Quantum Earth: The 2012 Question Special

I’m having a special free offer on my book, Quantum Earth: The 2012 Question, from now until the end of August for my blog readers. Enter coupon code BB37A  at: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/42251 and you will receive a free eBook copy! You can check out the great reviews it got by searching Quantum Earth Reviews here on my blog. You might not be disappointed!!! But then again… 🙂

Some Backstory on Me

I’ve been writing for what seems like forever. My mom taught me to read even before I started kindergarten, so I was highly praised in school for my awesome talent! My mother also read a lot, which made me want to read a lot, too. So I read and I read and I read. Finally, somewhere along the way, I started getting this little feeling inside me saying, “I bet I could write better than that.”

Since my self-esteem wasn’t too great it took me many years before I actually wrote something big: a play titled Angel in the House. It was for a women’s lit. class, and was highly acclaimed by the teacher and my fellow students. I got such a rush from writing down all this stuff that I had made up in my head that I wrote a novella titled Native Vengeance. I wanted to start small so I could see what it took to get a large number of words all together in one place. It worked! So I decided to write an entire novel this time, titled Quantum Earth.

I felt so ‘in the zone’ while writing. It was a high like no other! The next step was finding someone to publish my book. That took almost as long as writing the darned thing! But at long last, I ended up with two different publishers wanting it. I made that hard choice and waited for the revision process. My manuscript went back and forth between my editor and me a few times till we got it right. I was so thrilled at this point I could barely eat!

Of course the boom hit when I found out about the marketing aspect of writing a book. I did a crash course on marketing online, trying to figure out the best way to get my book and my name out there to the reading public. I won’t go into much detail as I’m sure you all know by now how much work and a pain in the arse all that is. And all that work seemed like it was for nothing because almost nobody was buying my book no matter what I did.

Nevertheless, the following year I had my second book, Deadly Lucidity, published. But, alas, nobody was buying much of them either. I consulted a book marketing pro, willing to pay him if I had to so I could just sell a few more books. I was surprised when he told me I didn’t need his services as I was doing everything possible, and it was just a matter of time before my books caught on. Very interesting, I thought.

Then I made friends with someone who was self-publishing his own books, and edified me on why self-publishing is really so much better for a writer than traditional for so many reasons. I was convinced. I published Earthwalker and Native Vengeance within a week. I was very happy with self-publishing for a lot of reasons, like having control of my own work, getting paid WAY more for each paper and e-book sold, having all the information about each sale and who bought it, etc. So I went to my publisher and asked for the rights to my first two books so I could publish those, too. I published Quantum Earth in January, and will publish Deadly Lucidity sometime in the fall.

These days I have what I think is a dynamite idea for a new book: a young reporter is assigned to do a story about the latest drug craze that is raging like wildfire across the U.S. To do the story justice she decides to experiment by taking this drug herself, the effects of which are mind traveling to other dimensions. I don’t have a title as of yet, but I’m pretty excited about starting to get it down on paper. So what’s stopping me you may ask? I have to kick some ideas around in my head a bit more before it is solidified enough to warrant actual pen and paper. Ya see, as most of you may know already, writing a whole gosh darn book is a huge commitment not to be taken lightly. You best be sure you have enough words to last the whole way through!

A Few Tips on Becoming a Real Author

Congratulations!

Maybe you just signed your first book contract. Maybe you self-published a book. Or maybe you’ve even had a book out there for a little while and not much is happening with it. Whatever the case, there are some basic steps you can take to up your chances of getting your book into readers’ hands.

Do you have an author‘s page on GoodReads? Do you have a video trailer? APEX does great work. You can check mine out as an example. And don’t stop with GoodReads. You can get an amazon author’s page, too. Linked-in is great. Try and get yourself on others’ blogs. Do interviews. Offer your book for free maybe for a week with a coupon code on smashwords. Comment on authors’ blogs who have books similar to your own. Mainly just get your name out there as much as you can.

I know I had no idea of the amount of energy I needed to expend on marketing my books AND myself. I started a blog and put up a website where people could buy my books free of shipping. I’ve done radio shows and now feel fairly comfortable with that, especially if the interviewer knows what they’re doing.

You could also look up some good author blogs and newsletters and subscribe. I continually take in new information on how best to get well-known. I have a lot of author friends all over the world through social networking.

That’s about all I can think of for now, but feel free to ask me anything that I can help you with. I love helping new authors.

Happy Writing!

Finally Time! Free E-book ‘Son of Ereubus’ by J.S. Chancellor

The time has finally arrived!

Here is the link for the free copy of Son of Ereubus (it will go live shortly. If it isn’t yet, don’t panic, just check back in a little while). Once you reach the author page, there is a widget with sliders and you should see the different E-versions of the book available for download on the Son of Ereubus page. Again, there are no strings attached or special things you have to do—no lists to sign up for, nothing. Just free, pure and simple.

