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Good art can be a little dark and disturbing. In the case of a new exhibition at the Whitney Library Gallery, it can also be classified as creepy, spooky, kooky, mysterious and more than a little fun. The show features dark drawings and haunting images, much of them from a new children's book, "The Stumps of Flattop Hill," by Las Vegas-based author Kenneth Kit Lamug.

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I hope you had a good two weeks off. I know I did. My WIP is up to 16K (hooray!), not as far as I’d like to be, but all progress is good so I’ll celebrate that! Today I’m giving away my ARC of a YA novel that I’ve heard compared to Harry Potter. (Yeah, […]

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note: illustrations for The Race, sorry I forgot them.

Summer is almost officially here. Time for a grand vacation and KLR has a trip fantastic ready for you. Just grab hold of the green ticket and remember, “anywhere is possible.” Get ready to traverse Egypt and the Suez Canal, walk through the lush stalls of a Cairo marketplace, and visit the Pyramids and of course, The Sphinx.

Egypt is not what your style?  Keep hold of that green ticket, hop into a tandem-rotor helicopter, and head over to Africa. Spend the night in the Treetops Tree Lodge in Nairobi. The same hotel in the trees where Princess Elizabeth awoke a Queen. Watch giraffe, zebra, and gazelles from the safety of a hot air balloon, all the while traveling with a baby elephant to keep you company and carry you across the desert.

Ready to take off? Grab the green ticket and go – admittance is FREE!

Ace London by Mirza-Javed & Kaj Melendez and illustrated by John Worsley                             .                   .                              978-0-9570321-0-1 for Age 7 to 10   31 pages

“In an abandoned schoolroom in South London lies the rusted, hulking wreck of an old aeroplane, partially buried in fine sand. How the aircraft got there is a mystery, but hidden deep inside the twisted carcass of corroded metal and glass is an incredible secret: a fabulous passport that sails across time and space. Mighty forces that once powered the plane still surge through its skeletal remains, beckoning yet another adventurer to brave the aviator’s chair. From Barry O’Brien, the co-creator of Disney’s Hannah Montana, comes Ace London, the world-spanning adventures of an imaginative young English boy and a mysterious forest elephant named Hannibal. Glide across East Africa, soar past Kilimanjaro, and race through the sun-soaked side streets of Cairo, as Ace London tries to find his way home.”

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Bill Melendez productions is currently offering free review copies of the first installment of ACE LONDON through participating bloggers.

The offer is simple. Accept a FREE copy of Ace London, and we will send you a high-quality, full-color PDF of the 31 page book. In exchange we ask you for an honest review on Amazon and/or Goodreads (link listed below the sign-up form). If you have your own blog, that would be great, too.

Fill out the form below and the book will be on its way. **Your name and email address will be kept completely private. We will only use your email address for the purposes of this offer.

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REMEMBER! Post your review on Amazon - CLICK HERE and / or Goodreads - CLICK HERE and your own blog, if you have one.

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NOTE: illustrations for The Race are now up, sorry I forgot them.

Filed under: Children's Books, Digital Book, Free Book Tagged: Ace London, children's book for free, Free Book

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Monday kicks off this year’s Children’s Book Week, May 12 to 18, 2014.

 

“Children’s Book Week is the annual celebration of books for young people and the joy of reading. Established in 1919, Children’s Book Week is the longest-running national literacy initiative in the country. Every year, commemorative events are held nationwide at schools, libraries, bookstores, homes — wherever young readers and books connect! Children’s Book Week is administered by Every Child a Reader, a 501(c)(3) literacy organization dedicated to instilling a lifelong love of reading in children. The Children’s Book Council, the national non-profit trade association for children’s book publishers, is an anchor sponsor.”

In conjunction with the Children’s Book Week Giveaway Hop 2014, hosted by Youth Literature Reviews and Mother Daughter [and Son] Book Reviews, Kid Lit Reviews is once again celebrating children’s books and the reading of children’s books. The Children’s Book Week Giveaway Hop 2014, features links to giveaways for fabulous children/teen’s books, gift cards, cash, and other prizes. What better way to celebrate Children’s Book Week? Enter for these prizes using the linky at the end of this post. It can also be found on both host sites.

