Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Best of 2012 Giveaway Hop



Another giveaway!!!!
Welcome to the Best of 2012 Giveaway Hop. This giveaway runs December 27-31, 2012. Please fill out the form below. Five winners will be chosen. Those five winners will get to choose any of my eBooks (please use the tabs above to read about them). Excluded are the 2 cowritten eBooks.

You have to like my Facebook fan page for your first entry (this is just liking the page, you don't have to friend me). You can get up to 4 more entries by following or friending me on the websites below for a total of 5 entries.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Giveaway Winners

Winners of the Fall Into Fantasy giveaway hop have been announced and emailed. Hope you enjoy Dark Promise. Keep tuned - more giveaways will happen :)

In fact, here's a link to a giveaway happening soon with a whole bunch of prizes!!!

Monday, October 15, 2012

Fall Into Fantasy Giveaway Hop


Another giveaway!!!!
Welcome to the Fall Into Fantasy Giveaway Hop. This giveaway runs October 16-22, 2012. Please fill out the form below. Five winners will be chosen. Those five winners will receive a copy of Dark Promise, a fantasy YA eBook.

You have to like my Facebook fan page for your first entry (this is just liking the page, you don't have to friend me). You can get up to 4 more entries by following or friending me on the websites below for a total of 5 entries.



a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Giveaway Winners

Winners of the Fangs, Fur, & Fey giveaway have been announced on the rafflecopter and were also emailed. Congratulations to the winners and stay tuned for more giveaways!!
Thanks!

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Fangs, Fur, & Fey Giveaway Hop




Welcome to the Fangs, Fur, & Fey Giveaway Hop. This giveaway runs October 2-8, 2012. Please fill out the form below. Five winners will be chosen. Those five winners will receive a copy of my YA vampire themed eBook The Secret Bloodline. I will send winners a code for Smashwords where you can pick from any format for your eReader.

You have to like my Facebook fan page for your first entry (this is just liking the page, you don't have to friend me). You can get up to 4 more entries by following or friending me on the websites below for a total of 5 entries.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Giveaway Winners

Winners posted on the Rafflecopter below. Emails have been sent to the 5 winners. Thanks to everyone who entered and come back soon for more giveaways.

Friday, August 31, 2012

Back to the Books Hop


Welcome to the Back to the Books Giveaway Hop. This giveaway runs September 1-7, 2012. Please fill out the form below. Five winners will be chosen. Those five winners will be able to pick any of the eBooks I wrote (excluding the co-written eBooks). I will send winners a code for Smashwords where you can pick from any format for your eReader.

You have to like my Facebook fan page for your first entry (this is just liking the page, you don't have to friend me). You can get up to 4 more entries by following or friending me on the websites below for a total of 5 entries.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Monday, August 27, 2012

Bad Ideas - Monday Mom Post

One of my daughters got a towel bag as a present. That's what I call it because I have no idea what it is actually called. I thought it was a good idea at first...

It's a beach towel that folds itself into a bag with a strap. That way you can actually stuff your bathing suit and goggles (or whatever) into the bag and throw it over your shoulder. Cool. No extra bag to hold everything needed.

Until my daughter stashed it into her room for days...used it another time...stashed it in her room again...repeat, repeat, repeat. I found it one day, pulled the towel out, and was disgusted by the huge black mold spots. OMG! I asked her why she was continuing to use the towel and she said she thought it was dirt!!!! EW!!!! I tried bleaching the thing, but no luck, so it's gone on to a better place now.

This is just one of those ideas the inventor didn't think through. Many kids just don't think about things like mildew and mold. And I never realized it was missing out of the wash.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Winners Announced

The winners have been picked and posted on Rafflecopter. Scroll down to see. I've also sent an email to the 5 winners to pick a book. Congratulations to the winners and like I said stay tuned because I'll be having another giveaway soon!!!

Friday, August 24, 2012

Winners

I know!!! Don't yell at me!! I promise to get to the winners tomorrow (Saturday). I have been SO busy this week with back to school stuff. But as of tomorrow afternoon, it should slow down. I will pick winners tomorrow.

Thank you all for entering!! If you don't win, stay tuned, another giveaway will be coming up soon.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Last Days of Freedom Giveaway Hop


Welcome to the Last Days of Summer Giveaway Hop. This giveaway runs August 17-22, 2012. Please fill out the form below. Five winners will be chosen. Those five winners will be able to pick any of the eBooks I wrote (excluding the co-written eBooks). I will send winners a code for Smashwords where you can pick from any format for your eReader.

