The Sale Starts Tomorrow

Since I'm done with the first draft and letting the words stew a bit before I start editing, I thought this would be as good a time as any to have a sale.  

Starting tomorrow, A Model Curse the trilogy (and complete series) will be available for less than $2.  Sleeping Ugly will be free through Saturday.  Ugly and the Beast and Cinder Ugly will be 99c each through next Monday.  Three books for $1.98.  Woohoo.

When a curse strikes a supermodel, all hell is gonna break loose.

Jeni Braxxon was raised to believe she wasn't good for much of anything but being pretty. Her career in modeling is on the rise until being cursed to turn ugly throws her world into chaos. Now, she has to learn who the culprit is and stop them, if only to get her pretty back. And along the way, she'll discover that what she was raised to believe isn't anywhere near the truth. There's more to Jeni than ever met the camera lens—something her enemies probably should've thought of before they starting messing with her.

They're also available on Kindle Unlimited and in paperback, if you're so inclined.  

They're fun and they're snarky, but they also have a bit of heart and a sniffly place here and there.  

The Last Sale Day for A MODEL CURSE

Today's the last day to get A MODEL CURSE in its entirety for only 99c/99p each.  Here's the verbiage (blurbage copied from my Amazon series page) that I posted to all the social media this morning:

A MODEL CURSE (the complete series)

When a curse strikes a supermodel, all hell is gonna break loose.

Jeni Braxxon was raised to believe she wasn't good for much of anything but being pretty. Her career in modeling is on the rise until being cursed to turn ugly throws her world into chaos. Now, she has to learn who the culprit is and stop them, if only to get her pretty back. And along the way, she'll discover that what she was raised to believe isn't anywhere near the truth. There's more to Jeni than ever met the camera lens—something her enemies probably should've thought of before they starting messing with her.

Today's the last day to get this trilogy for only 99c/99p each. (Always free with your Kindle Unlimited subscription.)

US: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08MTWHHK2

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/kindle/series/B08MTWHHK2

#snarky #ebooks #completeseries #paranormalmystery #urbanfantasy

Marketing is hit and miss when you're not paying for it.  As such, I haven't had a single sale from this effort.  Of course, after the first push and the crickets that ensued, I didn't post anything else until this morning, so I only have myself to blame.  We'll see if anything comes of today's push.

I might be able to squeeze some money out for a paid advertising sale next month.  But AMC is done for a little while - until the 90 day thing refreshes.  Maybe I'll do SCIU next.  Maybe I'll see what kind of sales I can get for Duke all by itself.  We'll see.

You know, I'm kinda surprised AMC hasn't been selling like hotcakes.  It's fun and snarky and all three books are quick reads.  :shrug:  I wish I knew.  Oh, well.  If you haven't read the series, you can get the whole thing today for less than the usual price of one.  If you like snark, you like this.  If you enjoyed my genie series, you'll enjoy this one, too.  

If you've already read it, THANKS!  And if you haven't written a review yet, I'd really appreciate one.  :hugs:

A Model Curse - Sale

Good morning, Everyone.  I promised a sale and it's finally arrived.  Starting today and running through Sunday, the first two books of the 'A Model Curse' series are on sale for 99c/99p each.

Unfortunately, my brain is not in a place for zippy marketing stuffs.  I really should've done stuffs like that over the weekend, but I forgot and then this morning arrived and I am oatmeal - bland and uninspiring.  And I don't feel like I can do these books justice, because they are definitely neither bland nor uninspiring.  

I mean, come on.  Jeni Braxxon, burgeoning supermodel, gets smacked with a curse that strips her beauty away every night.  Throughout the day, she gets better looking until WHAM, ugly, when midnight hits or she falls asleep, whichever comes first.  And she's got a lot to learn about herself, life, magic, etc. while trying to figure out who did this to her and how to stop them.

This review says it better than I can right now...  "Buy the whole series and enjoy Jeni's journey from shallow to swimming in the deep end of her emotions. Plus, talking cats and hellhounds. What's not to enjoy?!?!"

Anyway, these books were loads of fun to write and early results show they're loads of fun to read, so I hope you'll give them a whirl.

Updates and Junk

Okay, if you were waiting for the sale on the A Model Curse books, it starts Monday.  Yay.  SU and UatB will be 99c/99p each through 11:59pm on the 15th.  CU will sit at $3.99. 

If you click that link, you'll see they've put the books together in a series now.  Yay.  If you're so inclined and have read the books, I'd appreciate a series review.

