Hello fellow Junkies,

Hope everyone had an amazing Christmas, and have huge mega plans for New Years. So, I'm calling in a huge favour. I need everyone who has read any/all of my books to leave a review on amazon.com/amazon.co.uk. Even if you've written a review on Goodreads, I'd love for you to cut and paste that bad-boy onto the amazon site(s) too please.

If you've got it in your TBR pile, read it, and then leave me a review, please. It'll only take a few minutes of your time, and I'd much appreciate it. Remember that a review is just your opinion, so I won't brain myself if you say it sucked/was too violent/was too graphic/was badly written etc... (think positive thoughts, Lauren!)

Hope to see some review love soon!

Hello fellow Junkies,

The Half Blood trilogy is now available on paperback. At the moment, only Createspace has copies available, but very shortly they will be available for purchase on amazon.com. Here are the finished covers!! So excited!!

Hello fellow Junkies,

Jessy from Bookend 2 Bookend has had the opportunity to read and review Half Life before its official release on November 28th. The verdict is in, and it's good! To check it out for yourself, click her button below! Don't forget to enter the giveaway. There's still time to get your hands on a copy of Half Life prior to its release.

Hello fellow Junkies,

As I'm sure you've noticed, the ticker on my blog here is one day out for the release of Half Life. I think it has something to do with the different timezones. The release date is still the 28th November, but the giveaway will be wrapping on the 27th, and with any luck the FIVE winners will be receiving a copy of the book before it goes live on Amazon! Even more incentive to enter!

Hello fellow Junkies,

For the people who read this blog, I assume you're fans. If not, you're just passing through which is okay, too. Whatever the reason for checking in to read this post, I'm glad you did. So, let's talk self-publishing ... (I'm totally hitting my head against the desk right now) Where to start with self-publishing. I guess the question to ask would be why did I do it?

Well for me, and like a lot of other authors I suppose, self-publishing was a way of getting my book out there. I worked for three and a half years on the first book and after crushing rejection after crushing rejection, I just couldn't take it anymore. Those frilly-worded rejection letters got damn depressing. Nobody was willing to take a chance on me. Was it because my work was terrible, or could it have been the query letter?

I followed all the rules with writing a query letter to an agent:
* Preparation;
* Formatting;
* The three paragraph rule (pretty much if you can't sell your book in 3 paragraphs, just give up);
* What to write, what not to write;

My favourite section was paragraph three--author bio (in particular write about your achievements/awards/previous publications) Yeah right! It's like trying to get a job without any relevant experience. It just ends up on top of the reject pile.

But still the rejection emails (and one letter) came rolling in. But believe it or not, it only made me more determined. If ever I felt like I should just throw my hands up into the air and give up, I would just look at a friend of mine (also a writer) who had given up with the first rejection. Yes! Rejection is crushing. Yes! You start to think that maybe you wasted a hell of a lot of time BUT I'm not in the habit of giving up if I really want to do something.

So when I stumbled upon amazon.com's amazing KDP program, there was suddenly light at the end of the tunnel. I had an outlet. I had a way to get Indi and Rhett's story out there. But don't be fooled into thinking that getting your lovely finished product up on the WWW was an easy task. After pouring your heart and soul into the story, after all the blood, sweat ... err, you get the idea. After all that, you still have to just sit on it. Let it simmer for a week or two. P.S. Hardest two weeks of my life! I'll tell you a secret, but this stays just between you and I. The temptation to change things in that two weeks is the reason Half Blood took three and a half years. There are eight, count 'em, EIGHT different versions of the book.

So you've waited your two weeks and you're ready to sit down and start the editing process. You read your story again. And again. And again. If you're really thorough, you'll get it printed out and go over it on paper. You'll find silly typos like 'his' instead of 'him' (guilty as charged) the tense problems which sounded fine while your fingers were flying over the keyboard, but are just plain ol' wrong when you're reading it back.

Once you think it's polished, you might go that one extra step before you get some trusted friends to look over your manuscript. You may want to consider paying a proofreader to go over it with a fine-toothed comb.

