Sunday, August 28, 2011

I'm A Best-Seller! Sort of

Recently the fine folks at Samhain Publishing pointed out to their authors and readers that they've installed catagories for their novels so people can find them more easily, just by typing in a specific about that book.  Interested in paranormal?  Type that in.  Like shape-shifters?  That too.  Contemporary?  Absolutely.  It's such an easy, streamlined website to use... and what's GREAT, is that it has a side benefit.



You can be first on a best-seller's list. :)



ZERO FACTOR, the action-packed romance novella that got chosen for Samhain's CYBERSHOCK cyberpunk anthology will be coming out this week (August 30th, whee!), but already pre-orders have put my debut project on the map.  Since it's listed under Anthologies, Science Fiction, Men In Uniform, Post-Apocalyptic and Cyberpunk, it's already sold enough to wind up on all these lists (at least for now).  Though I know it doesn't mean much, I have to admit this made me squee out loud.  You wanna squee with me?  Here we go!


Yay!  Though there aren't that many in this catagory. :P


Yay again! The AMAZING Nathalie Gray (Gridlock author) also did the covers.


*squints* It looks like I'm 9th on this one. Cool!


And I'm 7th here in Sci-Fi.  Woo!


Extreme close-up :)



So there ya go.  I'm having a dream come true, 'cause I'm on a best-seller's list!  At least for the next hour. =D

Sunday, August 21, 2011

New Excerpt From ZERO FACTOR!





Wheeeee, just a little over a week away from unveiling ZERO FACTOR, my very first release from the magnificent Samhain Publishing!

To celebrate, I've got another bit of excerpty goodness on tap -- Via and Locke's first kiss (which had absolutely nothing to do with love, and everything to do with staying alive).  Enjoy!




Via knew her life was over. If she were honest with herself, part of her had known it the moment she had left the safety of the agridome. People like her could never put themselves in a position where they would be within spitting distance of the militia, much less work hand in hand with them. To do so was akin to bathing in jet fuel, then playing with a lighter.

And yet she had gone. Like a lamb to slaughter, she had gone.

It was okay, though. As long as she could save the others, she could be at peace with what had to be done now. Not that she was some kind of freaky saint or anything. It was just that as she’d sat in the transport drowning in images of what was to come, she had reached a very basic conclusion—she would rather die than live with the knowledge that she could have done something, but didn’t.

So she wasn’t a saint, and she sure as hell wasn’t even nodding acquaintances with that thing called bravery. If anything, she was too much of a coward to live with the guilt of surviving while everyone else got blown into unrecognizable bits.

“Via? What the hell—?”

She heard Weddo’s shocked voice, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was focusing on what she knew, what she saw, and pushing it with all her might into Locke. She wasn’t sure if she was doing it right. Hell, she didn’t even know if she was doing anything more than simply kissing a stranger and making a ginormous ass of herself. She had only done this sort of thing once before when she was fifteen, and it had been a total accident back then.

By degrees, the frenzied panic boiling through her blood eased like a tight fist unfurling, and new, thoroughly unexpected sensations began to seep in through the smothering veil of fear. For just a heartbeat the universe seemed to pause, a collective holding of breath while even the sound of the bustling city’s daily life came to a gentle stop. For Via, there was only this fragile moment as her mouth molded to his, and a shocking thrill of pleasure bloomed like fireworks in her brain when his lips softened and returned the pressure with interest. Her booted feet barely touched the ground as she kept her arms wrapped tightly around his strong neck, and delight mingled with relief when his free arm curled about her waist to bring her fully against the rock-solid length of his battle-hardened warrior’s body. His breath was warm, his taste tantalizing. The seductive nuzzling of his silk-over-steel lips against hers invited her untutored mouth to explore deeper, and she saw no reason why she should resist when she knew they were living on borrowed time.

A tremulous note of discord whispered from her psyche into his, a never-ending ricochet rippling noiselessly between them. The pleasure bounced back and forth as well, doubling and trebling as it went, but threaded through it was what the vision had shown her. But that was okay too. If this was to be her last moment of life, she was determined to pour every ounce of joy, vitality and pleasure she could into this kiss. If anything, she was happy for this final opportunity to go out with a bang.

“Lieutenant Locke, attention!”

It was the strangest thing, was all Via could think while her pulse pounded in her ears and in the lips that had become the most sensitive part of her body. It was as though she and this man—a militia man, for God’s sake—had discovered that with a kiss, they could create a magical little sphere where only they existed, and nothing of the gritty, desperate, dangerous place that was their world could encroach on their private slice of perfection. Then her lips drifted like a dream away from his, and the restless throb of the ever-bustling city once again filled her ears. But nothing felt the same. She wasn’t the same. As mad as it sounded, she felt changed from the inside out.

Were kisses supposed to change the world?

Via opened eyes she couldn’t remember closing, and gazed up in dazed confusion at the man she held with all the passionate fervor of a long-time lover. Where was the explosion? Had she interrupted the sequence of events? Was everyone safe?

Everyone except her, of course. Her safe life was officially over now that she had revealed to a gun-toting jarhead member of the militia that she was a psionic.

Dayum.



Sunday, August 14, 2011

Kindlegraph -- My New Love

When I was a kid and dreamed of being a published author, I would practice my signature (mainly because I have REALLY bad left-handed handwriting and no one can read it), and try to come up with an appropriate message of gratitude for anyone who bought my book.  Yeah, I know it's corny, but I really did dream of signing autographs. :P


Then I got published by Samhain, an amazing digital-first publisher, and I just assumed doing the whole autograph thing could never happen on their ebooks. 

Oh, ye of little faith, Stacy.

The equake of 2010, also known as the ebook revolution, hit the publishing world sideways, with the sales of Kindle, Nook, and other ereaders going through the roof for Christmas of 2010.  Naturally, a galvanic shift occurred in the reading public's buying habits, which leads us to where we are now -- 8 months later, with book publishers still reeling, and everyone in the pub business trying to catch up and/or be a trailblazer (one thing I DO know is that annual ebook sales are UP over 160% for this year, whereas annual paperback and hardcover book sales were down 17% and 23%, respectively, and that's a big deal for all the publishing houses).

When this shift toward ebooks happened, some bright bulb realized autographs were suddenly on the endangered species list.  Not that there would be a lack of requests for them – that wasn’t the case at all.  But how the heck can an author PERSONALLY SIGN an ebook for his or her reader?


I encourage ANYONE who’s interested in getting their ebooks personally autographed to watch the video in the link above, because it’ll explain it WAY better than I will.  I can tell you that anyone who’s bought an ebook, and finds it listed on Kindlegraph’s website, can get an autograph for their book, totally for free.  And you don’t have to have a Kindle specifically – it’s for every ereader out there.  How cool is that?


The publishing world is changing hour by hour, and I welcome it with open arms.  That's why I put my books, ZERO FACTOR and BEST MAN, WORST MAN on Kindlegraph today.  If you've bought either of these fab little romances, go ahead and find me on my new Author Page on Kindlegraph.  Trust me, I've been practicing for this for a long time. ;)
Zero Factor Release Aug. 30th
Pre-Order @ Samhain, Amazon, B&N
Best Man, Worst Man Release Oct. 25th
Pre-Order @ Samhain, Amazon, B&N