GOING TO THE CONS

Oh this year I had a blast visiting the CONS like Balticon, ComicCon and I have FaerieCon and Katsucon coming up.

It’s a quick way to get my imaginative juices running, meet new people and have a good time. In addition it’s a fun place to do signings. Only problem is I usually purchase more than the profit I make from these events because the stuff they have is so unique and fun.

The prices to these events are reasonable and most of them let you bring younger kids for free.

BALTICON

I started doing this even about 2 years ago. They keep inviting me backa and my family and I love to go. I usually purchase all kinds of art, tidbits, books, and tshirts from this event. They also have some great talks. Not to mention I love seeing all the people dressed up and having fun.

COMIC CON (Baltimore)

This year was my first time attending this event. I got to meet Stan Lee (the lines were horrible). However, the costumes were awesome. The artist there were amazing, inventive and nice. I even met several indie comic book publishers that impressed me with their work. Not to mention the detailed figurines I saw there of all the Marvel heros.

FAERIE CON

This is for me and my daughters. I’ll be signing books here for a few hours, but mostly just evaluating if it’s a good fit for my books. Not only that – who can resist faeries? I can’t wait to see all the decorative Faerie wings and to purchase some figurines for my desk at work.

KATSUCON

Anime at it’s best. It’s a local event and I can’t wait to check this one out. Lot’s of artist, some people dressing up. Talks and interesting displays are to be anticipated. This event I can’t wait to check out.

SO ARE THERE ANY INTERESTING AND FUN FESTIVALS EVENTS YOU SUGGEST?

Colombiana - Movie Review

Fandango Blurb:
Cataleya, a young woman who has grown up to be an assassin after witnessing the murder of her parents as a child. Turning herself into a professional killer and working for her uncle, she remains focused on her ultimate goal: to hunt down and get revenge on the mobster responsible for her parents' deaths.

My Review:
Whoa! I really was surprised with this vengeance flick. The previews just irritated me with the line they played over and over again, "Never forget where you came from." And that's the one thing I can say was kinda missing in the film - I still didn't know where she came from. As far as depth of character, there wasn't much there. Like the love between her and her father. The grooming of her into an assasin and the stupidity of her leaving a calling sign for the people she killed on the side who murdered her parents. But, hey, it was an awesome ride of slick violence, great techniques and of course - a high body count. My husband and the other guy with us loved the flick. The ladies were even a bit impressed. I was impressed and can say that I turned my head this way and that at how this little slip of a lady was handling the killing business. An action packed, fast passed, revenge flick with a feminine twist. I give it 3.5 out of 5 orchids.

TAKING TIME TO PONDER HELPS

Well, I’m so proud of myself. I’m coming to the end of writing another new series. It took a lot longer than I planned. A whole extra 30 days more!

Eeek!

But you know what? That’s not always a bad thing. Even though I had a detailed outline of each chapter, and had replayed the entire story over and over in my head maybe thousands of times – it still wasn’t quite ready.

WHY SLOWING DOWN HELPED MY STORY

The extra time I took on this one piece of work helped me make it more unique, more detailed and definitely richer. It also gave me more time to research.

I believe that your writing time is like a writer’s own special cooking time. Some writers rush through the first draft and leave huge plot chuncks out to fix later. But I like to make sure that my plot is thoroughly flushed out in the first draft. That way when I send it out to beta readers they can concentrate on grammar, sentence structure, character development and big gotcha’s.

Now I must be honest in saying my natural stewing time puts me either at 3 months up to 4 months (like this last WIP) of actual writing time. But at the end of it all, I’ve created a much better woven story.

DO YOU STEW WHILE WRITING? OR ANYTHING THAT's MADE THE END PRODUCT BETTER?

The new generation - Guest F. Raushawn

Please welcome our Teen Guest, F. Raushawn, author of Spectrum, a free short story from Phenomenal One Press, www.phenomenalone.press check it out for free. Spectrum is also a feature short story in Bandits.



NEW GENERATION TAKE OVER

Why does it seem as though children in today’s age seem more technology savvy then, say the children before them? Why do your younger siblings always seem to excel at things that took you years to do? The reason is they are the new generation and the new generation has beaten the older generations from sports all the way to academics no matter what situation they always find at least one way to surpass your obstacles. Maybe it's because it's easier to improve from something that's already been accomplished rather than trying to think that big in the first place. The new generation is taking over but in a way we kind of need that improvement to make man kind better.