Just like last year, KLR has some terrific giveaways, one for each day, but you don’t have to wait to find out what they are.

• From FarFaria – A 3-month subscription to this online library of children’s books.
• From Scarletta Kids: The Monster Needs His Sleep by Paul Czajak, illustrated by Wendy Grieb
• From Chronicle Books:  Lately Lily, the Adventures of a Traveling Girl by Micah Player
• From Capstone Books:  TBA
• From Scarletta Junior Readers: The Shark Whisperer by Dr. Ellen Prager, illustrations by Antonio Javier Caparo
• From Kid Lit Reviews:  A Special Prize Pack – who knows what it could be?

How do You Win a Prize?

Each day a Rafflecopter Entry System will be on the post. There you can “earn” entries by following the directions at each level. Some levels will be worth more entries than others will. A few entries will be daily, while others are a one-time deal. Odds of winning depend on the number of entries received by Sunday, May 18, at midnight EST. Only one prize per entrant.

Each day, an additional entry can earn by leaving a comment below that day’s post. All comments must be posted by Sunday the 18th at midnight, EST to count as an entry. See below for Special Entries. Only one comment per post equals an entry, but additional comments are always welcome.

*** Special Entries ***

For every Children’s Book Week Giveaway Hop 2014 blog site you visit and comment on, you will also earn you one entry per day. In the comment area below the KLR post of that day, leave the website name and the Blog Hop # for verification. This is a MUST! (this does not count as an entry comment on KLR). Sites and numbers can be found at:

Youth Literature Reviews: http://youthlitreviews.com and Mother Daughter & Son Book Reviews http://motherdaughterbookreviews.com, or use the Linky Tool:  Click here to view the complete list of participating bloggers and authors.

Children’s Book Week is more than our Giveaway Hop. That is our way of expressing our interest in kid’s books, our desire that every child learn to read and enjoy reading, and our gratitude to be involved as authors, illustrators, reviewers, readers, and parents. To help the Hop have a great week, please tweet about it and your activities for Children’s Book Week using the hashtag #KidLitGH
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Important

• Open only to those living in the United States.
• Kids may enter but if they win, a parent or guardian must accept the prize.
• Winners will be notified by email and have 48 hours to verify their information.
• Unclaimed prizes will be re-drawn from non-winning entries until a winner is established.

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a Rafflecopter giveaway

Filed under: Children's Books, Contests, Free Book, Middle Grade, NonFiction, Picture Book, Poetry Tagged: Capstone Books, Children's Book Week, Children's Book Week Giveaway Hop 2014, Chronicle Books, Dr. Ellen Prager & Antonio Javier Caparo, FarFaria, Kid Lit Reviews, Micah Player, Paul Czajak & Wendy Grieb, Scarletta Junior Readers, Scarletta Kids

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Titles--heartache city! The title must do everything a synopsis or query does: grab the reader, provide a summary, and hint at the action yet to come. A lot of time goes into working up a good title, and it's not just the author's work, either. The editor, the editor's coworkers, and sales and marketing all have their say; everyone's input must be considered.

Titles cooked up and rejected for A WHOLE LOT OF LUCKY:

• Two Flavors of Lucky
• The Year of My Magnificent Luckiness
• Three Million Dollar Girl
• The Duplicitous Luckiness of Hailee Richardson
• Serendippitydoo
• Lucky Me
• Impossibly Possibly Lucky
• Hailee Richardson, Girl Millionaire

My editor and I brainstormed pages of titles and promptly rejected most of them. The problem lies in the word "lucky:" phrases involving "getting lucky" are imbued with the wrong kind of nuance! Also, we wanted to avoid words like jackpot or other buzzwords that are too close too gambling. (This was hard, because even the buying of a lottery ticket is gambling.)

My sister suggested "A Whole Lotto Lucky," and the powers that be loved her suggestion! With a bit of morphing, my sister's words became A WHOLE LOT OF LUCKY.

Now you can try your luck without all the heartache my editor and I went through! For a free, signed hardcover of A WHOLE LOT OF LUCKY, just enter the Goodreads contest!