Let's look at those beautiful covers again...

Pissed Jeni, Resigned Jeni, Determined Jeni.  Although, to be fair, Jeni isn't all that resigned in UatB, but it was a good look for the cover.  

Anyway, the books are fun and I hope you'll read them.  

As for other writing stuff, I've been kinda derailed by all this election crap.  I'm trying to maintain my happy, but it's not often easy.   What I need to do is channel all this into some murders or something.  Create some evil villains and kill them off.  Maybe now would be the time to hit the next book in SCIU.  

The idea there is someone is killing off the ones that got away from justice.  Same format at the others, so you know who the killer is and who the players are, and the suspense is in seeing the journeys of both the killer and the ones who hunt her.  I wrote the beginning years ago.  The rest?  We'll see if I can muster the gumption.  I guess, since it's November, now would be the perfect time to get my ass in gear.

We'll see.

How are you doing?  How are things going in your world?  If you're a writer, how's the writing going?  If you're not, are you struggling with gumption in your activities?

 

It's Alive!

 

Cinder Ugly went live last night while I was sleeping.  And now the trilogy is complete.  So, if you were waiting until you could get the whole series, it's available.  I will be having a sale on the first two books later this week - because reasons - so if you want to continue waiting until you can get those cheaper, I'll let you know when that's a go.

Otherwise, they're $3.99 each.  

Sleeping Ugly - Book 1
Ugly and the Beast - Book 2
Cinder Ugly - Book 3

Aren't they pretty?  I hope to have a link to the series as a whole eventually.  (Amazon says they're working on it.)

Why the Pre-Order?

 In case you missed it on The Writing Spectacle yesterday, Cinder Ugly is now available for pre-order.  Why the pre-order?  Well, I'll try to explain my thinking...

First there's the whole brilliant idea I had a couple weeks ago to put all of the genie books on sale this week.  I honestly didn't think there.  Or maybe I was thinking that I wouldn't have CU ready to publish until after the sale and then when I did have it ready, I didn't want a release to interfere with a sale and vice versa.

Then there's the whole link thing.  This is the last book in the series.  In order to have links for the new book in the previous books in the series, I needed to have a link available.  Put it up for pre-order and there's a link available if someone should happen to buy and read the other two books. (Unfortunately, someone snagged a copy of Ugly and the Beast yesterday before I uploaded the updated version, so the line for Cinder Ugly still says 'Coming Soon'. :shrug:)  I also now have links to CU in all the genie books, so if anyone buys those, they'll be able to buy CU if they get the urge. 

This pre-order thing also gave me the opportunity to get clickable links on my blog sidebars and on my A Model Curse page.   And get my Goodreads listing all nice and stuffs. 

It's marketing.  I think.  I hope.  We'll see.

On the bright side, the book will be in your hot little hands on Monday.  So you really only have to wait a few days.  And if you haven't read Sleeping Ugly or Ugly and the Beast, you have time to read them before Cinder Ugly drops.  

And I hope you will.  This was a fun little series to write and from what I've heard, it's a fun little series to read.  This paranormal mystery follows supermodel Jeni Braxxon from the moment she's cursed and trying to figure out who did this to her, through a maze of murder and intrigue, to the end when it all wraps up.  There should be some 'laugh out loud' moments* in there along the way and a couple scenes that might tug your heart a little.  (I know mine were tugged.)  

*Best proofer comment was simply a long string of laughing.

Another Update

After spending most of the week dragging my ass about doing the proofer notes for Cinder Ugly, I finally got them all input last night.  They really weren't that bad - which is what the proofers told me, but fear made me drag anyway.  That fear thing is a really pain in the buns.

Today, I have to do some search and replace on some crutch words.  Then I can do the formatting.  Like I said, I'm trying to have this done and uploaded for pre-order so it goes live on the 2nd.  We'll see how that goes.  If I can't get it up in time to do pre-order, then I'll just upload it for release on the 2nd.  Good lord willin' and the crick don't rise.

I also have to do a Goodreads listing.

And get both CU and UatB formatted for print.  Which I can then use for numbers to send to my cover artist so she can do the print covers (gah, I haven't talked to her in forever, I hope she has time to do those soonish... lucky the print covers are already paid for as part of the cover package).

I need to drag out my pre-publication checklist so I don't forget anything.  Blerg.

But soon, my fifteenth book will be out in the world.  It's the last in a trilogy, so maybe having it out there will boost sales for the other two.  Fingers crossed.

