Page Turning Books

Why Independent Publishing Rocks

by Brie McGill

WWGD? What would Gutenberg do, if he could log onto Amazon and cruise around for books? (Other than, of course, be redirected to amazon.de to make a purchase.)

Love them or hate them, ebooks have dramatically reshaped the publishing landscape. I’m a diehard fan of the portable, apocalypse-proof hardbacks, but ebooks speak more to my budget. I only have Kindle for PC, but it has made me want to buy a reader, because I’ve since read a mountain of amazing texts not available in the local big-name bookstores.

When I finished writing my first book, Kain, I attempted to publish traditionally. I vowed to snag an agent. My manuscript was so polished I had to wear sunglasses to read it; I sleuthed the internet for tips like my life depended on it and spent nearly as much time crafting my query as I did my entire novel. I was ready to go!

A girlfriend of mine self-published. It was incomprehensible to me, doing all that marketing by myself. Plus, I didn’t have the guts to go out there, into the wild, all alone, with no one to back me up. And, wasn’t there a rumor that self-publishing “tarnished” one’s reputation, making it more difficult to snag an agent in the future? It’s the rumor that says, “An agent will see that you have self-published, give you the hairy eyeball, and say, ‘Well, why didn’t you come to me in the first place?’”

No one wants the hairy eyeball.

Bubbling with great enthusiasm, I launched a buck-wild querying bonanza. I found every appealing agent in every applicable genre for my book, studied their websites, studied their credentials, studied their blogs, toiled, sweat, and pored night and day over sending them the most graceful personalized introductions on the planet.

One, three, six, seven months later, that swathe of rejection letters came pouring in. It broke my heart, studying all those blogs, only to receive a “dear author” in return.

Now, I’m not railing on agents–I can only imagine the immense amount of work and pressure that comes with the job, wheeling and dealing with the big names. Agents receive something like 200 unsolicited emails every day. That many emails would drive me INSANE!

But this brings me to my point: right now, the publishing landscape is crazy. Bookstores are closing; a smaller environment means increased competition, with less agents willing to take on new authors.

Too bad for new authors!

To persist in an endeavor that would only bring certain heartache felt like clinging to a whimsical boyfriend who was never truly pleased: I sucked it up and went indie.

My neck was on the chopping block: it was up to me to secure my edits, without the help of the time-tested professionals. But I retained creative input on my cover. I stopped worrying about whether or not I needed to censor myself–writing queries felt like a dreadfully stuffy process, and I was not in my element. I realized I look better in my homemade robot suit than a blazer, slacks, and tie.

Traditionally published or not, there is no guarantee any author is ever going to make enough money to quit his day job–but the difference with independent publishing is, no longer do authors require the permission of someone else to at least try.

Ultimately, the entire process of me putting myself out there was rewarding, because it generated an incredible sense of self-empowerment. I started a project, set a goal, and saw it through every step to completion. I didn’t sell a lot of books my first month–I’m still quite new to the scene–but I did manage to pay my telecom bill, which was more than a stack of rejection letters ever did for anyone. I’m not famous, but a few total strangers chose to read my book of their own free will–my little old book, among so many others!–and they loved it.

If you love writing and have the burning need to share your stories, rain or shine–self-publishing might be for you. It takes guts to venture out into the wilderness all alone, especially the first time. But resonating with a readership, however small, is an incredible feeling–especially when it’s your heart and your magic, nothing else, that made it grow. I have so much to communicate and I want to share it now!

And I can. What would Gutenberg do?

Counting days is irrelevant in the life of a well-to-do man, unless he counts the days passed in total service to the Empire. Salute. Submit. Shut up and scan the wrist. Therapists armed with batons and brass knuckles guide the derelict along a well-beaten path to Glory.

When human experiment Lukian Valentin escapes the Empire to save his crumbling sanity–through a grimescape of fissured highways, collapsing factories, putrescent sewers–he realizes the fight isn’t only for his life, it’s for his mind. Torturous flashbacks from a murky past spur him on a quest for freedom, while the Empire’s elite retrievers remain at his heels, determined to bring him home for repair.

Lukian needs one doctor to remove the implanted chips from his body, and another to serve him a tall glass of answers. Lukian attempts a psychedelic salvage of his partitioned mind, gleaning fragments of the painful truth about his identity.

A scorching, clothes-ripping rendezvous with a mysterious woman offers Lukian a glimpse of his humanity, and respite from his nightmarish past. It also provides the Empire the perfect weakness to exploit for his recapture.

To rise to the challenge of protecting his new life, his freedom of thought, and his one shot at love, Lukian must reach deep into his mind to find his true identity. To defeat the Empire, he requires the deadly power of his former self–a power that threatens to consume him.

