Not So Silent Night

I am proud to present a cover reveal (though if you are on the ball, you may have seen it yesterday :P) for Sheri Velarde's Not So Silent Night.

It's a gorgeous story that she's upgraded from hot and good to sizzling and great! New edits, new cover, and voila! A tale to warm you at Christmas and beyond! She's done all this fighting major health issues and doing Nano! I'm impressed at how good of a job she has done! Be ready! Time to start your Christmas buying is at hand!

Without further ado, I give you her delicious cover done by the ever wonderful cover artist, Victoria Miller, as well as a few words from Sheri herself. Watch her blog (and likely here lol) for buy links!

 

 

Not So Silent Night is a very special story to me for numerous reasons. It was one of my most successful releases with Breathless Press and one of my favorite to write. Now it is about to become my first self-published book as I ready it for re-release this holiday season under my real name! It has been re-edited with some new bits added to make the story even better, but still retains the steaminess from before!

The world of self-publishing is a little scary for me, but exciting at the same time! As I have had two small publishers close on me this year, I just feel that this gives me a safety net to my career and allows me more freedom as well. The world of publishing is forever changing, and I am learning to go with the flow in order to keep up! I can’t think of a better way to embark on my new adventure than with Not So Silent Night, which will be out November 25^th, and with the beautiful cover from artist Victoria Miller!

 

Links:

Website/Blog: http://sherivelarde.weebly.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sheri-VelardeKelly-Ryan/632892500084202

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sher_V

 

Blurbs:

Another lonely Christmas approaches for Anna and her life of penance—until an otherworldly distraction appears and changes her life.

 

Anna is a lonely woman, running her dead grandmother's flower shop. She hates Christmas and could not feel more lost when a handsome and mysterious Russian, Alexander, walks into her shop and her life. Each has secrets that they are harboring. Just as their passion erupts, the good old boys in town threaten to ruin everything. Getting to know each other is tough for most couples, adding in magic does not make it any easier. Now with a pack of werewolves out to destroy them, things become intense. They find themselves in a fight for their lives. Can their newfound love give them the strength to win against this threat and trust in the future?

 

Bio:

Sheri Velarde, lives in New Mexico with her husband and their two dogs.

Being an avid reader since an early age, she has wanted to be a writer for as long as she can remember. She has been writing all her life, but only recently started to actually try to pursue her dream of writing for a living. She specializes in all things paranormal and that go bump in the night. Her heart truly lies in exploring unknown worlds or adding the supernatural to our world. If it goes bump in the night or has magical connotations, Sheri writes about it.

She is constantly putting out new material with various publishers, so it is best to keep up with her on her website www.sherivelarde.weebly.com.

In her spare time Sheri is an artist, jewelry designer, independent comic writer/artist and freelance non-fiction writer. Hiking in the mountains, going to live concerts, art openings, museums, and hosting intimate dinner parties.

 

 

 

I had a thought.

Really. :D I have been posting raw/early draft stories here for a long time. For various reasons, I didn't post the finished product. I have free reading on my website for people who want a bit more polish. And soon, I'll have books that have been polished and sanded by multiple people, until I feel like a limp rag trying to keep up with it all. I shan't be doing that as I've had it slapped into me, both cheeks and possibly some whip usage, that I'M BEING PUBLISHED. I can't put the raw stuff out there anymore. And it hit me. I'M BEING PUBLISHED. My breath hitches and heart races just typing those words.

I know I've been spouting excitedly about my book coming out July 6th :D *squee* And I have a story in the anthology coming out in August. And now, a short coming out in November. And working on a full length novel on an approved synopsis to another publisher. Have a short in an anthology with that publisher.

And YET, yet, I still feel like that woman, who, a little over three years ago, lost her job in a business she hated (insurance) only a year after radiation treatments for thyroid cancer, who decided that she was going to write. That she was going to the take time off from the work force (I still looked for work, but it was very rough in 2008) to write and perfect the craft of writing. *I'll pause and let my fellow writers laugh and gaffaw their heads off at this notion. You NEVER perfect the craft of writing. There's ALWAYS something new to learn.*

Three years later, I have a book put out on joint venture (needs more editing but as it's joint venture, I have to put out the money to fix the errors and if the book no longer fits the cover already made, would have to pay more, so... yeah. suck.) and really, it was a steal for the original price. Only 600, the POD, they gave me cursory editing ideas, and provided a cover. A gorgeous cover. It's available through Barnes and Noble, yada yada. Well, since then, I learned they are on the Writer's Beware Hit List, as well as Predators and Editors. I'm pretty sure I haven't been paid for all copies of the books that were sold. A lesson learned.

