Readeropolis

2017

Wolf of the Tesseract by Christopher D. Schmitz Genre: SciFi Fantasy | FREE Book Promoon Amazon Dec 28th- 30th! | @SDSXXTours Presents #SciFi #Fantasy

Posted by: Mayor Sonni Posted date: 12:30 AM / comment : 0 Fantasy, Fiction, Giveaway, Science Fiction

Have you read Wolf of the Tesseract by Christopher D. Schmitz yet? The sci-fi fantasy is on virtual book tour and stops here today.

Don't forget to enter for a chance to win the giveaway and follow the book tour (for other dates see the link at the bottom of the post).

The book is FREE on Amazon Dec 28th- 30th!

Wolf of the Tesseract

by Christopher D. Schmitz

Genre: SciFi Fantasy

227 pages

While investigating a series of strange murders in her neighborhood, college student Claire Jones is kidnapped by a handsome werewolf who claims he’s rescuing her from the clutches of an evil sorcerer. But she can’t run forever and if Claire and her companion can’t reclaim an arcane artifact to end the warlock’s reign of terror, he will unleash the dark god Sh’logath’s cataclysmic power upon the universe, shattering dimensional barriers, and devouring all reality.

**FREE on Amazon Dec 28th- 30th!**

Get it HERE! * Add to Goodreads

Christopher D. Schmitz is the traditionally published and self-published author of both fiction and nonfiction. When he is not writing or working with teenagers he might be found at comic conventions as a panelist or guest. He has been featured on cable access television broadcasts, metro area podcasts, and runs a blog for indie authors.

Always interested in stories, media such as comic books, movies, 80s cartoons, and books called to him at a young age—especially sci-fi and fantasy. He lives in rural Minnesota with his family where he drinks unsafe amounts of coffee. The caffeine shakes keeps the cold from killing them. His entire family is musically gifted, although he is, sadly, their only bagpiper.

Education: Schmitz also holds a Master’s Degree in Religion and freelances for local newspapers. He is available for speaking engagements, interviews, etc. via the contact form and links on his website or via social media.

Website * Facebook * Twitter * Amazon * Goodreads

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Escape Claws by @LindaSReilly7 | Book Tour | @Silver Dagger Book Tours Presents Cozy Mystery

Posted by: Mayor Sonni Posted date: 8:16 PM / comment : 4 Cozy Mystery, Fiction, Giveaway, Mystery

Escape Claws, a Cat Lady Mystery by Linda Reilly, is on virtual book and stops at Readeropolis today. Don't forget to enter for a chance to win the giveaway and follow the book tour (for other dates see the link at the bottom of the post).

Escape Claws

A Cat Lady Mystery

by Linda Reilly

Genre: Cozy Mystery

204 pages

Here, killer, killer, killer . . .

For the first time in sixteen years, Lara Caphart has returned to her hometown of Whisker Jog, New Hampshire. She wants to reconnect with her estranged Aunt Fran, who’s having some difficulty looking after herself—and her eleven cats. Taking care of a clowder of kitties is easy, but keeping Fran from being harassed by local bully Theo Barnes is hard. The wealthy builder has his sights set on Fran’s property, and is determined to make her an offer she doesn’t dare refuse.

Then Lara spots a blue-eyed ragdoll cat that she swears is the reincarnation of her beloved Blue, her childhood pet. Pursuing the feline to the edge of Fran’s yard, she stumbles upon the body of Theo Barnes, clearly a victim of foul play. To get her and Fran off the suspect list, Lara finds herself following the cat’s clues in search of a killer. Is Blue’s ghost really trying to help her solve a murder, or has Lara inhaled too much catnip?

Add to Goodreads

**Amazon * B&N * Kobo**

Armed with a degree in Criminal Justice, Linda Reilly once contemplated a career in law enforcement. But life took a twist, and instead she found her niche in real estate closings and title examinations, where the dusty tomes in the Registry of Deeds enticed her into solving mysteries of a different sort. A dyed-in-the-wool New Englander, Linda lives in New Hampshire with her husband, who affectionately calls her "Nose-in-a-Book." A member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America, she loves solving mysteries of the cozy type. When she's not pounding away at her keyboard, she can usually be found prowling the shelves of a local bookstore or library.

