Summer Update, 2019!

So wow, okay. Lots to share!

I'm happy to report that the backmatter of HONOR AMONG ORCS's paperback is now updated and live, so if you were holding off for that, it's ready for your purchase! Enjoy!

I've been on kind of a short story formatting spree, to get some content going for my Patreon patrons (Thank you, Patrons!!!) and I've released Frost Bitten, Twice Shy for your reading pleasure! It's just 99 cents right now but it'll go up to 1.99 before the end of August. It's also available in WIDE release so if you're not a kindle reader, I've got you!

Available NOW to Patreon Patrons is another short story, Refuge, which will remain Patreon exclusive for likely the foreseeable forever--but the good news there is that for just $1 a month, you can read it as a blogpost, along with Frost Bitten, Twice Shy, AND my take on Samson and Delilah, Favor of God, which I just released for Patreon Patrons as well! Not going to lie, I am kind of in love with all three of these short stories and have been for a really long time, so I'm excited to be able to share them finally.

(If you bump that 1 dollar a month up to 5 dollars a month, you'll get all three as epub/mobi files, right now, too--for a limited time! Favor of God will go kindle exclusive after August 15th!)

Coming in August for Patreon 5 dollar Patrons (ThorsBFFs) first: ENDURING FATE, a NEW Fate of the Gods novella which tackles Eve's life in the ward during the early 20th century. It should be read as book 2.75 in the series AFTER Fate Forgotten! Patrons also got to see the cover art first, but today is the day I'm revealing it to the rest of the world! Are you ready?

Kindle Pre-Order!

For everyone else, Enduring Fate will release in September! Huzzah! [Kindle Pre-Order Go!] It's going Amazon Exclusive for the near future, so if you want the epub, Patreon is really your best bet in the shorter term. And during the first two weeks of August, if you Patron in for 5 dollars, you're basically getting two free short stories for the price of Enduring and Favor if you were going to buy them on Amazon later! So. It's not a bad deal!

(No hard feelings if you sign up as a 5 dollar patron on August 1 and cancel or drop to a 1 dollar level before the end of the month, either! I feel you.)

But listen: 
Enduring Fate is a tough read. It was a tough WRITE for that matter--which is why even though I wrote a goodly portion of it in 2010 it languished on my hard drive for the last 9 years. TW: This novella contains miscarriages, verbal and physical abuse, suicidal ideation, self-harm, discussion of abortion, the grossness of eugenics generally and forced sterilization specifically.

Please read with care and consideration for your own mental health. I think it's important because so few people understand our own history of Eugenics in America, and how our love affair with it directly influenced the atrocities of WWII, and it was definitely an important story for me personally, for other reasons in addition. But. It may not be the best read for all of you, and I don't want to do any of you any harm in sharing it.

Okay?
Okay.

I'm holding off on the paperback edition of this novella for the moment because I am over 40K deep in another Fate of the Gods was-supposed-to-be-a-novella-also contemporary prequel to Forged by Fate, exploring how Eve and Garrit actually met and got together, and I'm leaning toward packaging them together as a paperback edition instead of doing two smaller volumes. If there is an outcry from readers demanding a paperback of Enduring Fate alone, I'll be happy to change my mind, so do let me know if your feelings on this subject are strong!

I think that about covers it for the time being! Still no newsletter because I still don't have a PO Box (Author Amalia is extremely broke) but I'll continue to keep you updated via the blog, Patreon, Twitter, and Facebook, so check back often!

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Amazon | Barnes&Noble 

Amazon | Barnes&Noble

HELEN OF SPARTA available NOW for Kindle First Readers!

Helen of Sparta has been selected for the Kindle First program -- and that means you can read it NOW, before it's Official Release on April 1st!!

So! If you've been dying to get your e-book reading paws on Helen of Sparta, head on over to Amazon to learn more about Kindle First, and grab your copy! Read it! (And hopefully also review it!) this month. With your help/purchase/review love, maybe Helen can roll into her April 1st release at the top of the charts!

Amazon | B&N | Goodreads

And all the hype aside, when Amazon called to talk to me about including Helen of Sparta in the Kindle First program, I was beside myself. (And there's a whole other post to be written about how publishing is hard leading up to Helen's sale, which I won't get into now, but believe me, it was an intense journey.) That Helen has come this far feels like a dream come true, and I would be truly remiss if I did not thank PROFUSELY my editor, Jodi Warshaw, for being such an amazing champion for Helen's story. (She has totally been the Theseus to my Athens!)

I hope you all love it as much as we do!

Long before she ran away with Paris to Troy, Helen of Sparta was haunted by nightmares of a burning city under siege. These dreams foretold impending war—a war that only Helen has the power to avert. To do so, she must defy her family and betray her betrothed by fleeing the palace in the dead of night. In need of protection, she finds shelter and comfort in the arms of Theseus, son of Poseidon. With Theseus at her side, she believes she can escape her destiny. But at every turn, new dangers—violence, betrayal, extortion, threat of war—thwart Helen’s plans and bar her path. Still, she refuses to bend to the will of the gods.

