​Since Freakhouse's rerelease, Amazon prompted me to update my Author Page. If you've been following me on Twitter, you already know the fun I've been having. The mysterious book that was not penned by me will be detached from my page as confirmed by Amazon Support,  and now all that needs doing is my Author photo. I put the options up to friends and family to vote on, so why not put it on here, too!

So the dilemma is this: do I use the same old headshot, or go for something a bit more "me". And by "me" apparently not an Ood... which I think is, like, the best part of me...

Anyways, let the voting begin! You can go through as many of the photos as you like. You can vote for as many as you like!

​Let the mass judgment of my physical appearance begin!

The top contenders so far are:
1) The School Teacher by Tim; 2) The Party Glow by Denny; and 3) The Beach in the Fall by Chloe

Publicists must be a special kind of creature. PR is not my natural habitat. But I've been plugging along, putting marketing plans into place, updating budget sheets (so over budget), and I find that with all of that, it's so easy to dwell on the numbers. And there are so many numbers. Costs, sales, views, reviews, etc. I was supposed to be using the time between updates about giveaways and releases to get back on the horse with White Rabbits - which incidentally seems to no longer want to call itself White Rabbits after re-writing an outline and starting almost from scratch again. Sure, now that the giveaways are all over with and Freakhouse is officially released I should be able to get back into it, but then I went and did something else to torture myself with...

​

I know. I didn't even try to do NaNoWriMo last year and here I am deciding that 50,000+ words can be completed in 3 days. I suppose it must make up for my lack of effort last year? In any case, this starts up in exactly one week! 

I have an idea. In fact, when I signed-up I was going over my mental Rolodex of ideas trying to decide on which one was developed enough to put to the test. Ended up delving into one idea that never really felt fully there, and I personally cannot start on a story unless I know where we're heading, and that was the part that always eluded me. Then I realized why I never understood where the ending was going - totally focusing on the wrong character. The character I start with is not the character I end with!

I know, it sounds confusing, but trust me, now the story actually has a plot! So I have my Hilroy scribbler  ready with a smattering of notes, and over these next 6 days I will be outlining in that little notebook because gods, old and new, help me if I try to navigate this thing in 3 days without a map!

So I suppose the plus side to all of this is that I will be forced to write. The downside is that I may just be adding to my pile of WIP's. That last one bothers me. I don't like leaving things unfinished. Even in reading. I've been working on one book for months. I hate it! It sucks all the joy out of reading, so I've been cheating and reading other things on the side so that I actually remember how much I love books. The resounding advice I've been getting is to just drop the book entirely. No one will care if I don't actually finish it. Well, I will care. I need to just read it and get it done and over with, and never, ever, ever touch another one of the books in that series again, regardless of badly my friends adore it!

This may also be why I feel like I have a lot to do. I'm not in school. I shouldn't be forced to read things I don't care for. And yet, I just can't not finish it. Like when I was in school and just couldn't fit all of the readings in so I had to abandon the odd one and just fake it in the class while I got a head start on a different reading - I still went back to read those other books over the summer because I felt guilty. 

What kind of condition is that to feel book guilty? "I'm sorry I couldn't read you." Even worse is this one that I'm currently reading. It's as bad as "I know this relationship isn't going anywhere, but damn it, I chose to initiate and so let's just force ourselves into it despite the fact that neither of us wants to, and I will probably go from disinterest to full on resentment for being forced to tolerate you." 

I may have unhealthy relationships with books. I may need librarian intervention. "Just put the book down."

At least I have some self-control when it comes to human relationships, otherwise there'd be no hope for me at all. And I need all of the hope I can get if I'm going to survive the 3 Day Novel Contest.

Release day is upon us! ​Freakhouse is live and ready to go! Thank you to everyone who has shown interest. You won't be disappointed with the 2nd edition. It's like the 1st edition, only prettier!