This new generation takeover has been going on since the beginning of time. Like a competition to do better than the person before you. I remember as a child I always wanted to exceed my older cousin in whatever sport or activity I played. This actually made me a better player and now I dominate in sports were he could not, thus successfully improving as the new generation.

Although I doesn’t feel good to be surpassed by a younger group being the older and wiser you have to accept it, because as humans alone we find ways to make things that once seemed hard easier to overcome. I know for a fact my younger brother will excel in places where I've peeked. I'll make sure of it. Which is why we live in the world we do today if nobody ever exceeded anyone else we would still be living in the stone ages. So if I have to take a hit to my pride in order for my future children to live in a better world then so, be it. Long live the new generations (ha-ha).

Fright Night - Movie Review

I have to admit it, I have a Vampire addiction. It's a secret one, and started long ago.

Fright Night is a remake of a Summer 1985 classic cult flick that I LOVED (okay, movie choices back when I was a teen was limited). It was one of these vampire flicks I'd watch over and over again.

Well, Hollywood decided to remake it ... and,



Here's the BLURB from IMDb:
A teenager suspects that his new neighbor is a vampire. (yep, that's all they said)

MY REVIEW:

Just so you know, I didn't have high expectations here and...well, the movie was just okay. It was however, an improvement over it's predecessor. This version had a twist like the movie Disturbia where the villain was handsome and a little more sadistic than the goofy vamp that was in the first flick. Not to mention this one had much better special effects. Charlie - got to love him, accidentally sees his neighbor, who is a vampire, bite a women. Then a dead body is found. This leads to his seemingly psychotic obsession with his neighbor being a vamp. And it all heats up from there. No much gore, but a lot of blood and blown up bodies. Teens would think it is just okay since kids nowadays like more brutal horror flicks. But my teen son gave it a 3 our of 5 fangs. I however, give it only 2 fangs out of 5.

Yay! I'm at the Baltimore Comic Con This Weekend

This is my first time going. But I heard about it last year and was like? Why didn't I know that's happening in my town. Now just so you know, my husband is a HUGE comic book fan (we happen to have over 200 comics that he hides away in our garage). So when I told him that STAN LEE was going to be there he was like, "I'm Going."



I'll be there giving out free books, and searching for an artist for my MG Graphic novel of Explorer X-Alpha.

But I'll also be getting an autograph from Stan Lee, and going to the costume contest which I hear is a hoot.

SO? HAVE YOU DONE ANY OF THE CONS? BALTICON? RAVENCON? COMICON?

Guest KL Brady an INSPIRATION

KL Brady, author of the BUM MAGNET, who went from self-publishing success to a dual success with traditional and self-pubbing stopped by my writer's critique group on Wed. to share the wealth

She talked about ACCEPTING CRITICISM, which is one of the first steps of becoming a great writer. Her completion of her novel in 4 months let to her submitting it to contest. She admitted that her work was far from ready and through months and months of revisions, ripped up critiques, she made her baby shine.

THE QUERY MAIDEN, she also talked about sending out over 150+ query letters only to get rejected over and over again before taking her plunge into self-pubbing.

Her journey as an INDIE Author/publisher kicked off through lots of hard work, endless marketing, staying up late nights. But it all paid off with awards and great sales.

EDITORS come a calling after she gained some momentum. Literally, she was approached by email then a call.

PICKING AGENTS then was simple since she was a sure thing.

Now she has an agent, a great book deal with Pocket Books, and is still writing. Her YA series hit the street as a self-pub endeavor, but who knows... soon that too may be picked up.

INSPIRATION was, "time waits for no one" and "never give up" is her mantra.

Check out her website and books: http://ping.fm/i9oAa

Places You'll Find Me.

Hiya!!! I'm on the road again.



Check out this pic I took on the Big Island in Hawaii.

WHERE YOU CAN FIND ME IN PERSON ...I'll be giving away books too!

Baltimore ComicCon (Sat and Sun) August 20-21st. I'll be giving away books and scoping out artist for my Graphic Novel for Explorer X - Beta.

