Tag Archives: publishing

The Sorcerer’s Curse is Now Live on Amazon


I am also happy to announce that the second book in The Mummy’s Curse Mini-SeriesThe Sorcerer’s Curse is now live and available for purchase on Amazon. It is also available on Kindle Unlimited. The final book in the Mini-Series is coming along and will be ready for its release on the 18th of July.

The Sorcerers Curse

 

Things were going well for me and Serkhet, or so I thought. I had graduated from college and received my bachelor’s degree, which was a momentous occasion, but it was trumped by Serkhet’s second marriage proposal. This time, it was more romantic. I was glowing with happiness, but it didn’t last long. Everything started to go downhill after Serkhet asked for us to move to Egypt. Maybe he was just homesick. But I started to notice things. I thought the curse was broken or maybe I was just starting to see who Serkhet really was. Then, I met a man who calls himself the sorcerer. He offered me a chance to change events in my past, putting me on a different path. A way to alter my future. Would Serkhet go back to being the man I knew him as, or would I decide to take the sorcerer’s offer?

 

If you haven’t purchased the first book, The Mummy’s Curse, you will be able to find it by clicking on that same Amazon link. You’ll be able to find it under the blurb.

You can find all of my books, recently published and upcoming, under my name and my pen name, posted on my website: www.twistedcrowpress.com/books
Or, you can find them on Amazon:
For all books published under my name, Jennifer N. Adams on Amazon, click here.
For all books published under my pen name, J. Raven Wilde on Amazon, click here.

New Cover for Chaos


Jennifernadams_ebook (2)

I had debated on what I wanted on the cover and had spent quite a bit of time looking for an artist to work on the cover art for me.

I think it’s vibrant and eye-catching. I love the purple!

What do you think?

You can find Chaos as an ebook and in paperback format on Amazon.

Two sisters find themselves in a magical world of supernatural creatures and a book that just might send them on a path to find their destiny.

It is the lack of having supernatural abilities that makes Noelle a non-believer. Anya, her younger sister, believes in almost everything, and tries her best to change Noelle’s view of the world, including reminding her they are part shifter.

It isn’t until one morning during a ride into work with her uncle, the town sheriff, when Noelle begins to question her disbelief in all things supernatural. She has a premonition which sends her and Anya on a quest to find a book that may lead to their destiny. A destiny that takes them through a portal into the Faerie realm.

If you love books about magical faeries, shifters, and werewolves which also includes mystery, action, and adventure then this is the book for you!

You can find all of my books, recently published and upcoming, under my name and my pen name, posted on my website: www.twistedcrowpress.com/books
Or, you can find them on Amazon:
For all books published under my name, Jennifer N. Adams on Amazon, click here.
For all books published under my pen name, J. Raven Wilde on Amazon, click here.

There’s a Need for Large Print Books


 

Yesterday, I went to my local library to have something printed. Honestly, I could just buy myself a printer and not leave my house, but then I wouldn’t have the experiences I do at my local library. Plus, our local libraries need our support hence the reason why I prefer paying the library to use their copying machines. Not to mention, checking out a few books while I’m there.

I live in a small country town. Majority of the patrons I meet at my local library are elderly and retired individuals. I love to listen to the stories they share while they check out their books at the front desk.

One of the stories I listened in on included the lack of large print books. They told the librarian that they enjoy reading books, too, and that at their age, it is harder to see the print on regular paperback books.

As an author, I hadn’t put much thought into large print. My list of published titles consists mostly of ebooks. I do have two books that are paperback, Dana’s First Fish, Chaos: Supernatural Realms; one is for children and the other is for young adults.

As I prepare one of my recently published books, Rancher’s Daughter, for a paperback release, a thought came to me. I have a chance to broaden my readership if I also publish it in large print.

I had to look this one up and stumbled upon a website that I had visited a few times before. Joanna Penn is a wonderful author, who explains how to publish large print and how it is actually more popular than I realized. You can view her post here.

 

Don’t Fear Failure, Fear Not Taking the Chance


Dont-fear-failure

After having a bad experience with my publishing company, I decided to take a step back.

I published my first book back in 2013 with a small publishing company. At the time, I was still working on writing my novel and was looking forward to having it published as well. The issues I had with said publishing company began to pile up that I was afraid of publishing another book.

I pushed my book aside and used that energy to focus on my studies; at the time, I was halfway through college.

One day, while watching Youtube, I came across a video – I know, sounds cliche – of someone who decided to take the indie author route.

I was afraid to self-publish. I didn’t know where to start if I decided to take the indie route. Not to mention the many questions I had. I couldn’t possibly make money as an indie author, could I? Where would I even publish my book? Would anyone even read my work? How would they read my work?

In 2015, I finished, or so I thought it was finished, my novel. I began sending query letters out to agents only to receive rejection after rejection. I literally stopped counting after twelve. ‘Market is too saturated with this genre’, ‘this isn’t the right fit for me’, ‘too many books out there with werewolves’. I pushed my novel aside and forgot about it.

Some time had passed before my grandmother asked me what happened to my novel. She encouraged me to keep trying. So, I pulled it up onto my computer, read through it before deciding to change it up.