Release Update and News of A Different Release

Yesterday was full enough of life stuff that by the time I had time to work, I was too tired to do anything but sit.  But that's okay.  

In an effort to be more 'marketing minded', I've decided to put the release of this book off until November 2nd anyway.  Since I already have a sale set up for the genie books starting on Monday and running through the 1st, that is.  I don't want to release right before the sale for another series and I don't want to release in the middle of that sale.  Hopefully, the genie sale will build interest for the model books.  You know - paranormal series sales leading to sales for the other paranormal series.  Or some such thing.

If I can get the 'A Model Curse' series finished and Cinder Ugly loaded for pre-order, then I could conceivably have links to the whole series in the 'Once Upon a Djinn' books.  Umm, I don't actually see that happening unless I get off my dead ass, but there's hope in there somewhere.

Anyway, if you're looking for something to read and you like spicy/sexy in your paranormal, my BIF (best internet friend) released her latest book last night - NIGHT WISH (Nightrider MC Book 5).  It's only $2.99 right now.  I scored mine this morning, so I haven't read it yet, but I know it'll be awesome.  Her books are always full of awesome.  (And I'm not just saying that because she's my friend.  I loved her books long before we became friends.)

As for my book, hang in there.  It'll be out soon.  And to that end, I will be having a sale for Sleeping Ugly and Ugly and the Beast once I know for sure when Cinder Ugly will be live.   If you haven't tried these books, they're fun and snarky paranormal mystery.  (And as a slight warning - if you're offended by swearing, they probably aren't for you.  Jeni swears a lot.)

Blurble

I'm not sure I know of any writer who enjoys writing the back cover copy (or blurb) for their own books.  If you're out there and reading this, raise your hand if you enjoy it.  Okay, you're dismissed.

Personally, I am not a fan.  I can't seem to muster any joy in taking a 63K word story and boiling into 150 clever words that will make people want to buy and read my book.  There's so much I want a potential reader to know about the story.  Add this?  Subtract that?  Oh, and they probably want to know X, but there isn't room for it.  

Of course, I was the kid in school who sucked at book reports.  Write about what's important?  Well, it's all important.  Duh.

Give me somebody else's blurb to edit?  I'm there, baby.  

In the end, it's kind of how I have to approach my own blurbs.  Write the damn thing, spew it out if I have to, and then set it aside.  Come back to it later and look at it like it's not MY blurb.  

Right now, I have 5 versions of the blurb for CU.  Since yesterday.  Here's the latest one:

This could get ugly.

Former supermodel Jeni Braxxon had been certain life couldn't get any more shit-tastic.  Due to the curse turning her, the hottie with a naughty body, into someone so gruesome Frankenstein's monster would run screaming, she's unemployed and soon-to-be homeless. 

As if that wasn't bad enough, the SSA is trying to snatch her birthright, steal the children, and force her into bankruptcy with their damn bureaucratic bullshit. Oh, and a lunatic sorcerer with world domination in mind might be running the show. 

But Jeni's not a gal who'll take this crap lying down.  Well, not for long anyway.  With the help of her weird friends and her bizarre pets, she needs to kick some ass, rescue the kids, and save the world.  A big task for a college dropout who thought she could get by on looks alone.

:shrug:  141 words.  It needs work.  I know I'm trying to stuff too much in there, but it all feels necessary.  I need to get over it and come up with something soon.  Or run with this thing.  Or one of the other versions. 

I'm drowning in blurbs.  Blurble.

Update and Stuffs

Yesterday, I finished this phase of edits for Cinder Ugly.  It was the phase where I read the book on my Kindle, making notes along the way.  I ended up with 9 pages worth.

Today, I will begin inputting those notes.  Once that's done, I'll send the book to my Kindle again... lather, rinse, repeat.  

I hope to have the book ready to send to readers for proofing by the first week of October.  Should be doable.  Depending on schedules and my own gumption, the hope is to have this book in readers' hands before Halloween.  :fingers crossed:

In case I didn't post this before or you forgot, here's the cover:

I love how kickass Jeni looks here.

At some point, I need to sit down and write the blurb for this.  Maybe after I get this round of notes input.

Anyway, progress is being made.  Things are happening.  Certainly not on the timeframe I envisioned at the start of the year, but we can't sit around pining for what was lost during this chaos.  Moving forward is the only answer I have right now.

Onward!