You have like my Facebook fan page for your first entry (this is just like the page, you don't have to friend me). You can get up to 4 more entries by following or friending me on the websites below for a total of 5 entries.



a Rafflecopter giveaway

Monday, August 6, 2012

Signs In Your Yard - Monday Mom Post

There are people in the neighborhood that place signs in their yards with their children's names on them. Some even have a year or grade under their name. Most of them seem to be sports related. Maybe you've seen them? Maybe you have one? A giant baseball that says FRED 2012. So, now anybody going by your house knows that you have a son named Fred, that he's old enough to play baseball, and young enough not to care that you have his name on a sign in the front of the house.

What a magnet for a kidnapper! Seriously! Think about it. Some crazy guy (or gal) driving by sees that you have a son or daughter around the age they'd like. Now, they know the kid's name as well.

Smart. Really smart. Great advertising! Hey kidnapper! Yeah you!!! I've got a 7 year old boy who loves baseball. Come and get him! His name is Fred!!

You won't find one of those in front of our house. And I urge you to think about it before putting one in front of your house.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

New Website and New Release

Now that the blog hop is over I can brag about my new website and new release!!!

I decided I better go ahead and purchase my domain name before any crazed fans out there did :) So I did that and then found a place to host it. Then I had to figure out how to set it up. Thankfully my husband is pretty good at that kind of stuff and what he doesn't know he can learn. I couldn't have done it without Lizzy Ford and her husband. They taught us a few things!! It was definitely a learning process. Still is.

I do plan to blog, but I'm not sure where it will be. I can move it over to wordpress and have it attached to my site or continue on here. I haven't decided yet.

Here's the site!!! http://www.taliajager.com

If anyone has any opinions or advice, let me know.

Next up, my new release with Julia Crane: Dark Promise (A Between Worlds Novel). This is book one of a series about faeries.



Rylie has it all - great friends, dream boy, loving family. But on the eve of her sixteenth birthday, her perfect little world shatters. A stranger claiming to be her real mother appears with a dark secret: Rylie is a faery whose powers will be unleashed on her birthday. Captured and forced into a new life, Rylie struggles to keep everything she loves and discovers a terrifying truth: some promises cannot be broken.
                                     

We're hoping to have book 2 out around the 2012 holidays.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Summer Splash Winners!!

Congratulations to Chrystina Williams who won the $10 Amazon eCertificate and a copy of one of my eBooks.

Also congratulations to the following four winners who will each get a copy of one of my eBooks:
Catrina Barton
Tobi Helton
Trianna Hyde
Kaci McClellon Verdun

Look for emails from me shortly to pick your book.
All winners must respond within 72 hours or forfeit their prize.
Thank you to everyone who entered and make sure you check back. I will be participating in another blog hop very soon.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Summer Splash Giveaway Hop


Welcome to the Summer Splash Giveaway Hop. This giveaway runs July 23-31, 2012. Please fill out the form below. Five winners will be chosen. Those five winners will be able to pick any of the eBooks I wrote (excluding the co-written eBooks). I will send winners a code for Smashwords where they can pick from any format for their eReader. The first random winner picked will also win a $10 eCertificate for Amazon.


There are TWO mandatory entries. You have to be a blog follower for your first entry and a Facebook follower for the second entry. You can get up to 3 more entries by following or friending me on the websites below for a total of 5 entries. When you are done entering my giveaway, click on the hop logo above and go back to the main site and enter the main giveaway as well as other authors. You could win Kindle Fires, books, giftcards, and more. Good luck!!!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Friday, July 20, 2012

Giveaway Coming Soon

Bunch of authors giving away a bunch of stuff!!!
July 23-31
Stay tuned for more details.

I will be giving 5 eBooks.
The grand prizes from the main site will be Kindle Fires, Amazon gift cards, Kindle cover, and signed paperbacks.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Giveaway Winners

Winners have been chosen and emailed. Congrats to the two winners (names in the Rafflecopter widget in the previous post). Thank you to all who entered. If you didn't win, don't worry, I'll be having another giveaway soon!

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Indie Author Giveaway Hop



Welcome to the Indie Author Hop. This giveaway runs June 13-19, 2012. Please fill out the form below. Two winners will be chosen. Those two winners will be able to pick any of the eBooks I wrote (excluding the co-written eBooks). I will send winners a code for Smashwords where you can pick from any format for your eReader.

