That's a little snippet I found while editing Worlds Don't Collide today. I'm deep in the edits now and it's all coming together nicely. I can't wait to show it off!
Pre-order the eBook now!
Pre-order the eBook now!
In the mean time, the big news is about the Valkyrie Bestiary Cage Fights. For the past 30 weeks we’ve seen battles of brawn, cunning, and adorableness! Starting this week are the battles for supremacy in 3 categories:
March 14: Light Weight Title: Master of the Inbetween (Pooka vs Unicorn)
March 15: Adorable Weight Title: Ultimate Inbetween Cutie Patootie (Ollie vs Hunter)
March 16: Heavy Weight Title: Supreme Valkyrie Beast - (Grimalkin vs Kyra)
These are the finalists, chosen by your votes over the last half a year. Let’s give them a big round of applause! Voting happens only on the VB Discussion Group on Facebook.
The finals will run a bit differently. Instead of giving a week for each fight, the 3 battles will be posted March 14, 15 and 16. All the fights will close on Friday, March 22 at 3pm, with the winners announced that evening.
As always, we are lucky to have some amazing sponsors for the final fights. Thank you to Jen B. Green, G. Clatworthy, Dahlia T. Drake & Isa Medina for offering ebook prizes. I will add Judge’s Choice awards in the form of audiobooks. And the prize for the last fight (Heavy Weight Division) will be a signed paperback prize pack that includes a Bookseat, an Ollie t-shirt and a felt Hunter (made by me).
I hope you'll join in for this fun event!
Publishing News
If you don't like to know how the magic is made in the publishing industry, I suggest you skip this section. But I wanted to give an update about an article from a previous blog.
A few weeks ago, I posted and article about the problems with Audible and how I was pleased that Spotify had entered the audiobook market, with hopes that they would become real competition for Amazon/Audilbe. Weeeeeel, it seems I spoke too fast. There's been a couple of rather huge developments to this story.
SpotifyGate 2024
Findaway Voices is the audiobook distributer that was purchased by Spotify (and the one I use to distribute my audiobooks). In February, Findaway Voices quietly sent out an email memo to say that they were updating their terms of service to be more in line with Spotify's general terms. Authors didn't have to do anything, but it would be assumed they agreed to the new terms if they continued with the service.
Not a big deal. Nobody actually reads the terms of service, right? Well, someone did. And within hours, every online author group I belong to was blowing up with the news. The new terms were very far-reaching and included wording that seemed to give Spotify permission (among other things) to use our audiobooks for AI training without our knowledge and to sell our content to third parties without our knowledge or without compensation.
Thousands of authors immediately shot off emails to Findaway, only to get an automated response saying they were experiencing higher than average support calls. I bet. Within a day, Spotify/Findaway issued new terms with markedly better wording to avoid all the hoopla. It's wonderful to see what a community can do when they act together.
Are the new terms perfect? No. But a perusal of other terms (ie, from Google Play and Audible) have shown me that there is no perfect in this situation. Regardless, many authors (myself included) have been left with a poor view of Spotify/Findaway who seemed to have been trying to make a big grab, and have shown little remorse (except for getting caught). Many dumped Findaway on the spot.
So what's the answer? I have no idea. For now, I will be keeping my audiobooks with Spotify/Findaway until I can find an alternative that proves significantly better.
One piece of good news is that Audible is supposed to be changing their draconian policies that leave authors with only 25% of the pie for audiobooks. Brandon Sanderson has been a big advocate in this case. He used his star power for good and pushed Audible for more equitable terms for all authors. Thank you, Brandon! You can read the article on this topic on his website HERE.
No one is sure what these new terms are yet, but you can be sure the whole author community will be watching closely.
A few weeks ago, I posted and article about the problems with Audible and how I was pleased that Spotify had entered the audiobook market, with hopes that they would become real competition for Amazon/Audilbe. Weeeeeel, it seems I spoke too fast. There's been a couple of rather huge developments to this story.
SpotifyGate 2024
Findaway Voices is the audiobook distributer that was purchased by Spotify (and the one I use to distribute my audiobooks). In February, Findaway Voices quietly sent out an email memo to say that they were updating their terms of service to be more in line with Spotify's general terms. Authors didn't have to do anything, but it would be assumed they agreed to the new terms if they continued with the service.
Not a big deal. Nobody actually reads the terms of service, right? Well, someone did. And within hours, every online author group I belong to was blowing up with the news. The new terms were very far-reaching and included wording that seemed to give Spotify permission (among other things) to use our audiobooks for AI training without our knowledge and to sell our content to third parties without our knowledge or without compensation.
Thousands of authors immediately shot off emails to Findaway, only to get an automated response saying they were experiencing higher than average support calls. I bet. Within a day, Spotify/Findaway issued new terms with markedly better wording to avoid all the hoopla. It's wonderful to see what a community can do when they act together.
Are the new terms perfect? No. But a perusal of other terms (ie, from Google Play and Audible) have shown me that there is no perfect in this situation. Regardless, many authors (myself included) have been left with a poor view of Spotify/Findaway who seemed to have been trying to make a big grab, and have shown little remorse (except for getting caught). Many dumped Findaway on the spot.
So what's the answer? I have no idea. For now, I will be keeping my audiobooks with Spotify/Findaway until I can find an alternative that proves significantly better.
One piece of good news is that Audible is supposed to be changing their draconian policies that leave authors with only 25% of the pie for audiobooks. Brandon Sanderson has been a big advocate in this case. He used his star power for good and pushed Audible for more equitable terms for all authors. Thank you, Brandon! You can read the article on this topic on his website HERE.
No one is sure what these new terms are yet, but you can be sure the whole author community will be watching closely.
Book Fairs & Events
Spotlight Books
Brimstone Burglar
Riley Cruz Book 2
L.A. McBride
Turns out, the only difference between a felony and acquisitions is who’s bankrolling my heist.
I’m about to go from scrounging up enough tip money to make rent to pulling six figures. I’ll finally put those years stealing for my old alpha to good use. Only this time, I’ll be the one calling the shots. My crew. My way.
When a witch starts dabbling in forbidden magic, the Enclave sends me after the demon artifact fueling her power. The job should be simple, except they can’t point me to the culprit or tell me what I’m after.
To make matters worse, they’ve teamed me up with the alpha tracking the witch. Max Volkov was supposed to be my no-strings-attached one-night stand, not my partner. He likes making the rules almost as much as I like breaking them. To get this job done though, we’ll have to work together.
With vampires after my prize, an old enemy gunning for me, and someone trying to take out my crew, I need to find that artifact fast. Something tells me it’s going to take a lot more than a fancy new job title and the Enclave’s backing to keep us all alive.
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