Free ebooks on Smashwords winter/summer sale

Smashwords is having their summer/winter ebook sale, and I have two books on it, one under each name.  Ella and the Panther’s Quest is free under this name, and if you wanted to try one of my mysteries, Killing at the Carnival: Cassie Pengear Book 1 is also free.  Same coupon code for both SW100 .  The online reader at Smashwords is not very good, but you can get any of the major ebook formats from them and copy it to your device (sideload for those that do this often)

I’ve returned

I did not mean to be away for so long, but quite a lot of non-writing stuff happened (everything from annoying changes in the day-job to being able to do a bit of travelling).  Now I am getting back into publishing (I never really stopped writing).  The first books I’m getting out are steampunk cozy mysteries, so I decided to use a slightly different name.  L. A. Nisula.  I bet you would have figured out that was me anyway.  The series is called Cassie Pengear Mysteries and you can find out more about them on my new web page http://lanisula.com  The ebook is slowly getting published everywhere, and the print version will be out early next month.  I’ll be posting the links to the various retailers on the other site as they come online.  I did want to give you something for waiting so long, so here is a coupon code for Smashwords.com which will make the book free if you buy it there (normally it’s $.99 since it’s the first in the series)  The code is SF87U and it’s good until the end of January.  The sequel to it is done, I’m just waiting to make certain there are no glitches with this release before I start uploading it.

New cover for Ella

I’m considering a new cover for Ella and the Panther’s Quest to make it fit in better with my later books. Right now it’s only on the ebooks and slowly rolling out. I’m not completely sure this is the final version, which is why it’s going slowly. Once I’m certain, I’ll change the print version too.

This is the new cover at the moment.

Let me know what you think.

Smashwords ebook sale

Smashwords is having their annual winter/summer July sale, so my ebooks are all half price there until the end of the month with coupon SSW50 (the code is right by the order button too). Here’s the list of all the books available there (pretty much everything but Five Fairy Tales- there was a problem with the file size being too big that I haven’t resolved yet)

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/LisaAnneNisula

Catching Up, Blog News, and a Sale

I did say I was going to disappear for a while, but I didn’t think it would be this long. I am getting more writing done without worrying about posting every other week here, so for the forseeable future, I’ll just blog when I have news about my books. Now to catch up.

The paperback versions of the fairy tale books are out now. There was a little trouble with the covers being too dark that delayed things. The stories are available individually on Amazon and as a collection anyplace that stocks my books.

And Smashwords is having their annual read an ebook week sale until March 9. Here are the books I’ve got in it.

Ella and the Panther’s Quest $3.99 /$2.00

Mirror on the Wall $1.99 /$.99

Straw and Gold $2.99/$1.50

The Wizard at Pembrook $4.99/$2.50

Use coupon code REW50 to get the 50% off. Smashwords sells all major formats, so you should be able to find something that will work on your reader (.mobi, epub, and PDF are all there) and they have instructions for getting them on your reader if you’ve never done it before.

New fairy tale ebooks out

I have four new fairy tale ebooks out!   That’s why I haven’t been posting here; I’ve been writing.  It’s also why there was a such a delay in the print version of Mirror on the Wall; I had to decide how I was going to do the whole lot of them.   You can get all the links and info on my web page here.  They’re ebook only now, but I just ordered proof copies of the print books, so early next month they should all be out in print.  The individual stories will be available in print on Amazon only (has to do with the lower fees from Createspace on Amazon sales; I’d have to charge more than I want to if they went into expanded distributions) and the print collection of all five together will be available anyplace that wants to sell it.  Here are the covers.

I probably won’t be posting much for while since I have three new projects I’m deciding between, so I’ll be doing announcement only posts for a while longer.

Smashwords Ebook Sale

I didn’t mean to disappear for quite so long, but it’s just too hot in the computer room to spend much time online right now.  I will try to get back to posting regularly, but they’ll probably be short posts.  On the other hand, I’m getting a lot of writing done (I write books longhand first, blog posts go right into the computer) so I am getting things done, just nothing you can see yet.

Anyway, I just added my ebooks to the Smashwords Summer Winter sale.  All four are half-price on Smashwords until July 31, 2012 with coupon code SSW50 so if you were thinking of getting something, now’s the time.  They have all the different eReader formats there.

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/LisaAnneNisula

In case you want to cut and paste the code

SSW50

 

Flower Photos

Since it’s been sunny and I’m in a springy mood, I dug out some old pictures of flowers.  The first two are from the Cleveland Botanical Gardens.   These were taken a few years ago, before the added the glass house.

This used to be outside of the Trader Joe’s near us.

The last one is from a garden show that was here a few years ago.

A few good writing books

Here’s a short list of writing books I’ve liked, or found helpful, or both.

1) The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler.  This was my introduction to Joseph Campbell’s work and I think it was a good place to start.  It’s based on a memo Vogler sent around the Disney Studios when he worked there in the  90’s summing up Campbell’s hero’s journey as a guide for writing.  The book gives a nice overview and uses movies as examples.  I liked it as a starting point because I found it easier to focus on the steps of the journey when most of the examples are already familiar.

2) Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell.  This is the basis for the last book, and a lot of movies, Star Wars probably being the most well known.  Campbell explains the idea of the monomyth- the idea that all great stories share the same basic structure and archetype characters to explain each person’s own quest.  Everyone is the hero of their own story, and the goal is to find your bliss.  It’s a fascinating theory.  I suggested Vogler’s book first because I think it’s easier to have an idea of the steps and archetypes from his book before getting deeper into them with Campbell.  Campbell also uses examples from mythology that weren’t as familiar to me as the movie references (way beyond the standard Greek and Roman we think of as mythology) so I thought it was easier to learn the idea of the journey with something familiar, then have clear signposts along the way while learning about the unfamiliar myths.

3)Writing the Wave by Elizabeth Ayers.  And now for something completely different.  The last two were theory books, this is a series of writing exercises.  I’ve gotten story ideas from doing them, enough that I returned the library copy and bought my own.

4) The Songwriter’s Idea Book by Sheila Davis.  I haven’t finished this book yet- I just bought it a couple of days ago- but it’s on the May 100 Kindle books under $3.99 so I thought I’d include it now while it’s on sale.  Even though it’s for songwriters, so there’s quite a bit that doesn’t apply, it has an interesting section on creativity according to your personality type and another on coming up with titles to give a starting point for a project.  The title advice is interesting and I think it might be a good way to come up with ideas for short stories (all of my ideas seem to be for longer pieces)  I’ll see how it goes and let you know.

 

Mirror on the Wall available now

Mirror on the Wall is finally up at Amazon, Amazon.co.uk and other international Amazon sites (in English),  Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.  It will take a couple of weeks for it to be available at Kobo, iBookstore, etc, and I’m working on the print version.  With mailing proof copies and everything, that will probably be ready next month.