Solarpunk Short Story Sale!

I posted about this on Facebook last week, but I sold a short story to the forthcoming Solarpunk Creatures anthology by Worldweaver Press. My short story is called "The Colorful Crow of Web-of-Life Park," and it's about an escaped parrot, the parrot's former owner, and the crow that freed the parrot. The anthology will be published sometime between November and next February. I'll share additional details as they become available.

Sale on Smashwords!

 Draft2Digital acquired Smashwords earlier this year, but they just recently made it possible for their authors to distribute their books to that site. If you're familiar with Smashwords, you may know that they also hold sales twice a year around the solstices. From tomorrow (December 15th) through January 1, 2023, my books will be available for free on Smashwords. (Please note that ebooks are available on Smashwords only in the EPUB format.) You can find a list of my titles on Smashwords through my author page. Enjoy!

Murder at Magic Lake--Pre-Orders Up!

 I've taken the plunge and set up pre-orders for Murder at Magic Lake. The official publishing date is September 15th, three weeks from today. Pre-orders are currently only available for the eBook; I'm still waiting for the paperback cover from the designer, but it should be ready soon. Since this is a new series, I'm running a special promotion price of $0.99 through September 22nd. Click here for the universal book link. The eBook is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Apple, and Google Play. Here's the blurb:

After losing her job, twenty-nine-year-old Abigail Ritter isn’t looking forward to returning to her hometown of Magic Lake, Wisconsin, for her grandmother’s birthday party. All she has to offer her family is her own special fruit juice and tea blend. But when Grandma suffers a fatal accident in her apartment building, The Grand, Abigail’s cousin Brian is blamed. Abigail will have to step up and investigate with the help of her best friend Sam, an intriguing detective, and a magical stuffed fox named Sherlock. Abigail’s got a plan for the Grand and its shuttered restaurant, but will she solve the case or drown in a sea of suspects?

Sale at Barnes and Noble

I mentioned last week that one advantage of going direct to ebook stores is the ability to do special promotions. In fact, a promotion that I set up at Barnes and Noble just went live. If you buy one book in my Season Avatars series, you can get the second one half off. Since the first book is free, you can get the five-book series for about fifteen bucks. Here are the direct links:

Seasons' Beginnings
Scattered Seasons
Chaos Season
Fifth Season 
Summon the Seasons 

This sale goes through the end of September, so pick up some seasonal reading today.

Books in the Time of COVID-19

Whether you've been following the spread of COVID-19 since it first made the news or just realized its impact recently, we're all affected by it now. School is cancelled for my son, though he's doing e-learning this week. He was supposed to go on a class trip to Washington D.C. during spring break, but they cancelled it a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately, we got a refund for almost all the money we spent on it, so hopefully he'll be able to go next year. I'm not sure yet what my work schedule is going to be like, so child care may be a challenge.

Our local library is also closed, so I won't be able to pick up any more paper books until March. Maybe this means I'll finally start working on my pile of To-Read paper books. Of course, I have plenty of eBooks available through my Kindle account and library apps. Between books, crochet, and writing, I should be able to keep myself occupied at home.

Speaking of books, if you need something to read, I'm putting all my novels on sale. If they're not free, they're $0.99. This includes Ordinary Wonders: A Fantasy Short Story Collection, Twinned Universes, Seasons' Beginnings, Chaos Season, Fifth Season, and Summon the Seasons. Even my Season Avatars box set, which contains five novels and four short stories, is half off (normally $9.99, now $4.99). These links are universal, so you can go to your favorite eBook vendor.

Stay healthy, everyone, and we'll get though this together.

Birthday Sale!

My birthday is on Sunday, so I'm giving out a treat. All of my novels are sale-priced at $0.99 through Saturday, May 4th. Lyon's Legacy is a novella and still permafree. Here are the universal store links to the rest of my books:


Twinned Universes (sequel to Lyon's Legacy)


The Season Avatars series:

Seasons' Beginnings
Scattered Seasons
Chaos Season
Fifth Season
Summon the Seasons

Enjoy!

Short Story Sale--Specimen 1842

I've been sitting on this news for a couple of weeks, but now that the contract has been signed, I can officially make an announcement. I've sold another short story, this one to the Hidden Histories anthology to be published by Third Flatiron Publishing in April. My story is called "Specimen 1842," and it's about a genetics postdoc who finds some anomalies in an ancient specimen. More details will come as the time draws closer to the publication date.

The exciting thing about this sale is that this market pays at the current U.S./SFWA professional rate (which goes up from six cents/word to eight cents/word later this year), so this is my first professional sale. Hopefully there will be more in the future!

Book and Stocking Stuffer Sale!

