New Release: My Abigail

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Synopsis: Abigail had a secret.
I knew it soon after meeting her.
She was different than other girls, and not just because she actually showed some interest in me. She was really different. I loved it. I loved her.
But Abigail had a secret.
Damian told me so, the first time I met him. I wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not. He wasn’t trustworthy. He wasn’t nice. He was a terrifying figure, the embodiment of fear. But he was right.
She had a secret.
I’m sorry I keep repeating it. It’s still hard to believe. How could somebody so gentle, nice, and loving be so… scary?
That’s the only word I knew to describe her after it all ended. Everything about her being was scary.
Abigail was my life, I told myself. She was my everything.
She left me with nothing.
If she was my life, does that make this suicide?

My Abigail is a psychological thriller novella. The concept is about two high-schoolers who both are misfits in their own towns and find solace in each other. The boy and main character, Caleb, starts to notice odd things about her. His other friend, Xavier, displays similar, peculiar traits and before long he learns about their history and what connects them. A little girl his mom babysits, Ayva, is kidnapped by a shadowy figure he sees every once in a while on the streets. Before long, he has to make the ultimate choice that will affect everyone around him. No matter what he does, people will be hurt. No matter what happens, he will be hurt. But who will he choose, and who will he lose?

Author bio:
Hi. My name is David Kummer. I'm an author that's only in high school and so I'm still learning and growing (I'm not Caillou, so sorry if that sounded like it. If I was Caillou, I'd tell you for sure.) and figuring out how to become a better author.

I live in Madison, Indiana, which is a small town on the Ohio River. There's lots of history and creepy places, which probably have influenced my writings. In my book SHE, most of the places and buildings are based off similar settings here in my home town, although I've changed them so that you wouldn't know really if I didn't tell you.



Author interview on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL_uiU_Pi-M&feature=youtu.be

I would love to get to know you better, so email me at davidkummer7@gmail.com or check out my blog at davidkummer.com. If you review/rate my book on Amazon, I'll send you a free short story that you can't get anywhere else. I have a unique short story for each work I publish, so I promise you won't get any repeats.

For real, I love getting to know people and talking books, sports, politics, favorite foods (mmmm) or whatever your area of interest is.

Author Links:

Link(s) to the author's website / blog:

 http://davidkummer.com/

My Goodreads account:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14106755.David_Duane_Kummer

My Amazon page: 

http://www.amazon.com/David-Duane-Kummer/e/B018AA9KK2/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

Fridays 5 with J D. Cunegan

Fresh off his debut novel BOUNTY, J.D. Cunegan introduces his intense follow-up, BLOOD TIES, a mixture of murder mystery and superhero epic that re-introduces the reader to his comic book-inspired storytelling and fast-paced prose. A 2006 graduate of Old Dominion University, Cunegan has an extensive background in journalism and a lifelong love for writing. Cunegan lives in Hampton, Virginia, enjoys reading, and is an avid auto racing fan.

Goodreads.

Facebook.

Twitter.

Independent Author Network.

Email: bounty_email@yahoo.com

1.) When did you first get serious about writing?

A.) My junior year of high school; I'd toyed around with the idea of one day creating my own characters and stories for a few years up until that point, but it wasn't until then that I actually say down and did it. I had dreams of being a comic book creator, and I spent much of my art class that year sketching and creating new characters. Most of those characters have fallen by the wayside over the years, and others have been re-tooled to the point that they no longer resemble their original incarnations, but a few of them -- like the main character of my debut novel Bounty -- are as vibrant and interesting today as they were when I first created them.

2.) What is the hardest part for you about writing?

A.) The editing, and not necessarily because of the actual act itself. The problem I have with editing is that I never know when enough is enough. I can never quite figure out how many times I have to go through my manuscript before it's "done." Sometimes, it's four times; others, it's five. Or maybe it's seven or 12 or 20... there's no finite finish line when it comes to editing my work, and it varies so much that it's hard to know when I can sit back and say finished or when it needs another pass-through.

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Synopsis: For as long as Jill Andersen could remember, her father was a hero.
But heroes don’t commit murder, do they? The state of Maryland said Paul Andersen did just that, three times over, and was set to execute him for it. But Jill and the rest of her colleagues at the Baltimore Police Department come across the murder of a law student that leaves her hopeful that she can clear her father’s name.
While Jill and her colleagues work against the clock to clear her father’s name, new players emerge, hinting to a deeper, darker conspiracy than what was previously known. An enigmatic faction known as The Order reveals itself, and the mystery surrounding Paul’s alleged duplicity leaves more questions than answers.
Along the way, Jill must not only face the possibility that her father was not who she thought he was, but she must also face the prospect of her secret being revealed. The stakes are higher than ever in Blood Ties, the intense follow-up to J.D. Cunegan’s debut mystery Bounty.
Can Jill save her father before it’s too late? Will she even want to?

