Taste of Kiwi: Blog of Author Shelley Munro

My Christmas story, Christmas is Coming is now out at Ellora’s Cave.

Here’s the blurb:

Christmas is coming. Give your lover the gift of pleasure…

Gaby Montgomery works for Fancy Free as a condom designer. Recently she’s been designing sex toys and testing her inventions with fellow designer Marc, but they’ve parted ways. The timing couldn’t be worse because she’s stuck without a willing test subject for her sexy products.

Gaby’s roommates Liam Richardson and Fletch Darcy both want a serious relationship with her, and now that she’s free, it’s time to make a move. But how do they decide which one will date her? Fletch finally suggests they share. Liam is skeptical but agrees the scheme might work, which allows Fletch to move on to step two of his romance plan. Fletch doesn’t just want Gaby, he wants Liam as well.

The loving is hot, their days full of fun product testing, exquisite pleasure and laughter. Everything is perfect until the outside world intrudes, putting their budding relationship under stress. This time their love and friendship might not stand the pressure.

Publisher’s Note: Want to have more fun with the characters in this book? Then pick up Fancy Free!

Purchase from Ellora’s Cave

Shelley’s Shoutout Corner

Don’t forget that Maria Zannini’s Do It Yourself Christmas continues until 22 Dec.

Author Beth Revis is doing an Epic Giveaway at her blog.

Cari Quinn has a new release called Unwrapped at Loose-Id. Unwrapped is a contemporary menage. If you like spicy hot reads, this one sounds like a good one.

My special guest today is author, Maria Zannini who recently self-published a paranormal romance called The Devil to Pay. Maria has been out on the virtual road with the Indie Roadshow where she tells writers about her self-publishing journey and the things she’s learned along the way. Today Maria is talking about promotion, which I know is something many writers struggle with and don’t enjoy. Over to Maria…

Psst. Do you want to know the secret to good promotion? You might be surprised when I tell you because it’s been in front of you the whole time.

Ready for it?

You have to find the reader, rather than wait for him to find you. And when you do find him you have to talk to your reader and keep him engaged.

Book promotion is time consuming, expensive, and there are no guarantees that your efforts will bear fruit. But a lot of your labor can be cut in half if you focus on the reader and what S/HE needs.

Think about yourself as a reader. You just finished a fantastic book from a new-to-you author and you decide to Google the author to learn more about her. When you reach her blog, all you find are advertisements for more books. It feels like a bit of letdown, doesn’t it?

To attract the reader your best bet is to go to his haunts. And when it comes to indie publishing most of those avid readers will be found at book blogs, reading forums, book clubs, and book outlets (like Amazon).

Most of these outlets are free to you, though some might require asking for an invitation to appear. Others, like Goodreads and Shelfari welcome you as long as you keep the pimping low-key.

And there’s still room for legitimate advertising. LASR (Long and Short Reviews) and The Romance Studio are two I’ve used. Both offer low-priced packages and get a ton of traffic.

Here are a list of options for you to consider that are either low cost or no cost.

Buy advertising packages at a book-centric web sites. (Make sure they get a lot of traffic.)
• LASR (Long and Short Reviews)
• The Romance Studio
• Coffee Time Romance
• All Romance ebooks

Share yourself
• Guest blogging. Double your mileage and blog at places where you’re lesser known.
• Forums, such as Kindleboards, Absolute Write Water Cooler, and genre-specific forums

Talk to book bloggers about:
• Reviews
• Interviews
• Guest posts

Give your book away
Liz Fichera had a marvelous idea when she gave away her arc for Craving Perfect to ten people who would agree to review it. With an indie book, there are no limitations on how many books you can give away. Be generous. Word of mouth is priceless.

Go where the readers are like:
Goodreads
Shelfari
Facebook

Finally, don’t leave out television and radio. It might be difficult to nab a guest spot, but if you have a small station locally, you’ll reach an audience you might not otherwise find.

It’s scary to put yourself out there because you don’t always know how you’ll be received, but if you’ve written the best book you can, all that’s left is to be the kind of author people want to know.

And I’ll tell you my personal secret for promoting myself. I comment on many different blogs. Not a ‘hi, I like your site’ comment, but something personal and thoughtful. If you leave short and intriguing comments, I promise you, people will follow you back.

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I hope you’ll follow along with the rest of the Indie Roadshow as I share the things I learned on my road to self-publishing.

The Devil To Pay is available at Amazon and Smashwords for only $2.99. It is the first book of the series, Second Chances.

Synopsis: The road to Hell is paved with good intentions and bad tequila. Shannon McKee finds herself at the end of her rope, and she bargains her soul in a fit of despair.

