All posts tagged giveaway

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Last week I wrote less than 7K, but I had a busy weekend, so I couldn’t catch up on writing. Also, I realized I had to rewrite a good portion of the current project, and that, too, took time. Hopefully this week I’ll be able to write full speed and finish this by the weekend. If not, I have another week before moving on.

On Saturday I went to the ARF!Festival, a comic con for professionals, more than readers. There are no cosplayers hanging out, and I didn’t see any publisher selling their books, although they did have tables where their authors signed copies. There were a few collectible booths as well, but mostly it was artists and indie authors showing off their works. I didn’t see their call for the self-area on time, so I’m aiming for next year. This will give me time to prepare a couple more things to put on the table!

On Sunday we celebrated my sister’s birthday, so I didn’t have much time to write. But I got some time to spend with Dear Nephew who is now 18 and taller than me. Sigh.

I gave up on that non-fiction, so I may get back to fiction soon. For now I’ll watch movies instead, since I have plenty of DVDs to keep me inspired! Stay tuned for more reading recommendations…

As you can see from the badge in the sidebar, I’m a IASFA member. You can sign up for the readers’ newsletter that will let you know of free or 99c books by members, but they’re also having a Kindle Fire HD10 – US Only Giveaway – enter it if you’re in the right country! 🙂

I will probably enter some book in the promo after the summer. I haven’t chosen which and when yet, since I haven’t put the publisher’s hat on – and won’t until the last week of June. Trust me, it’s heaven! 😀 But then I’ll be off Day Job and I’ll decide what to do with the rest of the year, no new titles before the fall, but I may start considering promos for the old titles.

Meanwhile I shall go back to writing! Have a great week!

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by Barb on 17/05/2023  •  Permalink
Posted in indie publishing, the Human being, writing projects
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Posted by Barb on 17/05/2023

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2023/05/17/wednesday-weekly-roundup-188/

Sunday Surprise


And it’s a… GIVEAWAY!  Yes, for you, wonderful follower of this very blog! All you need to get this free book is a Smashwords account! 🙂

Star Minds Sire Teens.

The code is: TG65B

The code expires on: 2020-8-31

What’s this all about? Well…

A few light-years away from Earth, closer to the center of the galaxy, is a planet called Marc’harid. Seen from space, it looks very much like Earth, albeit with different geography. It’s inhabited by Humanoids that look pretty much like us, except they’re all blessed with telepathy. They call themselves the Sire and pride themselves on having the best technology in the galaxy…

Three generations of Sire teens, before and after the fall of the Galactic Empire.

That rainbow-haired girl on the cover is the same who, a few years later, is on the cover of Adventurer. Yep, that’s Iso-bel Aya Shermac, a.k.a. Icy Aya, before she becomes the assassin and lone wolf you get to meet later. Of course her visit to Earth is not new, since you can find it also in Star Minds Third Generation Snippets…

So, what’s new? Well, the first story is the prose version of the ongoing Sunday Strip on Instagram, so if you want to avoid spoilers, you might want to wait until that ends. But if you’re familiar with the Star Minds Universe, you already know how it ends!

And Shan-leo’s accident was in Star Minds Next Generation Diaries, but again, if you’re unfamiliar with the Star Minds Universe, you might want to check this out… a taste of the mighty Sire who once upon a time governed the galaxy! 🙂 This book is slowly going live everywhere for 99c, but you can grab it for freen on Smashwords with the code above!

Happy reading and happy Sunday! 🙂

 

by Barb on 19/07/2020  •  Permalink
Posted in struggles to get through, writing projects
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Posted by Barb on 19/07/2020

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2020/07/19/sunday-surprise-254/

Writer Wednesday


Well, I’m giving up on Giveaways. No entries on this blog for ebooks (except for Tori, as usual, it’s a discussion between me and her, with Joleene or Shafali jumping in every now and then) and Goodreads has changed its policy. Since I’m not in the US, I won’t be able to give away my proofs anymore. Thank you, Mighty Zon. I hope the guy who keeps asking me books to give away stops doing so.

Maybe one day I’ll try a BookBub or something like that, but not this year. Add to this the changes in social media and other algorithms… This year I just don’t care.

I haven’t gotten into my writing routine yet, so I’d rather work on that instead. It might be for the nature of this month’s writing – short stories, so I waste time inbetween stories (and I gave up one after 300 words or so because I’d need way too much research to make it believable). I hope when I get back to longer works I’ll be able to establish my writing routine. I’m still waaaay below my expected wordcount.

