Arrows, Shadows, and Sales

Pop over to Arrows of Anteros and check out my flash piece, "Not Every Story Has A Happy Ending." This is how having a child has affected my writing. I have my little moments!

Today is Groundhog Day! Did the groundhog see its shadow where you live? All this day means to me is the opportunity to watch "Groundhog Day" again and again on television. A Bill Murray classic.

I haven't done a sales update lately. It's out of my curiosity how sales go for other authors that I share mine with you.

1302 - The Alpha
Amazon: 82
B&N: 24
Smashwords: 3
Kobo: 5
Total: 114

1301 - The Marquis
Amazon: 36
B&N: 6
Smashwords: 2
Kobo: 1
Total: 45

L'il Gal Al and the Zombies of Amarillo
Amazon: 1
B&N: 7
Smashwords: 111 (free)
Kobo (no stats as they don't count free downloads)
Total: 119

Fearless
Amazon: 5919
B&N: 3
Smashwords: 1123
Kobo: (I have no idea!)
Total: 7045

Fearless continues to do very well. It was in Amazon's top 100 for fantasy paranormal for most of January. It's free and a great way to hook readers to buy my other books.

Most of my sales for The Marquis came after the release of The Alpha. I'm hoping that with the great interest in The Dragonslayer, readers will buy it and the other book in the series.

Imaginary Friend Bloghop

Annalisa Crawford is celebrating her one year anniversary of Cat and The Dreamer with the Imaginary Friend Bloghop. Acting as her co-host is Kyra Lennon. Such a clever and fun bloghop! If you've read Cat and The Dreamer you'll know that Julia, the main character, has a big imagination, and she has an imaginary enemy.

Annalisa and Kyra want to know about your imaginary friend. What were they called? How old were you? Were they naughty or nice? If you didn't have one, were there ever times when you could really have used one? Did you ever set fire to your mum's favourite rug and have to take the blame yourself? Annalisa is generously offering a £10/$10 Amazon gift voucher for my favourite post, and Kyra is offering a three chapter critique for hers. Awesome!

Unfortunately, I never had an imaginary friend growing up. I really wanted one. I still would like one! Have you ever seen the movie Drop Dead Fred? I loved that movie. Not that I wanted an imaginary friend to do bad stuff and get me in trouble, but to have someone to have adventures with and do silly things together. Someone to comfort me in the bad times, tell my secrets to, and help me not feel so lonely. Even though I had a brother and there were lots of children in the neighborhood I played with, I still felt lonely as a child. I was just too logical even as a kid. I could pretend to have an invisible friend, but I never really believed I did.

I do wonder if my son will have an imaginary friend. He's an only child and there are no children for him to play with in the neighborhood. We can't afford to get a dog right now, but I'd like to get him a pet some day. He loves school and playing with other kids, and sometimes I wonder if he's lonely. If he does have an imaginary friend, I wish them a lot of fun and adventures, but my darling boy, don't think I'll believe you when you say it was your imaginary friend that threw the ball through the window or made mud pies in the living room!

Arrows of Anteros and First Acceptance of 2013

If you're looking for a great place to submit your flash fiction, M Pepper Langlinais has started a new site called Arrows of Anteros. She's an award winning screenwriter, a produced playwright, and a bestselling author. She has a bunch of excellent little pieces of fiction already up on the site, and she's searching for more. Instructions on how to submit something to M are at the bottom of her page. She wants flash fiction with a word count no greater than 3,000. She's fine with horror and romance, but she won't portray anything graphic on the site.

I'll be submitting something to M later this week. I managed to squeeze in time to submit three stories last week to a few other sites. I received my first rejection of the year from Tor earlier this month and my first acceptance this week from 365 Tomorrows. I'm not sure when it will be published, but I'll let you know when my story is up and available to the public.

Wicked Wednesday - new releases for 2013

A lot of great paranormal romances coming out this year. 2013 feels like a lucky year! Here's my list of the books I'm really looking forward to reading this year.

Haunted Moon by Yasmine Galenorn. (An Otherworld Novel, #13) Released on January 29th. Another great D'Artigo sisters' adventure narrated by my favorite of the siblings, Camille.

House Rules by Chloe Neill. (Chicagoland Vampires #7) Release date: February 5th. More Merit and Ethan. Oh yes!

The Indigo Spell by Richelle Mead. (Bloodlines #3) Release date: February 12th. This series is a spin-off of Mead's best selling Vampire Academy series. I love the first two books and I can't wait to see what happens with Sydney next.

Frost Burned by Patricia Briggs. (Mercedes Thompson series, #7). Release date: March. Another atypical heroine that I admire.

Deadly Sting by Jennifer Estep. (The Elemental Assassin series, #8) Release date: March 26th. Gin Blanco is one of my favorite heroines. Who doesn't love an assassin that makes good barbecue?

Born of Fury by Sherrilyn Kenyon. (A League Novel, #6) Release date: April 1st. Finally a story about Hauk. I've been waiting a while for this one! These are unusual paranormal romances because they're also gritty sci-fi.

Gameboard of the Gods by Richelle Mead. (Age of X series, #1) Release date: June 4th. A wonderful new series about a futuristic world and strange supernatural happenings. I'm really looking forward to this new series.

Magic Rises by Ilona Andrews. (Kate Daniels #9) Release date: July. The world in this series captivates me. The world after a magical apocalypse. It's so completely unusual and magnificent.

Grave Visions by Kalayna Price. (Alex Craft #4) Release date: August 6th. An excellent series with one of the sexiest versions of Death.

Up From The Grave by Jeaniene Frost. (Night Huntress #7) Release date: some time this year! I just started this series this month and I love it. Bones is one of my favorite all time vampires now.

I'm sure there are a lot more I'm missing. What paranormal romance releases are you looking forward to this year?

Teaser Tuesday with Hourglass

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This book is one I thought I read, but I actually didn't. Luckily I picked it up again, because I'm really enjoying it. Hourglass is Myra McEntire's first novel. A YA paranormal romance that is original and sweet.

Your teaser:
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. "I almost cried at dinner the other night. Was that not vulnerable enough for you?" (page 121)

Re-Introduce Myself Blogfest

This wonderful blogfest gives everyone a chance to re-introduce themselves to our growing community. All you have to do is take a minute and tell everyone something interesting about yourself. This is a blogfest, so please visit the other participants and get to know them. Don't forget to give a big thank you to our marvelous hosts Stephen Tremp, Mark Koopmans, Elise Fallson, and C.M. Brown.

Hello! Please allow me to re-introduce myself. I'll make it short and sweet. My name is Christine Rains and I'm a geek mom. My son shares his bed with Ernie, Brobee, and Cthulhu. We play Candyland like a role-playing game and frequently turn our couch into a pirate ship. I love to write and read. