FEED YOUR READER Giveaway Hop!

That's right! It's another wicked giveaway hop! This one is rather straightforward. An ebook only giveaway meant to give all those with Kindles, Nooks, iPads, etc. a chance to catch some awesome ebooks for reading! Umm, sounds delicious to me.

So here's the giveaway items! Yes, ITEMS. I'm spreading the love further than butter across hot toast. 

One (1) of you peeps will win a digital copy of ILLUMINE

One (1) of you peeps will win a digital copy of OBUMBRATE

And don't forget- there's a whole bunch of us on this hop! So, make like a bunny and hop about and enter the rest! 


a Rafflecopter giveaway

#WhoIsLilix?

Do you think you know who Lilix is? 

So earlier today while I was slumming it out at work, you know doing the usual chew-on-pen-caps and sell stuff routine, I had a little thought bubble visit me. Yet again, it’s about Lilix. My mind cannot stop infatuating about writing her story. I can’t take down enough notes, scribble on enough paper, graphically design enough kick ass promo material to satisfy what I am officially calling Lilix Disease. I even said OML (Oh My Lilix) at work today, for crying out loud. 

WOMAN, GET OUT OF MY HEAD. I HAVE OTHER THINGS TO WRITE. 

It’s so weird, it’s like this freaky love-hate relationship thing with her. I’m in love at the fact that I can still after roughly 6-7+ years pull her out of my brain like pulling my phone out of my back pocket, and almost physically hear her talk to me, tell me her stories. 

But then it sort of dawned on me that no one else really knows what the hell I’m talking about. Kind of like putting a Chinese native and French native in the same room and letting them figure out how to give each other directions to Pizza Hut. It’s just one big clusterchunk of whaaaaaaat?

So in light of my dawning knowledge that yes, no one knows who the heck this girl is and all she can do, I’m tasking you with a challenge. Either on Tumblr or Twitter, post your thoughts on what, or who, you think Lilix is. Maybe she’s an alien, and I’m totally writing a Mars sci-fi story. Maybe she’s a siren and freezes water and that’s why the first book is called A Shard of Ice. Or maybe I’m just tossing you these bizarre red herrings to get your minds moving on the idea. Either way, share your thoughts with me, and don’t forget to use #whoislilix with them so I can find/see them! 

A Sneak Peek of RIVEN!

Are you ready for a taste of Riven? A bunch of Facebookers sure were the other night, and it sort of occurred to me that I've been leaving the cool kids who have been creeping on me from the start (aka blogger followers) the little juicy piece I've been sharing. Soooo, without another moment to waste, check out the snippet of Riven!

____________________

"You came back," she said, a hint of surprise in her tone. Her red lips spread into a small, yet bright smile. "I knew you'd see me again."

"Where are we?" I waved a hand through the water, keeping my eyes on my carbon copy. "Is this all a dream?"

Her smile widened. "Not exactly."

"Then what i

s it?" A shock ran through my body. "Am I... am I dead?"

A flash of something, sorrow perhaps, ran through her eyes. She placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. "That's your choice."

"Oh, so there's a choice now if I die? Not sure if Death will like me messing up his collections roster," I muttered sarcastically. A heaviness was beginning to seep into my body, the all too familiar sensations of life blossoming on my skin. Bruises I hadn't even realized I was missing rapidly pooled in patches over my body, each one like a bee sting.

The lovelier version of me remained unharmed, hand still on my shoulder. Either she had one hell of an iron stomach, or she was used to seeing bruises spawn on people in record time. Then again, if this was all my imagination, maybe I made her up to be stronger than me.

"Essallie, look below," she told me. Turning my gaze below the both of us, all I saw was an endless stretch of black. A mystery, hiding secrets far beyond my reach. "What do you see?"

"Am I supposed to be looking for something specific?" I asked. "You know, Atlantis, the remains of the Titanic..."

"No, you idiot." The prettier version of me snapped, eyes blazing to a deep red. "Look harder."

I took a second look at the black expanse below. At first, nothing but darkness stared back at me, and I had half the nerve to call out my copy on messing with my head. But a closer look brought out shapes, features of a person, chained to the ocean floor.

Without words, I knew who it was. How could I not know that hair, the set of those shoulders?

I looked up at my copy in horror. "What is he doing here?"

"You have a choice," she whispered, a grin of pure malice spreading across her face, her enjoyment barely containable. She raised a hand and pointed above, then pointed back to the very thing ripping my heart in two. "Swim upward and save yourself, or swim down and save him."

"And if I choose none?"

"Then you are more foolish than I took you for."

Illumine and Obumbrate Winnings Update!

Hey everyone! Consider this your ever-so-friendly update on all things prizes! 

Recently, very recently, several key events I took part of ended, and you know what that means. Shipping books to happy winners! The followings is a list of all the recent winnings of books, purchases of books, or winners of other items that have or have not gone out. 

Please note: If I missed you, meaning you're not on this list, please feel free to email me, message me on Twitter, Facebook me, whatever you need to do to get a hold of me. There's always one or two who I miss among the masses, and I promise it's not me being mean or ignorant, I'm just a little on the forgetful side. 

OBUMBRATE PRE-ORDER PACKAGE

Huff L. & Jacquie T. - SHIPPED

PAID ORDERS 

Candy S. - SHIPPED
Tracy T. - SHIPPED
Krystal H. - SHIPPED 

REVIEW COPIES REQUESTED 

Kim C. - SHIPPED
Roseann H. - SHIPPED
Kayleigh-Marie G. - SHIPPED

#OBUMBRATEDAY RELEASE WINNER

Kim E. - NOT SHIPPED. 

INDIE AUTHOR GIVEAWAY 

Gabbie - NOT SHIPPED. 