More writing and less publishing worries means I might not only catch up on my fiction TBR pile, but also the non-fiction! I’ve had Let’s Get Digital and Let’s Get Visible on my Kindle for years… but still got Amazon Decoded, hoping to get to all of them this year! 🙂

And here’s another list of books that I should probably check… later on! 🙂 I guess I’ll have to develop those skills, sooner or later… sigh! Trying those 7 ways to stay positive as a writer for now! I did join 20BooksTo50K (although I’m still kind of just lurking or commenting on other people’s posts) and I am reading more than before (#1 and 3), but the rest… still some work to do! 🙂

On the bundles front! Mythic Tales is on sale and will be gone at the end of the month. Immortals will come out in February (and here you have an interview with Kaylyn) and then Celebrating Male Lovers.

Hopefully at the beginning of February I’ll have a few shorts to submit to markets and I should hear from a couple of places I submitted to in December as well. I think I started a new sub-series with the latest two! 😉

by Barb on 24/01/2018  •  Permalink
Posted in struggles to get through, writing projects
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Posted by Barb on 24/01/2018

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/writer-wednesday-301/

Sunday Surprise


And it’s an e-book giveaway! You can already download some free stories of yours truly on Instafreebie. Or get another one when you subscribe to my bimonthly newsletter. And one more every two months in the newsletter.

But maybe you’re just following the blog. Or the Facebook page this blog sends the posts to. So one lucky winner can get an e-book in their preferred format, simply comment below with what you’d like to read from my extensive inventory.

You can choose from secondary world fantasy – Silvery Earth has all standalone books, but if you want to know which are my own favorites, well, the quests and the heroines, because they’re the more recent. There’s a suggested order if you’d rather try something else.

Or you can try my science fantasy series Star Minds – a couple of books are adult only, but they’re clearly marked. Or there’s the historical fantasy series Vampires Through the Centuries (for which I suggest you have a look also at the bundle or the anthology, but I cannot put those two in the giveaway).

Or science fiction, urban fantasy and contemporary. Single author box sets. Just take your pick, jot the title in the comments and good luck. Giveaway closes Monday (tomorrow) night and the winner will be announced on Wednesday. Thank you for following me! Have a great Sunday! 🙂

by Barb on 21/01/2018  •  Permalink
Posted in struggles to get through
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Posted by Barb on 21/01/2018

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2018/01/21/sunday-surprise-203/

Sunday Surprise


Happy Blogoversary!

Here’s to another eight years! I have definitely changed since those first posts back in 2009… and the world has changed with me, LOL!

Followers came and went and I salute you all who stuck with me. Thank you! Even if you just lurk and/or like the posts without commenting – at least I know I’m not writing to an audience of one (me)! Well, two, me and Tori, LOL!

A very special thanks to Shafali, Joleene and Tori who are the most active commenters to this day, especially Tori. Thank you for being there, especially Shafali and Joleene who seem to have been there forever (or at least from the beginning)! 🙂

And for those of you who are new and may have never tried any of my books, here’s the chance to win one. In the comments of this post and this post only leave your preferred ebook format, and if you have a title or a genre that you prefer, add that one too. The full list is here.

One lucky winner will get the ebook of their choice! 🙂 Feel free to share the post, but remember, only comments on this post (not on Facebook, not on Goodreads) will be entered…

Thank you and have a great Sunday! 🙂

 

by Barb on 01/10/2017  •  Permalink
Posted in struggles to get through, the Human being
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Posted by Barb on 01/10/2017

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2017/10/01/sunday-surprise-191/

goodreads giveaway


Didn’t sell them at Loncon and don’t want to take them back. Enter now – UK only.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Star Minds by Barbara G.Tarn

Star Minds

by Barbara G.Tarn

Giveaway ends August 21, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

and

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Star Minds Snippets by Barbara G.Tarn

Star Minds Snippets

by Barbara G.Tarn

Giveaway ends August 21, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

by Barb on 19/08/2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 19/08/2014

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2014/08/19/goodreads-giveaway/

Sunday Surprise


… and it’s a guest! Another leg of her blog tour… please welcome Amaranthine author Joleene Naylor and – erm – her guest! 🙂

blog tour bannerHello! Joleene Naylor here, the author of Children of Shadows, book six in the Amaranthine series. First I’d like to thank Barb for letting us hang out on her blog today. Hopefully we don’t make a mess.