But, may I ask something of you?

No, I’m not going to ask you to purchase anything. What I would love, in exchange for giving you a free ebook, is that you tell just two people about it. That’s all. Just tweet it, Facebook it, blog it, whatever you do when you want to tell someone… If you have a reader bud, then email then, text them, or message them. Just tell two people about the book and where they can get it. I would deeply appreciate it!

Thank you! I hope you enjoy the book! I hope you like it enough to fall in love with the trilogy as a whole. I hope you’ll give it a good review if you do. If you have any questions, you can reach me at my email address jschancellor@gmail.com. I try to answer all emails within a two or three day frame and I’m ALWAYS up for book talk, so please don’t hesitate to send me a line.

A HUGE ‘thanks’ goes to Neil Gaiman who originally gave me this idea: Hope you have a great time on your trip—be safe!

Also, once you’re done reading book one, you can find Book Two: Blood of Adoria, available for pre-order on the same page as the free download at Rhemalda (it will show up on B&N and Amazon later in the month of March). Here is the cover!

Most sincerely,

J.S. Chancellor

Free E-Books! It’s Read an E-book Week!

Image via Wikipedia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s right. I’m giving away my books as a token of my esteem to my blog readers and anyone else who comes across this offer until March 12th, 2011. You can read about a team of metaphysical scientists trying to find the answers to 2012 in Quantum Earth; you can find out what Meg does when she finds out the small town she’s visiting has a terrifying curse on it in Native Vengeance; and you can find a new kind of vampire hitting the scene in Earthwalker- Earth Can Be Hell for a Vampire.

All three of these books are completely free until midnight on the 12th of this month for Read An E-book Week.

Here’s what you do:

Go to:            https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/authorjulie

There you will find my books on Smashwords. Click on the one(s) you want and enter the secret code displayed (RE100), and there you are! Simple as that to get some pretty interesting and exciting reading material. Enjoy!

Breakthrough Bookstore- Opening Doors to a Better Life

http://www.BreakthroughBookstore.com

Breakthrough Bookstore Provides A Win-Win For Self-Published Authors:

A Chance To Get Noticed Online And To Change The Perception Of Self-Published Books

With self-published authors producing more and more books every year, the reading audience is discovering that there are plenty of diamonds among them. The biggest problem is having a central source for locating these gems. By establishing the Self-Published Authors Marketplace, Breakthrough Bookstore is providing the solution.

Breakthrough Bookstore was originally established to “open doors to a better life” for its customers with traditionally published books on issues affecting one’s life and business. Very quickly, Dannye Williamsen, owner of the online bookstore and a self-published author herself, realized that if she really wanted to assist others in making a breakthrough, she needed to do something for her fellow penmen: self-published authors.

The Self-Published Authors Marketplace section of Breakthrough Bookstore launches its new web site on March 1, 2011. Although the listings are free, Williamsen sought submissions from the authors in order to create a community where everyone is invested in making the S-PA Marketplace work. In other words, a place where everyone is working toward a win-win for everyone.

Publishing Industry statistics recently showed that “about 20 percent of online sales are of titles not available in traditional brick-and-mortar stores. Projections are this figure will soon reach a third of all book sales.” Creating a special online venue for self-published authors will contribute to their books becoming the largest portion of these sales.

Someone once said, “It is not who you know but who knows you that counts,” and getting noticed is the chief issue for most self-published authors. In 2007, the Independent Book Publishers Association reported that small and self-publishers produced 78 percent of all the book titles at that time. With the advent of technology and increased numbers of POD publishers, the numbers of self-published books are steadily increasing. This makes it even more difficult to get noticed in bookstores of any kind where these books are competing with traditionally published “bestsellers,”  making this new marketplace a breath of fresh air for self-published authors.

The response to this new venture has been tremendous: “Thank you for the opportunity to put my book out where more readers can see it!” – Jeromy Henry [Piñatas From Space! Crazy Games With Cards And Dice]; “This is a wonderful thing you are doing.” – Jay Miller [Bingo, the Banjo Picking Bear]; “Your offer is certainly a step I’m grateful to be taking.” – Mark McKenna [The Word Gang]; “Thank you so much for your efforts to help self-published authors.”  – Joseph Allen [The Phoenix: Firestorm].

The Self Published Authors Marketplace welcomes all self-published books regardless of how they were published. The only stipulation is that they be available through Amazon.com because the bookstore operates as an Amazon Associate.

Contact:

Dannye Williamsen
Breakthrough Bookstore
www.BreakthroughBookstore.com
Customerservice@BreakthroughBookstore.com
770-438-0889

Publishing Your Book

This is a recent letter I wrote to a frustrated friend who was trying to decide how to go about getting his first book published. His idea was to start by trying to obtain an agent, but really didn’t know which way to turn. He knew that I self-published my last two books, but was concerned about the stigma about doing it this way. I set him straight.