**Website * Facebook Author * Facebook CLM * Twitter**

**Pinterest * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads**

Follow the tour HERE for exclusive excerpts and a giveaway!

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The Piercing the Veil by @GuyRiessen | Book Tour & $15 Amazon GC #Giveaway | @SDSXXTours Presents #Horror #Supernatural #Occult #Thriller

Posted by: Mayor Sonni Posted date: 12:30 AM / comment : 0 Fiction, Giveaway, Horror, Thriller

Don't forget to enter for a chance to win the $15 Amazon GC giveaway and follow the book tour (for other dates see the link at the bottom of the post).

Piercing the Veil

by Guy Riessen

Genre: Horror, Supernatural Occult Thriller

What do flesh-eating cell phones, brain-enhancing tacos, and a real live dead foot have in common?

They're all tools in the destruction of our world, and a weapons-grade team of heavily-armed Miskatonic University nerds may be humanity’s last hope.

Something is ripping holes in the Veil of energy that separates our world from that of the ancient evils writhing just beyond what we think is reality. Time is running out for Professors Derrick LeStrand, Howard Strauss and their team of researchers as they race to hunt down a mysterious Frenchman who wields Necromantic Death Magic unlike anything they’ve seen before.

Tearing open psychological wounds from Derrick’s past, the cabalistic sorcerer is gathering ancient icons of power to pierce the Veil and bring down the only thing shielding mankind from the relentless horrors beyond.

If they fail, the only questions that will remain are who will live in servitude to the Great Old Ones and who will die…and who will supply Derrick with tacos?

Set against the backdrop of a world where H.P. Lovecraft was not a fiction writer, but a Sweep, a special operative trained to protect the collective sanity of the human race with misinformative blends of fact and fiction … where the Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual is little more than a slightly skewed Audubon Field Guide, and the monster movies you grew up with are more documentary than not.

It’s Nerdthulhu Lethal Weapon cranked to eleven.

**Release sale- only .99 cents!!**

Goodreads * Amazon

Guy Riessen is an American author of contemporary dark fiction spanning the science fiction, horror, fantasy and crime genres. Born in South Dakota, he grew up in the Southern California beach town of Huntington Beach. He moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, graduated with a degree in English from UC Berkeley, and has been living in the wild lands north of San Francisco ever since. After nearly two decades of creating artwork in the visual effects industry for feature films, he returned to his first passion: writing speculative fiction.

He's been published on Under the Bed, Near to the Knuckle and Shotgun Honey, and in the anthologies Urban Temples of Cthulhu, Dreams of the Miskatonic and It's All Trumped Up.

Website * Facebook * Twitter * Amazon * Goodreads

Follow the tour HERE for exclusive excerpts, guest posts and a giveaway!

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Author Q&A ft Catherine E. McLean | REVISION IS A PROCESS Book Tour | Goddess Fish Promotions Presents #SelfHelp #NonFiction

Posted by: Mayor Sonni Posted date: 8:00 AM / comment : 127 Giveaway, Interview, NonFiction, Self-Help

Goddess Fish Promotions has organized a Virtual Book Tour for REVISION IS A PROCESS - How to Take the Frustration Our of Self-Editing by Catherine E. McLean, a non-fiction self-help book available now from Rimstone Concepts.

One randomly chosen winner via rafflecopter will win a $50 Amazon/BN.com gift card.

Be sure to follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found at the bottom of the post.

Revision is a Process –

How to Take the Frustration Out of Self-Editing

by Catherine E. McLean

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GENRE: Self-Help, Self-Improvement, Non-Fiction

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BLURB:

A first draft holds the possibility of what will be a great story. Revision turns that rough diamond into a spectacular gem worth a reader's money and time.