Shannon’s plea is answered immediately by two men who couldn’t be more different from one another. Yet they share a bond and an affection for the stubborn Miss McKee that even they don’t understand.

When Heaven and Hell demand their payment, Shannon has no choice but to submit. No matter who gets her soul, she’s not getting out of this alive.

Bio: Maria Zannini used to save the world from bad advertising, but now she spends her time wrangling chickens, and fighting for a piece of the bed against dogs of epic proportions. Occasionally, she writes novels.

Follow me on Facebook or my blog.

Go to the source: Want to know how it feels to sit in a Mercedes Benz, or the smell of a horse, or the sound of a forest?

Go to the source.

Window shop at a high end car dealer, visit a horse veterinarian or enlist the help of horsey friends. The woods are not silent. Spend a night–or at least several hours hiking.

Nothing beats the real thing in order to describe it well. While some of us can’t go up in space, we can simulate the experience by spending a few minutes in a cramped metal shed or the cockpit of an airplane. Writing about the past? Turn off all the lights in your house and fetch water out of a rain barrel.

Now submerse yourself in the experience. As you transport yourself, you’ll transport your readers.

Visit Maria Zannini’s blog.
Purchase Touch Of Fire • Samhain Publishing

My special guest today is online friend and fellow Samhain Publishing author, Maria Zannini. Her futuristic fantasy title Touch of Fire comes out in paperback on 28 April. Only a few days to wait!

Over to Maria…

Shelley always has the most interesting topics on her blog and I was sweating bullets trying to figure out what I could write about so I wouldn’t get sharp-beaked kiwis thrown at me like live hand grenades. *g*

My interests run the whole gamut of weird, but something I rarely talk about is dreams, or in this case, the stuff of dreams and how they are unique to each of us.

I tend to remember my dreams in vivid detail, as if I were recalling a movie moment by moment. That’s fine if it was a good dream, the kind you don’t want to wake up from. Not so pleasant if they were nightmares, the ones that chill you long after you wake.

Unlike most ‘normal’ people I have two peculiar traits when I dream. My dreams are always in gray with only one item in the dream manifesting itself in color.

The other quirk is that I take on the pov of every person or object in the dream.

I know what they know in intimate detail.

The really weird part is when I take on the pov of an inanimate object. There are no feelings involved, but rather a rudimentary understanding of what I am and what my purpose is.

It’s surreal.

Which I suppose describes dreams perfectly.

I’ve written stories based on dreams, but there is still one dream that haunts me and begs to be written. In the dream there is a young woman, not more than twenty and she’s at a family picnic. The setting is noisy and she’s surrounded by her loved ones, laughing and playing. Then she gazes across the park and sees a very old man giving her a long mournful look.

She’s drawn to him for some reason. She doesn’t know if it’s pity or something else, but she feels compelled to invite him over to the picnic.

I remember analyzing this dream while I was having it because I couldn’t understand why I was having such a strong attachment to this very elderly man. Then I popped into his pov and immediately understood the connection.

This young girl and this old man were soul mates in a previous life, but he was born too soon and she was born too late and they missed each other by several decades. I instantly felt his profound grief. He had lived his whole life looking for her, never realizing until that day that they had been born too far apart in time.

Meanwhile the young woman was just trying to be kind. She didn’t understand the strange compulsion she had to care for this man, and I, as the dreamer couldn’t tell her. It was something she had to discover on her own.

As the dream drew to its conclusion, she looked into his brilliant blue eyes (the only thing in the entire dream that was in color) and realized who he was. She broke down into tears and couldn’t stop crying. As I woke up, I found my face wet as well.

I think about that dream a lot. The romantic in me wants desperately to give them their ‘happy ever after.’ Maybe someday, I’ll write the ending they deserve.

Have your dreams influenced your writing? Is there a dream that still haunts you? And why do you think it does?

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Visit Maria at her website, blog or follow her on Twitter.

Read an excerpt of TOUCH OF FIRE.

Feeling Lucky? Post about TOUCH OF FIRE for a chance to win a prize package worth $100. Go here for details

TOUCH OF FIRE hits bookstores on April 28.

***

Okay, it’s safe now, Shelley. That crazy woman is gone. Thanks for having me over!

Author, Selena Illyria is having a menage a trois week. I was really excited when she asked me to participate. Here’s the link for my post here.

I also have an interview over at D. Renee Bagby’s The Multiverse’s Archival Chambers

Pop back tomorrow to see if you’re the winner in my blog participation contest. Nothing like a little suspense!

And finally, check out Maria Zannini’s book coming to a store near you in May…

THE APOCALYPSE IS CLOSER THAN YOU THINK
Buy TOUCH OF FIRE by Maria Zannini
www.mariazannini.com