I love old Spanish Days in Santa Barbara. I've been going to them every August my entire life. Only the older I get I move farther and farther up State Street away from the beach  and into the less rowdy more chill areas to enjoy the festivities. At the rate I'm going in another ten years Fiesta will have to be at my house.

But I still love the feel of community and the familiarity of something that's been a constant in my life. I may not dance on the beach, all day and all night, in a bikini and sarong with margarita in my hand any more but I still like to visit this wonderful frozen in time reminder of when I was young

The only part of the five day fiesta that has changed over time is me. But that's Ok.  It's the way life is supposed to be.

I sent a query off 4 months ago to a New York Agent, and frankly I've been having so much fun with my wonderful author gal pal self releasing my books I forgot that I did it. Then into my email I get a note saying that she really enjoyed The Girl on the Half shell, but she can't represent self-published books. If I have anything else, please send to her.

OK, I'm the crazy lady with 24 finished unpublished books. I wrote back: I have 24 completed is there anything in particular you're shopping for?

She went to Amazon and read my author bio. Return email: Holy Moly, you do have 24. I'm capped out. I can't take on that much work, but send me an inventory and I'll take it to the main agent, the owner.

So last night I spent hours writing 24 short synopsis and an inventory of work. It was a little scary when I saw it on paper. Did I really do all that while working and raising my girls. I didn't even realize what it would look like on paper. But anyway off it went at five in the morning.

I'm dancing on clouds today. It's not because I think something will happen. It's because I enjoy the journey and if there is a touch of magic sprinkled along the way, it makes it all the better. Even if she passes on all 24, today was a pretty fine day, and I've still got my marvelous author gal pals and I'm still releasing two novellas in August and someone read and liked my work today. Heck, four months ago I didn't even know how to write a query and the wonderful Morgan Richter taught me that. I feel like I'm "winning" just by having met so many marvelous young women authors! I'm laughing on my journey and enjoying it thanks to them! Laughter is a marvelous thing....

I affectionately call where I live Walton's Mountain; well, as close to Walton's Mountain as you can get  on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Santa Barbara. It is very rustic living. I have creatures of the forest--coyotes, bobcats, hawks, quail, bunnies and squirrels-- and I have interesting neighbors. Always something stimulating to watch and the perfect kind of beautiful quiet setting to write...except last weekend.

Was planning to make progress on all my WIP projects, but things just turned into chaos. First the bobcats returned for the first time this season. That made all the creatures of the forest uneasy including my house pets. I had cats eating dog food, dog eating cat food, one cat eating nothing and one cat outside eating everything it could kill.

Then last night we had a hodgepodge of animal conflict: bobcat fight, coyotes howling and disturbing neighbor horses, and very nosy owls. I was worried about the horses next door so I jumped out of bed and there over the ocean was the most extraordinary lightening show. I've never seen anything like it. It went on for hours. Brilliant bright and yellow explosions, sometimes like swirling orange clouds and other times gigantic bolts falling from the sky into the Pacific.

Guess I should have taken heed of the animals and known something was going to happen this weekend. They usually are the first warning. Except, I've never seen anything like last night's lightening storm.  It was not even on my possibilities list.

Like a lot of people, I've been fascinated by imagining the process of turning 50 Shades into a movie. It's so provocative. How will they show all that? I was really pleased when the trailer came out, because of how beautifully done it was. Just a whisper of sex, always the most stimulating, since the imagination is the most powerful erotic tool in the body. That's why women read romance novels and that's why this trailer whispers: it's target market is women.

While graphic sex has it's place in writing and film,  I do enjoy the whisper of sex as well as the shout...leaves me something to  imagine, consider, to see through the lens of my own mind. I do find it ironic though that the most sexually graphic book I've ever read used a whispering movie trailer in its want to lure women into theater seats.


Fifty Shades Movie Trailer

My favorite passage from the Bible. 1 Corinthians good stuff...and the greatest of all things is love. I think that's why I write romance and I think that's why my characters are not always perfect people. I believe int he healing powers of love. I've certainly known plenty of people with perfect little lives who have lived Happily Ever After, but I more fascinated by the messed up people who manage to create their own happily ever after.  Their journey is more complex, their struggles more heart-wrenching, their triumph more inspirational.