3.) How did you feel upon publication of your first completed project?

A.) There was obviously a tremendous sense of accomplishment, the self-satisfaction that comes when months and months of work has culminated in the finished product. But more than anything, I was overwhelmed with the thought of "Wow, I actually pulled this off." It was surreal, to an extent, to go onto Amazon and see my book listed, to see my (pen) name on their site and know that others could visit this page and actually buy my work. It's been about two months since Bounty was released, and I still have that thought sometimes.

4.) What is more important to you, story, or character? Why?

A.) Character trumps everything else for me. I feel that once you get your characters squared away, everything else will fall into place and take care of itself. As a reader, I want the writer to make me care about their characters -- I don't even have to like them, just make me emotionally invested in what happens to them. If I don't care about the characters, then I'm not going to care about what happens to them or what they do -- and chances are, I won't care for the book (or movie, or TV show, etc.), either.

5.) What is a typical day like in your world?

A.)  Lots of coffee, first and foremost. I have a day job that, from September through March, takes up a lot of my time. In fact, I wrote much of Bounty this past November -- and November is one of my busiest work months, so I wound up writing a lot of that book in airports and airplanes and hotel rooms. I try to write something every day; naturally, there are days where that's borderline impossible. But even if it's only a paragraph or two, that's more than I had at the beginning of the day. In the summer, I watch Baltimore Orioles baseball; in the fall and winter, I watch Washington Capitals hockey; and on the weekends, it's all about NASCAR.

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Synopsis: Jill Andersen is one of Baltimore's best and brightest detectives, but she harbors a dark secret -- a secret that threatens to come out when the body of Dr. Trent Roberts is pulled out of the Chesapeake Bay. Dr. Roberts' connection to Jill reveals a past that involves a tour in Iraq, a secretive cybernetic experiment, and a conspiracy that involves a native son.
Can Jill solve the case while still keeping her secret? Will her partners at the Seventh Precinct find out what she's so desperate to hide? What was Dr. Roberts looking into that led to his murder? And perhaps the biggest question of all...

Repost: What Writing Success Requires with John Ellsworth

I have a very strong presence in legal thrillers. The secret has been marketing. My two most recent books are around 8 and 10 in legal thrillers top 100. The books I can’t move in order to get a better ranking are John Grisham (of course) and the rest are Thomas Mercer imprints where the author has one or more books by TM that then pull the others along and they all rank in the top five or six all of the time. So be it, there’s nothing I can do about it except bank my mid-five-figures each month and look at the next shiny toy on Amazon’s site.

But I was lucky and somewhat knowledgeable when I first published in January 2014. I had done SEO on Google’s Adwords for ten years and was pretty up on the importance of graphics and keywords. The graphics paid off by Bookbub giving me like ten or twelve promos in my first fifteen months. This had everything to do with my cover art, I am convinced. No, the covers are not typical genre like many gurus preach, but they did all have the indicia of legal thrillers such as courthouse columns or scales of justice somewhere in the cover. But my cover artist is a genius and had done Internet branding for many years and knew what i needed/wanted.

Read the rest at  John Ellsworth Books.com

Fridays 5 with Robert Arrington

Robert Arrington spends his days posing as an unassuming computer technician for a large law firm in Raleigh, NC. But by night, he transforms into a (hmm, how to put this politely?) unassuming writer of super heroes fiction. Not exactly the wisest career choice, but we deal with reality as it is.

He lives in Raleigh with his wonderful wife of thirteen years, Lucille, who has indulged this misadventure into the realm of writing and publishing with surprising good grace. When he is not writing, he can generally be found at home trying to help his children (son, age 11, and daughter, age 9) with their homework and whatever else requires attention..

Twitter: @MHatter57

1.) When did you first get serious about writing?

A.)  I dedicated myself to completing my first novel in January 2014. It took me about 18 months to get to the end, but hopefully the sequel will go quicker now that I've got a little experience.

2.) What is the hardest part for you about writing?

A.) Plotting the course of the story is the hardest step for me. I have to have the scope of the story laid out before I begin writing, so I can spend half of my time agonizing over the story's structure before I ever begin writing the opening scene.

