Guardians of the Grimoire - 5 Star Review from Ellen Fritz

Ellen Fritz over at Books4Tomorrow has reviewed Guardians of the Grimoire. What's her rating? 5 stars!

This came as a lovely surprise for me when I came across the review as I don't even know Ellen.

If you'd like to see her thoughts on the book, you can find the post here.

Reading her review was like a ray of sunshine in a time of my life when things are very hard for me at the moment. Let's just say that life has been throwing mud pies at me for the past 7 weeks and I've been busy dodging the suckers. I'm not saying I'll come out of this without any bruises, but, darn it, I WILL come out of it. I won't go into details, but I will say that I don't have enough fingers on my hands to enumerate all that has gone wrong since mid-February. Because of this major curve ball life has thrown at me, Defenders of the Grimoire has hit a snag in its publishing process. The book is finished, but I can't move forward until financial things get on a more even level. I hate to put the book on hold, but it's either that or publish something that will not have gone through my editor and I really don't want to do that.

Young adults at my daughter's school have been clamoring for book two of the Grimoire Trilogy, along with people I've met online, and all I can say is, I'm hoping to be able to publish Defenders of the Grimoire come next winter. Not only do I have to wait for unwanted expenses to settle down, but my editor is a very busy lady, but she is so worth the wait! For example, when I approached my editor in early March to schedule the editing of my manuscript, she was fully booked until August. Then I need to factor in the time it takes me to review her suggestions and rework the manuscript wherever needed. Then it's off to my proofreader and another look through on my part. So you see the process itself already takes a lot of time, and when you add an unwanted ingredient in this recipe, it basically slows the whole process down.

The one thing I want you all to remember, though, is this:  Defenders of the Grimoire is written and it will be edited and proofread, so that you, dear reader, can have something that is worthy of your time.

From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for your patience.

Book Tour Stops for Guardians of the Grimoire

Guardians of the Grimoire tour stops have been announced!

If you want to follow the tour, here is the list of where the book will be hosted for February 28th and March 1st.

Don't forget! There will be a giveaway  for an eBook copy of Guardians of the Grimoire for each day of the tour!

 

Book Tour for Guardians of the Grimoire (Feb.28-Mar1)

Wow! This year is promising to be very exciting for me. Defenders of the Grimoire (book 2 of the Grimoire series) is moving along quite well, and I'm revved up to write Keepers of the Grimoire (book 3) right after. I'll be investing a lot of energy into the trilogy this year with cover reveals, book tours, reviews, giveaways, swag products, and merchandise. If you don't want to miss out on anything make sure you sign up via email, so you can receive all the information.

If you're a book reviewer or simply have a blog and want to help support this tour, click here to sign up today. There will be a tour wide giveaway for each day. You'll have the choice between doing a Review+Promo or a Promo only (no review). All information, banners, tour buttons, and images will be provided by CBL Book Tours.

Please note: Signups will close Feb.25.

Here's to looking toward the horizon and seeing a bright future! :)

Interview at The eReader Cafe

The lovely folks at The eReader Cafe have spotlighted me as the Author of the Week with an interview. I've had the privilege of speaking with the lovely Caroline Lansing who is part of a team that brings free Kindle books to readers.

I invite you to visit their site and read the interview. You can access it here. There you will discover some of my preferences, why I wrote Guardians of the Grimoire, my advice for aspiring writers, and what are my future writing plans.

I want to say thank you to The eReader Cafe team for giving me this opportunity!

What is The eReader Cafe? Here's an explanation in their own words...

The eReader Cafe is a virtual hangout for authors and readers alike. We are a team of passionate book readers of all tastes and styles. Every day we scour through the list of Kindle freebies to find the cream of the crop and feature them here for you.

The Road to Self-Publishing

Oh boy, does writing this scare the crap out of me? Heck, yeah! I'm usually not one to lay it all out on the table, and prefer to stay in my corner quietly watching. But you know what? The end of the world didn't come and this is a new year. So I promised myself I'd try something new. Go ahead, Tasha, don't be shy and say what you think. After all, what's the worst that can happen? Right?

After publishing Guardians of the Grimoire in 2011, I can't believe I finally finished the first draft of book 2 in the series entitled Defenders of the Grimoire a.k.a. DOTG. My journey into self-publishing has been filled with ups and downs. I've had eye-opening moments, some ah-ha! moments, and some head banging moments too. In the past twelve months I have learned not to be afraid of CSS coding, which allowed me to personalize my blog. Hey, for a gal who had never been on any of the social media networking sites and who could barely understand what a computer could do, I think I've done pretty well. I've succeeded in taking something I know nothing about and turning it into something I can now use to my advantage.

I like to say that I've been developing my business plan over the course of the past year. Now, that I'm a self-published author, what are my goals? In a month from now? In a year from now? In five and ten years from now? I like to plan ahead and if roadblocks come up on my set journey, I feel comfortable enough to say, "Okay, this is only a temporary setback." Then I plow ahead.

The key to all of this is lots of research, and research takes time. Never mind that writing a book such as the Grimoire Trilogy also warrants research of its own. So, I've been reading and learning and slowly implementing all that I acquire. To be honest, I felt bad that I had not yet published book 2 of my series. It is now more than a year later since book 1 came out, and I've been haranguing myself for not writing book 2 yet. Then my subconscious kicks in and tells me it's not like I've been sitting on my butt all day doing nothing. In fact, the bags under my eyes can testify to that, but I have to admit that there has to be passion burning within me if I'm willing to get up at 5am for something that I'm not reaping benefits from...yet.

Today, though, I can smile again, because draft one of DOTG is finally finished. Some of you already know this about me, but I write the first draft by hand. I feel that I have more freedom this way to develop my ideas and I am able to spread out before me the pages that I need to see, in order for my ideas to stay consistent. What I have discovered while writing DOTG is that I didn't need to fully develop each and every scene, because I know that when I'm going to type it up, I'll already be editing those scenes. I'm hoping that by book 3 of the series I won't have to write by hand and go straight to a Word document.

I've been beating myself down a lot lately, because I didn't feel like I was accomplishing anything, but as my sweet hubby says, "Baby, you've been working your butt off ever since you've discovered your love of writing." That was four years ago. I guess if I'm willing to spend fifty-sixty hours a week on becoming a self-published author and get up at 5am, while seeing only a few coins in return, then I guess I've got passion for what I do and I refuse to give up on it. Writing is my dream. Writing is my passion. Writing is my job. I am an author. And proud to be one.

You hear that, Universe! I'm on a mission.