Writers are individuals but to be a producing writer means creating a system to revise and polish a work so the reader thoroughly enjoys the story. REVISION IS A PROCESS is a guidebook for writers and authors that shows how a simple 12-step process can be tailored to eliminate the most common and chronic maladies of writing genre fiction. This valuable guidebook contains secrets, tips, practical advice, how-to's, and why-to's for taking the frustration out of self-editing.

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW:

What are the best and worst pieces of writing advice you ever received?

Let's start with the worst advice I ever got:
Just sit down and write every day.

Often this is truncated to: BICHOK (Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard).
However, this type of adage applies to a Pantser who believes they have this magical being inside them called a Muse. Such advice will also help a person who wants to write but has no clue that it's necessary to flex the writing muscle, which is the imagination, until it is a well-oiled machine.

But not all writers are Pantsers. Over the years, I've identified 10 Types of Writers and how they put storiestogether (which is available free at my Writer's Cheat Sheet website at
http://www.writerscheatsheets.com/free-writers-cheat-sheets.html).

I, myself, am a Foundation Writer. I get a story dump from my imagination and everything necessary for the story is in that dump. I only have to figure out what the elements are and if there is the right motivation and character personalities to pull off a good story.

Let me backtrack a moment and tell you about the so-called Muse. What you have that creates stories is in your subconscious wherein lies your imagination. The imagination is capable of forming a mental image of something that is not perceived as real and is not present to the senses. Having and using your imagination means you have the ability to form mental images of things or events and deal resourcefully with unusual problems or extrapolate solutions to problems and doing it "creatively."

Let me be frank: the IMAGINATION you have is a marvelous thing. Don't get caught up in the ruse that it's some magical or phantasmagoric thing.

Now, for the best advice I ever got as a writer? It was: "You are a storyteller. Now bring the art and craft of writing fiction to your work."

Not only did this literary agent write this in his letter to me about my submitted story, he sent me a two page list of books on the craft of fiction. That list covered both sides of the paper. I read every one of those books and came to the conclusion I needed help sorting things out. I went to the local library and ask the Reference Librarian for help in locating a school that taught genre fiction writing. This was prior to the computer age.

The upshot was that only three schools were accredited to teach fiction courses. I ended up at the University of Oklahoma. Three months after finishing the short story course, I sold my first short story and then wrote and sold a dozen more—without rejections.

The situation at the university has changed and the fiction course isn't the same. But, one adage of my instructors was that "writers are self-taught." I kept reading more how-to books and refined what I had learned as well as picked up on innovative ways good writers brought stories and characters to life. For example, I was having a hard time mastering POV (Point of View) and Viewpoint. After reading 32 "experts" I had an ah-ha moment. I realized that 30 of them used POV and Viewpoint as if they were synonyms. However, the other two insisted POV and Viewpoint were two separate entities. And that's when I finally understood what I was doing and could do with POV-Viewpoint. I now teach workshops on that subject as well as have a free handout, POV-Viewpoint - How hard can it be to learn? (Available at http://www.writerscheatsheets.com/free-writers-cheat-sheets.html).

Oh, and by the way, I ended up having to keep a list of the how-to books I had read and studied. Why? Because I bought the same book three times. All that changed was the cover and a bit of wording after the title. When you've read 400 plus books, it's hard to remember such things.

Did I keep all those books? No. I only kept the best ones, which is about 40. Why those books? Because they taught the skills, devices, and techniques of writing fiction and telling a story well. They were books by authors who were also teachers. They gave insights into why and pointed out choices.

Now, here is a bit of advice from me to you: Stop writing and start learning craft. Why? Because unlearning poor storytelling habits is hard, if not difficult, to stop. And besides— Talent will take you only so far. It is craft that will enhance the story and showcase your talent as a storyteller worth being read.

How do you come up with the titles to your books?

Like most writers, the very first title is usually a one word file name dealing with some major aspect of the story or its theme. That failing, I use "Untitled— " followed by the name of the hero and heroine. After the story is drafted, I have a better idea of what's what and the primary theme, and other titles come to mind. That title becomes the "working title" I use to submit the story.