Also, I have currently not shipped any bookmarks. The printer is on my first stop tomorrow morning, so they will be going out tomorrow unless a typhoon hits my town and washes away both the print shop and the post office. 

Again, if I missed you, meaning YOU ARE NOT ON THIS LIST, please don't hesitate to contact me! I do not like holding winnings hostage- if you won it, it's rightfully yours! 

That's it for now, over and out! 

Internet Pirates Need A Good 'Booty Raid'

It's all over on the internet right now. Pirates are about! And no, they don't want your booty, so to speak, but they do want your books available for free because that's the 'patriot' thing to do. 


What a crock of crap. 


Stephen L. Wilson's blog gives a pretty good breakdown of what's going on, but in a nutshell this is what's up. An infamous website by the name 'The UIltimate Ebook Library', which I will not link for traffic reasons, is pirating just about every book your pretty little heart can dream of. 


Yes, this means big authors and small authors alike are being fenangled, and for the most part, sending a regular 'Please take down my book' notice doesn't cut it for them. As their sites states: 

... We would like to say that TUEBL is a Canadian website, which operates under Canadian law... Canada does not have a DMCA type take-down template our websites are required to use...

Okay. So you're thinking, "Big deal, just send them what they want saying you're the owner of said book and they'll take it down. They have to." 


Nope. 


Visible attempts to do just this have appeared on their Facebook pages. Some authors who have sent emails saying, "Yo, take my stuff down!" have been posted publicly, along with the authors personal information, photo, anything to use and wield against them in both internet and face-to-face harassment. How in the heck is that fair? 


A second quote from their 'legal' page: 

Also please note that any email that we receive is public information and will be published in full on our blogs, twitter, facebook, and any other social network that we desire.

Great. So if you're someone like JK Rowling (yes, her books are on there, for shame!) and you send a take-down notice, they'll post about it all over the page in a lovely mocking fashion. 


Taken from Stephen L. Wilson's blog: 

What they fail to point out is that the unauthorized use of copyrighted material is a crime. In Canada, as well as in the United States, intellectual work is copyrighted upon creation, and no filing of rights is necessary. 

And that, ladies and gents, is the icing on the cake. These people running this so-called 'Library' are nothing but crooks. 


And you know what boils my blood more than badly written stories, more than editing, more than running out of coffee or listening to telemarketers or having no AC in my room? 


Nasty, under-handed, grubby internet pirates. 


So do me a favor? Click on this link to Facebook page for The Ultimate Ebook Library, and report them. Tell them just how wrong it is to continue hosting books by authors who have told them to remove the content repeatedly!  

The Great CreateSpace Snafu

I am not a happy unicorn.

(I'm not really a unicorn, either, so how that pertains to this, I'm not sure. Let's go with sleep deprivation!) 

Earlier this week, I shared a photo on Facebook that looked a lot like this: 

BOOKS! TONS AND TONS OF BOOKS! On my couch. 

And inside, I was dancing. Happy, joyful dances of insane qualifications. Steph would have been embarrassed at how all-over-the-place I was (yes, it was THAT bad). And then I looked inside. 

Formatting. All. Wrong. 

Somewhere between my precious computer and the CS printers, weird things happened. Missing pages, miss-aligned pages, grey boxes around all of the font. It was a giant pile of yuck. 

Pretty sure that's not how a book is supposed to be. 

Needless to say, I'm pretty peeved. Hence the 'not a happy unicorn' comment above. A-ha! Even while made I can make lame connecting jokes in a blog post! 

So more or less, I'm waiting for a slipping label to ship these yucky books back and get a shiny new batch, which are scheduled to ship from CS's base on or around the 17th of July. If they ship on the 17th, I can tell you I'll have them by the 21st, so if all goes according to plan, anyone who has ordered a signed copy will get it by the end of the month. I'm really, truly sorry this happened, and it's completely out of my control, but you all deserve to know where the hold up is coming from, otherwise I would have sent them ASAP out to all of you! 

So until those new (and hopefully non-messed up books) come in, Obumbrate is definitely still up digitally for grabs on Amazon and B&N, respectively. I've got links right below this for you to click and grab it, if only to temporarily fend off the itch to read it until the paperbacks come in.  

Happy #ObumbrateDay!

OH SQUEEEEEEEE! It's finally here, guys! Six months in the making and IT'S FINALLY HERE AND I CAN'T THINK PAST THESE WORDS SO I'LL SAY IT AGAIN- IT'S HERE!


There aren't words to describe how excited I am for today. Really, there aren't. But if I could tone down today's awesomeness of Obumbrate's release, it would use words like 'awesome' and 'superfragalisticexpialadocious'. I have no idea if I spelled that right. 


So in case you've been living under a ROCK for the last few weeks, here's the run down! The second book to TIS, Obumbrate, is out and available! That means you can grab a copy, scarf it down like Mera did for Mera's YA Book Blog, snag a digital copy on Amazon or B&N, or you know, pick up a signed copy here on the blog! There's all kinds of good things going on today! 


Like what? I'm so glad you asked that! 


Boosh! There's a Facebook event running all day! Or better yet, a massive Rafflecopter Giveaway!  


If that isn't tickling your fancy, Goodreads is still running the giveaway for Obumbrate, too! 


And if none of those fulfill your insatiable need to chat about #TeamEssallie or #TeamKayden or #TeamAri, hit up Twitter! #ObumbrateDay is the code-word, ladies and gents! 


This entire day is going to be nothing but shenanigans, shenanigans, and maybe some SHENANIGANS WITH CUPCAKES. And music. And posted excerpts all day. And probably soda. But not fish, Essallie hates fish. 


Come on! Let's get this party ROLLING! 



a Rafflecopter giveaway