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.)

Release News!

In the midst of all this crap, I published a book.  Book number 14, to be exact.  Sure, it was delayed about a month because of the crap, but hey, it's out there in the world now.  The long awaited sequel to Sleeping Ugly is finally here...

UGLY AND THE BEAST: A Model Curse, Book Two.

It's currently $2.99 (and available in Kindle Unlimited now)*.  And I put Sleeping Ugly down to 99c (or whatever comparable price that equates to in your country) and will leave it there until 5/31.  At which point, both books will go up to $3.99, so get your copies in the merry month of May.

Hopefully sometime this month, I'll have a better idea of when Cinder Ugly (A Model Curse: Book Three) will be released.

Thanks to everyone who helped, supported, and encouraged me through this process.  I couldn't have done it without you.  Literally.  Because without you guys, I would've continued to wallow in my uncertainty.  Thanks for kicking my butt. 

*Due to a massive brain fart, it was not in KU when it first went live.  That has been rectified.  Read on, my friends.

Possible Slight Delay

I'm working as fast as I can, but with only two days left, I'm probably going to miss my deadline.  Right now, I'm in the middle of scouring the book for flaws.  Yesterday, I got a whole page worth of notes and fixed them and that was only the first 33 pages.  Little things, like a missed comma here and a weird word there and a 'why did she call him that?'.  Nothing major, but it all needs to be fixed before I send it out into the world.

I also realized that I still have formatting to do once all these things are fixed.

And I remembered that before I can sell the book I need a blurb.  Frankly, I have no clue what to write there.  Jeni did some stuff again?

AND I have to think of a series title and put it on the covers of both books.

If I work like a madwoman, I might be able to get it all done in two days, but I am not inclined to work like a madwoman.  I still have household management, a sneezing geriatric cat, and an unplanned shopping trip to squeeze in there.

So, I will do my damnedest to get this done on time, but don't hold your breath.  If not Friday, I will have it done by Monday at the latest - barring acts of man, nature, and Armageddon.

Thanks for your patience.  And here's a taste of what I'll be sending out into the world soon...

 Ugly and the Beast

Chapter One

“Oh, my gawd, Jeni!  What happened to your face?  Ewww!”

Apparently, only Sleeping Beauty gets to awaken to princely smooches and happy woodland creatures.  As Sleeping Ugly, I got a short, shrieking supermodel instead.

I hadn’t planned on Mara Lightfoot, my best frenemy finding out anything about the curse I was under.  All I wanted was a little normal after the utter strangeness my life had become.  A movie marathon with my best friend sounded like an amazing idea.  After which, I’d quickly usher her out the door before midnight struck. 

But we’d gotten to drinking.  Time passed.  Then I got kind of snoozy.  And WHAM! I switched from the pretty phase of the curse to the morning fuglies. She’d squeaked like a midget mouse and then began laughing.  And pointing.  And then laughing some more. 

“What the hell happened to you?” she asked once she caught her breath.

My shoulders slumped.  “It’s a curse.”

“Well, duh.  It’s sure as hell not a gift.”  She poured herself another shot of cinnamon whiskey and downed it in one gulp.  Once the fire subsided, she said, “No wonder you missed all those photo shoots.  I tried to cover for you because you told me you were sick.  And let me tell you, hon, this is certainly sick.  So, tell me, who cursed you?  Jealous wife?  Jilted guy?  Oh, I know, psycho stalker!”

I’d already ruled out all three of her options.  And I didn’t want to tell her the truth right then.  First, I needed to figure out why she was taking this so well and wasn’t on the phone with the police or a mental hospital.

“Curses don’t exist, you know.”

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!

The Hellbeast

At a loss for anything to blog about today, I decided to post a short snippet and let you see how I ended up describing the hellbeast. 

“What in the farque is a hellbeast?”  I blinked my eyes and looked at the thing again.  “It’s pink, for petesakes.”  And not the normal shade of pretty pink.  This had ‘burn your eyes out’ neon pink blotches with squiggles in ‘aerobics-chick hot-pink leotard’ over a mauve background.  And the body?  It looked like a longhorn bull screwed a poodle and their baby grew up to have unnatural liaisons with a lizard.  The front had a pointy snout like a standard poodle and horns like a bull.  The whole huge body was alternately covered in curly hair and scales.  At the end was a scaly, whip-like tail. 

“Of course, it’s pink.  What color did you think hell would be?” Oliver said.  “From what I understand, hellbeasts blend right in on that plane.”

I did not want to know how he would know what hell might look like.  Probably something sorcerous I wasn’t privy to yet.  “So, the Sorcerer summoned him from hell and sent him after me?”

It stomped the ground with its dark pink hooves and raised its head to sniff at the air. 

“He’s gonna smell us in here.  What the fuck do we do now?”  I thought about all the perfumes I’d ever worn and wished I had a gallon of all of them in front of me.  All I had was one tiny bottle of minty breath spray.  Snatching it from my purse, I squirted it everywhere I could until it was only farting air.

“What are you doing?” the cat asked.

“Masking my scent.”

“It’s not looking for you, silly.”

I chanced a glance out the window again.  It was kind of sniffing in our general direction, but it was shaking its head as if it wasn’t latching onto the right odor.  Then it walked right into the cloud of Sorcerer scent.  The sneeze it let out blew the remaining glass out of a nearby window.  Once it left the cloud, it seemed to shake off the last of its effects and start scenting the air again.  A long, forked tongue darted out.  Once.  Twice. 

Then it let out a howl and sprang forward.

I almost screamed as it landed ten feet from my hiding spot.  “It’s coming,” I said on a hiss of breath. 

At that point I almost pissed myself.  I tried to think of the spell I’d used to start a fire once, but nothing was coming to me.  When this was over, if I survived and wasn’t turned into hellbeast sausage snacks, I was definitely learning more magic.  Ass-kicking magic.

I hope you enjoyed it.  I got kinda off track last month, so I'm not done with the first draft yet.  Soon.  Honest.  I'm gonna put my head down this weekend and bust my ass.  Good lord willin' and the creek don't rise.