Of course, then there is the "marketing title," the final title, the one the publisher accepts. It is not unusual for a publisher to ask for a better title than what was originally submitted. The hard part is coming up with that new "marketing" title.

Somewhere along the road to publication, I learned that the title of a book was hidden inside the pages of the book itself. Over the years, I've collected information on various methods to get at that title as well as types of titles. In 2013, I did an article-essay on titling works. In 2014, I began putting the information together for a 2015 writer's workshop. Then in 2016, I formatted the content into a 22 page guide —TERRIFIC TITLES.

Few writers realize how important a tool a title is to a story. Even fewer know what the qualities of a great title are and what to avoid in a title.

Complicating things is that a title cannot be copyrighted. That means several books can have the same title. Further complicating things is the Internet and robot search engines. Those engines do not recognize a, an, the, and little words. They search for "key" words. For instance, if you look up "hearts" on Amazon.com, the search nets you more than three million hits. Narrow the search to books and you get over 200,000 hits. Therefore, you need a title with one to three key words so your book can be found.

When I sold my lighthearted sci-fi romance novella HEARTS AKILTER to The Wild Rose Press, the title had been "Hearts" but since the marketing department knew that key word would net thousands of hits, I was asked to come up with a new title. I used the worksheets in TERRIFIC TITLES and came up with HEARTS AKILTER. If you input those two key words at Amazon, my book is the only one that comes up.

Do you find generating a book title easy or hard or somewhere in-between?

● Buy REVISION IS A PROCESS at Amazon

● Buy REVISION IS A PROCESS at Barnes & Noble

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EXCERPT:

From Section 7, Show Don't Tell - What to Cut or Change

One rule of fiction is to show more and tell less.

What does that mean?

A very simple example is that saying it's a flower is telling but to say it's a white rose, its petals edged with a mist of ruby-pink is showing.

Showing means providing an instant, vivid image so the reader sees in their mind what was meant.

Yes, showing requires more words than telling, but how much detail is too much detail when showing?

Keep in mind that readers will stop reading and skim over sentences and paragraphs of details in order "to get to the good stuff" of drama, action, and something happening of interest. So it's best to choose all descriptive words carefully and keep the passages succinct.

Now— Go through your manuscript and highlight all descriptive phrases and passages so you can see how much of the total text is description.

If using your word processor's highlight feature, pause to zoom down to view entire pages and look at the end of pages to see how much carried over to the next page.

If you have exceeded three sentences (20-60 words) of description or explanation at any spot, that may be overkill. Determine what needs to be cut, pared down, rewritten, or reparagraphed for visual effect and immediacy, and what is too lengthy, mundane, or bordering on boring.

It's also important, when revising such areas, to remember that the replacement words should be in keeping with the story's or scene's narrator—and not you, the author, stepping onto the page with your voice, (that's a type of Author Intrusion that readers hate).

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Catherine E. McLean's lighthearted, short stories have appeared in hard cover and online anthologies and magazines. Her books include JEWELS OF THE SKY, KARMA & MAYHEM, HEARTS AKILTER, and ADRADA TO ZOOL (a short story anthology). She lives on a farm nestled in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains of Western Pennsylvania. In the quiet of the countryside, she writes lighthearted tales of phantasy realms and stardust worlds (fantasy, futuristic, and paranormal) with romance and advenure. She is also a writing instructor and workshop speaker. Her nonfiction book for writers is REVISION IS A PROCESS - HOW TO TAKE THE FRUSTRATION OUT OF SELF-EDITING.

● Hub Website: http://www.CatherineEmclean.com

● Website for writers: http://www.WritersCheatSheets.com

● Writers Cheat Sheets Blog: https://writerscheatsheets.blogspot.com

● Linked-In: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/catherine-e-mclean/7/70b/372

● Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/catherine.e.mclean.5

● Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/CatherineMcLea7

● Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/catherinemclean

● Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Catherine-E.-McLean/e/B00A3BVG6I/

● Buy REVISION IS A PROCESS at Amazon

● Buy REVISION IS A PROCESS at Barnes & Noble

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