How Does Your Garden Grow? Cover Reveals and Other Stuff.

Open For Business

Yeah, I'm back. For reals. It's been a crazy summer in the swimming pool industry--my day job. Now that I can breathe again, I'm regrouping. My new schedule is that I'm posting every Monday. If you're having a cover reveal or doing a blog tour, let me know. I'd be glad to host you.

What else have I been doing?

Gardening

I've been gardening. I'm a great Gardner, but not a great gardener. Sometimes, it just doesn't go as planned. But I have the sweetest hubster. I really do. When my garden doesn't do well (it happens a lot, LOL), he always says the soil is bad. I love him to bits!

I do love gardening, though. Little heads popping out of the ground after a seed is planted. Then it grows into something really awesome. It's a miracle. God really knew what he was doing when he invented gardening. But I get so anxious to plant and nearly always plant too soon. I planted my sunflowers and pumpkins on April 1st. No joke. And now my garden is done and harvested. My pumpkins are 90 days premature. I'm hoping if I don't cut into them that they'll last until Halloween.

But look how lovely!

News

I got a lot done when I wasn't blogging! My Afterlife novella series has been completed and sent off to critique partners. Now I'm waiting patiently (not!) for feedback so that I can complete my edits and publish. If you have space on your blog for cover reveals and releases and want to help, please leave a comment or email me at gwenmgardner@cox.net. If you're looking for something specific, like blurb/excerpt, character based post, interview or want an arc for review, let me know. Here's the schedule:

Book I cover reveal 9/8
Book I release 9/22
Book II cover reveal 9/29
Book II release 10/6
Book III cover reveal 10/13
Book III release 10/20

Cover Reveal and Freebie

So, this is a combined cover reveal and freebie. Isn't it awesomesauce? Corona Zschusschen is a wonderful illustrator. She's done all my covers. So if you're in need, check out her website!

I published my A-Z: The Paranormal Case Files of Indigo Eady. It's from the 2013 A-Z Blogging Challenge. I figured since my main character hosted, and she shared some of the stories from my books, that I'd give readers a free taste of what was to come.

At least, I'm trying to make it free. It's live on both Smashwords and Amazon. Smashwords lets me give it away free, but not Amazon. Amazon will only let me go as low as .99 cents. But they do price matching. In other words, if you tell them you saw it cheaper somewhere else, they'll match the price - at their discretion. What you do is go to the Amazon page and scroll down to Product Details to the link that says "tell us about a lower price." Then you enter 0.00 and paste in the Smashwords link.

If you want to help me make it free on Amazon:

Go to this Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/Paranormal-Case-Files-Indigo-Eady-ebook/dp/B00LYYSCWY

 

And paste in this Smashword link under “tell us about a lower price.”:  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/459629

Easy peasy, right?

Untethered Realms

Here's another cover reveal for an Untethered Realms author, Graeme Ing, available August 23, 2014. It's pretty darn cool!

A primeval fiend is loose in the ancient metropolis of Malkandrah, intent on burning it to a wasteland. The city's leaders stand idly by and the sorcerers that once protected the people are long gone.

Maldren, a young necromancer, is the only person brave enough to stand against the creature. Instead of help from the Masters of his Guild, he is given a new apprentice. Why now, and why a girl? As they unravel the clues to defeating the fiend, they discover a secret society holding the future of the city in its grip. After betrayals and attempts on his life, Maldren has reason to suspect everyone he thought a friend, even the girl.

His last hope lies in an alliance with a depraved and murderous ghost, but how can he trust it? Its sinister past is intertwined in the lives of everyone he holds dear.

Can only evil defeat evil?

***

Our group of authors always has something interesting to say. We post every Tuesday, so if you want to stop by, go HERE. I'll be there tomorrow talking about what's on my nightstand. My tastes are pretty eclectic, as I think most writers are.

Do you like gardening?

 

What have you been up to?

 

Enjoying your summer?

IWSG, A-Z Complete and A Bloggy Break!

 

The Insecure Writer's Support Group

 

The first Wednesday of every month is reserved for the Insecure Writer's Support Group, where we tell the world our fears about being writers. Thanks to Alex J. Cavanaugh for hosting. If you'd like to sign up, go HERE.

