Monday Thoughts and Writing…

Good Monday morning to you all… I hope you had a wonderful weekend. As for me it was a busy one. Saturday I spent the day at the Church decorating for Christmas with friends and then Sunday was the Children’s Ministry Christmas party. Let’s just say it was busy but satisfying. I’m pleasantly tired this morning…

As for my writing, I’ve grabbed a few minutes here and there this weekend to work on Ridge, but not as much as I would’ve liked. Ridge has been prodding my brain all weekend wanting his story told. For those of you that have messaged me about the upcoming release, let’s just say I’m working on a specific date, but as of now no release date yet. I’m thrilled that others are as excited as I am to have Ridge’s story published. It’s turning out to be quite a story and I can’t wait for you to read it.

Make sure you go to my website and enter the Rafflecopter to win a audiobook copy of Faith Through The Tears. Enter everyday if you want to. The response to this story has been really wonderful. On Audible.com I’ve had so many beautifully sweet reviews and some made me cry. This story tore at my heart one moment and made me giggle the next. One woman wrote to me and said that I should give away a box of tissues with every copy.

What are you doing on this fine Monday morning?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Audio books – Have you taken the leap yet?

I took the leap into audio books last year and haven’t looked back. The potential for expanding sales is enormous. This is a growing industry and allows for more creativity than just merely writing the book. It’s your book come to life.

When I first heard one of the auditions for my books I was mesmerized to say the least. It was like a refreshing look at my work, but out loud. I sat riveted to my seat. That was my work being read out loud and it sounded so different. Since I normally read my work out loud during one of my edits for each one, it was strange hearing someone elses voice.

As for sales, I actually do pretty well with my audio books. As I say it’s a growing market. WIth Audible.com they actually do advertising in many online avenues. i’ve seen my books on the weather online, a children’s site, and the newest place was quite a surprise, Pandora Radio. I was listening to Pandora yesterday and happened to look up at the screen and there I was. I did a double take. Wow, there on the right side of the screen was “With All My Heart”. I did a happy dance and then I sat down to take a closer look. My book was on the top spot, guess who was the 2nd spot? “Fifty Shades of Grey”! I had to take this one in.

The irony of the advertisement positioning is this, “With All My Heart” is a Christian Romance and it’s being advertised right above a book about Christian Grey. Two totally different books on one advertisement. It made me a little excited that my book would be advertised with a bestseller, which could boost sales, but these are not the same kind of romance by far. I was glad to be on the top spot. Maybe people will pick up my book before the other one.

Using Audible’s site is so easy to set up. They make it streamlined. If you don’t want to narrate the book yourself, they’ll send the narrators to you. Try it. I know you’ll be pleased with the results.

Have you tried Audible yet? If not, then go over and give it a shot. All you do is go to ACX.com which is affiliated with Amazon and get started. Your audio books will be available on Audible.com, Amazon, and Apple iTunes.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Special Giveaway to Offer

Audible.com has honored me with 25 free audible book coupons for “With All My Heart” and “Moonbeam & Roses”. So here is how this works. The first 25 that message me for each book at stephaniehurt4@gmail.com will get a code to get the free audio book. Please state which book you are entering for. I will announce the winners as soon as all spots are gone. So watch your email and good luck.

So, don’t delay. The spots will go fast. Don’t forget it’s free, so why not.

Contests, New Releases, and just WOW…

Well, as promised in my blog last week, I jump. I entered the So You Think You Can Write Contest at Harlequin. This has been a year long process of do I want to or not struggles. Suddenly two weeks ago I started feeling the tug and coincidentally I saw a post that entries were being accepted. That was the sign I needed to jump. Here’s the link: http://www.soyouthinkyoucanwrite.com/manuscripts-sytycw-2013/finding-the-right-time/ So go over and read my submission and let me know what you think. I’m really excited about this entry.

“Victoria” was officially released today. That’s an exciting thing also. I tried out the preorder with Smashwords.com, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and Apple iTunes. We will see how that goes because as you know those sales won’t show up for a little while. It you get a chance go over and check out this book. It’s also available on Amazon, CreateSpace and Allromanceebooks.com.

As with everything I do, I stay busy. Late last week “With All My Heart” was released in audio form. That was exciting, but what was really exciting was Apple iTunes picked it up immediately upon release. You may be saying, well iTunes is affiliated with Audible. The exciting thing is my other audio book that is out has not been picked up yet by iTunes, so this makes me wonder at the picking process.

I had another author ask my opinion of audio books and my opinion is they’re great. My sales have been good and I’m excited about the rest of the books that are in production even as we speak.

As Rosie Amber and I wind down our Romancing September Across The World Blog Tour, I sit to ponder the results. We were able to meet 30 talented authors in 30 days. As bloggers and readers alike we were able to see a small part of their lives and books for a moment. It went really well. If you haven’t check them out, just go through my last 30 days posts and you can see my side and the link to Rosie’s side.

So as I leave you today, think about the day. It’s Monday, a new week to make a better you. God made you in His image and that means do your best at everything you do.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…