This was going to take some time.

I spent whatever time I had in between classes going back through my book and cutting, adding, and editing. It was now 2016. It had taken me a few months before I was finished working on my novel – by this time, I had dubbed it ‘the-never-ending-novel’. I ended up adding over 22,000 (almost 23,000) words before sending it off to my editor.

While my editor looked it over, I thought I would research what it meant to be an indie author. I listened to success stories, I listened to authors explain why they switched from traditionally published to indie, I even watched videos on how to and where to self-publish.

No matter how many videos I watched, I had that nagging feeling that this was not going to work. Then another voice chimed in asking me, “Why not just try it?”

I pulled up a collection of short stories that I had been working on and decided to polish one of them up. Of the plethora of videos that I had watched, a few of them suggested that as an indie author you have the opportunity to publish short stories and earn a meager income from them.

I also learned that you should not just stick to writing novels. Publish everything: short stories, novellas, novels. The more work you have out there, the more you will become noticed.

It was late 2016, when I handed my short story over to another editor (I now have two editors). A month later, she hands it back with the requested revisions. It didn’t take me long to go through my last edits. Thanks to another video, I was able to teach myself how to format it to publish as an ebook.

I was now entering my last two semesters of college. I also learned that my grandmother had stage IV pancreatic carcinoma.

I held onto my short story for a few more months with the uncertainty of publishing it.

Finally, in July 2017, I got the courage to upload my short story into Amazon. I stared at the publishing button not wanting to click it. My heart raced and my stomach churned with nervousness.

Why couldn’t I just click that button?

Because once I did, it would be up for the world to see.

But, why would that be so bad, isn’t that what you wanted all along, to publish more books?

Yes.

I clicked published. I don’t know why, but I screwed my eyes shut. I guess I was expecting my laptop to explode? After a few seconds, I stared at the screen. A box had appeared, telling me that it would take 12-72 hours before it would be live.

My anxiety had started to calm down a bit.

That wasn’t too bad now, was it?

No, it was pretty easy, actually.

A few days had passed before I checked on my newly published book. It actually made a few sales. Not bad. Maybe I should try publishing another one.

And thus it began…

One self-published book turned into six more, including the novel that I had once queried agent after agent on. It has been doing fairly well in sales. Though, after learning that people do judge a book by its cover, I am working on having another cover made for it.

I have since learned how to perfect my craft; my writing has improved, I’m learning new marketing skills each day. Most importantly, I have never given up on my writing. In fact, I continue to come up with ideas for new stories quite frequently that I know I will never run out of things to write about. I’ve built a brand for myself, creating a small publishing company, an LLC.

And who cares about what those agents thought. My novel is making money so, there obviously is still a market for said genre. I have since learned that you should write about what you want to write about. It’s true that there are popular niches out there. You just have to find the right one. Don’t be afraid to publish in a popular niche, as well as publish in others.

The more you have published, the more your work becomes noticed. I said that already. Maybe because it’s true, especially if you leave a link to your other works in the back and front of each book. If readers loved one book, they may check out another and another…

I no longer fear to self-publish my work. I’m earning an income doing what I love. I’m actually earning more now than what I was at that one publishing company. Though it’s a slow process for me, my list of published works is growing. I’m hoping that one day I can do this full-time. That’s a goal I look toward to achieving.

For a list of my published works, under my name and under my pen name, check out my website: www.twistedcrowpress.com

 

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I am learning more and more each day on what it takes to build an audience.

My author brand is growing steadily as I now have 7 published titles (3 under my name, 4 under my pen name, J. Raven Wilde), with the hopes of adding 4 more titles to that list before the end of this year.

With that said, I have a monthly newsletter that I send out via email. I am looking forward to adding you, reader, to that list.

All you have to do is click here and it’ll take you to a page where you will sign up to receive my monthly newsletter. I promise never to spam you or give out your information.

I Almost Gave Up On This


ranchers-daughter-cover-1

Rancher’s Daughter is now available on Amazon.

I started writing this novella back in 2006 or 2007. I had been out of the Navy for a few years and I was going through a rough time so I kept pushing the book aside. I almost gave up on writing altogether.

I honestly didn’t know I had saved the file on this novella. I had moved several times since then and thought it would’ve been lost or tossed out like most of my stuff had been.

Last year, I was moving things around the house, setting up my office as my author business began to expand. As I was shuffling things and rummaging through boxes, I found a few boxes of old magazines, notebooks, journals, etc. Things I found too important to lose, apparently. I thumbed through the journals and notebooks when I stumbled upon notes I had scribbled down on this one novella I had started years ago. I turned a few more pages and found the whole story typed up and printed out.

My curiosity was peaked now. I turned on the computer and opened up the files on my thumb drive, wondering if I may have this story saved somehow. Sure enough, I found it. I smiled, thinking that it was some miracle I still had it. I must’ve been able to compile ALL of my works together onto one jump drive years ago and simply just forgot about them.

Through the years, I had purchased a handful of jump drives, saving whatever writing projects I had. I had lost all but two of those jumpdrives. It was a habit for me to open more folders to save newer projects in, abandoning older folders that had old writing projects that I had started and pushed aside. However, all of these folders was saved on this one jump drive.

