Month: January 2015

Book Brief: Shadow Days

Shadow Days by Melinda ClaytonShadow Days
by Melinda Clayton
Genre: Southern Fiction, General Fiction
59,000 words

On the anniversary of her husband’s death, forty-nine-year-old Emily Holt runs away, leaving an unmade bed, an unlocked house, two college-aged sons, and an overabundance of bad memories.

Struggling to make peace with the death of a husband who’d been lost to mental illness, she vows to drive to the end of the road, which, she’s surprised to find, is just outside the tiny mining town of Cedar Hollow, West Virginia.

As Emily struggles to redefine and rediscover herself, the good folks of Cedar Hollow are more than happy to help.

Shadow Days, the Southern fiction book by Melinda Clayton, is available at Amazon.com and Amazon UK.

Continue reading “Book Brief: Shadow Days”

Last Book Standing – January 2015 Edition

last book standing logoHappy New Year, everyone. Today we’re giving you a chance to win a free IU Featured Book Basic ad, and get some input on your book at the same time.

LAST BOOK STANDING is like a cross between Last Comic Standing and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Not really. Just kidding. Mostly.

Here’s how it works: Authors will post an Amazon link to ONE of their books in the comments section below. (One book per author, please! Multiple entries will be deleted.) We will turn that link into a pretty book cover. Then, books will fight to the death. Kidding.

Next, the books will begin elimination rounds. They will be distributed to the IU Vetting Committee and judged per our vetting process as follows:

  • Round 1 – covers.
  • Round 2 – amazon author pages.
  • Round 3 – categories.
  • Round 4 – book descriptions.
  • Round 5 – look inside – formatting/too much front matter.
  • Round 6 – look inside WRITING.

Authors whose books do not make it to the Final Round (Round 7) will receive a private email telling them at which point their book was eliminated, why, and because we are so swell, we will include a link to an IU post that will help them fix the problem.

Final Round – throw down steel cage match – audience voting. Books that make it through all six rounds will be featured in a post where the Indies Unlimited audience will vote for which book they think should win a free Featured Book Basic ad on Indies Unlimited. Don’t worry, each book that makes it to the Final Round will be invited to participate in our standard free features. But only one can win the ad.

Entries will be accepted for one week. After that, commenting will be closed. Please, entries only in the comment section. No discourse or critiquing. Thank you.

Fine print: Minions and their families, offspring, spawn, or other relations are not eligible. Books that have already been advertised or featured on Indies Unlimited during 2014 are not eligible and will be removed if they are posted. Don’t forget, Indies Unlimited does not feature books that are primarily religious, political, or erotic in nature. Books of those themes will be removed from the competition if they are entered. We will attempt to respond to all entries as quickly as possible. Please do not get butthurt if your book doesn’t go as far as you were hoping it would. We are just trying to help. The old adage goes, “Don’t ask a question if you don’t want the answer,” so if you don’t think you can handle constructive input, do not enter this contest.

Goodreads Winter-fest

Happy New Year! Have you been on Goodreads lately? Did you know that advertising on Goodreads is inexpensive and, frankly, fun. Looking at all those statistics on my ads makes me happy. What, you’re not advertising there? Our Melinda Clayton will show you how to advertise with Goodreads. Meanwhile, how about we stir things up with a Goodreads like-fest?

Today you can share your author page and find new friends. For your profile, grab that URL which should look like this: https://www.goodreads.com/KSBrooks and paste it in the comments below.  (Not sure where to find your fancy URL? See the image below and look for the aqua arrow.) goodreads like buttonNow everyone can “Like” your author page.  The “Like” button is found about 1/3 of the way down the page on the same side as the author photo. Clicking on that will show that you like that author’s page on your Facebook wall. There’s also a Google+ button there, so if you have a Google+ account and you’re feeling generous, go ahead and click on that, too. Still not sure where the “like” button is? Click on this thumbnail to enlarge it and look for the magenta arrow.

[Don’t forget, if you right-click the links, you can choose to have them open in a separate tab so you don’t have to worry about navigating back and forth to pages.]

PLEASE be sure to reciprocate by liking those who like you. This is give and take. If everyone plays by the golden rule, we all benefit.

Collaborative Contracts for Authors

collaboration contract for authorsIn this age of cooperation among writers (much better than competition!), it seems like we see a lot more collaborative efforts. From multiple writers on a single book to multiple writers banding together to create boxed sets, more and more authors are finding supportive boosts from working together: the antithesis of the lonely writer squirreled away at a corner desk, writing in dim isolation. The only drawback (if that’s what you want to call it) is the added consideration of how rights are assigned and profits are distributed.

My brother and I have found that we feed off each other’s creativity. We’re both writers, but we differ in that he’s got the knack for writing screenplays, a fairly bare-bones way of setting down a story, while I write novels where I can expand and expound. Either of us, I think, would be hard-pressed to write in the other’s style. So we’ve worked out a way to combine our efforts so all the bases are covered. Continue reading “Collaborative Contracts for Authors”