So for those of you wanting to see Freakhouse in your own hands, remember that ordering online is just one option. Both Galen and Freakhouse are registered for library and bookstore distribution, so if you are willing to wait just a little longer, go to your local library or nearest bookshop and ask them to order in a copy for you. The more you ask, the more will be available!

And remember, there are 25 giveaway copies floating around as well. I'm sure there's one or two of those that would gladly be loaned to someone else. 

If you stumble across a copy on your travels and want to know if it was an advanced copy or not, just look at the print date. All books are made to order, so only the giveaways were made prior to today, August 26th, 2016!

So happy reading to all, and remember, a short review never hurt!

So I did have to call UPS one more time *sigh* but hopefully this means that everything will be sorted out very soon. All but 2 books are now safely in their new homes. 

In light of 25 copies of Freakhouse now living in various places around the world, as well as all of the other copies waiting to be adopted on August 26th, I am now going to make the author plea. 

You see, Freakhouse 1st Edition back in 2013. And yet...

Goodreads is in better condition. It's a little weird to see reviews beyond my own friend base - I don't know if that's a Goodreads thing or if it's an Author page thing, but there are actually more ratings and reviews than what show up when I open the book page. 

So how do we remedy this? Well, you might be pleased to know that you still count as a customer even if you did not in fact make a purchase from Amazon! If you bought, were lent, or won a copy of any book, you can still pop onto Amazon and leave your thoughts.

Why would I ask you to take a whole 5 minutes out of your day to do this? Because small press and indie authors do not have the mega bucks that large publishing houses do, and thus we cannot buy $6,000 reviews or $30,000 insta-list topping placement in all the hip charts! We rely on the good nature of honest readers, like you, to give us 5 minutes, which in turn may mean that one other person might decide to checkout our book. 5 minutes to you thus equals $2-$4 for your author that can be put towards them writing another book. 

Did you hate the book? Say that, then! And that $2-$4 can go towards the $500-$2000 price tag of a professional editor that can make future books better!

"But, Ashley, I can never think of what to say in reviews!" I have heard this excuse many a time. Guess what? If you don't feel moved to write a detailed 5 paragraph essay about how the dynamic between protagonist and antagonist moved your soul, then skip that part and pick one of these simple alternatives:

1) I loved it!
2) Great book. Glad I read it.
3) It was an enjoyable read.
4) It wasn't a bad book.
5) Not my favourite but it wasn't awful.
6) Not the right book for me.
7) Just couldn't get into it.
8) It was "meh".
9) I never knew that they could make books this terrible.

I mean, clearly authors would like to hear something better than #9, but honestly, despite what the Mama Bunny said in Bambi, it is better to say something not nice than nothing at all, at least in the world of reviews. 

 I don't know if I've ever actually written any "self-help" posts for writers. I think I just usually rant about my own pitfalls and squee for the whole world to hear when things go well. But, since it came up in a critique circle I've recently been participating in, I thought that I would share the advice that I gave, and because as anyone who follows these posts will know, I'll have to bring it back to me and how, after thinking about it for a little bit more, how my own advice may apply to me.

So I'm going to start with the initial question - or in this case, the statement: "In Lisa Cron's Story Genius; How To Use Brain Science To Go Beyond Outlining And Write A Riveting Story, one of Ms Cron's points is, "What is your point? What do I want my readers to go away thinking about?"

Immediately I thought back to one of my favourite professors, my first year Arts One professor (who is credited in the Wall of Thanks for pushing me to do better in academic writing, a series of lessons that took the full 4 years to finally sink in!). I came out of AP English with no bloody clue what a thesis statement actually was. I mean, I wasn't the only one in my first year seminar who sat their shocked that our once A-grade work was barely C-worthy, but still, devastating to the ol' ego. This was lesson #1. Find your thesis. Luckily, after marking a number of my papers (we had to do a novel weekly with an essay to follow), my professor was able to notice a trend. I did write with a thesis, and it was hidden somewhere in the conclusion, clearly I figured out what my point was after I had a chance to write out all of my ideas. So in order to complete Lesson 1, I had to so a sub series of steps. The first one being, find the thesis in my concluding paragraph, drag it to the top of the page, and start the whole paper over again. I had to do draft as many as 18 times before I had direction. Most of that was just the discovery of what the thesis actually was. I had to do that whole process (including all of the other steps and lessons for all of the other problems I had) for another 3 years before I was finally running well on my own. I still don't hand-in first drafts (because I'm not crazy  - and by that I mean that I am crazy enough to care if I get 95% or 86%, and gods, the old and the new, help me should I get a B!!!), but I can put a thesis in my opening paragraph first try now because I know what the damn thing looks like now! 