So --a few months ago I worried that the novella series I wanted to write was a bit over the top. Well, I'm still worried about that, but I've written the first one, and if you followed my blog during the A-Z Challenge, then you read quite a bit about Second Death in addition to excerpts from Givin' Up The Ghost and A Guilty Ghost Surprised. It's so funny and silly that I write about ghosts and my real worry was adding a demon to the mix! (That was the Z post yesterday.) I mean, like ghosts aren't over the top but demons are? *shakes head* Anyway, people who followed my A-Z posts seemed to enjoy them, so thank you so much to everyone who stopped by to comment.

The 2013 A-Z Challenge

Mission Complete!

I finished! Even though my posts were pre-written, it was still a lot of work commenting and visiting every day. I loved everyone's creativity and it was such an awesome experience. I was a minion, too, one of Spunky's Soldiers!

 

Congratulations to everyone who finished! And to those who didn't, well, life does tend to get in the way, doesn't it? But really, my hat is off to those who hold a full time job and were still able to complete the A-Z! I don't know how they do it unless they're into cloning like the Ninja Captain, Alex Cavanaugh!

 

 

Thanks so much to everyone who put the A-Z Challenge together and made it run smoothly. Let's give a big hand to the A to Z Hosts, Alex J. Cavanaugh, Damyanti Biswas, Tina Downey, DL Hammons, Jeremy Hawkins, Shannon Lawrence Matthew MacNish Konstanz Silverbow, Stephen Tremp, Livia Peterson, L. Diane Wolfe, and Nicole.

 And a very special thanks to founder Arlee Bird at Tossing It Out.

And of course I have to thank Indigo Eady, who showed up every day at my blog to talk about her paranormal misadventures! Thank you, Indigo!

Indigo Eady, illustrated by Corona Zschusschen

 

 

 

Bloggy Break

 

And now, I'm on Bloggy Break for May! I have a lot going on and will be incredibly busy this month, not to mention that blogging every day for a month sort of exhausted me. I like those blogs who posted Zzzzzzzz's for their last post. My sentiments exactly! I may be back to post something that comes up, but if not, I'll be back on June 3rd because the lovely Rachel Morgan will be here with a post about her new novel, The Faerie Prince!

 

 

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What are your current writer insecurities?

 

How was your April?

 

What is your plan for May?

 



A-Z, Review Giveaway and Other Stuff

Hey, how are you all doing on preparations for the A-Z Challenge? I was starting to get worried that I wouldn't finish the pre-writing and then I'd be stressed out trying to write them on a daily basis--or more likely, I might have had to drop out.

Well, now I only have about 5 posts to go so I'm feeling a lot better. I think I have F, J, K, Q and Z left to write. I'm thinking Z is going to be the problem! Anyway, feeling less stressed and sooo excited to do my first A-Z! I'm even a minion :-]

How about you? Are you participating? Pre-writing? Minioning? 

 

*****

So here's a pretty cool deal. Angela Brown is doing a $25 - $50 Amazon card giveaway! Check it out...

Readers and reviewers are the lifeblood of any author, no matter what path taken to publish their work. Whether the author Tweets dozens of times a day or barely has a presence on Facebook, no readers spreading the word about their work boils down to no one buying or reading an author's book.

Readers and reviewers, YOU ARE THE BEST!! To show my appreciation, I'd like to offer a chance for one of you that read and reviewed Neverlove to win a $25 Amazon e-gift card. The giveaway is a month long, so that means if you have Neverlove in your pretty little hands and you'd like to enter, you've got plenty of time to do so.

For those yet to purchase Neverlove, it is $0.99 at BN.com, Amazon and Kobo. Grab your copy and make sure to put your review at all these places (along with Goodreads which is a great site where other readers are interested in your thoughts about books).

Make sure to enter the Rafflecopter below. Of course, because this is a Reviewer giveaway, please bear in mind the mandatory option for this giveaway is that you share the link of one of your reviews so you can enter to win.Those who've already reviewed are ahead of the game. Go and grab your permalink so you can enter to win.

*****To make this even more enjoyable, let's add a challenge. If the number of reviews at Amazon reaches 35 before the end of the giveaway, I'll add $15 to the gift card. If it reaches 50 reviews, I'll make the gift card $50. You read that right. If we reach 50 reviews for Neverlove, the $25 gift card will double to $50.*******

You can enter the rafflecopter HERE.  

 

*****

And you can still win an autographed paperback of Givin' Up The Ghost on Facebook HERE  or on GoodReads HERE.