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Genre – Sci-Fi/Steamy Romance

Rating – R (18+)

More details about the author

Connect with Brie McGill on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://www.sexdrugsandcyberpunk.com/

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Chapter 1

"I, Walter Crofter, being of sound mind. . . ." Bah, this is garbage! I tossed my quill on the parchment sitting in front of me. People may question my sanity, but they should hear the whole story before judging me. I’m sitting here, now, at the age of 67, trying to write this down and figure out how to tell everything. I don’t know if I'll ever get it right, though. Too many secrets to go around. However, this is my last chance to offer the truth before I die. The doctors say it's malaria, yet I'll be fine. Perhaps. But if the malaria doesn't kill me, my guilt indeed will. Maybe if people know the facts surrounding my life, everyone will have a better understanding.

I dipped the tip in the inkwell again, and wrote:

I was born September 2, 1588, and named Walter. I didn’t belong in this Crofter family, who were storekeepers in London and not farmers as our surname might indicate to those who study this sort of thing. My parents were courteous and even obsequious to our patrons. Yet they received little or no respect. The ladies came to us to buy their groceries or the fabric for their dresses, but as seemly as they comported themselves, and some even called my father 'friend,' it was not out of regard for him. I was forced to run. Well, "forced" might put too harsh a point on it, like that of a sword, but others can judge for themselves.

By the time I reached the age of 12, I'd found another family that was more "me". They weren’t rich, but they were comfortable. The parents had several children, including a girl my age who was named Anna. Within two years, we had come to know each other quite well, and were getting to know each other even better. Her father caught us getting too close to knowing each other better yet, and showed up at my parents' house with a musket in his hand, telling them if I ever came near his daughter again, he'd use it on me--and then on them.

I paused to dip the pen and wipe my brow. Even though I was wearing a light cotton shirt, it was bloody hot in early August in Cadaques. My wife, Maria, entered the room and looked at my perspiring face and what I had just written. Between fits of laughter, she smiled at me with wide lips and said, "You can't possibly write this. You're not the only boy a doting father ever had to chase away. Nobody cares about this sort of thing."

"It will at least give a pulse to this writing," I replied. "It's too boring to say I left because I was mismatched with my own family, so much so that I was positive someone had switched me at birth. Or that I thought I was ready for more in life than what I could find at home. Nobody would read that, not even me."

"I agree, so tell the story that really means something. All of it." She sighed softly and placed the parchment she had been reading on the desk in front of me and kissed my cheek. The gleam in her eyes shed 20 years off her age and reminded me of a much gentler time. God, how much I love her.

I said, "Before I met you, I spent my life like a square peg trying to fit in a round hole. I’m just trying to make my story more interesting."

"I’ve heard the accounts of your life before you met me. Or I should say found me. It was anything but boring. So, if you insist on including in the story lines like those you just wrote, make sure they're the only ones. If you don't, I'll consider adding my own material." She winked. "You know I’ve had good sources."

She turned and walked away, laughing loudly as I called after her, "Yes, dear."
I dipped the quill and put it to parchment again.

In my earliest days, I remember my father, Geoff, being a bit forceful with other people. I also recall my brother Gerald, nearly five years my senior, and myself being happy. Or at least as contented as two boys could be who were growing up in the late 1500s in England, and working every day since their seventh birthdays. It was a time when boys were earning coin as soon as they could lift or carry things. The money could never be for themselves, however, but for the parents to help pay the bills.

Father lived as a crofter should. He was an upright man and sold vegetables off a cart like his grandfather did, and he also dabbled in selling fine fabric for the ladies of status.

One afternoon, when I was eight years old, my brother came home and got into a heated debate with my father about something. When I ran to see what was the matter, they hushed around me, so I never got the full gist of the argument. But whatever it was about, it was serious, and the bickering continued behind my back for five straight days. When I awoke on the morning of the sixth day, Gerald was no longer at home. And he never came back.

Soon afterwards, my father lost enthusiasm for his business and became generally passive. I assumed this was because of Gerald's leaving, and only on occasion would I see flashes of my dad's former self.

At the start of my tenth year, our family moved closer to London. We rented the bottom floor of a three-story building in which several families lived in the upper floors. My father said we relocated because he needed to be closer to more business opportunities. But my mom didn't believe he'd made the right decision, since he was now selling food out of a cart and not inside a storefront. One night, she greeted him at the door when he came home. She was wearing a frown and a dress that had seen better days.

"Did you bring in any decent money?" she asked him before he had time to take off his coat.
"I told you, it will take some time. It's not easy to make good money these days."
"Especially when you let the ladies walk all over you."
"I know, I know. But what am I to do when they aren't running up to me to buy what I'm selling?"
"You at least bring home some food for us?" My father had carried in a bag under his arm.
"It's not much, a few carrots and some celery." He handed her the bag.
"What about meat?"
"We're not ready for meat yet."
"That’s true enough," my mother said. "But you should at least try to feed your family. Walter's growing, and so are our other children."
"Leave me be, woman. I'm doing the best I can for now." He sat in his chair, leaned his head against the wall, and fell asleep.