Yes, there is a point to this story! Just listen! So, my advice was to follow what my professor said. That is, if one is so inclined to answer the question: What is your point? Then your job as a novelist/storyteller/writer of any kind should be digging that out. Whether you know what it is off the bat, or if you have to write out all of the scenes from start to finish, put that statement front and centre, and then go back through your story and see if each chapter works towards it. Now, as any essay writer should know, each chapter, just like each essay paragraph, does not (and should not) just have the statement on repeat. But if your work is starting to make a different idea more important than the one you're focusing on, then something is amiss. Either you missed what it is that your story actually wants to be about, or you've got a lot of re-writing ahead of you.

So what about me? I'm not going to claim that I write novels as quickly (or as well) as I can write an academic paper. But I'm also not a fan of answering "What is your point?" because it feels like I should be making a statement. And I don't believe that I set out to do that with my fiction. They might inadvertently make a statement, but that's not how I'm driven. So I'm going to scratch that one out and move on to the second clause: "What do I want my readers to go away thinking about?" Now this one feels better to me, and it's one that I really do have to sit and think about after I've written my first draft. Why? Because the statement I need to answer is "What does my story want its readers to go away thinking about?" For me, it's all about feeling. My stories all being with a spark of emotion, then I have to discover the characters who created it, and then listen to the story that they want to tell. I don't know the direction it's going in until it's all out because it's not my story. 

In Galen, all of the characters have to make a choice between the image of who they are, and the versions of themselves that make them happy. The readers should come out of the book with a sense of release from the burden of all the reasons these characters have to be who they are. 

In Freakhouse, the reader should feel ripped apart. There is no going back. There is no making things right. 

And in the next title to be released in 2017, the reader should feel that only one thing matters - the one you love.

And I think that I will have to take my own advice as I continue to revise the mess that is Knightsbridge. The next time I open that file and read it, I will have to decide how we are supposed to feel on this journey - you know, aside from frustrated like the author that this journey has taken over 10 freakin' years!!! I want to feel accomplished, but what the story wants from you? I may just have to ask it one more time.

So that's it. That's all I've got for now. Maybe I've been helpful, or maybe I just enjoy the sound of the voice inside my head who recites my writing back to me. I'm not even sure if it gets recited back in my own voice, but I do know that it no longer is the voice of Patrick Morgan. I swear, you listen to one audiobook and then he narrates your whole life for months! But seriously, I totally missed him when the audiobook was over. It took many a tries to get through Plato's Republic, and I wouldn't have done it without Mr. Morgan's help. Laundry day was so lonely afterwards... all alone. No voice to keep me company...

...Oh, there we go! Tangent! I consider this post officially Ashleyfied! 

Happy writing! Happy reading! Happy tangents!

The last Golden Ticket has been found! And by that I mean that the last of the giveaways have been won. 

Top Left: USA; Top Right: Canada; Middle Left: UK/Ireland; Middle Right: Australia/New Zealand; Bottom Left: "Everyone Else!"; and Bottom Left was the whole world together. 

Look at that, USA. You nearly beat the whole world. I don't think that surprises anyone. 

All of the books are shipped, have a shipping order ready for Monday's mail, or are safely in the hands of their new readers. So far only one book was unable to complete it's intended journey, but thankfully my printers covered the cost of returning the book safely to me. It was a bit of a pickle since they aren't allowed to store copies, so "return to sender" really meant that the book would be lost forever. Luckily we caught it right away. I'll see to it that it finds a good, loving home!