You have to be a blog follower for your first entry. You can get up to 4 more entries by following or friending me on the websites below for a total of 5 entries.



a Rafflecopter giveaway



Why I Write What I Write

I wrote this blog post for someone else's blog a while ago. I think it's important to repost it every so often so readers understand.




When people find out what I write about, they sometimes ask why in the world I write about depressing tough topics such as addictions, abusive relationships, rape, teen pregnancy, or medical conditions. My husband is actually one of these people. I suppose it does take a certain type of person to love my books.

So, what’s the answer, you ask? Why did I start writing about these subjects? There are a number of reasons. As a teen, I enjoyed reading young adult edgy dramas and medical dramas, but there weren’t enough of them. They were taboo. Parents didn’t want their teens reading about hard topics, so there weren’t a lot of them. Knowing that these subjects are important to teens, I started writing more.

I love drama. I also love the thought that I might be helping someone out there who has one of these problems. I can’t count the number of times I looked for a book as a teen that dealt with one of the problems I was facing. The times when I did find one, I bonded with the characters and I didn’t feel alone anymore. Things like this happen to teens out there, someone needs to write about them. I hope my books reach teens who are looking for that feeling.

Some of my favorite books dealt with a teen facing death, usually because of cancer. I decided to go beyond cancer and wrote about epilepsy, a medical condition not a lot of teens know about. I also wrote about needing a heart transplant.

My first eBook, Damaged: Natalie’s Story is about a teen with a violent boyfriend who finds herself in the hospital after one of his attacks. She has to deal with all the physical and emotional damage that he caused.

Two of my books are a little closer to home. Before I finished writing my epilepsy book, Teagan’s Story: Her Battle With Epilepsy, I found out a friend’s daughter had a form of epilepsy and decided to dedicate the book to her. I hope that my book helps create awareness for this condition.

My third book, If I Die Young, is about a teen needing a heart transplant. Many people in my family have heart problems including one of my daughters and myself. One of my family members just had a heart transplant. When I released this book, I matched the sales for the first ten books and donated it to The Children’s Heart Foundation.

My fourth book, The Ultimate Sacrifice, is a paranormal, but I do touch on rape in it.

In my sixth book, Lost and Found, my main character deals with sexual abuse, drug addiction, foster homes, and teen pregnancy.

I have unfinished books that deal with car accidents, paralysis, pregnancy, cutting, running away – all very challenging subjects to write and read about, but all very important nonetheless.

I guess the answer to the question why do I choose the subjects I write about is to help someone in that situation. If I can help just one person for each book I write, writing the book was worth it.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Life Is Good - Monday Mom Post

My daughter thinks she has it so bad. She doesn't. She has no idea how good she has it. And I have no idea how to prove it to her. Anytime I try to tell her about "way back when I was a kid", she shuts me out. I don't blame her. I did that to my parents too. Anytime I try to tell her about "other people", she shuts me out too. She doesn't care unless she's living it.

Kids these days have it easy and good. Remember the toys we used to play with in the 70s and 80s? Nothing like the stuff they have now. What about phones? Remember the rotary phones? Used to take a minute to dial a number, now we just push a preprogrammed name. Or use voice control.

My high school offered a handful of classes. Hers? An amazing selection of classes that touch on almost every career out there.

She has her own room, bathroom, TV, queen size bed, and so on. But, she appreciates none of it.

Sometimes I feel like moving to a farm and living off the land.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Pinterest

I'm intrigued but not addicted. I like finding pictures of beautiful places or cool sayings, but other than that, I'm not sure what to do with it. Do people really care what I pin on my board? Do you look at other people's boards? What kind of things do you find interesting?

Check mine out! Tell me what to pin!

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Mesmerized

This was in my mail today!!!!!



Mesmerized has been released in print. You can order it from Amazon for $10.99. Why so much? Because if it was any lower, we'd owe Amazon money for publishing it.

If you or someone you know doesn't have a Kindle, Nook, or Apple product, you can now order the book. Happy reading!

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Writer Wednesday - Stories That Take On Their Own Lives

What do you do when you have a story that goes in a different direction than you planned?

I have a story about a girl, her best friend, and a boy. I envisioned the girl and the boy being together...but the story pulled me in another direction--in fact I stopped writing because I didn't want to write it the way it was heading.

It's not my normal teen book. I guess this would be called emerging adult? It's a story of friendship and love and of course a medical crisis. But, the characters are in their early twenties instead of teens. I have no idea if there's an audience for this or not. It's half written and I think I'd like to try and finish it, but I need to drop my plan for it and let the story take on a life of its own and I feel bad for my characters. LOL!