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Genre – Historical Fiction/ Romance

Rating – PG

More details about the author & the book

Connect with Mike Hartner on Facebook & Twitter

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I’m glad I’m alive” Doris Louise Bailey, a teen in the Prohibition era, writes this sentiment over and over in her diaries as she struggles with a life-threatening bout of scarlet fever. But it’s also an apt summation of how she lived in the years following her brush with death. Reaching for the Moon: More Diaries of a Roaring Twenties Teen (1927-1929) contains Doris’s true-life adventures as she flirts with boys, sneaks sips of whiskey and bets on racehorses – breaking rules and hearts along the way.

In Portland, Oregon, she’s the belle of the ball, enjoying the attention of several handsome gents. In Arizona, she rides a wild strawberry roan, winning races and kissing cowboys. From hospital wards and petting parties to rodeos and boarding school, this older, more complex Doris faces the dawning of the Depression and her own emergence as a young adult with even more humor, passion and love of life than she showed in her earlier diaries. Readers of all ages will relate to her pursuit of true love, freedom, and adventure in her own time and on her own terms”

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Genre -Biographies & Memoirs

Rating – PG13

More details about the author

Connect with Julia Park Tracey on Facebook & Twitter

Blog http://www.thedorisdiaries.com/

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THE DOCTOR

Blood.  Lots of it.  Makes me kind of nauseous.

“Why would it make you nauseous?” you ask.  “You’re a trauma surgeon.  You’ve been on call half your professional life.  You’ve see it all; junkies overdosed, gangsters mutilated, accident victims maimed, abused kids, little old ladies all bloody when their wheelchair got rammed by some jerk that hadn’t seen them in the crosswalk.  What’s the big deal?”

I’ve never seen an angel all bloody.

That’s what gets me about this one.  Of course, she’s not really an angel; certainly no halo or wings or harp among her personal effects.  But there’s a glow coming from this 18-year-old, like she’s just descended from heaven or found true love or something.  Even as Frank puts her under, she wasn’t screaming or crying or carrying on, just smiling serenely, said something like “Don’t worry, I’m not dying tonight.”   I step back for just a second; the contrast between all that blood and that glow is just too stark.  Before I vomit, I assume my professional demeanor.

“What’s the story?”

“Gunshot wounds.  We've found two bullets, looks like more.”  Heather, the head trauma nurse, is already at work.  No one’s better at her job than Heather.  She could be making gazillions at Big City General, but hates the commute and the young buck interns that always hit on her there.

I check out the bullet wounds.  Both are remarkable in that they didn’t hit anything vital.  The first is a shot through the right bicep that missed the radial artery by a couple of millimeters.  Didn’t shatter the humerus either.  The other passed through the right deltoid muscle without touching the scapula.  I think maybe she is an angel, or at least has one watching out for her. 

“I found another one!  Aw, shit,” says Selena, the other trauma nurse on duty.  She’ll be as good as Heather in a few years.  She’s going to have to see a lot more blood before she gets there, though.  She still gets too excited.

I swing around the table and check on this wound.  Again, uncanny luck.  The bullet hit her in the left breast, but it must have been hanging ever so slightly down, because the bullet tore through the tissue in such a way that it hit nothing but the fat!  Just a centimeter or so in, and the thing would have taken out at least three major organs, including the heart.   “It’s just a boob shot.  She’s lucky,” I say without thinking.

Even Heather sneers at me for that one.

Thankfully, the bullet was a fairly small caliber compared to what we usually see in here.  Maybe from a cop’s boot revolver or some other such cheap .22 caliber pistol.

I start work on the right bicep wound.  The closure will be delicate—I’ll have to watch out for that artery.  “How’s she doing, Frank?”

Our anesthesiologist isn’t the best, but is certainly capable.  He checks his readings. “Stable…so far.”

I work on the closure.  If it’s tight enough, the torn muscle fibers should grow back together.  Maybe even as good as new one day.

We continue working.  Filtering through the door we hear Episode Number Uncountable of the continuing drama between our no-nonsense Head Nurse and her all-nonsense assistant, Nurse Jones.  Jones is the only true asshole in the whole trauma team at the Rural Town Hospital.  I suppose I should be thankful that there’s only one, but how can I?  Her grating voice is like skunk stench, permeating every corner of our department, making me suddenly want to regurgitate.  As if the bloody angel weren’t enough.

“We should call.  It's protocol.  You can't just not do it,” says the pudgy little pustule.