I’m here with Jorick, the hero of my vampire series. Although he looks unenthusiastic, I promise you he’s really excited. Just look at that face:

Jorick (insert Barb drooling over him here)

Jorick (insert Barb drooling over him here)

See? It has excitement written all over it.

Jorick: The only thing I’m excited about is the potential break between books.

Jo: Why? Thanks to my real life problems, you already got an extra five months between the last book and Children of Shadows.

Jorick: And you made up for it by torturing us, didn’t you?

Jo: I don’t think so. If anything I was too soft on you in the new book.

Jorick: You would say that. Sorry, but I think that resurrecting an ancient cult to try to kill us, letting Munich keep us prisoner, having us attacked by our allies-

Jo: Hey, hey! You wanna give away the whole book? Geeze. Quit complaining. At least I didn’t kill you.

Jorick: You can’t. The fangirls would riot.

Jo: I don’t know. Verchiel – that vampire you love to hate – is getting quite a following. In fact I had a request for a picture of him in his underwear. I mean there you were in yours and people thought-

Jorick: Excuse me?

Jo: You know, the paper doll of you? So they wanted to see Verchiel too, so I posted it on my FB author page and-

Jorick: I don’t want to have this conversation.

Jo: All right then, back to the book. Would you like to tell our readers what it’s about?

Jorick: It’s the sixth book in the series, wherein our horrible author finds new and creative ways to make us sorry she ever learned to string two sentences together. Not that she does that effectively, mind you.

Jo: Hey!

Jorick: It starts on a lovely beach, but our author can’t leave us there. No. She makes Wolfe, the minion of Munich, demand we go back to the vampire stronghold in Germany and testify about what happened in the cave at the end of the last torturous book. That’s when an extinct vampire cult resurfaces and decides to try to destroy half the world, which leaves us in a precarious position for a lot of reasons. The only semi-good thing is that someone shows up who claims to know that idiot, Verchiel, and he’s in a tight spot for several chapters.

Jo: You really dislike him. Why?

Jorick: He’s arrogant. He’s obnoxious. He doesn’t take anything seriously.

Jo: And you can’t read his mind so you have no idea what in the hell he’s up to.

Jorick: I don’t need to read his mind to know what he’s up to. He’s always trying to get Katelina alone.

Jo: You’re really suspicious, huh?

Jorick: Of course I am! Especially with you as an author!

Jo: Well I can promise that at the end of children of Shadows she’s most certainly not alone with Verchiel.

Jorick: Oh, ha, ha. I know where she is, thank you very much. What I’d like is a guarantee on the next five hundred books. Or you could just let me kill Verchiel.

Jo: I could but…no. Not happening, slappy. If I let anyone kill him it would be – whoops. Never mind.

Jorick: What? Are you considering it?

Jo: I think that’s about all the time we have. Thanks to my surly vampire hero Jorick for taking the time to talk to me, to Barb for hosting us, and to you, the reader, for reading. Be sure to check out the giveaway link and enter for a chance to win some awesome prizes.

Barb sez: It was a pleasure having you both. You’re the reason why I started reading about vampires again (after reading Anne Rice in the 20th century)… And sorry Verchiel is driving you crazy, Jorick, but someone has to, otherwise you’re too cool! 😉

joleene naylorBio:

Joleene Naylor is the author of Amaranthine, a paranormal series where vampires live in the shadows and don’t sparkle. In her spare time she is a freelance artist, book cover designer and photographer. You can find information on all of her pursuits at her website http://JoleeneNaylor.com . She also maintains blogs full of odd ramblings and hopes to win the lottery. Until she does, she and her husband live near Bolivar Missouri with their miniature zoo and a couch coated in cat fur.

Blurb:

CoS-thumbThe sixth installment of the Amaranthine series pulsates with the dark blood of vampire lore.

The Children of Shadows, a vampire cult not seen for hundreds of years, resurfaces to wage war on the vampire guilds. Led by a familiar face, the cult wreaks havoc while Katelina and Jorick are trapped in Munich. Ume, a mysterious vampiress, claims to know Verchiel and offers the help of her secret organization. But can they trust her?

As mysteries are solved, new ones appear. Why have the Children of Shadows returned, and is it really a former ally that leads them, or a look-alike?

Legends rise and secrets are revealed in a world where vampires walk, drenched in blood and shadows.