A new take on an ancient myth, Helen of Sparta is the story of one woman determined to decide her own fate.

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Buy Now:
Amazon | Barnes&Noble

How I Read: Ebooks vs Paperbacks

Disclaimer: This is not a post written to say "ZOMG PAPERBACKS 4 LYFE!" this is just a post talking about the difference in how I personally read in switching back and forth between paperback and ebook. And for the record, I would like to say, I definitely think ebooks rock and have their place, and nothing beats the kindle/ebooks for reading on the go.

I love books. I love to read them and I love to write them and there is nothing more enjoyable to me than a well-written book with a rockin' story. Anything that allows people to read more is a good thing, and I am pretty sure that at this point, I couldn't live without my kindle. But when I'm shopping for and reading an ebook? I'm definitely doing it differently. MUCH differently.

When I buy a new paperback, it goes into the pile of books on the broken record-player in the dining room, next to my CDs and convenient to pretty much every room in the house. I walk by this pile an UNCOUNTABLE number of times each day and each week. The books stare at me, and I am reminded of what books I have left to read, and what each book is, by the cover. I move through this pile at a very steady and reliable clip. And even if the book is bad -- if I think it's less satisfying or more frustrating than I'd like -- 95% of the time, I finish it. IF it's a paperback. Maybe it takes me a week. Maybe it takes me two. Maybe I read other books while I'm working through that "bad" book. But I finish it.

When I buy a new ebook, I hit one-click on Amazon, and I don't even bother to turn on my kindle to download it immediately. In fact, the next time I turn on my kindle, I might not remember to turn the wireless on to download it then, either. When I finally do, because my kindle is old school, I get a title and an author and a little superscript that says "new" on my first page. By this point, unless the author is a friend, I have no idea what book I bought or anything about it beyond that title. Maybe if it is an author I am a big fan of, the title will make me go "oh yeah! awesome!" but most often, the title makes me go "um?" and I page past it to the book I turned my kindle on for the purpose of looking at. (Mostly this is the current ARC of my own book that I'm proofing, to be honest with you.) The exception to all of this is when I'm going on vacation -- at which point I carefully peruse my kindle to be sure there are enough books I desperately want to read to see me through my travels. Most often this means I buy a few more to displace the titles that no longer hold any meaning for me -- the ones I've forgotten why I bought.

I can count on one hand the number of PAPERBACK books that have been so bad that I've put them down and walked away and given up on ever finishing them. I *remember* every paperback book which provoked this response in me. One I went back and finished because I'm a stubborn jerk and it was set in classical Greece and I didn't quit on it until the last 40 pages. One I tried to finish reading but still could not bring myself to do it. A third is still half finished and is awaiting its second attempt -- and I absolutely will finish it one day, I can almost guarantee it. The fourth is never getting a second chance because I didn't even get past chapter 1 before the writing turned me off completely.

4 books total in paperback, since I started paying attention to this kind of thing in 2009 or so.

Ebooks, I can't tell you how many I've started and stopped. WAY more than four. If the book doesn't grab me in chapter one, I close it out and go looking for another. I don't often return to these books to give them a second chance. I forget that they exist. They get pushed back by the new books purchased and disappear from my consciousness. I don't often page beyond the second page of my books, looking for something to read, when I page through looking for something to read at all. Some of them, I never even open to read the first page. I don't remember what they're about and I don't have wifi or battery to click through to the book description on their amazon page. This *never* happens with a paperback book. If I forget what its about, I can just flip it over and read the back of the book summary. Bam. Done.

Now, maybe this read-to-completion ratio is in part caused by the fact that I put more consideration into the book I'm buying when I buy a paperback. Because I do. If the pricepoint on an ebook is 1.99 or 99 cents, I will throw away the money (always gift card money. I don't buy ebooks with anything but money I received in giftcard form from someone else) without really thinking too hard about it. "Oh, it's only 99 cents, I'll give it a chance." Except I don't give it a chance, it just gets lost on my kindle. When we get to books that are 2.99-5.99, I give them a little bit more thought. 2.99 is more likely to warrant an impulse buy "give it a shot" but above that, I get serious. I read the reviews. I weigh what friends have told me about the author/series. Any ebook priced above 5.99, if it's available as a mass market paperback, I don't buy as an ebook. If I want it that much, I buy it in paperback. If it's only available as a trade paperback,  I have to *really* want the book. And 9 out of 10 times, if I buy it, I buy it as a paperback. Because if I'm spending 6 bucks, I'm committing to reading it. And I can't commit to reading anything I buy in ebook. UNLESS, I'm buying it to read on vacation. At which point I choose very carefully what I'm buying, and insta-paperback-purchase price point might be more negotiable.

But it's worth noting that I still travel with paperbacks in ADDITION to my kindle while on vacation. Every time.

I guess we'll see how and if any of this changes going forward. But in the meantime, do you read and shop differently for ebooks vs paperbacks? Tell me if I'm not alone or if I'm the weirdo, in the comments!