Sunday Snippet ~ 1st June ~ Duty Calls

 Duty Calls (15% off all versions) is one of Black Opal's Books featured books throughout June. 

 

 

Here is another snippet from Duty Calls, which is now available in large print as well as print and kindle editions.

 

He resurrected images of the first time he’d seen Cadmore’s fake sister. She reminded him of a long term druggie, with her lank, shoulder-length, dyed hair, cheap white cotton blouse, and black skirt. Her scrawny, flat-chested body repulsed him, and he wondered why Cadmore presumed he’d accept the woman over his twenty grand. Then Rafe had wondered why he’d accepted the bet. He’d seen her unsuccessful attempts to disguise her fear when he’d handled her like a piece of meat on a butcher’s slab during the card game.

 

He hadn’t gone to the decrepit house to play poker. He’d gone to learn more about the man who claimed to be the rightful heir to Lord Kinsale’s estates. And to do that, he’d
accepted Cadmore’s invitation to join him in an evening’s poker game. 

Then he remembered the woman’s old scars, small and round running down her arms, and across her chest mingled with new bruising from their brush with death. And the crisscrossed welts on her back, he’d assumed she received while immersed in the raging river.

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SNIPPET SUNDAY

Six Sentence Sunday

Thanks again, to everyone who came by last Sunday. I appreciate your comments and company :-)  Today's snippet carries on from last week.

The storm.
Their flight from the house.
The river.
And when they‟d been pulled from the raging torrents, she‟d adamantly refused to let the medics take her to hospital. The images he'd rather forget flashed through his mind. The comfort they sought in each other's arms and the realization life might have ceased for both of them that night.

Duty Calls is available ~ HERE & HERE

Please visit my website to learn more, and read the reviews.

You will find other participants of Six Sunday Sentence HERE

Six Sentence Sunday

 Thank you to everyone who visited last week. I appreciate your company and comments.
This week's 'six' follows on from last week's.

The memory of her straggly, dirty, shoulder length hair, wide frightened eyes and hands that sought refuge in the skimpy black cotton skirt hanging limply against her bare legs, still haunted his dreams. And turned them into nightmares.

Rafe swallowed. No way could he kid himself. The memories of the night would haunt him for the rest of his life. He‟d treated her like a side of beef hanging in a butcher's shop in an effort to maintain a cover already blown.


Duty Calls is available ~ HERE HERE & HERE

Please visit my website to learn more, and read the reviews.

You will find other participants of Six Sunday Sentence HERE

How does a writer make marketing their stories easier on themselves?

This week's blog-hop question has been set by L. P. Robinson this week.  "How does a writer make marketing their stories easier on themselves?"

'By the seat of their pants,' would be the facetious answer, but the reality is, with a great deal of hard work.

Yes Facebook, twitter and other networking sites are essential to get your message across.  But stop for a moment and ask yourself, 'who is your target market?  Are you connecting with the 'right' people, the right targets?

The people you are looking for are readers.  And not just readers, but those who enjoy your genre.  You can have ten thousand followers, but if none of them are interested in what you write, then you are not focussing in on your target market. Consider, for a minute.  Where do you go when you want to buy a pair of shoes?   And if you are looking for a specific brand and style of shoes, yes, your choices narrow down, but you are more likely to find what you are looking for.  And if they enjoy your book they will spread your fame by the strongest promotional tool out there -- word of mouth.

And yet... you still need to think outside the box, find sites that have connections, however slight.  If, as I have in my current novel, Duty Calls, you have a character who has had cancer, then look around similar sites and see if you can blog for them, or give a talk.  This is not everyone's idea of a good day out.  I happen to be one of those. But if you have the savvy to target potential readers who may otherwise be 'outside' your normal marketing box, then give it a go.

Pepper talks about Drake the weretiger

In my last blog, I promised to tell you about Drake, one of my characters in Blood Fest: Chasing Destiny,
the book coming out on April 30, 2011 from Black Opal Books.

Drake’s one of my favorite characters. He a weretiger and the local pride leader in England. I created Drake from an Amur, or Siberian yellow tiger I saw at a zoo, and combined him with the leader of one of the teams my team occasionally worked with in Mexico. This guy, whom I’ll call Darrel, was something else. He was more than just gorgeous. On a scale of 1 to 10, he was easily a 12. He was tall—probably 6’5” or 6’6”—had rippling muscles, dark-blond hair that hung to his shoulders, and marvelous jade green eyes that seem to look right through you to your soul. To this day, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a more beautiful man, at least physically, than Darrel. And he radiated a kind of male sexiness that, if it isn’t legal, it damn well should be. He was just too perfect to exist, if you know what I mean. This is the photo I’ve chosen to represent Drake. Unfortunately, I can show you one of Darrel, since I promised not to. Sorry.