It would also be my first solo book that would be in third person. Mesmerized is written in third person, but I cowrote that with another author. I like writing in first person. It feels more natural to me.

Anyway...what do you do when your story goes another way? Follow it? Or guide it back to where you want it?

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Writer Wednesday - I Want To Know...

What makes you decide to buy a book?

Is it...

  • the cover
  • the blurb
  • a review
  • the author's reputation
  • a few pages you read inside
  • something else entirely


Please leave a comment and let me know why you buy the books you do.

Monday, May 7, 2012

Love at First Sight

Does it exist?

Occasionally, I get comments on my books. Some people complain that the love is too fast. That my main characters fall in love too quickly. That real life isn't like that.

So, I ask you, do you believe in love at first sight? Why or why not?

I do. I've lived it.

My husband does. He's lived it.

He will tell you how he fell in love with me the moment he laid eyes on me. He will tell you how he knew that day that I was "the one"! He will tell you that his love for me only grew from then on.

And I would tell you that I felt that connection on our first date. I held back my feelings. I wouldn't believe that he was the one because I had been hurt before. It didn't take long for him to break through the wall around my heart. I loved him from the the first day, but admitting it took a little longer.

When people said that we wouldn't last because we fell in love too fast...well, we showed them! We're still going strong over a decade later.

Why don't some people believe in love at first sight? Have they just never experienced it? Have they never had that connection?

Just because it didn't happen to you doesn't mean it never happens.


On another note, I write YA. Teens fall hard and fast when they like someone.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Facebook Posts

Why do people think it's okay to post life events on Facebook BEFORE telling immediate family members?

This has happened way too often in our family. Imagine finding out someone important to you has died on Facebook.

Really?

Are we that pathetic? What has happened to us that we can't pick up the phone-even it if it was just text someone the information?

A while ago, one of my in-laws posted that one of her family members died. It wasn't someone I knew. I saw her status and let my husband know. He immediately called her up and we gave her our condolences.  It wasn't but a few weeks later when someone else in her family died. This time I didn't see it. Why? Because I have a whopping 250 people on my personal Facebook page and my news feed moves fast. She got upset because we didn't call her. Well, how the hell we were supposed to know? You can't expect people to know what all of their Facebook friends have going on.

If that wasn't bad enough, just recently, one of my grandparents passed away in the middle of the night. It was like 4am. What did my aunts and cousins do? Posted it on Facebook immediately. Can you guess what happened? Other family members that were not awake at 4am found out when they got up at 6am or 7am or whatever and were checking their Facebook. No call. No text. They found out on Facebook. Not cool. Thankfully, my mother knew better and called me right away. I however did not wake my children up to tell them. I waited a couple hours until they got up for school to let them know. And thankfully my 14 year old had her iTouch taken away from her so she couldn't get on Facebook. Her texts and Facebook are the first things she checks in the morning, I have no doubt that if she had her iTouch, she would have found out on Facebook first.

Now this just applies to immediate family members and important things. Pregnancy, giving birth, death, marriage, ya know... important stuff. I told my husband, mother, and kids about my last pregnancy before announcing it to the rest of the world. Same with giving birth. And even when my grandparents died, I made sure my kids knew before *I* posted it on Facebook.

For those of you who don't understand what I'm saying...think about how you would really feel if you found out something 'big' on there. Whether it was your husband losing his job, your teen or your mother's pregnancy, a death of a family member, even a boy breaking up with you - imagine getting that news on Facebook. What if you got fired on Facebook? What if your doctor told you that you had cancer on Facebook? Not cool.

Think before you speak (or write). Pick up the phone and tell someone your news.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Indie Chicks - Melissa Smith



