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Prep and Promo and Sales and Wheee!!!

Nominally, we’re on vacation this week.

Notice that I said nominally. In reality, I’m prepping for a Facebook takeover tomorrow, and more next week. I may have blog interviews coming up, and the big Cavalcade of Authors book giveaway is coming up the weekend of August 4th (click the picture to sign up for updates!)

My takeover schedule is as follows:

Tuesday, July 25th, 1PM Eastern — Tribe Called Success Literary Cafe

Friday, August 4th, 1PM Eastern — Laverne’s News

Saturday, August 5th, 1PM Eastern — One-Click Book Addicts.

There may be other events, so keep an eye on my socials!

There’s another giveaway for the month of August — the Brave New Worlds giveaway, which starts August 1st and comes with a chance to win a $20 gift card

As far as I know, Written in Water is still in the running for SPFBO9. I know the blogger who was assigned my book has read it, but I haven’t yet seen the results being posted anywhere — they apparently come through slowly, as each blog posts their reviews and which books are being cut and which are being named semi-finalists. It’s a little nerve-wracking, to be honest. But the Discord where the entrants hang out is a good place, and there’s congratulations and commiserations in equal measure where appropriate. (I’m hoping for congratulations when it’s my turn, but we shall see!)

While waiting for the shoe to drop for book 1 of Heir to the Firstborn, I’ve been working on book 7.

Balance of Power
Heir to the Firstborn
, Book 7

3401 / 90000 (3.78%)

And I have two new favorite characters — Tiras and Gannet. Tiras is Aeris’ Fire, and Gannet is her Water. The pair of them… well, take a look:

“Her Air and her Fire were a study in opposites — Gannet was both unusually pale and unusually big for an Airborn — his long hair was almost white, as were his feathers, and he was nearly as large as Aeris’ uncle Othi. His wingspan was twice Aeris’ own, and she didn’t think he was finished growing. Tiras, on the other hand, was outwither — presenting as neither male nor female — and they could only be described as delicate. At eighteen, they were the youngest of Aeris’ Companions, and as dark as Gannet was pale. They were stunningly pretty, and so slightly built that it seemed as though they would blow away in a strong wind. But looks were deceptive — Tiras knew more about fighting than the rest of them put together, and had proved it by breaking Gannet’s nose less than a week after the Heir’s Progress had returned to the Palace.”

A word on the above — Tiras is described as outwither. Outwither is a word that was created by Josie Giles, based on existing dialect and etymological patterns of word development in Scottish, and it means non-binary. There’s also a Scottish pronoun that I attempted to use for Tiras, but I could not get my brain around it and remembering the usage was slowing me down. I may go back in and change it, but that will be on the editing pass (the pronoun is thon, and usage dates back to the 1850s. Neo-pronoun? Not hardly!) For more information on outwither, check out this Tiktok, by a Scottish poet who is teaching and spreading the Scottish language as far and wide as she can.

This isn’t the first time I’ve used Scottish in Heir to the Firstborn — in Wings of Air, I use the word mirligoes, which is also Scottish.)

I know I said I was done with this universe, but it’s nice to see some old friends. And once this is done, then the series is DONE.

Stop laughing.

Posted by EASchechter in accountability, Adavar, appearances, Balance of Power, Boosting the signal, contest, facebook, giveaway, Heir to the Firstborn, promotions, WIP, wordcount, Written in Water, 0 comments

COLD!!!!

This morning, for the first time in nearly 17 years, I had to scrape a significant amount of ice off my windshield in order to go somewhere. Florida has forgotten how to Florida.

Thankfully, my office is the warmest room in the house in the winter (because of the sun positioning. The outside wall gets warm enough to make the wax in my wax warmer melt slightly.) I have writing gloves and fuzzy blankets if it gets cold enough that the room is chilly (which has happened a couple of times in the evenings over the past month.) So my office is comfy. And the words are flowing.

The White Raven: Morrigan’s Wrath
(The White Raven Duology, Book 2)

27510 / 90000 (30.57%)

I have reached the part of the book where my characters are going “Nope, the outline was wrong. We’re doing it this way.” Which happens in every book, so I’m not complaining. The villains are revealing themselves to be not the people I thought they were, and one of the characters who I thought was a villain has decided to redeem themselves entirely. Writing is being fun again.

I’m also on the final editing pass of The Chronicles of John Zebedee, which means that I printed the manuscript out and am going through it with a green pen. I’m waiting for the newest cover revision, which I hope will show up this week, and then I can start the preorders.

I think it was last week that I mentioned that I’m trying to split my week — the weekdays are for writing and editing, and the weekend is for admin. Part of admin is taking classes, and I took an interesting one on Facebook ads over the weekend, which introduced me to a nifty thing called Amazon attribution tags. If you use these custom links in your advertising, Amazon will track your conversions and spending so you can see which of your ads are performing best. It’s pretty neat.

Facebook DOES NOT LIKE THE LINKS. I started up an ad campaign with two ad sets of two ads each. (Four ads total). Each ad has a unique link generated by the Amazon attribution, and they all point to the Amazon page for the book.

Facebook kicked out all four ads because of adult content contained IN the URL.

Let me repeat that — FB THOUGHT THE URL WAS NAUGHTY!!!

They cleared the ads on review, but I foresee this being a regular thing — set up ads. Have the ads kicked out because FB thinks my URL needs a XXX rating. Ask FB what they’re smoking. Have the ads reinstated.

Here’s hoping the data and sales are worth the headache, and that FB doesn’t suspend my ad account because they think my finely crafted links are not safe for work.

Oh, and the best part? It wasn’t even an ad for one of my steamier books! This was an ad for Written in Water! Quite possibly the tamest book I have ever written.

Make it make sense?

Posted by EASchechter in annoyance, facebook, John Zebedee, promotions, The White Raven, WIP, wordcount, Written in Water, 0 comments

>Who exactly is the enemy here?

>I posted to Facebook the other day about Spirit Day. And a friend (Friend A) decided that my Facebook was the place to vent his rage at what he sees as an attack by Christianity on homosexuals. Another friend (Friend B) pointed out to him that he was painting Christianity with a very wide brush and that not all Christians were like that. I told Friend A that he needed to soapbox in his own Facebook, not in mine.

Friend A proceeded to tell me off, and then tell Friend B that yes, ALL Christians were TEH EVIL!!! At that point, I told Friend A that we were done, and he was not allowed to insult my friends. And I unfriended him.

He then sent me a message telling me that I was being unsupportive. 

Um…. no. I ripped him a new one, pointed out that he was acting like the hate-mongers who condemn all Muslims for the crimes of a few, and then asked him if he would like it if all SCA members were condemned for the acts of the idiot child molester up in PA.

His response? My choice, and if I chose to SUPPORT THE ENEMY, then he didn’t want anything to do with me.

I held back from telling him to grow the fuck up. Maybe I should have. But he’s been blocked now, and apparently, I’m now THE ENEMY.

Later, I’ll probably look at this and laugh my ass off. Right now, I’m too pissed. I’m gonna go write a fight scene now and try to cool off.

Posted by EASchechter in facebook, someone-is-wrong-on-the-internet, 0 comments