I know many of you are probably sick of all of the number updates. Especially if your giveaways had already come and gone. Or worse, if you had no interest in any of the giveaways at all! Well, that's it for this summer. And probably this year. As an independent author, you don't want to know how much money I just spent on 25 books shipped between Vancouver Island to Russia, all in USD which is not friendly to the Canadian wallet. This is why I have to be very blunt about the random messages I get for mailing you free books just because you want one. I'm happy to have been able to do this, but really, that's me asking you to mail me 4 years of your hard (unpaid) work for free. I understand that everyone like free stuff. And artists generally like the stuff that they make. So it sounds like it could be win-win. But it just doesn't work that way. It's one thing for me to choose to gift something, but please don't be that kid who demands a birthday present because it's someone else's birthday. "But you gave Billy a present!" Yes, I did give Billy a present, because it's His birthday, and I Chose to acknowledge that. Plus, he probably isn't a greedy little jerk, thus I felt proud to give him a present that I put my little heart into...
...You get the idea. 

So happy reading, winners! I look forward to your reviews. And seeing how many "used" copies are floating around for profit. I'm serious. I see them. If you want to know about approved sellers, check the book pages I have for my titles. And if you see a copy somewhere, you can just shoot me a message to verify. If it's a-okay, I'll add it to the webpage. If it's this guy:

...just "No". Please just "No". I mean, you can spend $300 however you want, but since I wrote it, I'd rather you give me at lease a portion of what was probably a giveaway from 2013. (This has totally been listed since my 1st edition Freakhouse giveaway so I promise you that this isn't even the cover of the book he has.) Is it sad that I probably spent $20 to have him make $300? So, again, please, just "No".

Besides, Freakhouse will be released on August 26th for a much more reasonable price. And then I can make like, maybe $2.00! Don't forget, e-books are also available on Kindle and Kobo, also for much more reasonable prices.

So remember yesterday when I was talking numbers and said "before Friday"? Well, I wasn't wrong, but I didn't expect to reach those targets so soon. 

That's US on the left, Canada on the right. As of 11am this morning. 

Should I be more optimistic and go for a big number this time?

Let's say 400 and 200 before Friday! Why not!

 This has been incredible! The global interest for Freakhouse has been wonderful to see. Already over 1000 people have added it to their to-read shelves, and well-over 1000 people turned out for the giveaways so far.

So, the numbers so far...

These are the giveaways that have actually ended:
"Rest of World": 617
Australia/New Zealand: 158
UK/Ireland: 353

And this time I can say "yay, Ireland!". Despite the majority of entries being from the UK, one book is flying overhead to Ireland as we speak. County of Mayo to be specific. Land of my husband's people, so that was a neat surprise. 

No books flying to my family's regions. Not even my old haunt in Sussex :( 

This is why the giveaways are random. Clearly I'd have favourites!

So on we go for the last leg of this promotion. The US's numbers are steadily rising. I imagine that we'll break 300 from them before Friday. And the my humble home country is working its way up to 150. We'll see what happens on Friday when Freakhouse gets closer to the front page!

Thank you everyone for your continued support. And remember, if you're still looking for a free book, pop over to your local library and make a request for order. Galen is already available in print and e-book, and Freakhouse is on pre-order until its release on August 26th

Since we are lurking closer and closer to the midway point of the Great Freakhouse Giveaway (probably should have given it a fancy name like that from the start!), I thought I'd share where we're at so far.

To recap, I was hoping that the Galen giveaway would beat the overall numbers from my previous giveaway. It was close to a tie, but did not surpass. I was looking for a number greater than 967 and we ended up with 951. Not bad, but I'm figuring out this number game a little better this time around. By breaking down the giveaways into regions, each one spanning over two weeks, I think it's helped for exposure and for those who consider the odds before entering. Clearly one chance out of a hundred is better than one chance out of one thousand. 

So, the numbers so far...