“Forget it,” announces the head nurse’s voice of reason.  “Look, the Suburbia cops got enough on their hands with that mall thing.  We'll call them later.”  She’s referring to some disaster at the Suburbia Heartland Mall, a place that’s become known for particularly grisly disasters of late.  Some diabolical killer is on the loose, they say, an invisible avenger feeding select young victims to the dogs, literally, and leaving what’s left of them out in various places to terrorize the throngs of shoppers during the Christmas rush.  Tonight, it seems whoever it is went on some sort of rampage, though details are sketchy.  It’s the reason we were all summoned; in case the hospitals in Big City and Suburbia become overwhelmed.   “He asked for the priest, for God’s sake,” continues the head nurse.  “They’re just a couple of kids.”

There must be a companion, I surmise.  Some brother or boyfriend, probably all freaked out and afraid the girl’s going to die, feeling guilty or maybe panicked at the thought of such an overwhelming loss.

“I’ve found another one—right shoulder!” says Selena.  Snaps me back to reality.

“Fractures?” It comes out of my mouth automatically, but I sense I’ve been distracted.  Such loss of focus can be fatal.

“Let you know in a minute,” she replies.

Suddenly, I notice my closure’s filling with blood.  Damn!  “Shit!  Sponges, ice, quick.”  Heather’s there.  We work together, she with the sponges and ice while I probe for the source.  It can’t be the artery.  It simply can’t be the artery.   I won’t be the first doctor to lose an angel on the table.

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Genre –  NeoGothic Horror / Thriller

Rating – R for violence & language

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Connect with Lee Tidball on Facebook  & Twitter

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What Lies Inside – J.L. Myers

Amazon Kindle US

Amazon Kindle UK

Genre – YA, Paranormal Romance

Rating – PG13

4.5 (4 reviews)

Free until 7 September 2013

Amelia Lamont never asked to unleash her inner vampire
Amelia’s normal teen world is shattered when a terrifying nightmare awakens the monster inside her. A newfound, insatiable thirst for blood that leads her to drain the school quarterback is only the beginning; she’s horrified to discover that her family and best friend Kendrick have been harboring the secret all along. And is the strangely alluring boy who seems hell-bent on curbing her murderous, blood-filled desires a friend, or foe?
To escape detection Amelia and her twin brother Dorian are forced to move to a new town, and the challenge of a new, exclusive high school where nearly every classmate smells like prey. Including the irresistible Ty, who seems hauntingly familiar, yet darkly menacing …
Amelia’s disturbing dreams and entanglement in a web of forbidden romance render her increasingly powerless against the chilling lies and secrets of vampire power struggles. And, as she soon discovers, vampire politics mixed with outlawed love can be a lethal cocktail.
Falling in love may just cost Amelia everything: her friends, her family...even her life

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She Does Not Fear the Snow – Bobbie Ann Cole

Amazon Kindle US

Amazon Kindle UK

Genre – Memoir

Rating – PG

4.4 (8 reviews)

Free until 8 September 2013

Bobbie Ann Cole’s inspirational memoir charts her personal journey to faith and redemption.
Broken by cancer and the failure of her marriage, she visits Israel, seeking direction and new meaning for her life. She has a profound spiritual experience in a Jerusalem church, where, as a Jew, she’s not supposed to be.
Her experience there marks the start of a chain of supernatural events, through which God reveals His purposes to her.
This transformational story of love, set on three continents, echoes that of biblical Ruth, who accepts faith in the Land of Israel and receives God’s blessing in the shape of a new husband of faith, a Canadian.

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Concetta depresses

an aluminum slat

of blind

with her forefinger and

gazes into the street,

numb to the snap

of solitude.

Bare feet pass

by her shoebox window

broken, at eye-level,

thriving on nude routine.

She stifles a yawn

and clicks her tongue

in the rear of her cheek

to deactivate

the alarm chip

embedded

into her cochlea,

illegally programmed

with thirty seconds

of her own voice.

The voice she had

before being sentenced

to a life

of silence

..............for wearing clothes

..........................and singing

a cappella

in an ‘instrumental zone.’

She wasn’t

even busking

that day,

but on route to

an interview

to be the Queen’s

personal music box.

The Queen

is a man

with five fingers and toes.

Newborns only have four.

She swallows

a build-up

of thyme-flavoured saliva

from the tea she drinks

to soothe her throat

and buckles

in pain.

The immune

assistants strapped her to

a chair, forced

her mouth

open

and slashed

her vocal chords.

Surgically

perforated

her eardrums.

The taste of toxic sweat

still lingers on her gums

even more than the memory

of torturers’ penises

rubbing against

her blindfolded face

and ejaculating

into her wounds.

Now

all she hears

is the numb rush

of water in her ears ...

fit to drown

in,

sink

in,

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Genre – Cyberpunk / Dystopian / Short Story in Verse

Rating – PG13

More details about the author & the book

Connect with Jessica Bell on Facebook &  Twitter

Website http://www.jessicabellauthor.com/

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