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Synopsis:
Alice Littleton, gifted with the powers of Wonderland, draws a catastrophe down on herself when she tries to use them in aid of a kidnapped child. Now, she and her father are being pursued by a relentless paranormal intent on recruiting other supers- or eliminating potential competition. She finds her way to Prometheus Academy, a new school with a truly empowered student body. When the school comes under attack, Alice must decide whether to run again, or take a stand against the forces threatening her and her new friends.

3.) How did you feel upon publication of your first completed project?

A.) The day I held the first copy of my finished book in my hand is etched in my memory. The euphoria was less about potential earnings, which I know will be slow in coming, if they ever do. It was all about my sense of pride in producing a work I am satisfied with, despite the flaws I am only too well aware of. I can't wait to recapture that feeling with the next book.

4.) What is more important to you, story, or character? Why?

A.) Story is more important. The character concepts are crucial, but once you've got them firmly in mind, there are so many paths you can take to share them with the world. Discovering the best story those characters can tell is where the real artistry lies.

5.) What is a typical day like in your world?

A.)  I get up, go to work, pick up the kids from school, and come home to whatever needs doing - housework, helping kids with homework, etc. Sometie in there, usually late at night, I try to write.

Repost: Amazon takes aim at scammers.

Amazon is an extremely innovative company – and usually quite responsive to self-publisher’s concerns – but sometimes it gets things very wrong too.

Today is one of those times.

I’ve received several reports from writers threatened with having books removed from sale, and heard even more worrying stories from others who had their titles actually removed from the Kindle Store without notice.

What were these authors guilty of? What crime did they commit for Amazon to adopt such heavy handed treatment? Something completely innocuous: the Table of Contents was at the rear of their books instead of at the front.

Yep, that’s it.

Read the rest at Let's Get Digital!

Repost: Behind the Scam, what does it take to be a best selling author?

Brent Underwood shares his thoughts on Amazon Best Sellers.

"I would like to tell you about the biggest lie in book publishing. It appears in the biographies and social media profiles of almost every working “author” today. It’s the word “best seller.”

This isn’t about how The New York Times list is biased (though it is). This isn’t about how authors buy their way onto various national best-seller lists by buying their own books in bulk (though they do). No, this is about the far more insidious title of “Amazon Bestseller”—and how it’s complete and utter nonsense.

Here’s what happened in the book industry over the last few years: As Amazon has become the big dog in the book world, the “Amazon Bestseller” status has come to be synonymous with being an actual bestseller. This is not true, and I can prove it.

Read the rest at the Observer

Fridays 5 with Bryan Romer

I was trained as a Charted Accountant. I've been a CFO, General Manager, and Project Director for a multi-national corporation. Now I am a full time writer, living in Bangkok, Thailand. I'm single, never married. I love reading, especially classical SF and Military SF, as well as Historical Warfare.

I've always loved science fiction. From H.G. Well's "First Men In The Moon", to David Drake's "Hammer's Slammers" and Keith Laumer's "Bolo", with a particular emphasis on military SF. But I enjoy a good hard boiled thriller too, in the vein of Donald Hamilton's "Matt Helm" and Larry Correia's "Monster Hunter". So you can guess where my books will be headed.

As the GM and CFO of a private military contractor, I've walked in war zones armed with nothing but a camera and calculator. I'm multi lingual, I've worked on tiny Pacific Islands that were being ripped apart by hurricanes, and prowled the crowded streets and nightspots of the Far East. But during all of that, I've always written stories. Sometimes for free and for the heck of it, other times for money.

While I have over 30 novels published and on sale, "Vampire-Tech" is my first Science Fiction book.

Want to talk to me? mr.bryan.romer@gmail.com
My website is www.vwsinger.com 

1.) When did you first get serious about writing?

A.) I've been experimenting with writing fiction for a very long time, but I never wanted to be

an author for a major publisher and be required to write according to house rules and be under the control of their editors. It was only with the Internet that I began to write short stories and posting on the Net to gauge public response. I set up my first website of stories around the 1990s, and my first book was a compilation and expansion of one of these stories. This was published under a different pen name. I published my first SF/Horror novel, Vampire-Tech in 2014 followed by a sequel in 2015. Both reached the Amazon Top 100 for Vampire novels and stayed there for about three months.

2.) What is the hardest part for you about writing?

