catcher 

No, this isn’t a personals ad! I’m seeking a literal dream catcher. Why? Because I am a died-in-the-wool dream chaser. I know I am not the only one. To all you other dream chasers out there - you know who you are! And believe it or not, we are one big family, bound by a common desire. We have a dream and we want it to come true.

Everyone I know has a dream. My wife loves to ride horses. That is all she has ever wanted to do. Life throws a lot of curve balls at her dream: financial curve balls, injury curve balls, and her latest one: the horse she scrimped and saved for ended up being diagnosed with a disease called Wobblers not 6 months after she bought him, and he can never be ridden again. But she keeps going, she keeps chasing. She still has Wobbler Whiz, as we call him, but she’s already saving for the next one. 

But why does she do it? This dream of owning a horse keeps hitting a brick wall, so maybe she should just give up? That would make sense, right?  The cosmos has spoken, again and again, and the answer is an unequivocal NO.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

KDP Select Whoopsie!

Hi everyone,

You may have noticed from my Facebook page, Twitter, and free book sites I am promoting on, etc. that I had book one from my Songs of the Scorpion series, Reaper of Sorrows, scheduled to be free on Amazon today through Thursday the 28th.

Well, unfortunately Amazon appears to have had some sort of glitch. I checked two days ago to make sure my promo was still scheduled, and everything looked good. Today I noticed Reaper was not free, so I checked and my promo appears to have been canceled. I don't know why, but I have rescheduled for tomorrow, the 27th, through Thursday the 28th.

I really apologize for the inconvenience, and to the free books sites I paid to promote on.

I hope everyone still wants to check it out when it actually does go free!