Er, back from the rabbit trail, I have put out an erotic, romantic thriller, and a Fantasy as self pubbed works. I have since edited them with some of my skills learned and will continue to edit as I find errors and apply new skills. I'm not changing much else, as I think they are important to my growth as a writer. I've had favorite authors and I've gone back and read early stuff. Sometimes, I didn't like it. Sometimes, I did. But always, I could see the growth.

I've also now got the afore mentioned stuff happening and about to explode. So why do I feel like a novice? I even told my husband, "Strange. I actually do have writing credits. I haven't counted them, even when there was a link to prove it. I don't get why not. It's not like I'm trying to hide it."

Even the joint venture is a writng credit. But three years ago, I didn't know how to put it. "Well, I didn't pay the 2-3 grand for vanity publishing, but didn't get an advance either." I did get a few royalties :-) and I don't HAVE to put out anymore money unless I want it to come out in a cheaper paperback form. I'm not going to cuz I think it would still be 14.99 or something. Maybe, I can do that later, after editing it, if I make a killing out of my later books :) It would be a work of love at that point. The cover really is beautiful. I had book signings in Yakima, Washington, and San Antonio, Texas. That makes it real to me. The stores bought the books and everything. I didn't bring my own copies.

So, with all of that experience, why do I feel like a nut job trying to prove she's a writer? Well, first of all, I'm the mother of five. Some would say that proves their case of the crazies. Second of all, I haven't made large amounts of money yet. Don't get me wrong, the times I've had that check, anything from $12 to $170, have been important and needed. And, I think it would take a long time of substantially larger checks, for me to catch up on medical bills, fix the roof, the floors, the bathrooms, the yard...you see where I'm going?

I think that no matter how much I make, I'm going to feel like that writer trying to prove herself. Underneath all the excitement, the feeling of validation (like waving the contracts in my husbands face) that it brings me to have a publisher publishing my stories, is the woman who still feels like asking, "What's a query letter?"

HA TWICE IN ONE DAY

LOL I'm so tired that my editing efforts have been useless so I've been reading some back blogs to try and catch up. As a result, I'm full of information, doubt, righteous anger and what ifs.

I decided to post a couple of those to you. What if you're writing a multiple POV book? I can here the dreaded word "headhopping" hopping around in your heads already. But really, if you're writing a book form omniscient or multiple POV you must have some transitions. I've heard everything from, "Make sure you put space here so reader knows it's a change of POV" (heard it from multiple writer friends) to you can't do that. You have to have new chapter, scene change, whatever.

I've also heard from some editing friends. Mostly, they say the key is transition, like dialogue. But then, you have all the writer wannabe's (including myself) reading books going "hey that's headhopping, how come they got away with it! or I can't read this book cuz I'm now in the 7th person's POV for the book.

What do you do if you're reading an Omnscient storyteller type book? If you have an all knowing narrator, you're going to know everyone's thoughts and feelings. Have we gotten so stuck on holding everyone in the craft to a list of rules, that we've forgotten how to enjoy a well crafted story? I took one such person's supposedly educated wisdom to heart that, I, who was in AP classes growing up, have a hard time staying in one tense because I radically and frantically worked too hard at taking "was" out of my vocabulary because someone's creative writing teacher told her was was passive voice.

I was new at the writing thing and enoungh years out of school to believe said person. They were wrong. Anyways, I'm working on it. Of course, it's not helping that I've spent months changing my mind about tenses in a particualr book I wrote (went from third person past tense to first person present to first person past. You try it. Change a completed 85k word MS from one tense to the other and see what happens!)

Then there's the self pubbed stuff going around about poorly written etc. Well, to my deep horror, I have published a version of Winds of Fire that wasn't the final draft and can't seem to find the final draft (after beta readers & final changes.) so I dropped the price on my books and offered a major coupon to the twitter followers. I may have to pull it for a bit since I started a job and I'm having MAJOR formatting issues with everything. I got to thinking. Everyone is saying, you have to pay for editors, etc. Well, most of the writers I know are not rich enough to pay the 2-5 cent PER WORD cost of a professional editor. We are all trying to help ourselves. In doing that though, a lot of, "you absolutely have to do it this way" is happening and when I ask my editor friends (which I got through following their blogs and participating in discussions!) will tell me the right way and I have to follow my heart on it.

