It's hard to believe 2019 is halfway over, isn't it? Normally I post in early July about the books I've read so far for the year, but I'll wait until next week for that discussion. I should have some other writing news later this month. For now, it's time for another Insecure Writer's Support Group post. You can learn more about the group on their website and Facebook page.
This month, we've been asked the following question: What personal traits have you written into your characters?
I believe that I put a bit of myself into all of my characters, but I admit some characters feel more like me than others. Joanna from Lyon's Legacy shares my love of science and sense of humor. Gwen from the Season Avatars series (in particular, Scattered Seasons) is also a rather practical and intelligent woman.
Which of your characters is most like you, and in what ways? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
I'm trying a new marketing approach with my Season Avatars series. For a long time, the prequel Seasons' Beginnings has been perma-free, and the rest of the books have been priced at $2.99. I'm going to reduce the price of Scattered Seasons to free, at least temporarily. Since Scattered Seasons is more closely linked to the rest of the books than the prequel, I hope that by getting more people to read it, they'll continue with the rest of the series. While it's a straightforward process to set a book price to free on Draft2Digital, Amazon has yet to price-match. I reported the lower price twice already, but I'd appreciate it if more people could help out. If you haven't reported a lower price to Amazon before, here are the steps:
1. Go to the Scattered Seasonspage on Amazon.
2. Scroll down past the Product Details until you see "Would you like to tell us about a lower price?"
3. Click the hyperlink and select "Website."
4. Paste in the address of the Scattered Seasons page on another store. It can be Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or Apple.
5. Enter 0.00 for price and shipping. You don't have to change the date.
6. Click the "Submit feedback" button and close the pop-up window.
Thanks for your help, and please feel free to download a copy if you don't have it already.
If you like either women's fiction or fantasy, then I have 101 choices for you. There's a giveaway on Instafreebie called Where Women Rule running through July 3rd where you can download a copy of Scattered Seasons (if you don't already have it) and a hundred other books, including Hereafter by my blogging buddy Terri Bruce. I have to check out some of the other books myself, so I hope you will too!
Lady Gwendolyn lo Havil is an Ava Spring, born to heal
others and lead the Season Avatars of her generation. Season Avatars with
divine magic must work in groups of four to save the country of Challen from
Chaos Season, times when all of the seasons appear at once. When the current
Ava Spring dies in a riding accident, Gwen must find the other three Season Avatars
she will link with. But two of them are
missing, and with Gwen's own magic crippled by a cursed pottery shard, she will
have to use all of her skills to find the Avatars scattered across the country
of Challen. During her journey, she meets a stranger who claims to know the
shard's origin. Is he truly an ally of the Season Avatars, or is he trying to
stop them from uniting?
One of the ways I've been promoting Scattered Seasons is by giving it away on Instafreebie. Currently, it's part of the Fierce Hearts: Women of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Group Giveaway. This event runs through the end of the month and features over 130 free books. Even if you already have my book, check out all the other ones available! You just might find a new favorite book or author.
George Harrison's birthday is coming up in a few days--but exactly when is it? For most of George's life, he thought he was born on February 25th, but family documents later shown he was born on February 24th--at ten minutes to midnight. However, if you look at official online biographies for George, they all list February 25th. I guess the best thing for a devout Beatles fan to do is hold a two-day celebration for George.
While there are real-life instances where someone claims to have been born in a different year, I'm hard-pressed to think of an example where someone changes the date. The best example from fiction I can think of is from my own work. The mother of one of the Season Avatars deliberately registered her daughter with a false birthday to hide her magic potential from her father. (More details are available in Scattered Seasons.) I suppose other fictional reasons for hiding one's true birthday would be to change when one is or isn't ready for school or the draft. It could also be part of a larger plan to disguise one's identity.
Have you ever come across someone who found out later in life that they'd been celebrating the wrong birthday? If you had the chance, would you want to move your birthday, and if so, why? Feel free to share in the comments.
If you celebrated Christmas or any other holiday this month,
I hope it was an enjoyable and meaningful experience for you. I have some news
that I hope you will enjoy. For the final week of the year, all of my novels
that regularly sell for $2.99 are only $0.99. This includes SF novel Twinned Universes and fantasy novels Scattered Seasons, Chaos Season, Fifth Season, and
Summon the Seasons. Prices are good on all eBook platforms and through 1/1/18.
Please take advantage of this offer while you can!
There's so much exciting publishing news for the fantasy Season Avatars series today that I feel I ought to do something special to celebrate. I had considered taking today off work (I still have weeks left of vacation), but since I was out Thursday afternoon and Friday with a cold, I need to catch up. As long as I get to do something with my family, that's celebration enough for me.
Anyway, time for all of the announcements:
Summon the Seasons officially went live this morning to conclude the series.
Kay might be the youngest, smallest, and least confident Season Avatar,
but her weather magic makes her the most powerful of her group. Now that
she also can contact the souls of dead Avatars, her quartet has a
chance to end Chaos Season permanently. All Kay and her sister Avatars
need are three more bones.
To obtain them, Kay’s quartet must
travel across Challen, evading the King’s Watch and Selathens who want
to protect their demigoddess, Salth, creator of Chaos Season. Kay’s
deepest beliefs about her God and her longtime rival, Dorian, will be
challenged during the trip. If she loses her faith and newfound courage,
she will fail, and the rest of the Season Avatars with her.
