Week Two Winner Announced

All this month I’m celebrating Colon Cancer Awareness Week by recounting my own battle with cancer and giving away a book a week. All you have to do to enter to win a copy of my book A Thousand Sleepless Nights is leave a comment on one of the posts. It’s that easy!

Sooooo . . . the winner of the second giveaway is Kate.Congratulations, Kate! You’re book will be in the mail soon.

Please visit the posts and leave your own comment. And please consider sharing the posts on your favorite social media sites.

This is stuff we all need to talk about.

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Week One Winner Announced

All this week I’m celebrating Colon Cancer Awareness Week by recounting my own battle with cancer and giving away a book a week. All you have to do to enter to win a copy of my book A Thousand Sleepless Nights is leave a comment on one of the posts. It’s that easy!

Okay, without further delay . . . the winner of the first giveaway is Paula Mayer. Congratulations, Paula! You’re book will be in the mail soon.

Please visit the posts and leave your own comment. And please consider sharing the posts on your favorite social media sites. This is stuff we all need to talk about.

BIG Announcement and REARVIEW for FREE!

A year ago I teamed up with six other authors to publish a series of seven novellas called 7 Hours. Each novella, written by a different author, featured one constant character, Thomas Constant. And the series posed the question: What would you do if you were given 7 more hours to live? The series was published and released by Tyndale House in e-book form only. And now, Tyndale would like to revisit the series by offering my novella, Rearview, for free this week.  Here’s a little about the story . . .

Professor Dan Blakely has it all . . . until a false accusation leaves him in financial ruin with nothing to fall back on and little hope. In a moment of desperation, he decides to do the unthinkable. But when he loses control of his SUV and careens down the side of a mountain, his plans take another turn. Trapped beneath the frame of his mangled vehicle, Dan is visited by a mysterious stranger who offers him three choices. Filled with regret, Dan makes a decision . . . but little does he know that his troubles have only just begun. The clock is ticking. What will you do with the time you have left?

Please, pick up a copy of Rearview. I think you’ll find the story intriguing and gripping and I’d love to hear what you think of the ending. You can get a copy here. And while you’re at it, get a copy of all the stories. They’re all excellent.

Also, if you’re interested, Tyndale has developed a discussion guide to go along with the story for you to use in a small group or book group setting. Some very thought-provoking stuff. You can download the discussion guide here.

Oh, and one more thing. I recently signed a contract with Tyndale to bring you a book tentatively called Centralia. I can’t give you much information on the story just yet but think Jason Bourne meets Shutter Island meets Inception. it’s going to be mind-blowing.

Please, help me spread the word about this news by sharing this post in all your social media outlets. THANK YOU!

Rename My Blog . . . Um, or Maybe Not

So I had this contest to rename my blog. And well, I hate to say this and feel really bad about it but . . . there isn’t a winner.

 (Photo credit: Kaptain Kobold)

This makes me feel like such a blockhead because when I hold a contest I like there to be a winner. That’s kind of the point of a contest.

I guess I was looking for an entry that would give me that instant “That’s it!” moment and I just didn’t find it. And I can’t just put something up there that I’m not thrilled about.

THANK YOU to all who entered and gave suggestions. Really, it’s me, not you. I’m the blockhead. There were some great titles offered, some very creative, some just plain funny . . . I just didn’t find the right one.

Please feel free to continue to submit suggestions if you like and if I use yours you’ll still get the free books. This might help . . . I’m taking my fiction in a new direction, more focus on psychological thrillers so if we can incorporate something about the mind and life and fiction . . . I don’t know. I’ll keep thinking on it too.

Man, I hate it when a contest fails. Sorry.

WINNERS Announced . . . Thanks for the HELP!

Thank you all so much for your help and input. Your opinion is invaluable to me. And from your comments I gather I need to stick with Facebook and this blog. My challenge now is to find a method that works for me and is engaging for you. I have some ideas and will  begin to implement them in the next month or so. Some big changes will be taking place.

Okay, I promised there’d be some winners and here they are. Four winners . . .

James Franklin
Jillian Kent
Troy Tennard
Stephanie Craig

Congratulations! I’ll be emailing you privately to see which short story/book you’d like.

And thanks again for the help!

Writing Un-Blocked . . . FREE E-book!

Writer’s Block (Photo credit: thorinside)

Writer’s block is an enigma of sorts. Is it real? Is there really such a thing? Or is it all in one’s head?

I think if writer’s block was put on trial we could call thousands, no, millions of witnesses to attest to the fact that, yes, the block is real. They’d swear under oath, sit in that little box witnesses sit in, then forget what they were going to say.

And yes, writer’s block is in one’s head. Where else would it be?

I think writer’s block can grow from a variety of factors including frustration, anxiety, pressure, poor time management, and many others. It can come in a variety of forms and last for durations of varying times. But it is real. You can’t tell millions of writers who have suffered from it that it’s  bogus. It’d be like telling people that their dreams aren’t real, they’re just figments of their imagination. Um. Okay.

So, the question as I see it is not whether writer’s block is real or not but rather what do we  do with it? How do we prevent it? And once it slithers in and clogs our neural pathways, how do we get rid of it?

All this week you can get for FREE a little e-book I wrote about writer’s block, how to prevent it and how to defeat it. It’s called WRITING unBLOCK! It’s a quick read but I hope you get something out of it that will help you prevent and/or defeat that dreaded block.

Please help spread the word about this book by sharing this post or the book’s Amazon page on all your social networking hang-outs. Thank you!

The Importance of Time and a FREE Book!

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yes, I have another book to giveaway. I must say I love doing this. Giving away books.  Giving away things.

I’m a busy guy. Probably not as busy as some but busier than others. I have a lot going on in life and it keeps me scurrying about. That’s why I get asked so much about how I find time to write.