These are the two giveaways that have actually ended, so these two are the final numbers:
"Rest of World": 617
Australia/New Zealand: 158

Which means that our completed total so far is 775. Not bad considering that we still have three major regions to go. And, let's face it, the USA pretty much out-numbers all other regional Goodreads members. 

There are still two full days left for the UK and Ireland to enter, and as of 10:45pm tonight, there are over 200 entries. Which means that the moment that giveaway closes, I've already beat my giveaway entry high score, and that's not even taking into account the week that Canada and the US still have for their own giveaways! And, yes, with less than a week into the giveaway game, my US numbers already beat the UK... See? This is why I had to split it up. Someone else needed a chance!

Still sad that I went to the trouble of digging New Zealand out from the "Other" category - and that's not me ranking it higher than Australia, Goodreads literally has four top countries listed at the top when you make a giveaway! - and still they could not rise above the masses of Australian entries. Next time, New Zealand! Next time!

So if you are from the UK, Ireland, Canada, or the USA, get in now for your chance at a free book. Why not? Those are like the two best things ever, "books" and "free", though if we go by Muppet rankings we'd also have to account for Ice Cream, Children, and Laughter...

...did you really think that I could go a whole post without a tangent? Really? 

The original title of this post was going to be flat out "Why I hate e-books", but that was when I was in the height of formatting Galen so my temper was very short on the subject. Thankfully Freakhouse has not been as aggravating so I'm coming down off of my tyrannical high-horse - just by a little bit though.

So I'm going to tell this story backwards - at least in terms of how I lived it out:

Formatting Freakhouse was actually pretty straight-forward. File conversions through Kindle are pretty easy, and as long as I go back through in the webpage viewer and re-create page breaks, everything pretty much looks the way that I want it to. So Freakhouse only took two file submissions for me to be happy. Kobo is a little more finicky in that you really don't have any idea how it looks until you see it in the actual device you want to use, so basically as long is it seems logically laid out, I'm happy enough given that I won't know about EVERY device until someone using something I don't have sees it. 

So this is the good story. Freakhouse isn't a visually complex text, and purposely so. 

Galen, on the other hand, is very purposely formatted. There are three sections which are best identified visually based on the font and structure you're reading. I'm very proud of how the three formats come together in the pattern that they do. I worked very hard on that unique feel that I believe Galen has. 

When a file gets converted to be an e-book, the ideal is that all you need are the words to tell the story, and thus the words can be re-manipulated (visually) to fit different reader needs. So whether you're reading from different devices or even just need to adjust your word size/style to fit how you read on your own device, the words will still be the same regardless of how you manipulate. Do you see how I might have a problem with this?

Galen was not written with e-book in mind. Nor can I see myself writing purely for an e-book format. I'm old school. I like to hold a book. I like to feel a book. And, yes, there's nothing like dusty old book pages - those restricted sections behind glass in fancy libraries, yeah, those are fun just to look at, and even though you can actually hold those books with special gloves, I wouldn't have the heart to touch them because they seem sacred and I am not worthy to be in their presence... I think you can already tell another reason why I'm less sympathetic with non-paper books, and I'm still only halfway through my point.

The e-book is less forgiving with style-specific reading. The Kindle so far seems to be handling it alright, but I'm sure there's a reader out there that loses all of the font variety. That brings me to Kobo. I'm sorry Kobo readers, but the version of Galen you get is not the version of Galen that I love. And THAT is why I have little love for the e-book. Sometimes a book is so much more than just what the words on the page say. Anyone who writes poetry should be able to appreciate this. Where the words go, how they are placed, how big or small the font is, how light or dark, how traditional or innovative the style, it all says something. Now I'm not going to pretend that every piece of fiction I write is a visual work of art. But I do like to believe that I write with intention. 

I have never been a big fan of reading e-books, and now as I try to to format for them, my appreciation has decreased. What meaning might I be losing just because I don't see it the way that it was intended to be seen? I want to experience these books, not just read them.