Baltimore Book Festival (Sat) September 24th. I'll be doing a buy one get one free special and signing books.

NAIBA Fall Festival (Sat) My books will be displayed by MBPA (Mid Atlantic Book Publisher Association)

Collingswood Book Festival (Sat) October 1st. I'll be doing my buy one get one free special here also.

Central Pennsylvania Book Festival (Sat) October 22nd. I'll be doing the buy one get one free here, as well as giving out ebook coupons for free ebook copy of your hardcover book.

Virginia Library Association - (Sat-Sun) October 21-22. My book will be displayed by Association Book Exchange.

VIRTUAL VISITS

Kindle Daily - BANDITS is on display, Dec. 22 and 29th, see excerpt and it's on sale for $0.99 ebook.

The Soundry - Kindle Party! Tune in for reading of The Pack and sale of all my books in ebook format. 7pm Reading Sept 24

Bookstores should be like Netflix or swank playrooms

With the closing of Borders it makes me wonder if bookstores should change their business plans.

Netflix took the movie rental business by storm. So I figure maybe bookstores should start thinking outside of the box.

Find a need - meet the need.

So now with all the fun places to hang out closing, maybe the new age bookstores could be like....

THE BOOKBABE BUSINESS PLAN

A book system like NETFLIX and allow customers to pay a monthly fee to download books, stream books, or even have books sent to them (new or used). That way I would get all the new books I've been waiting for - sent to me on release day. If I don't want to keep the book, I send it back in with the prepaid postage envelop in good condition. If I want to keep the book, I pay an extra $2.00 fee to add to my library. Now, for those people that are ereader fanatics, I would love to be able to purchase those new pricey ebooks from my fav authors for a reduced price. Keep it to read it for a week before downloading my next one. Of course I don't mind if they take the book back off of my device when I'm finished reading it.

THE PLAYROOM BOOKSTORE


Well, there are still a lot of peeps that love to hang out in bookstores. Would be great if the bookstores had a kids playroom. Also, a swankie coffee bar - Starbucks top grade. Also, a book buying plan would be great where I can pay a set price for a number of books a month and have my fav books waiting for me when I got there. The place should be filled with great screens of streaming book trailers. Also, could have ebook parties where when you show up you get early dibs on best sellers.


SO YOU GOT ANY IDEAS ON HOW BOOKSTORES CAN STAY AFLOAT?

Rise of The Planet Of The Apes - Movie Review

IMDb Blurb:

An origin story set in present day San Francisco, where man's own experiments with genetic engineering lead to the development of intelligence in apes and the onset of a war for supremacy.

My Review:

I have to forewarn you I used to run home from school to watch The Planet of the Apes when I was a kid. But the truth was, I figured it was a far off planet in a distant galaxy. Well, this one was one my husband really wanted to see. Me, I didn't want to see it so much, but...I must say, I enjoyed it as a pre-qual to The Planet of the Apes. Now, you know though that Draco Malfoy kid from the Harry Potter movies was in this. But I must say, the best actor in the entire movie was...the monkey, Caesar. I actually fell in love with him. I identified with his struggle and I cheered for him. I took my kids also to see this one and we all agreed that although it got off to a somewhat slow start, it earned a 4 out of 5 monkeys because we just couldn't help but fall in love with Caesar.

If you want to see the first movie, Planet of the Apes, which was okay.

Guess What...You Don't Own Twitter

Now with twitter being a powerful tool for chatting, marketing, getting information and getting to know people, cattiness abounds.

I'm working with MBPA to start a twitter chat surrounding publishing and the small press publishers who are trying to get their hustle on. That means we will be using a HASHTAG #MBPA and would like for all that use it to only chat about like topics.

But you know what?.... WE DON'T OWN TWITTER so we can only hope that courtesy abounds when people play in the same space. What will we do if someone uses the hashtag that we decide to use (no we didn't purchase exclusive use of it, no we don't own it, no we weren't the first people to invent it...and we don't threaten to turn them into twitter police for being spammers if they are sharing content)

Well if someone uses the hashtag we create for our own marketing, communicating and promotional purposes, we'll ask them nicely and just go on. Why? Because....WE DON'T own twitter.