But it isn’t about finding time, is it? No. Not really. It’s about MAKING time.

If time were money we wouldn’t talk about finding money as if just happens to appear in secret places and we have to snoop around until we find it. No. We talk about making money. About being intentional.

The difference is that there is really no limit to the amount of money one can make. There is a limit to the amount of time one has at one’s disposal. So we must not only make time but we must use it wisely.

And therein is how I MAKE time to write. No, I haven’t discovered the secret to time travel and don’t have the ability to literally make time as you would money. We all have 24 hours in a day and that’s it. No more, no less.

It’s what we do with that time that matters.

I’m sorry but I tend to be rather cynical when someone tells me they simply don’t have time to write, that they could write a book if they only had the time. I’m cynical because the making of time tends to bring with it some sacrifice. The bottom line is those folks who think they’re too busy simply don’t want to make the sacrifice.

This is  a lesson not just for writing but for all of life. Take note: You do have the time but you choose to use it how you wish. Remember that whenever you are tempted to use the excuse of lack of time.

Now, back to the giveaway . . . while we’re discussing time management and writing I think it’s appropriate to introduce a little e-book I wrote called Writing Time! Proven Techniques for Making Time to Write and Finishing What You Start. It’s a short book, just 35 pages or so, but it’s packed with information about making time to write and making the most of that time. If you are a writer or if you know a writer, this book will help. Guaranteed.

And the best thing is that all this week the book is FREE on Amazon! That’s right. FREE!!

Please help spread the word about this book by sharing this post or the Amazon page on all your social media hangouts. Thank you!

Also, be sure to check out my newest thriller, FEARLESS. Available wherever books are sold.

My Take On . . . Book Sales Numbers

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Every September and March I develop an unusual twitch. It’s called stress. Anxiety. It’s called royalty statement time.

Every six months I get a royalty statement and on that statement are the sales numbers for each of my books. Both for the period and total.

Mostly, I hate those statements.

Two of the most-asked questions I get as a writer are: Where do you get your ideas? and What are your sales like?

Mostly, I hate those questions.

Writers get into writing because we love to write (duh!), because we love the creativity of it and we love sharing our stories with others. But there’s this other side to writing that whether we want to acknowledge it or not, doesn’t go away. Numbers.

Writing is an art but it’s also a business and while craft and style and creativity rule in our minds, sales numbers rule in the minds of a lot of other people. That’s a reality. Publishers look at sales numbers and more times than not those numbers drive how much money goes into marketing the book, how many resources get alloted to it, and whether or not they offer another contract. It’s a tough business, but it is just that . . . a business.

Every author wants to see his or her book putting up big numbers. In some weird way it seems like confirmation that yes, he is talented, people do enjoy his books, and the publisher did indeed make a good decision to publish his work. In a lot of ways big sales numbers = success.

The questions then arise about what qualifies as “big” numbers, how many books sold do publishers look for, what’s the measure of success? And the answers will vary from publisher to publisher. There’s really no standard.

As an author I care about the numbers. I do because I want to keep writing. But I try my hardest to fight the tendency to put the worth of my writing and even myself on the amount of books sold. There are just too man factors involved in why a book sells well or not.

As an author I want to focus on crafting the best story I can with the most worthwhile message. I want to impact lives, get people thinking, entertain, and yes, sometimes, scare the poo out of a reader.

Most of the time I think I’m somewhat successful at that. But I must admit, when the royalty statement comes I usually get all tense, go somewhere private, and open the letter. Then I walk around the rest of the evening muttering to myself about how I’m wasting my time, how it isn’t worth all the effort involved, how I’d be better off using my time getting a real part-time job. It takes me at least a few days to talk myself off that cliff and get back to writing.

And then six months later we do it all again.

But it’s worth it. Not because of the meager financial reward, but because of the readers I know are being impacted. It’s worth it for everything that isn’t financial, that doesn’t depend on numbers. It’s worth it because of the people. And really, isn’t that the way everything in life should be?

Okay, couple things I have to point out that you’ll want to check out:

FRANTIC  is still just $1.99. If you haven’t gotten it, get it today.

Ian Acheson, friend and author of Angelguard, has posted an interview we did today and he’s giving away books too. Check it out and enter to win!

Get FEARLESS for FREE!!

Sound too good to be true? It’s not.

Yes, you can get my newest thriller FEARLESS for free.

My publisher, Charisma House, recently created a website called Booketeria where you can request books for free and all you have to do in return is promise to write an honest review.

FREE book (and a new release at that). A $14.99 value. For a simple but honest review.

Not a bad deal.

Just go on over to Booketeria.com, sign up, and get your copy of FEARLESS for FREE.

And if you don’t mind, please share this great deal with all your social media friends. FREE is good!

Oh, one more thing . . . you can still get my novel FRANTIC for only $1.99 on Amazon. Hurry, though, this price won’t last too much longer.

Final WINNERS of FEARLESS Giveaways!

Wow, I can’t believe the week is over already! What a whirlwind. I truly had a blast reading all the comments. Here’s a quick rundown on how things played out for the week.

(Photo credit: yum9me)

Visitors: 1185
Comments: 192
Books given away: 29

Pretty awesome! THANK YOU!!

Okay, here are the winners of yesterday’s giveaway . . .

MIRROR IMAGE: Dennis Morris
THE LAST HUNT: Kevin Hill
REARVIEW: jendjacobs
THE HUNTED: Shana Montgomery
FEARLESS: donnajsanchez
FEARLESS: Troy Tennard

Congrats to all the winners!

And again, a big THANK YOU to everyone who participated this week. Keep spreading the word about FEARLESS!

And HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!