During Facebook parties to celebrate book releases, I sometimes ask the readers, “What do you want to know about Hawaii?” As someone who was born and raised here in the islands, I know a few things…

I thought it might be fun to turn it into a weekly thing that I post in my reader group on Facebook each Wednesday and call it Wiki Wednesdays.

UPDATE: The winner is…Eileen McCall!
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Yeah, I may be posting more puzzles…

I went to the ER last night because I couldn’t stand the throbbing in my hand. I broke my pinky and sprained my hand. I’m waiting today for a referral to get it casted. The stupid temporary splint is not keyboard-friendly! Swim season is officially over for me now. I’ll be grumpy for a while…

Puzzle Contest

Tell me who they are for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card. If you have a snippet of story, too, I’d love to read it!

I mentioned that I fell last Friday night, right? My hand hurt, but hell, I’ve broken two twos in separate instances over the past year, and no big deal. Now, I’m not at all sure I broke my hand—I won’t go to the doctor unless I have to, because when I went for my broken toe the first time, they handed me an ace bandage and said take some ibuprofen, so I did that for toe #2. I’ll follow the same advice for this injury.

The problem is—a toe I can do without. My hand is another thing altogether. Typing with a hand and one thumb is a PITA. I’m slow, make tons of mistakes, and my hand aches, so I’m not inclined to do it for very long. My lovely September schedule of editing and writing is in the toilet, now. I can’t paint (well, I could, but I don’t want to now), I for sure can’t crochet. Making my own bed is painful. Swimming yesterday was painful. Wah-wah-wah.

And let’s not even mention how much I mourn the loss of my computer glasses…

So, if I’m a little more absent than usual, you know why. In the meantime, check out the open contests. I’ll be back with a better mood soon. 🙂

Open Contests and Offers

1. A New Puzzle-Contest!  — Ends soon! Win an Amazon gift card!
2. Landra Graf: Sci-Fi Television Shows (Contest) — Win a FREE book!
3. One Craptastic Night — Puzzle Contest — Win an Amazon gift card!
4. Get your FREE Love in Lockdown stories! — EVERYONE! Get your FREE stories!

We’re baaaack!

Back with our third Love in Lockdown story, which is also the second part of the series author Reina Torres is bringing to you—FOR FREE! Can I say that enough? Free—free—free—free!

If you haven’t been following this blog, then maybe you don’t know that a group of authors is writing short stories and offering them for FREE (see how I did that, again?). All the stories are set during the lockdown, so you’ll easily identify with what our characters are going through, and so that you will enjoy how our “bookpeople” manage to connect and keep each others’ spirits up.

So far, three short stories have been published. Two are in a continuing series, written by the wonderful Reina Torres! Her latest installment in SUBLET is out today! Click on the covers to get your copies!

UPDATE: The winner is…ButtonsMom!
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This will be short. I have to get my left hand back into an Ace bandage. Dummy me, last night I ran into a large rock in the dark and fell on my face. Or sort of fell backward over the boulder and twisted and landed on my face. It felt like a slow-motion fall—you know, the kind in the movies with the long, loud, “Ooooh Nooooo!” I broke my favorite glasses (because I landed on them), grazed the side of my face, skinned my knees, but the worst injury is to my left hand. I think I may have broken something. I’ll think about going to the doctor if it’s not improving Monday. I hate going to doctors.

Anyways, just another crappy thing to happen in a craptastic year, right? And did I mention that the house’s AC unit’s pipe that takes the condensation out of the house backed up and we had a flood in the basement last night? Yeah, that kind of day.

I may go back to bed.

So, I’ll leave you with a puzzle. Enjoy it!

Puzzle-Contest

Solve the puzzle and tell me a story for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card. Doesn’t have to be long. Have fun!

I’ve noticed a change over the past couple of years in romance publishing (including YA romance) with regards to the way contemporary romance is being branded. Where previously illustrated covers were mostly reserved for rather chaste “chick-lit”—a usually slightly more “literary” twist on romance novels aimed at young professional women—now illustrated covers are popping up on the covers of mainstream contemporary romance, even that which leans decidedly into the hot and explicit category.

Take FIX HER UP by Tessa Bailey with its very cute and rather innocent looking cover. I read a review that claimed it had “some of the most explicit sex I have ever read on the page”. Of course this made me buy it and heck, that reviewer is not wrong! GET A LIFE CHLOE BROWN by Talia Hibbert is another quite sexy book with this this new kind of fun illustrated cover.

So for contemporary romance, and even some historical romance (see the gorgeous cover of A ROGUE OF ONE’S OWN by Evie Dunmore), illustrated covers are the latest big trend. It doesn’t look like this will change soon. What does this mean for indie authors? Suddenly the affordable old standard stock photographic covers are competing with this fresh new look. If an author is writing indie contemporary, historical or YA romance what are their options if they want to get in on this trend?

The original illustrations used on covers like FIX HER UP cost anywhere from $500 and up. They’re just not economical for many indie authors.

This is where stock illustrations come in. Stock illustrations can be mixed and manipulated to make the covers unique and evocative of your story while still fitting current trends.  A recent cover from Cover Your Dreams, HOW TO LASSO A BILLIONAIRE, by Katharine Sadler is one example.  The price of this cover was Under $150.

If you’d like to know more about illustrated covers from Cover Your Dreams please get in touch by emailing info@coveryourdreams.net  or visit www.coveryourdreams.net.