Then there are people who say don't cuz you might get poor sales. Well, maybe. I've backed off on advertising when I found the errors (after a fit of crying) so I can fix them. But also, I'm selling the fun ones through indie means. Not that the ones I'm holding back are dull and boring (quite the opposite, in fact!) but the ones I'm self publishing are the ones that I wanted out there, but have decided that I no longer want to pursue traditional publishing routes with those particular books. I wonder how that will bear on things later? But since I'm querying a project that is not of the same genre, will it be a mute point whether the sales turn out good when I go back to hitting the advertising hard, or if I pull it from the market? They're not the same genre, just some books I've written.

And maybe I'm too tired to really see any of this clearly LOL Oh, and by the way, I don't LOL in my books or use much in the way of parenthesis, or say cuz. Those are cheats here as I'm lazy on the blog :D (Oh, and I don't put smiley faces in either, even though it's tempting since I'm self pubbing LOL)

If you've self pubbed, share why. If you now read books looking for errors instead of enjoyment, even if it's subconsciously done, fess up here!

I did a little pimping of my books on twitter last night. I have a book out, Rebellion on Piza 7 for those who are newcomers :D It's available through Barnes and Nobles and Amazon. It was released a couple of years ago, but I ahve a rather fond attachment to it. Go buy it on Amazon. The kindle is only 1.29 :D When I get a beautiful cover I shall up the price! (I kept copyright of the book but not rights to the cover!) I'm an artist, I should be able to do something...

Anyhoot, I'm looking at actual self-publishing for my sci-fi fantasy books and maybe a short romance line. I write so much and that's partly because I READ so much. I LOVE TO READ. I READ EVERYTHING. You will find two common elements in my books-relationships (not just romantic ones) and adventure/mystery. Adventure and mystery aren't typically classified together, but the adventures I mean are the unknown, the wild, the ones that you learn something while doing. It's like it's own mystery. So if a book has done those things real well, I'll read it regardless of its genre. I have a vampire horror story I just found that started as a writing exercise from one of the blogs I followed. I have a sequel to write. I have another sci=fi to write. AND I ALREADY KNOW THE NEXT GAL NOIR STORY.

I have a fantasy to edit, a Blaze type book to edit, a paranormal to rewrite, a thriller to edit (gal friday noir) and my devil story to edit. All of those idets are going to lead to publishing!! I have to decide which one(s) are going more tradition, indie or self publishing. So many questions and information to process.

And the opinions for/against each one!! I'd like to see some discussion for and against self-publishing, indie pubs and more "traditional" pubs. What's your take on the whole thing?

Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday. It is the middle of the business week. I have done very little writing this week. I've been playing. Working on my homeschool stuff and writing a paragraph here and there. I had trouble getting character from A to B without losing momentum. I did okay. Will have to up it a bit during editing process. Now I have a problem. She's at point B and there's a problem. Of course there's a problem. You can't have zombies without a problem or two. Somehow, I've lost the immediacy of the problem. It's all in one POV. Last few have been omniscient or at least 2 peeps POV. So now, I have to go be all different and do it from one person's POV. Wouldn't want things to get all easy now, would we?

So, as I'm stuck, I've done some playing with my friends, networking, and crocheting. Yes, I crochet, in case you missed that before. I sort of forgot that I hadn't done this afghan yet for my Husband's birthday, which is now past, so have some serious hooking to do...

*scratches head* something in that last paragraph is jumping up and screaming at me. Anyhow, I will have to get busy tomorrow, or do some serious editing so I can do a short excerpt on Friday :) I have decided definitively to self publish my sci-fi fantasy stuff and concentrate on the other stuff with agents. *Sigh* sometimes it's rough being so prolific. *runs and ducks from the flying books and laptops from the fellow writers*

I'm also an artist. I'm going to design covers and release two books stimultaneously, I think... in about a month, unless I can squeeze photoshop and website out of the budget friday...

Thanks to all the wonderful people who have supported me and the other authors we have in our community! I will be referencing back to the Feb 1 post to help those writers throughout the month. Please go support them as they work hard to put out quality...

Signed,

The Ellipsis Dragon Queen