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Kirkus Reviews pinned a nice, big, blue star on A Whole Lot of Lucky, so what are you waiting around here for? Enter now at Goodreads!

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The official word from my publisher, Helping Hands Press:

We hope that you are ready for a contest; we would like you to have fun with it.

How do you participate and what are the prizes?

Here are a few things you can do:

-Go to the Helping Hands Press website and sign up for our mailing list. CLICK HERE

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Good Evening Regular Readers and Guests. Well, Lappy had a heart attack last night. It’s lights went all out leaving nothing but dark silence—well, almost silent. I was a bit noisy. I raced the old mother . . . board to the nearest Geek. He revived it so fast I thought it was playing games with me. [...]

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Join the Party! Jeff Gunhus is wrapping up a 3 week tour with a Twitter Party on Friday, December 21 from 6 pm to 8 pm EST Use the hashtag #JackTemplar to join the party. Missed the tour? Check out the entire tour schedule for great reviews, guest posts, and interviews!…………………………………………. MONSTER HUNTERS ~~AND ~~ [...]

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Recently, I started a new series with my friend, Giovanni. It was a relatively new experience diving into the world of Amish fiction. I did not quite know what to expect, but we ended up with something totally unique and outrageous.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Today, I am hosting a fellow Floridian author, Keith Rommel. He's originally from New York, but he moved to sunny climes and is hard at work on his series Thanatology. With the release of the second book in the series, Keith is having a contest on Pinterest. Read below to find out how you could win!

What happens after we die? Are we given choices based on how we lived our lives? It’s an age-old question pondered by just about everyone.

Author Keith Rommel dared to explore the answer by creating his newest novel The Lurking Man, a story of dark suspense that unmercifully reveals the life of a self-deluded, neglectful mother who caused irreparable damage to her family and ultimately struggles with death as much as life. It’s the second novel in his suspenseful and thrilling Thanatology series that began with the eerie, spine-tingling The Cursed Man.

“Imagine Death knowing your deepest, darkest secrets and all of your private pain,” said Rommel about The Lurking Man. “Now imagine it wants to use what it knows against you so that you bend to its will.”

In The Lurking Man, main character Cailean stands beneath a spotlight in a blinding snowstorm. She has no idea where she is or how she got there, but she senses something moving around her in the darkness outside the light.

When the ominous presence calling himself Sariel makes himself known, he declares that he is Death Incarnate and that Cailean has died. He has taken her to the Aperture, a place between the living and the dead, where he will force her to face the sins of her past in exchange for twenty-four hours of life to try and right her wrongs. But what she must do in return for this precious time is unthinkable.

Rommel’s series is titled due to Thanatology being a study that explores death and dying. Rommel has taken this science to a fictionalized, gothic-style horror level that may leave you breathless and unable to stop your mind from contemplating how you live your own life.

The books are grouped in the series due to the nature of the theme, but each book may be read independently. “Those who read in order will be able to catch glimpses from previous book(s), but it is not dependent upon each individual story,” Rommel said.

The Cursed Man and The Lurking Man are released by Sunbury Press. Book three in the Thanatology series is on schedule for a summer 2013 release. The Cursed Man is currently being considered as a feature film.

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My good friend and author Sudè Khanian is hosting a giveaway to celebrate the holiday. She asked me to join the celebration and I had to say yes!

For my part, I am contributing the first story from the One series. Meant To Be introduces the series, but also tells the story of a small miracle in my life.

But wait, there's more!

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UK author Kate Tenbeth wants to share her journey becoming an independently published author.

Before we jump into her post, you can see her books here: http://goo.gl/Leszz
The reason I mention this first is that Burly & Grum and the Secret City will be FREE on August 29th & 30th. Of course, you don't have to wait until then. Why not buy all three for your Kindle now, hmm?

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SCARS is featured today on StoryFinds.com, because the ebook is free today. You can find a lot of good free and cheap reads through StoryFinds. They have a website AND a FaceBook page AND a Twitter account, so it’s easy to keep up to date with books you might be interested in. I’ve liked them on both FB and Twitter for easy access.