FACT: You can read and re-read your work, but you will always, ALWAYS miss things. (also guilty as charged).

A professional proofreader can set you back anywhere from between $200 AUD (bargain) to well over $500 AUD depending on the length of your manuscript, what you want done (straight proofread or an edit) and how tight your deadline is. The more you want done, the more it's going to cost you. Luckily with Half Blood, I had a friend give me mate's rates for the edit/proofread. It still cost $250, but it was worthwhile knowing that I hadn't left any his/hims in there.

After two weeks, I got Half Blood back from my proofreader friend who had gone to town all over my paper. I swear I never want to see the track changes features ever again in my life (also not going to happen) <sigh> So, instead of accepting all (which would have been the smart thing) I went through the entire thing picking a choosing what I wanted to keep or reject. As an author, it's your prerogative to do that. Some things that were picked up and circled for potential change were just plain stupid. (choice of vocabulary namely). As an author, you are free to stipulate any spelling variations you'd like to keep. I think I drove my girl mad with my American spelling even though I'm Aussie. There's just something about spelling arse as ass that somehow makes it look way better.

Okay, so your story looks swank. It's got swagger. Now it's time to see if everyone else thinks it's as awesome as you do. Choose 2-3 trusted friends who enjoy reading in the genre you've written in. If you ask a drama reader to reader a horror, that's not going to work (but you already knew that didn't you?) I also found that it's a good idea to choose people who you know will read it right away, not those friends who are like "Oh., I've been so busy lately," or "I completely forgot!" Those kinds of friends suck for critical readers. Choose them wisely and make sure they're going to be honest with you, too!

Having a critical reader for your work is opening yourself up for criticism. Criticism is good! Open up and embrace it. Learn from it. Grow with it. If they tell you your characters are unbelievable, or hard to connect with, it's not a personal shot at you. It's the truth. So do something about it now while you still can. I've got two amazing people who read over my work, but it took me a long time to find them and nobody else can have them! <grins>

Okay, so your baby has been read and re-read, it's been preened and fluffed by a proofreader, it's been looked over carefully by your critical readers. Now your heart is in your throat and hammering hard. You've clicked into the amazon KDP site and asked all these questions about rights and royalties and hooks. You've been asked to select a cover for your book. If you don't have one, the good thing is you can use one of theirs. Granted it's not all blinged-up or anything, it's a cover all the same and you can change it later once you get your own cover organised. If you like, I can write another blog about selecting cover art later. Just put it in the comments!

So you've uploaded your manuscript, and made sure the formatting is correct (amazon has an awesome free download to lead you through this), decided on a price and whether you want it be a worldwide availability or restricted just to certain countries, and you scroll down to the bottom, click the 'I agree to these terms' box and click the publish button. You sit back in your chair panting like you've just run a marathon, wondering frantically what you've just done.

Congratulations, you've done it. You've self-published! It's takes up to 48-hours to go live, and once it does you'll like you have OCD the amount of times you check your dashboard to see if anyone has bought any copies yet. But let me tell you, seeing those numbers there rising tightens something in your chest. People are actually reading your stuff.

And isn't that exactly what you wanted to happen in the first place?

Hello fellow Junkies,

I know it's only been like 2 days since I officially finished the proofread and edit of Half Life, but the writing bug is under my skin again. I've started on something new. It'll still be an urban fantasy book, but not involving vampires and werewolves (I know, I know. I can hear the sobbing from here.) It'll be good though, promise!

If you missed it on my Facebook page, I also posted the hook for Half Life. Here it is:



 

Hello fellow Junkies,

To celebrate the release of Half Life on November 25th, FIVE lucky people will have the chance to get their hands on a copy of the third and final installment of the Helheim wolf pack trilogy! How amazing is that? All you have to do is enter the competition below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hello fellow Junkies,
Just a quick update on the progress of Half Life. Proofing is going well. I should have that done by the end of  the month then the manuscript is off to some critical readers before its (hopeful) release on November 28th. That's right, November 28th. I'm so excited about it that I've put a counter on the page to count down the days, hours and minutes.