And Now It's Done

In case you don't follow The Writing Spectacle (and why not, I might ask - I'm there Tues, Thurs, Sat, & Sun... sheesh), I finished Cinder Ugly's first draft Saturday night.

This book has been a slog...  Stepping into the wayback machine, I see the first time I emailed myself a copy of the work I was doing on this book was July 19th, 2019.  I also see I restarted it on January 3rd.  I fiddled with it some in February, March, and May, then I fell down.  The rest of it was written this month, during the inaugural AuGoWriMo.

And now it's done.  59789 words of occasional awesomeness and occasional dreck.  I like what I wound up doing with the ending.  I'll fix the dreck in the middle during edits.  I have an idea for a new beginning that I'll play with, too.

I took yesterday off of writing.  My first day off in 23 days.  I hope it doesn't become a habit.  Writing every day is good for me. 

Anyway, I'd like to have this out into the world by the end of October, but that depends on editing speed, potential issues, other people's schedules, and the world in general.  I'll be working toward that goal, and that's the best I can tell you right now.

Thanks for all your support through this and everything else.  :hugs:

Updates and Junk

Well, hello there!  It's been almost a month since I posted here, because, well, it's been longer than that since I actually did anything writerly or had anything writerly to talk about.  If you want to see what I was up to, go to The Writing Spectacle.  When I'm not here, I'm generally over there.

Things have been bad here with regard to writing or anything writing related.  The last time I worked was March 15th - you know, before it all went to hell.  The last time I sold anything was March 20th.

Since it had all gone to hell in March, I didn't even bother updating my spreadsheets to show the month of April.  And it's already getting near time to do May.  Yep, yep.

All of that changed over the weekend.  I made it change.  As I said on yesterday's Sunday Update post, this chaos crap has already taken up too much of my time and mental real estate, and it's time to get back to business.

To that end, I made myself sit down and work on getting Ugly and the Beast ready for publication.  I had hoped to have it to you by the end of last month. Well, hope in one hand... right?   The new hope is to have it to you by the end of this month.  Good lord willin' and the crick don't rise.  All I have to do is finish these edits my wonderful proofer friends sent along to me last month, weed out some crutch words, check it all over again, and then format the sucker.  (Your work was not wasted, proofer friends, just delayed a bit.)

Meanwhile, I have the next scenes for Cinder Ugly waiting for me to write.  I'm not promising anything with regard to dates for that yet.  Until I have the first draft completed, I can't even hint at a date.  All I can promise is that I seem to be back on track again.

Not sure what this'll mean in the long run.  Will sales climb out of the dumper?  Time will tell.  All I know is that I've had enough of this and I'm ready for a return to normal again.  I have no control over what happens out there in the world, but I can control what happens in here.  Time to take control again.

More Randomness

The five-days-free thing for UNEQUAL ended last night.  I moved 99 copies and it reached as high as 54th in free dystopian.  We'll see if any page reads come of this.  If nothing else, there are 99 people in the world with the opportunity to read and enjoy it.

I'm up to 27516 words on Cinder Ugly.  It would be more, but I took Friday off to watch Live PD and then the yardwork I did Saturday screwed up my wrists enough that I took that night off, too.  There's a pivotal scene coming up next and I have no idea what's gonna happen.  Should be fun writing.

I started work on the blurb for Ugly and the Beast.  Here's what I've got so far:

Jeni Braxxon’s life as a up-and-coming supermodel hit the skids when she got cursed.  The asshole who did this to her is rotting in jail, but the curse remains, leaving her as ugly as the north end of a southbound dump truck every damn night.  Still, she’s trying desperately to hold onto her old life.  As if this case of the gruesomes and impending unemployment wasn’t enough for a gal with serious esteem issues, someone snatches her nephew.  The fight is on to find the boy before something seriously heinous happens to him.  With the help of her friends and a magical cat, Jeni will face anything this world or the next throws at her.  If she’s lucky, she might just make it out alive.

Yeah, it's pretty rough, but you get the idea of what goes on, so it's not totally lame.  Or is it?  I'll keep working on it.

UatB is at the readers and so far, I'm feeling good about it.  We'll see if that holds once the responses start to come back. 

I tell ya, it's nice to be working again.  The writing is flowing pretty well and with it, excitement for other stuffs keeps popping into my head.  But I'm staying focused.  Fingers crossed the excitement is still there when I sit down to write SCIU #4 or DH #3.