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On the planet Kaskaya, becoming a thief is a skilled and honorable achievement. In the newest release of my Christian Sci-Fantasy, Sons of the King, the middle son sets his sights on that difficult task. Co-written with my 9 year old daughter, it is available now from Trestle Press for ONLY 99 Cents right here: http://goo.gl/zzTfX

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The Empyrical Tales Book III: The Secret Queen is out now and I am giving away a free autographed copy!

All you have to do is visit my blog (http://empyricaltales.blogspot.com/) and enter on the right hand side. Even if you are already a fan of The Empyrical Tales on Facebook, you can still enter daily until June 30th.

Login into the Rafflecopter widget with Facebook or Twitter, then complete the entries for the day. Each day you come back, you can enter again.

The Secret Queen tells the story of young Olena and her adventures in the Southern Valley where she encounters dinosaurs! Even if you haven't read the first two books, this is a great story for kids and adults. If you want to start at the beginning, Book I: The Fourth Queen is still ONLY 99 Cents on Amazon Kindle!

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Howdy readers! You made it through the month of May's Summer Teen Reading Party. On this posting you will have the opportunity to read Chapter 3 from Odessa, Book One Seraphym Wars Series. Afterward, comment about the excerpt and be entered in my Grand Giveaway. Here are the RULES: Comment on EACH of my postings (listed above with links) showing you read the posting. Commenters will acquire ONE point per comment. At the end, fill out the form on my blog, Under the Hat. The prize? This lovely Phoenix medallion and a bag of swag including Odessa notepad, Seraphym Wars pen, Mind the Signs bookmark, coverart Postcards for each book in both series AND an eBook copy of my newest release: Harpies, Book Two Seraphym Wars Series. Continue reading →

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Author's evolve. Here's a bit of evolution from yours truly, currently available for Kindle:

Keeping the Dead will be free this weekend. From the foreword:

The fear of death is persistent. It can be a monster. But fates worse than death abound. These stories are not simple shocks, basic cut-and-slash horror which leaves a reader panting but unsatisfied. These stories sleep with the cold, impersonal knowing which dwells inside us all—a knowing that death waits, the unknown is coming. It’s close. It’s just beyond the door.

Dead tree fans--I'm planning an "omnibus" of my "best" short stories next summer.

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I've been thinking about this pirating thing...

Especially in light of the 2011 Book Buying Survey presented at Digital Book World. Check it out. 

Some highlights:

• 64% of "avid" book buyers are female
• 33% of book purchases are for entertainment/leisure

These are only numbers from a single survey, of course, but they are in step with my anecdotal experience as a bookseller (I managed a bookstore back in '98).  Fiction was the single largest space in the store, but we sold less fiction titles (proportionately) than other books combined.  

Why is this important?

I don't have survey results or any scientific data to back this up, but plenty of anecdotal experience and reports from other authors: the vast majority of wannabe writers pen fiction. All of these books--now readily available because of digital publishing--are the too many buckets in my title metaphor. The water? Book buyers.

If only 33% of the purchases made by "avid" readers are for leisure/entertainment (and not all of that 33% must be fiction) and the majority (by far) of authors write fiction... Yesh.

No wonder it's so damn hard to break through.

What does this have to do with pirates?

Well, if most wannabe writers write fiction and it's damn hard to make it, maybe some pirate/resellers are just feeding the urge to put their name on something.

Hell, I don't know.

What I do know is I don't mind giving away my stories if I'm doing it. I'm not going to crawl under a rock and hide from the basement-dwelling morlocks who'd do such things. I'm not going to stop writing because of this crap. I'm not going to change a single bit of my behavior just because other people don't want to play nice.

For the next two days, Echoes of the Dead (the thieved book) is free at Amazon. Take that, J.K. "Fake-Name-If-I've-Ever-Seen-One" Patterson.

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Hopefully, you've seen the special offer for the Stories of Queen's Day. In case you haven't, if you buy any or all of The Empyrical Tales, you get the holiday themed story for FREE.

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I live in Mt. Dora, FL. I work close to home. I shop close to home. On Facebook, I have "friends" all over the world. Turns out, one of those friends is an author that also lives in Florida. Leona Bodie is the Vice President of the Florida Writers Association and she shared a touching story with me recently. It is about two other authors from Florida and I wanted to share it with you.....

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