Just a reminder that books make great gifts! I have copies of all the books shown here. I'll be happy to autograph them and send them either to you or directly to a recipient. Lyon's Legacy is $5.00; all other novels are $10. If you want to purchase an entire series, it's $12 for the Catalyst Chronicles (Lyon's Legacy and Twinned Universes) or $40 for the Season Avatars (Seasons' Beginnings,Scattered Seasons, Chaos Season, Fifth Season, and Summon the Seasons.)

I also have some pictures of my crocheted characters and lanyards. The characters are unique, but I do have more stock of the lanyards. The pterodactyl is $20, the other crocheted characters are $8, and the lanyards are $5. Cost doesn't include shipping.

If you're interested in any of these items, please e-mail me at
ulbrichalmazanATsbcglobalDOTnet. (Replace the "at" and "dot" with the appropriate symbols.)


 

Porg Lanyards for Sale!

Reposting this from my Facebook Solar Unicorn Stitching page. I'm not ready for Etsy or Shopify yet, since I have so many other demands on my time. And no, Pilot Porg (the model) isn't for sale!

Porgs are friends, not food. And friends do favors for you, like help you keep track of your keys, badges, or flash drives. These porg lanyards are made out of four layers of fabric and are about 18" long. They come with either gold (13 available) or silver (7 available) hooks. $10 includes shipping in U.S. paypal.me/smua70 Please either message me your shipping address or include it with your Paypal payment, along with your hook color preference.

World Book Day and Birthday Sale!

Today is not only the anniversary of William Shakespeare's death, but also World Book Day. My husband can confirm that every day is Book Day for me. It's a happy coincidence that I'd planned to announce the start of my annual birthday sale today. My birthday is this Saturday, so from now through next Monday (April 30th), Twinned Universes, Scattered Seasons, Chaos Season, Fifth Season, and Summon the Seasons are only $0.99 each. The Season Avatars Complete Box Set is also on sale for $4.99 (as opposed to the normal price of $9.99). Take advantage of this offer while you can, and I hope you enjoy the books!

Season Avatars Complete Box Set Now Available! (and Update on 2018 Goals)

 One of my goals for this year was to prepare a box set of the complete Season Avatars series. Despite some hiccups with formatting and cover requirements (special thanks to Maria Zannini of Book Cover Diva for preparing two separate versions of the cover), the box set is finally available on Amazon, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, and Apple. The set includes the prequel Seasons' Beginnings, short story collection Young Seasons, and the four main books in the series (Scattered Seasons, Chaos Season, Fifth Season, and Summon the Seasons.) You can find it at your favorite eBook store by using this universal book link. To encourage downloads and reviews, I'm offering the collection for $0.99 through next Friday, February 9th. After that, the normal price will be $9.99. That's still a savings over buying the entire series individually.

As for the rest of my 2018 goals, I've made progress by submitting one short story to an anthology, revising another to submit next month to a different anthology, working (slowly) on Dryads to Discover, reaching 1000 subscribers for my newsletter, sending out my first newsletter for the year, scheduling two ads and two Instafreebie book giveaways for February, participating in the Elgin Literary Festival, crocheting about a dozen Porg, trooping once, and reading fifteen books. Yes, I've been busy, but I have plenty of other projects to keep me occupied for the rest of the year.

Series Panel and Snowy Wings Publishing Sale!

I wasn't able to spend much time at the Elgin Literary Festival this year. My son had a friend sleep over the night before (so they got very little sleep), and since we had two other activities that day, I took my son home right after the series panel I moderated. There were three other local authors scheduled to be on the panel: my friend Lauren Jankowski, A.J. Pine, and Gregory Thompson. Keynote speaker Chuck Wendig was added at the last minute.

Overall, the panel went well. We covered topics such as why write a series, plotting a series, creating a series bible (which is done in some instances by traditional publishers), and marketing. There were about fifteen to twenty people attending, which isn't bad for an early morning panel. Since Wendig writes in the Star Wars universe, I approached him after the panel and told him I was a member of the 501st Legion and Midwest Garrison. He's familiar with them and their work and had noticed the Midwest Garrison hat my son was wearing. I didn't have a trading card with me, so I gave him a challenge coin instead. I didn't feel comfortable asking for a picture with him or an autograph for Alex.

Lauren is part of a publishing collective called Snowy Wings Publishing. She and some other members of the collective have books on sale this week for $0.99 through February 1. Here's a list of the titles:

Sere from the Green by Lauren Jankowski
Cheerleaders from Planet X by Lyssa Chiavari
Phoenix Descending: Curse of the Phoenix by Dorothy Dreyer
Let Me Fly Free by Mary Fan
Ballad of the Beanstalk by Amy McNulty

 I hope you check them out!

After Christmas Sale

 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!