Buy links:

Paperback

Amazon Kindle

B&N NOOKbook

Smashwords –

itunes

Find Joleene:

website

author blog

FB author page

twitter

good reads

facebook profile

pinterest

and last but not least:

giveaway link

enter for your chance to win one of three awesome prizes:

1st prize: Amaranthine t-shirt (size is winner’s choice), set of bookmarks, and $20 gift card for Barnes and Noble or Amazon (winner’s choice).

2nd prize: Amaranthine t-shirt (size is winner’s choice), bookmark set

3rd prize: The last Executioner trading card set

blog tour banner

by Barb on 30/03/2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Guest Post
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Posted by Barb on 30/03/2014

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2014/03/30/sunday-surprise-47/

Sunday Surprise


SM1_resizeAnd it’s a FREE ebook! Yes! Truly! Holiday Season gift! Technological Angel, book 1 of Star Minds, is free until Dec.18 (Brad Pitt’s 50th birthday).

Go get it on Smashwords in your preferred format with this coupon code:

Promotional price: $0.00
Coupon Code: MK28E
Expires: December 18, 2013

Yes, limited time offer, to celebrate the Italian version and a little over one year since publication of the English version! BTW, I had to put the Italian version through the nuclear version, since the old doc had some blue text I couldn’t get rid of… so one hour wasted putting back the italics (luckily the Italian version has less)! 😉

So, double celebration (and the Italian version is even Premium approved!)! Grab the English version while you can, and share the news… but mostly, enjoy the story in spite of the lousy book cover! 😉

Have a wonderful Sunday! 😀

by Barb on 15/12/2013  •  Permalink
Posted in struggles to get through, writing projects
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Posted by Barb on 15/12/2013

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2013/12/15/sunday-surprise-33/

Writer Wednesday


Final thoughts on the Goodreads Giveaway. 762 people requested it – people who had never heard of me (coincidentally, that’s also my bus number – the one that should take me to work or back home when it doesn’t forget to show up at the bus stop). 359 people added it to their Want-to-read shelf, so they weren’t just entering any giveaway available in the hope of winning. Also, that didn’t bring visitors to this blog, so it’s really just Goodreads users who entered the giveaway (some of my friends might have entered it through the link on Facebook, but I think most of the requesters were unknown to me) to win a book.

What I can say is – even if I will earn only one fan now, it brought my book to the attention of Goodreads users. I checked the book stats that went back to April 2013: it was added once in May, once in July (I think it’s Mr Rodent who even left a review), once in August, once in September, then went on the “Want-to-read” shelf of 100+ people on the first day of the giveaway, 70 on the second and 185 on the third. Now those people might never end up buying it, but they saw it, and know about Silvery Earth now.

That Want-to-read shelf is for the paperback edition that I added for the Giveaway (since, as I mentioned, it’s only for printed books, and it didn’t allow me to set it up until there were only the “e-book” and “Kindle edition” in their database). So I better hurry and do the CreateSpace edition and match it to the Kindle edition, so if some of those people look for the actual book, they can find it on Amazon (although since Amazon bought Goodreads, a lot of people are pissed)! 🙂 And especially if the winner is American, sending direct from CreateSpace will be cheaper for me! 😀

That’s a good marketing tool, that really shows your title on Goodreads since they list it on their giveaway list with no effort on your part. There are obviously readers who keep a look on those lists, so if you have print copies and want to reach new people, set up a Goodreads Giveaway! 🙂 I don’t know if and how it will affect actual sales yet, but it’s good exposure, it’s free (well, it will cost you the mailing expenses for the winner if you don’t use CreateSpace – that was about 20euros for me, international mailing fees are very high, but you can select only your home country if you wish) and not time-consuming at all. No need to tweet, facebook, whatnot, just enter your title in a GR Giveaway and they will introduce you to hundreds of people who would have never heard of you otherwise…

While I was at it, I even re-read BoI-Air – after 2 years. Boy, it felt weird! Now I’m sending it out to an editor with minor adjustments (it was edited by a British editor, unlike my following books) and so the new POD edition will be updated – and so will the e-book version while I’m at it. Hopefully there isn’t so much to do on the other BoI as well! 😉 It’s little things, really (word choices, punctuation), but I understand why some writers get stuck in rewriting hell for years! 😀

No, I’m not stuck in the Book-as-event myth. I did celebrate when I published BoI – Air and ordered those 25 copies (3 more left, yay!) done with Lulu, but I didn’t repeat the expense for the other books that came later. Those minor adjustments I plan are like proofreading (and the typo-imps are real b… – they show up years after you polished your book and hired a proofreader… they always find a way to get into your book!), and I won’t do it for all my books.