*wink*

So, when you set up a hashtag for your organization, business, promotional purposes. Give the same courtesy that you would like others to give you and realize that twitter is a place where everyone can hang out. Also, use of any word is the right of all that show up. Just have fun with it and don't take social media too seriously.

WHAT ARE SOME Social Media Possessiveness you've seen?

LA Banks, Best Selling Author of Vampire Huntress Series Passed Away

It is with a great, heavy and sad heart I share that, Banks died on August 2, 2011, aged 51.

She wrote romance, women's fiction, crime suspense, dark fantasy/horror and non-fiction. Her pseudonyms were LA Banks, Leslie Esdaile, Leslie Banks and Leslie Esdaile Banks.

HER AUTHOR PAGE IS HERE: http://www.leslieesdailebanks.com/about.php


I was awed to meet her when I recruited her for a spot as a chat guest on YALITCHAT and then she was so gracious to be a guest at the Maryland Writer's Conference in April this year where I got to meet her.

When she first saw me, she gave me the biggest hug and THANKS lil' ole me for inviting her.

SHE WAS A GIVING AND WARM SPIRIT OF A WOMAN.

Please support her family buy purchasing her book (She self-published her YA Series) and that money would go directly to her family.


HERE'S MY DAUGHTER'S REVIEW OF HER BOOK - SHADOW WALKER, NYIA




SHADOW WALKER Synopsis from Goodreads:

Set in a post-apocalyptic world following the Armageddon, in Shadow Walker, Sarah and the teenage children of the world’s Guardians of the Light must learn to hone their extra-sensory talents to one day join in the battle with their parents.

While they are secreted away in the Temt Tchaas Academy, (aka Neteru Academy), these students must learn to fight evil as well as learn to resist the temptation of fighting with each other. Although these young people have super powers, they still struggle with the same dramas and insecurities like any other high school student – and just because their parents may be superhuman doesn’t mean their parents are perfect. Far from it. That only makes life more confusing, as peer pressure, budding romances, decisions about whether or not to snitch, or whether or not to use one’s supernatural gifts for personal gain must be sorted out.

In this coming of age story, Sarah Rivera and her twin brother, Alejandro, must figure out when to use their wings or fangs, how to get along with their compound siblings, how to fit in with others in a huge new school, and perhaps most importantly, how to pick their battles to always fight for what is right.

NYIA’s REVIEW:

I’ve never read anything like this before. And I loved it! My mom got this on ebook for just $3.99 (she told me to tell you to pick it up on smashwords (http://www.smashwords.com/b/33128) and started reading it and loved Sarah. The kids talk in slang, which made the book really unique to me, and made the kids sound realistic. Sarah scares easy but doesn’t realize she is a Shadow Walker, one of the most strongest guardians there is to fight the evil ones. This world is filled with vampires, zombies, demons, werewolves and angelic mixes with magical creatures. It was very original and interesting enough to keep me read. There was a little bit of romance, but it wasn’t really a serious one like in most of the teen books. I would have liked to see more of that, but there was so much other exciting stuff going on in the book that I didn’t miss it not having the love triangle that most books have. I liked how Sarah grew into the hero even though she was scared so I gave this 5 out of 5 FIREWORKS.

HERE ARE SOME OF HER OTHER SERIES:

Crimson Moon

Vampire Huntress and Shadow Walker

Romances

J.K. Rowling Goes Rogue!

Quote from MBPA Newsletter:
"J.K. Rowling went rogue, bringing out the eBook versions of her bazillion-selling Harry Potter series as an independent publisher (and wiping out the indy pub stigma in one fell swoop -- Thanks, J.K.!)."

SAY WHAT?!!

This is what you get:


An interesting spin and ebook interactive format. YEAH BABY!

FINALLY the Harry Potter series will be in e-books!

You can get it in e-books and audio books with multiple languages being offered at Pottermore.com, it has it all social networking with a twist of computer gaming and an online store.

"You can't hold back progress," Rowling said. "E-books are here and they are here to stay."

No new Harry Potter series though. However, she is releasing an 18,000 word snippet of new material highlighting characters and settings.

Yep, she is selling the ebooks in the new slick format direct from her own site, not on Amazon but Rowlings says the books will be compatible with e-readers such as Kindle, Sony's Reader -tada and the iPad.