When I decided to make Darrel a weretiger, it seemed only fair to combine him with an Amur tiger I saw in a third world zoo. This tiger was massive and rippling with muscles, like Darrel, but he was wonderfully scruffy. His fur was disheveled. He had mud on his paw and on one side of his butt. And he didn’t seem to care. He was lazy and appeared perfectly happy to look like a rag-a-muffin. My friend and I were at the zoo in the early evening and got to see the tiger get his supper. When they dumped the meat in the cage, he yawned and stretched, got up, laid back down, got up again and wandered over to the meat. Then rolled in it! I’m not kidding. He sniffed it then laid on it and rolled. After which, of course, he looked scruffier than ever.

I don’t have any pictures of the actual tiger, but these will give you an idea of what he looked like.

I thought combining this Amur with Darrel was poetic justice since most of us can’t look as good Darrel even on our best days. And Drake turned out to be a great character. He’s not really scruffy, he just not all that concerned about his looks. As the leader of the local weretiger pride in England, the unmated weretiger pride leader, he’s been demanding his own book. So I’m curious to see who I’ll come up with for a mate for him. If any of you would like to volunteer, just send me a bio.

Visit my website: http://www.pepperoneal.com

Learn more about Blood Fest: Chasing Destiny at:
http://pepperoneal.com/blood-fest-series/
Read an excerpt of Blood Fest: Chasing Destiny at:
http://pepperoneal.com/blood-fest-series/excerpt-chasing-destiny/
Check out Sherry’s Duty Calls as well as other Black Opal Books publications at:
http://www.blackopalbooks.com

Pepper, Best wishes with  your new book and thank you for sharing another set of fascinating characters, stories and background in your new book Blood Fest: Chasing Destiny  ~ out on April 30th from Black Opal Books 

Today Pepper talks about Chase, Bumper and Cindy

Yesterday I promised to give some details on the tiger I used to create Chase, my heroine for my new book, Blood Fest: Chasing Destiny, which comes out on April 30, 2011 from Black Opal Books. 

Chase is half human and half tiger. The story of my inspiration for her is rather interesting. I created her from a white Siberian tiger, I’ll call Bumper, and her keeper, whom I’ll call Cindy. I encountered Bumper and Cindy at a private game reserve outside of the United States. At the time, I was working with a team researching the smuggling of wild animals into and out of third world countries. My team was granted limited access to the game reserve so we could view firsthand the suffering some of these animals go through. But as the owners of the reserve were involved in some legal battles with the country’s government, we weren’t allowed to take photos, videos, or tape record any conversations. We were only allowed to observe, ask questions, and take notes. We also signed a non-disclosure agreement, promising not to give out any information on the location of the reserve. I will say, however, that Bumper was not native to the country she was in when I met her. I’ve also had to improvise to come up with photos, but at least you’ll get an idea of what she looks like. 

Bumper was young, only about two years old, and was a newcomer at the reserve. She’d apparently been smuggled in to the country we were in and sold as pet to a wealthy land owner. The owner kept Bumper until she got too big and too hard for him to handle. Then she was turned loose in the wild to fend for herself, the man obviously assuming that since she was a cat, she’d be able to hunt for her food.

However, while it may or may not be true of domestic cats, big cats raised in captivity do not automatically know how to hunt. According to Cindy, when Bumper was brought to the reserve, she was a pitiful sight, little more than skin and bones. The vet at the reserve estimated she hadn’t eaten for several weeks, probably since the day she’d been abandoned by her owner. I can’t even imagine how terrified she must have been to be dumped out in the mountains, away from everyone and everything she’d ever known, unable to catch even small prey. It really makes me wonder what on earth her owner was thinking.

Despite what she’d suffered, Bumper was unfailingly cheerful and playful. I call her Bumper because when wanted something, she’d head butt you in the ass. Her way of saying, “Hey, pay attention. Or else.” When I met her, she’d been at the reserve for a month and had not fully recovered from her ordeal. She was still eager to please, delighted by the slightest attention, and had a wonderfully sweet nature. However, as Cindy was quick to point out, Bumper was a wild animal, not a pet. She should never have been kept as a pet, especially by someone who didn’t truly understand her needs. Still, we did get to pet her, and since my face was apparently too dirty to suit her, Bumper decided to give me a bath. Let me tell you, having a tiger wash your face is a very unnerving experience. Their tongues are like sandpaper. And their teeth are huge, especially up that close. Not to mention their saliva is sticky. Still, it was something I’ll never forget.

Cindy told us that Bumper had an indomitable spirit. She never gave up. Even sick and malnourished, when faced with larger, stronger animals, Bumper simply refused to back down or submit. Because of this, they’d had to move her to a separate enclosure to eliminate fights between her and the other big cats. Not that Bumper started the fights, necessarily, but if the other animals started hassling her, she’d take on all comers. Even getting the worst of the fights, most of the time, didn’t nothing to quench her fierce, warrior’s spirit. And as we studied this scrawny, undersized animal, there was a look in her eye that dared us to challenge her. I could almost hear her saying, “You want a piece of me? You think you can take me? Well, just come on and try!”

