THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMM...

Steve Alten. If you know me at all, by now you know he is by far my favorite author. He has several books under his belt, all wonderfully written, best-selling books. Meg was the first one I read. I picked it up at a garage sale, thought it looked interested, paid the quarter for it and took it home and read it that night. I was hooked. I immediately went out and found more books by Steve. All of which I have loved. Which is my favorite? To be honest, I couldn't tell you. They are all equally wondeful.
So you would think, me being his number one fan, I would run right out and leave a wonderful review for every one of his books. You would think. I mean, I harp on all of you all the time to go leave me reviews, right? So I should be leaving them myself, right? You would think. So today I decided I need to head over and do just that. You know what I found? This author, this wonderful, best-selling author, who writes these fabulous books and has been approached for movie deals has 1 and 2 star reviews.
I know in the group of authors in which I occasionally mingle, we constantly tell each other that you can't please everyone. There is always going to be someone who hates your book, no matter how good it is. Get past it and move on. We preach it all the time. But it still hurts when you get that not-so-good review. So to see someone who I rank right up there with Stephen King and Peter Benchley get all those bad reviews (on top all those AWESOME reviews, mind you) really makes a small time author like me feel much better.
I value those wonderful reviews I've recieved. I've been lucky to get great ones so far. But I've been waiting for that first bad one. I know it's going to be a hard pill to swallow. But, I am NOT going to let that first bad one get me down. Because this just proves to me you can write the best book out there and somebody out there is still going to hate it. As long as the majority says "It's all good!" I'll let those bad ones slide. For my fellow authors out there, let the good outweigh the bad!

BLOODLINES AND OTHER STUFF

No, I haven't started Bloodlines yet. But I've been brainstorming quite a bit the past few days. I think after the holidays are over I will sit down and start on this one. (After I have reformatted the paperback version of Phantom Rising)
I will be taking it slow, for two reasons. I don't want to do what I did with the last one and scrap the whole thing. Multiple times. So I want to think the whole thing through, have a good solid plan, and get it right the first time. Also, I plan on working on my short story for the Red Adept contest. I've done a lot of brainstorming on that one too, and I think I have what I need to turn it into a short story.
I'm excited about both projects and can't wait to get to work on them. Oh, wait. I forgot about the Eridhborn project. Gotta work on that too. And I have to work on the poetry book. If I ever figure out where I put all of my paperwork. (don't ask) I should probably stop coming up with new projects to work on.
I'm hoping to have some of this stuff done in time for the Ren Fair in the spring. It would be great to have some extra books to take with me.
In other news, I'm hoping to meet one of my fellow authors at the beginning of the year. I'm planning a trip to SD, and it just happens that J.C. Phelps, author of Color Me Grey, lives only a couple hours from where I'm going. So we are hoping to meet up. I'm excited. Not only is it fun to meet the other authors who've helped me out so much, but it is a real treat to meet someone from my home state. Yes, I'm proud of my little state, and I miss it every day. If you've never been there, you should go. You won't regret it.

WINNER WINNER!

I won! Author Debi Faulkner had a contest to name the city in her upcoming novel, and I won the contest. The city in her new novel will be named Gemini Falls. I'm so excited. Check out her blog.

Fun Stuff coming up!

Reining In will be featured on Daily Cheap Reads in late December or early January. Phantom Rising will be featured on Kindle Boards mid December. I've been notified of a few other places each book will be showing up. I'm so excited. I can hardly wait!

IN THE MAIL

I just got an email this morning that they have mailed out my proof copy of Phantom Rising already. I am so excited. In a matter of days, I will be holding the first copy in my hand and if I managed to catch all of my mistakes, I will be able to approve it for publication. I can hardly wait.
In other news, sales for Reining In have been off the charts all month long. I am only two books away from tripling my sales from last month, my best month ever. Two great things all in the same month. I can hardly stand it. Somebody pinch me please.

PHANTOM RISING ON KINDLE

I always forget to post my updates here. I need to work on that. Phantom Rising is live on Kindle. I'm hoping the paperback will be out next week. I have a little formatting left to do yet, and then it will be up and running. I'm so excited to finally have it done. To celebrate it's release, I've dropped the price of Reining In on kindle to $.99 for the rest of November.