Oh, and I did some pricing stuffs this weekend.  I raised the prices on Sleeping Ugly, Accidental Death, and Natural Causes to $3.99.  When Ugly and the Beast comes out, it'll be $3.99, too.  Just trying to get my books in line with the market and each other.

I hope y'all aren't bored with this random stuff, but it seems like the only stuff I can hold in my head long enough to write an entire post. 

How are things with you? 

Updates and Stuffs

I'm getting excited.  This is so close to being a real thing.  Since I already have a cover, all this is going to take is the final bits of editing and proofreading, and a blurb (gah, blurbs), and it'll be ready to send off into the world.  Woohoo!  and barf.

I really have no idea what I'm going to write for the blurb.  I'll have to put on my blurbing cap and hammer this out.  Soon.  :panics a little:

Speaking of blurbs, I'm not necessarily good at writing them, but I can spot a bad one for someone else's book like a laser guided missile.  And I've seen some stinkers lately.  They're usually written with either too much information or not enough.  When I'm looking for a book to buy, I need basic plot, main character, conflict.  I do not need to know their life story up to this point.  Probably something I should keep in mind when I write my own blurbs. 

Oh, and for the love of all you find holy, PROOFREAD your blurbs before you post them in public.  Nothing turns me off of a book quicker than a blurb with errors that could've been fixed if the author had taken the time to go over the damn thing again.  If someone can't proof a paragraph or two, I can't hold out much hope for an entire book.  Harsh, but true.  Of course, I'm more forgiving in a manuscript.  60-100K words to proof is a lot harder than a couple paragraphs.

Over the weekend, someone read Blink of an I in KU.  This morning, there's a new rating for it on Goodreads.  A 3-star.  Which would bum me out except I hopped over to their page and it seems like all the books they read they give 3-stars or less.  I'm taking it as a win.  It's all about perspective. Anyway, I hope they enjoyed it enough to read Unequal next.

Speaking of Unequal, it'll be free for a few days next week.  And I set up a sale for the SCIU books for the week after. 

Once I get an idea of publication dates and junk for Ugly and the Beast, I'll probably have a sale for Sleeping Ugly to kick off the release.  Woohoo.  I'm hoping for end of March, but time frames depend on other people and since other people are doing me a favor, I'm not pushing anyone for a speedy delivery.  They have lives, too, and their own work, and I'd be a shit if I was all like 'I need this yesterday'.  Cuz I don't.  It'll happen when it happens.  I'm totally chill.

While my beloved elves are busy marking up my manuscript, I'll be writing Cinder Ugly.  I posted the beginning of it over at Silver's blog on Wednesday, if you're interested. 

Any questions?  Got anything you want to update the world about?  How's things?

July Sale #3 - Sleeping Ugly

Yesterday, the sale for Blink of an I ended and the new sale began.  Right now, I've got Sleeping Ugly on sale for 99c in the US and 99p in the UK. 

The journey for Sleeping Ugly began years ago.  I was looking for something new to write in urban fantasy and something my older brother once said came to mind.  When I was a teenager, he was home on leave from the Air Force and just after I'd staggered out of bed, he said, "You're not Sleeping Beauty.  You're Sleepin' Ugly."

Needless to say, I'm sure I shot him the stink eye.  He was joking around, and I was probably totally not in the mood for it.  Even if he was probably right at the time.  Ugh, bed head.  Anyway, years later, the phrase popped into my head and along with it, the basic premise for the book - a supermodel is cursed and turns ugly while she sleeps. 

She's got a brother.  He's totally not modeled on my brother at all.  Well, maybe a little of him hearkens back to my feeling for my brother on that long ago morning when, sans coffee because I was only like 16, I tumbled out into the living room and heard his words.  I actually like and appreciate my brother and he never did to me what Josh did to Jeni.  Plus, my bro is totally not evil.  He's a hard-working dude with two awesome sons.

Right now, I'm working on cleaning up the sequel to Sleeping Ugly - Ugly and the Beast. I got through the surface edits yesterday.  And I made a start on the third and final book, Cinder Ugly, last night.

Anyway, together for the first time ever, here's what the three of them will look like when the other two are published.  (Hoping to have UatB and CU done and released one after the other before the end of the year, but you know how things go.)

Warning: These are not safe for kids or for people with tender sensibilities.  Jeni swears.  A lot. But she's a good gal.  And the story is loads of fun.

I hope you'll give it a try and hang in there with me as I work to get the other two finished and published.  Thanks!