Now with the file found, along with my notes, I sat down to read through it all carefully and decided to give it another go. Since it had been a few years since I had read this story, I was able to have a fresh start on it; new scenes, new ideas, new title, etc. It wasn’t long before I had added to the story and edited it, before turning it into one polished novella and sending it off to my editor.

Now, I get to see it as I had intended for it years ago as a published book. You can purchase Rancher’s Daughter as an ebook on Amazon.

Supporting Other Indie Authors


support indies

I’ve been reviewing books on Amazon and Goodreads for indie authors for a few years now, I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of blogging about them.

So, I decided to try something different. Being an indie author myself, I know how hard it is to get the word out there when it comes to promoting and marketing my work. There are a lot of ways to market your work, yet most of them are out of the budget range, especially if you are just starting out which means you can only promote your work here or there.

With that said, I decided to create a blog where I will post my indie book reviews, as well as author interviews for any indie author out there looking into promoting their published works or looking into building their online presence.

I know there are quite a few book bloggers already out there, but one more couldn’t hurt, right?

It’s FREE marketing!

It’s FREE, which means I’m not charging anyone to market their books. If you are an indie author and think you are interested, check out my blog here. Or, if you are looking for something interesting to read, visit my blog and click follow.

When Do You Find Time To Write?


writing on the road

Working on my next novel while running errands with my dad.

People still ask me how I find the time to write. To them, I’m quite a busy person.

“You’re a single mom with a special needs kiddo, you work full time, yet you have time to write and publish books? How do you do it?”

“Well, I make time,” I say with a shrug. “I love to write, so, I write.”

True, I have my hands completely full with my daughter. Being a special needs parent is a full-time job in itself, but I wouldn’t change a thing.

I’m often approached by aspiring authors telling me that they don’t have the time to write, yet they want to write and publish a book. If you want to be a writer, then be one. Don’t sit on the sidelines saying how you wish you could be one. Make it happen. Authors don’t find time to write, they make time.

Authors don’t find time to write, they make time.

I was going to college full-time, working part-time, volunteering, taking care of my daughter as a single mom, and helping my grandmother. In the middle of all that I had written and published three books; one of which was a novel.

I have been able to remove ‘attending classes, studying and doing homework’ off of my plate, but my plate is still full. Between IEP meetings (I’ve had 6 this year so far), meeting with someone from the school (a weekly event, if not daily), school events, afterschool events, daily life requirements of housework and errands, work (the main money-bringer), I still find thirty minutes to an hour, sometimes more, to write. If my daughter is at school and I’m off work, that’s plenty of time (8 hours, give or take time out for lunch) to write and get my errands and housework completed.

Being an author is a job.

Since starting my new job last year, I have had nothing but time to write, that I have made it my second job. Being an author is a job. You not only work on your next book, but you have to promote and market the work that you have published. How else are you going to earn an income from your work if no one knows it’s out there?

However, I tend to spend a lot of time writing than I do marketing. That could be a good thing or a bad thing. I’m writing more, which means there will be more published works out there. The more you have published, the more your work will be noticed. I had also decided not to market as much until I had more published works out there.

I’m not saying all of this to brag, honestly! I’m trying to encourage others to make the time. I once used to look at published authors, wishing that I, too, could write and publish a book. I decided to tell myself that I could.

I started writing my novel, Chaos when my daughter was a few months old. I kept pushing it aside as I lacked the motivation to continue. My grandmother became my cheerleader, in a way, urging me to keep going. She knew I wanted to be a published author. I’m glad I listened to her.

Now that she is no longer here, I find myself thinking about her and what she would say each time that I need that little boost of encouragement. Or, I see the pride in my daughter’s eyes when she takes my children’s picture book to school to show everyone that her mommy wrote it. That right there is all the motivation I need.

Indie Author Guide


Ever since I published my first book in 2012, I have been asked how I did it, along with many other questions that I feel I have enough to fill a book. Most of the questions are usually the same ones that I am asked repeatedly. I try my best to answer each one and at times I feel like I’m leaving something out.

I want budding authors to strive in this business, as being an author is a business. It’s how we earn an income. Some authors earn a lot more than others but I don’t want to keep aspiring authors from learning their craft to where they can’t make a living. I want to help them become successful.

I have decided to take these questions and answer them by writing a book. Not only do I answer their questions, in length, I added a plethora of other useful tips and tidbits that they should know to help them in building and marketing their brand. Though it’s a guide on how to become an indie author, I do write a little about what to expect in the traditional publishing side of becoming an author.

Indie Author Guide

Though I don’t have an exact date set for when it will be published, I do know it will be out sometime next Spring.

Chaos My YA Fantasy Book is Now Available


Chaos Cover EBOOK

I’m happy to say that my young adult fantasy fiction novel, Chaos, the first in my Supernatural Realms Series is finally available.

I have worked on it for quite a long time that I am overly ecstatic to finally hold a copy in my hands!

You can get it on Amazon as an ebook or a paperback, or on my website: www.twistedcrowpress.com