Don't people with issues deserve a good love story and a HEA? Today my happy happily ever after book, The Signature, is outselling my gut-wrenching happily ever after book, The Girl on the Half Shell. But there will always be a special place in my heart for my struggling characters in Half Shell. Alan pretty much is my favorite hero. Whenever I see people truimph over their issues and live happy lives I think of 1st Corinthians 13, and think, it's true, it's true...

I think I'm going to like the movie better than I liked the books. I liked the books, but letting Hollywood get it's twisted paws on it will only make it more...oh my!

I haven't watched any of the hoopla about the movie casting so this is the first time I've seen the screen image of Anna and Christian. I was surprised. Not at all what I visualized, but very nice.

I'm still wondering how the devil they're going to rate that movie, how much they can show about the Red Room of Pain, and if I have a snowball's chance in hell of getting my husband to see it with me. That one is a little dicey. If he figures out what's in the naughtier romance books, like naughtier ones I write in the Half Shell Series, he might feed my computer a tape worm. I do enjoy, though, dragging my big tough guy out for chick flick night at the theaters! Sharing with him Broke Back Mountain is still a favorite quality time moment!  He was one of the few husbands in the theater. I wish I could have sneaked a picture...

You get your author BFF's together and no one likes everything.  You change, you tinker, you drive your artist crazy, and still everyone tells you something different. It's why getting a new cover has been so slow for The Girl on the Half Shell. If you are not creative artistically then it's your all out nightmare and you end up wearing some flowery Caribbean night at the moose hall type dress. The picture I'm committed to, but then there is text font, color of text, name too large, as in you're not  Belle Andre! I don't know. I just want to see if Covers matters to selling rates. So here are my two versions. You decide! Please vote below. I'm going crazy with this! I just want to write. Who knew there were so many other things to claim your attention involved in this Indie thing?

Just to remind you why I do this...
The great thing about being an Indie author(The Girl on the Half Shell) is I get turned on to some really great Indie books I wouldn't know about any other way than word of mouth. So once a month I'm going to share my favorites. Here are the rules about my reviews:
1. I only review work I paid to read
2. I only share reviews for books I liked
3. I only post my 5 STAR reviews because I want to help others find the best that's in indie world!

So Here are my July Indie Books of the month. If you want to end up on my Sunday morning blog review next month, drop me an email. I still can do read/ reviews on about 10 more books this year, but then I'm done. So if you are an Indie Author or a debut author drop me a line!

Burning Down the House made it into the Semi Finals of ABNA 2014 and if the judges there had some courage  when it came to Romance Novels, didn't look down on romance, this book should have won the whole thing this year. This is  probably going to be my pick for Indie Romance Novel of the Year in December if someone  doesn't come around and really wow me. It's an amazing New Adult Romance with an incredible story, authentic characters and enough steam and suspense to keep those pages turning.

Allie Gail made me a fan for life with this book. Review:
5.0 out of 5 stars A flawless, perfectly written story. I love it from beginning to end, June 11, 2014 By Susan Ward (CA USA) - See all my reviews Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Burning Down the House (Kindle Edition) This is not a book I would usually read, but Allie Gail has made me a fan. From the first page to the last I absolutely loved everything: The characters, the story, the flow and how funny and realistic everything was. Sara and Rob are genuine and true to their ages. The high school dynamic is painted with perfect wonderfully artful wording. And the story kept me engaged from beginning to end. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a wonderfully constructed, full-story romance.

Something Taken is my pick for: We need more books written outside the box. Everyone screams about diversity, wanting something not cookie cutter, well here it is. A raw, gripping account of a down on your luck kind of girl struggle with the issues of drugs and poverty. This is not a romance novel. It is a gripping coming of age story from a very special writer, Jerrie Brock. She lays it all out there in this novel. Really, give this author some love. It's a great book and we need more books like this. Review:


5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting story and complex characters that draw you in even if its not the kind of journey you usually take in a book, April 14, 2014 By Susan Ward (CA USA) - See all my reviews Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Something Taken (Kindle Edition) I've only recently discovered the work of Jerrie Brock and I find her gritty and raw characters and her dark complex plots completely engrossing. She writes of experiences that few of us have had, that we don't want to feel sympathy for, and makes her characters thoroughly emotionally accessible to the reader so we can all understand if not relate to the challenging circumstances of being alone, young, vulnerable and poor. I'm starting the 2nd book and can't wait to find out what happens to Terry this time.