A.) I'm a natural story teller. I really enjoy writing and creating fictional worlds. Being an accountant, research and detail isn't a problem. I have done a lot of photography and CDI art, so visualisation and world creation isn't a problem either. I never get "writer's block" and because I write to satisfy my own muse, I never doubt what I am doing either. That isn't arrogance or a surfeit of self confidence. When I write, I do my best to create a worthy piece of work, but I don't much care what others thing if it. I know what I have to say, and I know how to say it. Anyway, you can't hope to please everyone.

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Synopsis: The accidental discovery of alien artifacts have brought werewolves back to modern day Britain. But through that same accident, test pilot Tara Harker was turned into a vampire. Even more incredibly, she discovers that Dracula is very real and is her only ally against her enemy and newly turned werewolf, Viktor Tiranul.

Now in the second book of the series, Tara is forced to embrace her vampire status as the existence of werewolves becomes a plague, spreading out of control and into the streets of a terrified Britain, drawing the Government and its agencies into the struggle. But powerful human interests who desire to control the technology that created both werewolves and vampires present just as much of a threat to herself and everyone she loves, including her father the brilliant scientist Rowland Harker. Can she battle and survive these multiple threats while still remaining human? And will her most powerful ally, Dracula himself, prove to be a blessing or a curse?

The gripping science-fiction horror adventure that started in the novel Vampire-Tech brings ancient legends into the present and right into the future. No magic, no curses, just technology – vampire technology.

3.) How did you feel upon publication of your first completed project?

A.) It was amazing, as if I suddenly was able to fly. Income was secondary to me at that point. I just wanted to see if anyone shared my world view and would like the tale I had to tell.

4.) What is more important to you, story, or character? Why?

A.) The story definitely comes first. It defines the world and situations in which my characters will have to operate. I write plot heavy stories, so it never works to allow the characters backgrounds, skills (or lack of them), and personalities to drive the progress of the book since the actions of both heroes and villains have to bring them into conflict at the right time and under the right circumstances for each plot point.

5.) What is a typical day like in your world?

A.) Most of my time apart from the necessities of life are spent on my computer, writing, researching, participating on forums and groups, not just for publicity but often to share and help other authors.

Fridays 5 with Patricia H Patterson

A native of Dublin, Ireland, Patricia Hopper Patteson now calls the hills West Virginia home. She earned a B.A. and M.A. from West Virginia University (WVU). She studied creative writing and received honors from WVU. She also received numerous awards from the annual West Virginia Writers' competition. Her fiction and non-fiction have been published in magazines, reviews, and anthologies. Previously published fiction has appeared in Amore Magazine, Appalachian Heritage, Hamilton Stone Review, Ireland's Own, Mist on the Mon, Woman, Woman's Way, and Woman's World. Previously published non-fiction has appeared in Blue Ridge Country, Christmas Traditions, Flashlight Memories, Fed from the Blade, The Good Life, The Mystery of Fate, and The Simple Touch of Fate. Her novel Kilpara debuted in May 2015, published by Bygone Era Books.

1.) When did you first get serious about writing?

A.) When I studied Creative Writing at West Virginia University as a non-traditional student

2.) What is the hardest part for you about writing?

A.) Finding large blocks of time. Life just gets in the way

Click on the cover for more info or to order!

Synopsis: Only the heart knows where home truly is.

Ellis O’Donovan was an American through and through. He had no intention of going to his ancestral home in Ireland. After all, his parents were chased out by the English. But his mother insists on being taken back to die at her old estate, Kilpara. Ellis reluctantly agrees, expecting a quick round trip. Kilpara and its residents have other plans. The strife Ellis finds between his desire to return to his life in America, and to aid his kin in Ireland reaches a dangerous pinnacle when he meets Morrigan, the daughter of the very English overlord who has taken his birthright.

3.) How did you feel upon publication of your first completed project?

A.) ecstatic!

4.) What is more important to you, story, or character? Why?

A.) Sometimes I start with story, sometimes with character. Hard to say.

5.) What is a typical day like in your world?

A.)  Up at 6:30 a.m. Work at 8:00 a.m. Home at 5:30 p.m. Busy most evenings until 7:00 p.m. Exercise, chores, meeting friends, meetings. Fix dinner. Write (some evenings) until about 9:00 p.m. Bed & reading.

Author Links:

Email: pattesonpatricia@gmail.com

Publisher: http://www.bygoneerabooks.com/#!kilpara/c1m3x

Website: http://www.patriciahopperpatteson.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/patricia.patteson

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PatriciaPatteso