Here it is:

I can definitely understand your frustration! I went through it a few years back when I was trying to get my first book published. I thought that I’d get at least one book published, then get an agent. Then I did some research on the publishing scene to get some perspective. I must have sent querries to around 75 publishers, then had a couple who wanted Quantum Earth. I chose a small publishing house in Maine. I thought that was the hard part! Little did I know that as far as marketing and publicity I was on my own, as are most authors in the business, including those published by the bigger houses you may get to publish your book with the help of an agent. Even the big houses don’t even put your book into stores for you. They also don’t help one iota with marketing. Some may give you a couple free books to pass out for review, but it’s only the big guys who get such things as advances and tours.

So you see, having an agent doesn’t guarantee anything except one more person to take a piece of your pie, so to speak. I’ve sold many books with my publisher, but received such a small percentage from MY hard work that I decided to self-publish. I found a great friend on facebook who has connections to get your book published within a week, getting a special custom interior and fonts (with pictures if you wish), have your book listed with amazon and createspace, plus a marketing portfolio, all for $500. I have done this twice so far and am extremely satisfied with everything. My friend worked with his experts and delivered exactly what I wanted and more. Now I am in complete control of my books and profits.

From my research the stigma attached to self-publishing is quickly falling away, and I and many others believe it is the wave of the future because of the changes in the publishing industry. You can even contact J.A. Konrath on facebook (he’s a friend of mine there), who has lead the way by becoming extremely successful as a self-published author.

Here’s an interesting article you might like: http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/jefishman/2010/12/the-10-craziest-business-practices-of-the-book-world/

This guy has also written other cool articles you can check out.

The cure for frustration is to make yourself as informed as you can. There are a lot of good resources on the net to educate you so you can make an informed decision about what you want to do next.

I wish you much luck! If you have any other questions feel free to ask.

Mian Mohsin Zia

Today I would like to talk to you about a dear friend of me from Lehore, Pakistan. His name is Mian Mohsin Zia. He is a world-class author of several books including The Strange Loyalist, Once, and Victim of Shame. These books rise above and beyond the normal fair in that they have also a unique message subtly imbedded in each. If you read these books you will get a first-hand view of what is going on in Mian’s mind. He is very adept at the writing craft.

I have learned so much about what a true friend is from this young man. He is part of my true family on this planet and I would do anything for him as he would do for me. He has done everything in his power to help me self-publish two more books of mine, and will help me re-publish my first two books, which are now in the control of my past publisher. They will soon go through the process of getting self-published with Mian’s help. With the people who are his experts he has given me a publishing package for only $500, which included a book cover, complete interior, special fonts, a marketing package, and a beautiful website where my books are available at http://julieachterhoff.tk.

At 23 he is one of the best writers I have come across and I expect even greater things from him in the future. He has only just begun. If any of you would like to contact him or purchase any or all of his books you can visit his blog at http://mianmohsinzia.blogspot.com or his website at http://mianmohsinzia.tk. His work is widely acclaimed and he loves being contacted by anyone with an interest in his book or himself.

2-21-10

My oldest son died eight years ago by his own hand. I still struggle with the grief. I think we all suffer from some past grief, and it makes me wonder. Sometimes I don’t understand why we have to suffer on this world of ours. It’s such a strange setup in my opinion. I think that’s one reason us writers can reach into our imaginations and pull out the myriad of stories that want to be told.

I’ve been waiting for a dream to tell me what story I want to tell next. Nothing has been very clear as of yet. I know I want to have a strong, but quirky guy for the lead. I’m also thinking of maybe writing a screenplay instead of a novel this time. I have a software program for it that’s supposed to make it easier. I wrote a play called Angel in the House several years back. If I could do that, I think I could write a screenplay. And wouldn’t it just be the most exciting thing in the world to actually have it make it to the silver screen? I can’t imagine anything better. So maybe I’ll take a crack at it. I have some connections, too.

I wouldn’t want it like anything else I’ve seen. And it would have to have a love story sub-plot. I always have to have that. Except there would have to be a bunch of roadblocks. It won’t be easy. Maybe they work together. Maybe he’s a detective. Or he could be a poet caught up in something edgy. She could be his muse. Or possibly his enemy. He could be chasing her down, but find out later that he was wrong about her. She would be strong, too. But maybe she would be grieving over someone close to her that died. I want to put in a lot of atmosphere. Where should the story be set? I lived in San Francisco growing up, so I know the city pretty well. That’s option one. Option two would be a small town on the north coast of California just like where I now live. Humboldt County is about as screwy a place as you are likely to find in the U.S. It’s main sustaining economy is based on marijuana cultivation and sales.

So there it is; the beginning of a possible book or screenplay. I’ll be thinking of the storyline as I daydream in my head of all the different possibilities for these two characters. I feel like starting on it very soon.