She writes in a simple and concise way that compliments the artfully constructed portrait of less pleasant types of human existence.

I would not recommend this book to a young audience, however, I would recommend to New Adult readers and others who enjoy well crafted general fiction.

The Blanket Hill Insurgency is my literary fiction pick. Now, it's set in the 60s and most of us think great: sex, music and anarchy. But this is a quiet read that paints a moving portrait of the world before the world went into the chaos of the 60s, right at that moment when the old culture and new culture of America just started to cross over.  It is subtle and honest and worthy read.

Review:
5.0 out of 5 stars It’s the quiet subtly of this book that makes it potent, June 4, 2014 By Susan Ward (CA USA) - See all my reviews Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: The Blanket Hill Insurgency (Kindle Edition) In a very restrained, well written style this book brought back to me many things I haven’t thought of in years. In a thorough portrait of a group of friends attending Kent State in the 60s, we see the prior American culture first mingle with the emerging culture, the culture clash, the confusion over the world, and how truly random one’s destiny can be. Unlike too many authors, Terry Wilson Does Not over play a single card. Instead of rushing in and painting epic, romanticized tales of the 60s, he tells his tale simply and with great honesty. It is a story worth telling, worth reminding us all of, and a story that would have been diminished if told in any other way. The end surprised me, because I wanted to remain hopeful for the characters. Perhaps that is the greater message. That in all that happened during this period, there was great loss and we need be reminded of that. A worthy read I would highly recommend. Particularly to young adults.

SO THOSE ARE MY INDIE READS FOR THE MONTH OF JULY.  CHECK BACK IN NEXT MONTH FOR MY AUGUST LIST AND IF YOU WANT A REVIEW DROP ME A LINE. AND WHILE YOU'RE AT IT, CHECK OUT MY BOOKS. I'M ALWAYS LOOKING FOR  REVIEWS!

Like many authors,  Amazon's launching of the Kindle Unlimited Program  slipped under my radar. Now I'm a nerd. I read Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business White Papers, the only news I watch in the morning is financial news, but I didn't get news of this until I received notice on launch date from Amazon.

Like many authors I went to the information page describing the program and found the specifics a little short in supply there. So on the various author forums a lot of us are asking is it good, is it bad, do I stay or do I go? I don't have the answer to that, but I'm staying. I'm betting on Bezos to revolutionize the book market in a Netflix model the way he's revolutionized retail and distribution. Yesterday my Kindle Unlimited unit chart was through the roof when I usually have only 1 a day of Kindle Prime lending.

While you struggle to decide what is best for you as an author, here's a few things to consider:

1.Bezos launched this in summer. Many authors are complaining right now about low sales and dropping ranks. Summer is historically a pretty lousy time to sell books, especially for us Indies. It's not like you are going to burn your high selling season by taking a wait and see approach to deciding whether to stay Kindle unlimited.

2. Anything that provides greater access for readers to you books or reduces whatever caution they may have taking a risk with their own money on an Indie writer is a win/win.

3. Never lose sight of your goal. Success and profitability never comes from chasing the dollar. The goal cannot be money if one wants to succeed in a business. At least that has always proven true for me. So ask yourself the way I do: What is my goal? Why is my goal?

In my first 60 days an an Indie Author my work has already reached nearly 4000 readers. What an amazing and unthinkable thing. That a woman in California can release a book with the click of the mouse, send it world wide, be virtually unknown and now have thousands of people reading her work.

So stay true to a single goal and whatever Kindle Unlimited means in the long run it will be a win/win. My goal is to write great books, to get them to as many readers as I can, and to have them love them.

So for me, Kindle Unlimited is a win/win. I'm staying.

The Girl on the Half Shell Kindle Unlimited, Kindle Prime or 99Cents

The Signature  Kindle Unlimited, Kindle Prime or 99Cents