Writing Out the Grief
Melissa A. Smith

A common question people ask a writer is what made them decide to sit down and start writing in the first place. For me, it was grief.
While in high school, I wrote. I had taken journalism and the teacher loved my writings. Two pieces of my work had been published in two different school publications. I was also asked to join the staff for the school paper, but declined. I just didn’t like writing the things wanted for a paper. I liked creating stories to take you places. Inventing new worlds and people to live in them. I stopped writing after getting out of school and didn’t start again for several long years.
December 2008 had started like any other December before it. I was out shopping for those perfect gifts for each member of my family, and loving every minute of it. By my side was my shopping partner. My mom. My best friend. This year was a little different, as we made our rounds trying to get most of her shopping done earlier than her normal pace of slow (she was known to be out shopping as late as Christmas Eve), because she was set to have her final knee replacement surgery on the 19th. That day was also the last day of work I had before school let out for Christmas Break.
We had almost done everything she’d wanted to have done, done. But there were still a few things to gather, like stocking stuffers and things of that nature. She went in for her surgery and everything went great! The last time she’d been in the hospital, for the first knee 6 months prior, she’d contracted hospital-acquired pneumonia. Her doctor, wanting her to be healthy for the rigorous knee therapy that follows two days after surgery, released her the following day. The 20th.
Wanting to forgo giving you all the details, I received a phone call early on the 21st. A phone call no one wants to get. My father, who’d awoken to find his partner for the past 34 years gone, couldn’t make that call. The responding police officer had to do it for him. Pneumonia had taken her from us.
So started my decent into grief.
We were supposed to do some shopping before I took her to physical therapy that day. We were supposed to do a lot of things during my break, because she too had it off for recovery.
Instead, I had to help my dad organize a funeral.
During the year and a half that followed, I read over 230 books. All while working full time and tending to a family.
It was the start of summer vacation in 2010 when I’d run out of books to read. I dove into spending time with my boys and vegging at the pool daily. I thought it had been long enough, and maybe the grief wouldn’t be so sharp. I was wrong. Without having someplace for my mind to wander, to live in, I was a mess of tears.
It was then I’d woke up in the middle of the night, leaving a dream that made my brain buzz. I tried to shake it off, leave it where I found it. In my dreams. But it wanted to be let out. So I sat down in secret and started writing.
At first when my family noticed my switch from books to the computer and all my constant typing, they asked what I was doing. I lied. I told them I was writing to my sister who lives in Texas. At first they bought it, but as the typing went on, they were puzzled as to why I didn’t just call her and talk to her. Again, I lied. But this time I said she’d asked me to write down some things about our mom.
While they still were puzzled by all the clicking going on at the keyboard, they left me alone.
Three months later, I’d written and finished my first novel. Cloud Nine. During that time I also started on another story which I finished and released four months later.  
While writing started out as therapy for a grieving soul, it is now something I must do to keep all the exciting characters quiet. I love it! I only wish it could have developed without such dark beginnings, but nonetheless, my mother would be proud.
******
This is one story from Indie Chicks: 25 Women 25 Personal Stories available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble
for the wonderfully low price of Free! To read all of the stories, grab your copy today!
Also included are sneak peeks into 25 great novels!
My young adult paranormal romance, Cloud Nine is one of the novels featured.




Want to find out more about Melissa and her books?

Monday, April 16, 2012

Indie Chicks - Michelle Muto




That's what I've been calling The Book of Lost Souls, the book that started my path to publication. I’ve always loved to write. I’ve always loved the way imagination and words blend on a page, the way they transport a reader to faraway worlds, or right next door, where witches live. From the time I was very young, books were an amazing world to me. There was no greater joy than going to the library with my mother whose love of books knew no measure. When I was very young, my mother read to me every night. As I grew older, we’d talk about the books we were reading.

Even as a young child, I knew I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. But, writing wasn’t what paid the bills. I got a regular job and life went on, although I still dreamed of writing. My father always told me to believe in myself and to never give up on what I firmly believed in. A few years after his death, I took up writing again. My mother, who was now ill and who had moved in with my husband and me, was happy to read what I wrote, or to set the table in order to give me a few more minutes of writing time.

And so I wrote and edited and revised. Just before the book was ready to send to agents, my mother died. I set the book aside. Writing was too painful, too full of memories.

But, the stories in my head wouldn’t let up, and so after a few years I started writing again. This time, I wrote about a teen witch named Ivy and her life in a small town, and I quickly fell in love with the story and the eclectic group of characters. I think of it as Buffy meets Harry Potter. When I typed the last line, I actually felt a pang of sorrow—I didn't want to say goodbye. Ivy and her story became The Book of Lost Souls, and after polishing it up, I sent it off to agents. Plenty were interested and requested the full manuscript. Unfortunately, most of them thought the book was too light. Too cute. Too Disney. They offered to read whatever else I had, as long as it was darker. Darker sells! Or so they said.

So, after two revisions for two separate agents that eventually didn't pan out (they said the book still had a lighthearted feel to it that wouldn't appeal to publishing houses), I set The Book of Lost Souls aside and started working on an outline for a much darker book.