But I like reading my own books from time to time, since I write what I want to read and I have fun doing it! 😉 And since I write all year round and pretty fast, I never did NaNoWriMo and I’m not keeping anything in the drawer just because I wrote it too fast. I’m leaving there the stories that have no plot and make no sense because they were experiments at the time, but that’s all! 😉

I’ve written a few shorts for a couple of anthologies I plan on publishing within the next six months (one brand new and three more “recycled”) and then I want to complete the second Amazons book for this year. Next year I plan on writing all the Amazon stories, the next generation of Star Minds and then who knows. I like to improvise – not just rewrite (translate/recycle) old stuff! 😉 And maybe one of those shorts might end up in Wyrd Worlds 2… Stay tuned! 🙂

Now, back to writing… have a great week! 😀

by Barb on 09/10/2013  •  Permalink
Posted in struggles to get through, writing projects
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Posted by Barb on 09/10/2013

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2013/10/09/writer-wednesday-82/

Writer Wednesday


Looky look, even WordPress wished me a happy anniversary! Ain’t they sweet? 😉 That’s why I still love them and stick to them! 😀
anniversary
In spite of the keratitis, I managed to go through the document and found a few typos, a couple of wandering commas, some missing words and some extra words – if more escaped, blame it on my sore eye. Sorry for the false announcement last Wednesday, but I kinda retracted it in the same paragraph – with the sore eye, I didn’t see I had mentioned a new title out in the first part.
AmazonSisters_resizeAnyway, Amazon Sisters is out! 🙂 Check it on Smashwords, Amazon, Kobo, Barnes&Noble, DriveThruFiction and even XinXii – and Apple who still lags behind (got the link this morning before this went live, phew!). A special thanks to The Rodent for his input on this one – he deserves a free copy, doesn’t he? It’s coming your way, Mr Rodent, don’t worry… Thanks for being my guinea pig with a Kobo e-reader! 🙂
And then we have the Giveaway winners for this blog! 🙂 Coupons have been emailed to whoever entered… As for Goodreads, I just received the e-mail that it’s closed and who the winner is. More on this next week.
September is over and since I can’t read on screen, I’ll skip the writerly links this week as well. My sales went up to 6 units (from 1 in August) for Ciaran&Harith – 4 on Kindle, 1 on Kindle UK and 1 on Kobo UK. England, I’m taking you by storm, LOL! I guess my humor is more for the British than the Americans… Or is it because of Ciaran? He’s not British, he’s Irish! And I know India is a former British colony, but they’ve been independent since 1947 (correct me if I’m wrong, I can’t google it at this time – sore eye still on)! 😀
Just kidding, it took Johnny&Marian a couple of months before it started selling, and I sold it both on Amazon.com and Amazon UK for almost a year – 3 or 4 copies a month, so it’s still my bestseller! 😉
I managed to finish the inking of SKYBAND – but now the rest of the job is with Photoshop, so I don’t know when I’ll be able to do it. The eye feels better, but apparently these things take time. And I could toy with the screen light, but I’d rather just wait.
This has pushed back all my publishing schedule, unfortunately, so the complete Star Minds Snippets will come out in November. But you’ll have another taste or two this month. Stay tuned! 🙂
Apparently you can’t have a YouTube account without being on Google+, so I don’t have any book trailers anymore – until I open another account. My sore eye didn’t allow  me to see what I was doing and I joined Google+, unifying my Gmail and Youtube account. I managed to get out of it, but lost the YouTube channel – unless I join Google+, then I can reactivate all the videos (book trailers).
Suggestions? Is Vimeo all right?  Maybe I should just open another YouTube account without my Gmail (I have 6 working e-mail addies anyway) and see what happens… although I don’t like YouTube policies, so… sigh!
Not that the book trailers brought in sales, but they look great on book pages (available only with certain retailers, such as Smashwords or DriveThru)… I’d need a premium membership to upload directly to WordPress, so I’d skip that expense for now. And I took off the videos from Goodreads and Amazon Author Central as well…
More work to do – wouldn’t I be better off writing instead! 😉 Have a great week! 😀
 
by Barb on 02/10/2013  •  Permalink
Posted in struggles to get through, writing projects
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Posted by Barb on 02/10/2013

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2013/10/02/writer-wednesday-81/

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