I don't have an extensive blog tour planned, but I have a guest post up on Catherine Lundoff's blog about making a Victorian-like setting more feminist. An additional posts is pending for Alex J. Cavanaugh, but I missed the date for Pat Dilloway's post. Sorry again, Pat! That was completely my fault.
The country of Challen depends on its Season Avatars to tame a recurring
storm that mixes up the seasons. A quartet of magic-users, each with a
different type of magic, reincarnate with skills and memories from
previous lives but face new challenges whenever they’re reborn. Now, a
child faces a healing task that would daunt someone much older. A
fourteen-year-old is pursued by enemies in her sleep. An animal lover
must protect her kitten from her disapproving family. An impatient farm
girl tries to get the attention of her true love, only to have the wrong
person respond. Before Gwen, Kay, Ysabel, and Jenna can come together
as Season Avatars, first they must survive independently as Young
Seasons.
A short story collection set between Seasons' Beginnings and Scattered Seasons. Includes an excerpt from Scattered Seasons.
Speaking of Scattered Seasons, it's on sale through next Monday for $0.99. (It's on sale at other sellers besides Amazon, though it may take a couple of days for the price change to become effective.)
Lady Gwendolyn lo Havil is an Ava Spring, born to heal others and lead
the Season Avatars of her generation. Season Avatars with divine magic
must work in groups of four to save the country of Challen from Chaos
Season, times when all of the seasons appear at once. When the current
Ava Spring dies in a riding accident, Gwen must find the other three
Season Avatars she will link with. But two of them are missing, and
with Gwen's own magic crippled by a cursed pottery shard, she will have
to use all of her skills to find the Avatars scattered across the
country of Challen. During her journey, she meets a stranger who claims
to know the shard's origin. Is he truly an ally of the Season Avatars,
or is he trying to stop them from uniting?
Part of the reason I chose today to release Summon the Seasons is that it's John Lennon's birthday. I consider John my "patron muse," and the Beatles inspired the "Fem Four" of the Season Avatars series. So there's only one way to go out, and that's with a Twist and Shout!
I've decided I need to be a better marketer (among many other things), so I'm setting aside some time each Monday evening to work on it. Part of that will be updating my newsletter subscriber list on Mailchimp. (I use Instafreebie to distribute a free copy of Scattered Seasons to new subscribers, but for some reason Instafreebie doesn't automatically send the e-mail addresses to Mailchimp, even though it's set up to. I'm going to try changing something to see if that helps.) It can also be time for writing blog posts, especially guest ones; planning sales; buying ads; and playing around with Adobe Spark. (This is a free online program that allows you to make images, videos, and other social graphics. I plan to make graphics with lines from my stories and share them.) More ideas will probably come to me with more experience.
Do you do marketing on a regular basis? If so, what do you do? Feel free to share in the comments.
Challen has a single university in Wistica, open to men and women from all walks of life. Although the Season Avatars don't attend, the university is the setting for a couple of scenes in different books. In Scattered Seasons, Gwen and Jenna first meet Kron at a lecture he presents on ancient civilizations. Ysabel, Kron, and Jenna attend a different public lecture during the opening of Fifth Season. Later in the same book, Ysabel has a key insight while touring the university's zoological collection.
The Hall of Records is one of the government buildings in the capital city of Wistica.It holds birth, death, marriage, and property records going back hundreds of years. If you know Season Avatars are the only people in Challen to be born on the first day of a season, then you can learn their names and addresses by searching the birth records. At least, that's what Gwen thinks when she visits the Hall of Records in Scattered Seasons. Unfortunately for her, it's not that simple....
P.S. Scattered Seasonsis on sale for $0.99 through this Friday, 4/14.
Lady Gwendolyn lo Havil, or Gwen, is the oldest Avatar of her quartet. She's a Spring Avatar, which means she's gifted with healing magic and can establish a link with other Avatars by touching their skin. Not only can they share thoughts, but they can also share magic through this link. This link is vital for taming Chaos Season, since it allows each Season Avatar to obtain enough magic to restore the proper season.
Gwen's mother died in childbirth, so Gwen grew up an only child of a nobleman. She's well educated, a natural leader, and an artist. However, her self-confidence can shade into arrogance (which she uses against those who disagree with her). She's also a perfectionist, driven by duty, and deep down, reluctant to marry and have children to ensure the succession of her family's estate. As if that wasn't enough, she has a love-hate relationship with Jenna, the Summer Avatar in her quartet. When they get mad at each other, it throws the entire quartet out of balance.
Gwen is the heroine of Scattered Seasons, the story of how she and the other members of her quartet find each other, and an important secondary character in Chaos Season and Fifth Season. Scattered Seasons is on sale through next Friday for $0.99.
Happy first day of spring--and Happy Birthday to my character Gwendolyn lo Havil, the Spring Avatar! It's supposed to be warm but rainy by me today. I hope you have better weather for your vernal equinox.
With spring here, April isn't far behind, and that means the A-Z Blogging Challenge will start next Saturday. Yesterday was the official theme reveal. I realized that in the evening, so I decided to share my theme today. (I normally don't blog on Sundays.)
My theme this year will be my fantasy Season Avatars series. There are currently four books available: Seasons' Beginnings, Scattered Seasons, Chaos Season, and Fifth Season. Each day, I'll discuss at least one character, place, or idea important to the series. There will be sales and possibly some giveaways during the month, though I haven't worked out all the details.The posts are all written and scheduled, so I should have time to visit plenty of other blogs during the month. Hope you'll stop by Monday through Saturday to learn more about the Season Avatars series.