Only 48 days and 16 hours to go!

Hello fellow Junkies,
Just to let you know that Jess at BookEnd 2 BookEnd (http://bookend2bookend.blogspot.com.au) has so kindly written a review of Half Truths with the chance to get your hands on free copies of both Half Blood and Half Truths. A big thanks to Jess for writing such an awesome review and to all of you out there that pick up Half Blood or Half Truths as a result.

Hello fellow Junkies,
I'm so excited about the upcoming release of the third book in the Half Blood series that as I proofread and edit, I keep coming across these awesome quotes or scenes that I just have to share. Sabel has been the star for most of these teasers, but now for something a little different. I know everyone just loves Rhett, so here is one from him.

Hello fellow Junkies,

After 5 months and 4 days of writing, Half Life is pretty much finished! I still have to let it sit and stew for a while before starting the editing/proofing process, but with any luck that won't take too long at all. As it stands, I have written 91,000 words which is just a little shorter than the second book. Half Truths.

While it's resting, I've decided to write a novella  about Eirawen, the vampire queen, as some of you have had some questions about her and the Sicarii. It will give you her back story, why she hates all half bloods, and the creation of the Sicarii, including her relationship with Nox.

I think this story will be added to the end of Half Life as an extra bonus read. Yay for bonus reads!

If anyone has any questions they'd like to ask me, feel free to either post here on my blog, or go to http://www.facebook.com/authorlaurendawes and post of my author wall, or send me a private message of you prefer.

Hello fellow Junkies,

Hello fellow Junkies,
Since the muse is back and bad ass, I decided to share one of my favourite scenes so far:

He’d brought the other male for her? ‘Why?’

‘Colton died by his hand,’ Sabel replied in that dual layered voice, his green eyes looking through her and down to her wolf. Her own wolf began brushing up against her sides, trying to get closer to him. He had brought her a gift.

She started nibbling on her lower lip, her eyes on the ground. ‘What are you going to do with him?’

‘First, I’m going to torture the information I need out of him then I’m going to let you kill him.’

Hello fellow Junkies,

Just a quick update on the progress of the book. Now, I'm hoping that by sharing this I'm not jinxing myself into another unholy state of non-writing, but it appears as if my muse is back from wherever the hell it went and is ready to rock and roll once more! Perhaps my muse in tangled up with my husband in some way. Writing has been near impossible since he went away 6 weeks ago, but as soon as he returns, I'm ready to tackle the Helheim pack once more. (I'm jumping up and down a little in my seat!)

The last couple of days have been productive having written around 5000 words. Whether all those words stay is yet another story, but I have high hopes! I just wanted to say a huge thanks to whoever asked me those questions before as they helped me refocus on the task at hand. All of those unanswered questions will definitely be answered in this book!

I'm also planning on writing another (couple of) short story(ies) at the end of this third installment.

I must also thank my music gods too: My Chemical Romance, Newton Faulkner, Florence + the Machine, Scouting for Girls. All these bands/singers help the creative juices to flow. I just hope I can keep going at the pace I am and have Half Life done soon!

Hello fellow Junkies,

So it is official: Half Life will be the third and last book in the Helheim wolf series. With dwindling pack numbers, I've realised that I don't have enough to sustain them. This third book will (hopefully) tie together all the loose ends that the first two books may have left. I think I've got all the bases covered, but what I'd really like to know is what questions all you have that you would like answered. Plus, are there any characters out there that you would like to know their full story?

 Sabel is the main character in this book. Revenge is fresh in his mind, and he's determined to find the person responsible for the death of his best friend. The main plot has been planned, and I've added a few more chapters leaving me with another 5 to write before it's the end of the Helheim pack.

Procrastination has dug in its dirty claws recently leaving me uninspired and unwilling to even sit down in front of my laptop to write. That's probably a good thing though. I can just image spending hours writing absolute drivel only to have to delete it the next time inspiration hits. Ho hum...

Hello fellow Junkies,
Just a quick update on Indi and all the gang. I am currently writing the third book in the series. I still have to decide whether this will be the final book, or second last.

