Month: December 2013

Sneak Peek: Ontario

Today we have a sneak peek from the young adult novel by Heidi Nicole Bird: Ontario.

At the beginning of her senior year of high school, Ontario Stratton is abandoned by her mother, and left in the care of her older brother. In order to feel like less of a burden, Ontario gets a job at the local fifties-style diner. It is there that she meets her new “family.” Some things in Ontario’s life come together again, but others continue to fall apart. At the diner she is introduced to a kind of happiness she has never known before, but can she really learn to love and trust again?

Ontario is available from Amazon.com and Amazon UK.

Here is an excerpt from Ontario…

Continue reading “Sneak Peek: Ontario”

Announcing the Indies Unlimited Excellence Awards for 2013

We are pleased to announce the Indies Unlimited Readers’ Choice Excellence Awards. This is our way of providing recognition to those in the indie community who have given valuable assistance, resources, information, or other support to improve the quality and visibility of indie authors.

This is the first year of what we hope will become an annual tradition. In our first outing, awards will be given in three categories:

Best Book Review Site
We feel book review sites are critical to book discovery. Having a lot of great reviews on your book’s page is nice, but book review sites introduce your book to their followers, giving you a better shot at finding new readers. These sites and reviewers deserve our thanks.

Best Writers’ Resource Site
From writing tips to marketing strategy, there are sites out there that help you get it done. Lots of oases dot the indie savannah. Where are your favorite watering holes? Which sites add value to your day and help make you a better writer?

Best Writers’ Watchdog Site
The web is alive with predators, ready to pounce on unsuspecting and hopeful indies. Fake awards, bad contracts, and overall exploitation are rampant. Thankfully, there are a number of warning and advisory sites out there that throw light into the dark corners, alerting us to scams, shams, and flim-flams. Which sites do you count on to keep you safe?

Obviously, as the sponsor of these awards, Indies Unlimited is excluded from the process. Oh well, it is more blessed to give than to receive. *sniff*

Nominations for each category will be opened with a special announcement post in January. Rules for nominations and voting will be posted at that time. Just so nobody gets too excited, there are no cars or money at stake here. The finalists and winners will receive handsome, hand-crafted digital plaques commemorating their victory. It is not merely the plaque, but the votes of confidence and thanks behind it that give the award its proper meaning. We hope you are as excited about the awards as we are, and we look forward to your enthusiastic participation.

Author Interviews – Using the Tool to Your Best Advantage

There is constant discussion in online forums about how to promote our books, how to get our names out there in front of readers, and there are a zillion ways to do that. One such way is the author interview, a particularly friendly, chatty way to connect with our readers.

I know, I know; many of us authors are introverts and not terribly comfortable talking about ourselves. We’d much rather stand behind our books and talk about them instead of ourselves. But it’s a proven fact that people are much more liable to buy books from an author if they feel they know and like that person, rather than just recognizing a name on a cover. And with social media on the rise, people are coming to expect more of that kind of connection with their favorite authors. Continue reading “Author Interviews – Using the Tool to Your Best Advantage”

Featured Book: Wardens of Light and Shadow

Wardens of Light and Shadow (Dracus Saga)
by J.M. Williamson
Available from Amazon and Smashwords.

Wardens. Selected for their strong, innate connection to the lifeblood of the world, these unique individuals were granted the gift of immortality and tasked with the protection of Kylir and its ancient Guardians against the Darkness.

Where once they warred openly, raining unimaginable destruction upon the world, the centuries have seen their conflict shift to the shadows in the hope of gaining victory through the manipulation of the mundane instead of open, devastating conflict. For what victory is there in reigning over a dead world?

On the continent of Triclose, war is life and life is war. For two-hundred years, the proud people of this land have battled for control of the long-empty throne – the Wardens and their war, lost to the annals of myth and legend. The children of this land are raised on stories of their ancestors and noble battles against life-long enemies; thus, with each new generation loyalties are sworn, hatreds renewed, and the wars begin anew.

It is here, even as this never-ending cycle of generational warfare plays out, that events both unexpected and foreseen threaten to draw the ancient Wardens from the shadows and reignite a war with the cataclysmic potential to reshape Kylir for all time. . .