Tigers by nature are solitary creatures, only coming together to mate, after which the male abandons the female, leaving her to raise the cubs on her own. But Bumper was extremely gregarious. When they first separated her from the other big cats, she pined for company, finally making friends with a German Sheppard, I’ll call Bo, and a ram, I’ll call Tubby. Bo and Tubby (he was the fattest sheep I’ve ever seen) spent hours in the enclosure with Bumper, getting head butted in the ass if they stopped paying attention to her. However, neither dog nor sheep seemed inclined to retaliate. Which was probably just as well. I asked Cindy once why Bumper didn’t try to eat Tubby, and she told me that Bumper had always been fed raw meat, so she probably had no idea Tubby should even be considered prey. To Bumper, Tubby and Bo were just good friends.

Cindy was elfin—a tiny, delicate creature, who looked like she had no business handling wild animals. Shy around humans, she seemed fearless working with creatures that outweighed her by hundreds of pounds. She stuttered a bit while talking with the team, but I never heard her stammer around the animals. The animals loved her and accepted her unconditionally, which is probably why she was so comfortable around them. After all, unconditional love is pretty hard to beat.

So when I needed a heroine to go with Roman, Bumper was the first thing that came to mind. Combining her personality with Cindy’s gave me a shy American with an attitude—one who refuses to give up, no matter how hard the circumstances or how badly she’s treated by fate. Chase is basically a shy virgin (well, a virgin at the beginning of the book) willing to take on all comers. Pairing her cat with Roman’s wolf was fun, especially the first time Chase hisses at him.

For my next blog here at Sherry’s on April 25th, I’ll give you a preview of Drake. In Blood Fest: Chasing Destiny, he’s a Siberian, but in real life, he’s an Amur Tiger and one bad ass dude. I combined him with an overall bad boy human, to make a hot, sexy, pride leader. And wait till you see the photo I came up with for him!

Visit my website: http://www.pepperoneal.com
Learn more about Blood Fest: Chasing Destiny at:
http:www. http://pepperoneal.com/blood-fest-series/
Read an excerpt of Blood Fest: Chasing Destiny at: http://pepperoneal.com/blood-fest-series/excerpt-chasing-destiny/

Check out Sherry’s Duty Calls as well as other Black Opal Books publications at:
http://www.blackopalbooks.com

Don't miss Pepper's final blog on Monday 25th

The ins and outs of publishing continued

But there are also cons to going with a new, untried publisher. Obviously, it’s much easier to start a fly-by-night outfit with no intention of making good on any promises than it is to start a genuine, hard-working company. And it’s very difficult to tell at first glance which is which. So while you shouldn’t be afraid to sign with a new publishing company if they offer a contract, you should proceed with caution.

If the publisher asks you for up-front money, they are most likely not legit. A legitimate, non-vanity publisher does not charge reading or editing fees. Nor do they try to sell their authors any paid services. If a manuscript is accepted at a legitimate publisher, the reading and editing is paid for by the publisher. The only up front fee that an author should ever expect to pay is the $35 copyright fee to the US Copyright Office. Many publishers are now requiring authors to pay this fee. If the publisher does not ask you to pay this, be sure to check that they will, in fact, pay the fee themselves and register the copyright, as some publishers are no longer even copyrighting their shorter books. They’re just inserting a copyright notice and calling it good.

And make sure to read your contract very, very carefully. Some authors have recently discovered to their dismay that their publisher has inserted a clause into the contract giving the publisher ownership of the characters and series of authors contracted with them. This means if your book is popular and readers demand a sequel, the publisher can hire someone else to write the next book in the series, leaving the original author out in the cold. More than one author has had to sit back and watch what should have been their next book come out in someone else’s name. Also be sure your contract includes specific terms for when and how your rights to your book are returned to you. With so many publishers failing and/or changing hands, a lot of authors are finding it difficult to get their publishing rights returned after the publisher has stopped producing their book.

If you can’t understand the legalese and complex wording in the contract you’re offered, you should get a competent attorney to review it. Yes, attorneys are expensive, but the consequences of a bad contract can haunt you for years. One of the pros of going with a new publisher is that they can be a little easier to negoitiate contract clauses with than some of the traditional publishers. So if something in the contract bothers you, speak up and see if you can negotiate better terms. If not, you’ve haven’t lost anything.

And if possible, talk to some of the publisher’s other authors before you sign a contract. If the authors who have come before you have had bad experiences with the publisher, chances are you will, too. Most authors have websites with a contact form. Contact them and ask how they like the publisher. It could save you some headaches in the future.

And remember, although you may be a newbie author and thrilled to finally have a manuscript accepted and a contract offered by a publisher—any publisher—if the book is really good enough to be published, you can find a legitimate publisher to take it. If the book is not good enough to be published, chances are the publisher who accepted it—usually the one asking you for up-front fees—is not really going to publish the book anyway. At least not until they’ve bled you for as much as they can get.

So should you go with a new publisher? If they appear to be legitimate, are willing to offer a contract you can live with, and other authors have had good experiences with them, then you’ve nothing to lose by giving them a try. But if not, run as fast as you can in the other direction.

Lauri Blasch,
Acquisitions Editor
Black Opal Books
http://www.blackopalbooks.com/