New characters are introduced, and older ones are explored further-Vaile's boss being one of them. We will find out about Sabel's dark past as well as the females of the Helheim pack and the roles they play.

As it stands, I have another 3 chapters to write in order to end the story of Half Life, but one or two of those chapters is going to be intense-epic battle scenes which take a little more brain power to write.

Decisions also have to be made about Brax and his involvement with Rhett and Indi. Mmm, I can smell a love triangle *rubs hands together gleefully*.

The other fun part about writing a book is choosing the cover art. I think I have narrowed down the one I want from a selection of 5 or 6, but I will know for sure once I've finished with the final edit. Things can always change.

I hope I've teased you sufficiently, leaving you wanting more of the Helheim wolves.

Hello fellow Junkies,

Half Truths, the second book in the Half Blood series, has been available on Amazon.com for almost three weeks. Sales have been good, but they could always be better. So, if you have read Half Truths and you like like it, I would love to hear from you. Post a review on Amazon.com and tell everyone what you thought. I'm anxious to know how the second book is being received!

Hello fellow Junkies,
Just a little update on the promotion I had running with "Half Blood" for 72 hours last month. In total, I had 4,086 downloads of the book which, I think, was a great success. For the remainder of the month, I had 100 more sales. It was a fantastic response to Half Blood, and if anyone is considering using the promotion tool via Amazon.com to promote their book(s), I would highly recommend it.

Also, if anyone out there has read "Half Blood" and liked/loved it, I would love it if a review was posted. The more reviews I have, the more likely it is that someone else will decide to read it too.

To my fellow Junkies,
Here is the proposed new cover for the second book in the Half Blood series. This book still includes Indi and Rhett; however, there is another plot that runs along side it concerning Vaile and his partner Grey. This second installment is a lot sexier than the first with a darker, more malicious undertone running throughout. Once again, this is not for the weak of heart. Explicit language, sex scenes and torture and contained within its pages.

Half Blood - Available at Amazon.com

To my fellow Junkies,


I finally decided to self-publish after exhausting the literary agent/publishing opportunities in Australia. Given its size to population ratio, that happened surprisingly quickly. With the sting of the last rejection from Curtis Brown, Australia, still fresh, I set my sights on the US market--after all they were drowning in literary agents and publishers. Alas, fate was cruel to me once more despite my preparedness and tenacity. A girl can only take so many rejections before her ego is dented beyond repair.


After much deliberation, I decided that amazon.com was the way forward. Vanity publishing, I hear you say? Well, yeah. Nobody else was willing to give me a go, so why the hell not? Stranger things have happened, after all. And I learned long ago that the only person you can truly depend on was yourself. 


Half Blood has been live for approximately two and a half weeks. I was surprised to find that within the twelve hours between uploading and the publication going live, that I indeed had one sale already. Was it pure, dumb luck? Maybe, but I'll take that over no sales at all.


Up until now, sales have been okay--not great, but okay. Currently, my sales rank is embarrassingly low, but upwards and onwards I always say! I'm not sure whether it's because the market is saturated with fantasy fiction right now, or whether the genre is slowly dying out. I'm hoping it's the former, which makes it harder and harder to actually get people to notice it. 


Bundled right along side my book are other kindle-version books with werewolves and sex and vampires, and, yeah, that's great. I just don't want my story lumped together and given the title of erotica along with the others. 


If anyone has read the first couple of chapters on my blog, and is interested in finding out what happens between Rhett and Indi, I would love it if you could go to: http://www.amazon.com/Half-Blood-Helheim-Wolf ebook/dp/B007SDE238/ref=pd_rhf_pe_p_img_2 to check it out. It only costs $5 USD. Hit that 'like' button while you're there--my ego needs massaging to get the circulation going again after the shock of putting myself out there.


To further whet your appetites, here is the second chapter of Half Blood...

Chapter 2

Jerry gave him a sharp nod. ‘Thanks. I owe you.’  














I have decided to post the second chapter of my book Half Blood in a concerted effort to try and get as much exposure as I can.