It was around this time that the economy began to collapse—hard—and I was given the pink slip on Friday the 13th, right after I had completed a project that saved the company $400,000 annually. Say goodbye to eighteen years of loyal service! Suddenly, writing a darker, more dystopian book about the afterlife on top of losing my job seemed too much to take. Still, I recalled my father’s wisdom of believing in myself even when no one else did. I wrote and finished the next book, Don’t Fear the Reaper, in about seven months.

Still unemployed despite literally hundreds of applications, I began to worry we would lose our home or deplete our savings before I found a job. My career in IT was gone—off shored as they call it. I also wondered if I’d ever see any of my books published. I was so close to getting an agent so many times. Agents wrote back: You’re a strong writer. Or, The Book of Lost Souls is a great story and is well-written, but it’s not for me.

Nearly every morning, my inbox was filled with rejection letters from jobs and agents, yet I tried to stay positive. I kept repeating my father’s words to believe, to never give up. For every rejection, I sent out twice as many applications, twice as many query letters. I just tried harder.

I had been querying Reaper for about three months when I got an editorial letter from one of New York’s biggest literary agencies who'd had The Book of Lost Souls for nearly a year. A year! But, the letter was so enthusiastic about the story and my writing that I sat down and made every last revision they suggested. I turned it in and waited. Months went by. In the end, they rejected the story—not because they didn't love it, but because in the year and change they’d had the manuscript, another client had submitted a proposal for a story about a teen witch. Conflict of interest, they called it.

And that was that. My novel, the book that was finished, was dumped for someone else’s book that hadn't yet been written. Somewhat angry and depressed, I set The Book of Lost Souls aside. Again. By now, I was at the end of my rope. I was still unemployed and out of unemployment benefits. The only work I could find was the occasional short-term computer job, some tech writing gigs, or dog-sitting. Nothing full-time, and certainly nothing we could count on.

If the near-miss with Super Agency wasn’t enough, I found myself running into similar situations with Don't Fear the Reaper. Now, agents were saying, Too dark! But, you're a talented writer and we'd love to see other work. Or, You’re capable of incredibly incisive scenes—the opener is still one of the best things I read all year. And, my personal favorite, In this economy...

It was then that I learned about self-published authors such as Karen McQuestion and Amanda Hocking. I decided to go indie as well, starting with The Book of Lost Souls. What did I have to lose? A lot if I didn’t figure out a way for our household to stop hemorrhaging money. The only problem? I had no idea where to start. I sent an email to Ms. McQuestion, in the hopes she could point me in the right direction. She was so incredibly kind! Not only did she reply, she sent me a wealth of information on self-publishing. Today, she shares all that information on her blog. I’m incredibly grateful to her.

I got a cover I could afford with the help of another indie, Sam Torode. Two editor friends went over my work. Finally, I formatted the book and the rest is history. I uploaded The Book of Lost Souls in early March, and it’s been getting consistently great reviews ever since. As for being too lighthearted? I receive emails all the time from people who love that the book is funny, upbeat, and clean.

Within my first five weeks of self-publishing, I hit three best seller lists on Amazon. Me. An indie author without a publicist or a big agency or publisher behind them. Just me, my computer, my loving husband, and the devotion of two dogs at my feet.

I’ve been asked if there will be a sequel to The Book of Lost Souls. The answer is yes. Two more books, maybe a third. I just haven't thought that far out yet.

And the other, darker book? After some revisions, Don't Fear the Reaper debuted in late September 2011. On its first day, the book reached lucky #13 on Amazon’s Hot New Releases, Children’s Fiction, Spine-Tingling Horror. 

I’m only sorry that my parents aren’t here to see this. I took my father’s advice and my mother’s faith and reinvented myself. I still dog-sit and take on small computer jobs and tech writing gigs to help keep us afloat financially. But one day, I hope that my hard work will pay even more of the bills. Until then, I’m at peace with the way things are. 

Henry Ford once said, “If you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.” Great advice. And so, The Book of Lost Souls, the book that nearly wasn’t, became the little book that could. I’m a firm believer that hopes and dreams are something to hold onto and fight for. Believe in the magic that is you. Keep your dreams close, and set your imagination free.

I’d like to dedicate my section of this anthology to readers everywhere—words alone cannot express how much I appreciate you believing in me. You’re every bit as much a part of the magic as Ivy herself. 

So, thank you, Dear Reader. Sincerely. Because, every author with a story to tell writes with you in mind.

Come connect with me. I’d love to hear from you:




Where to find my books: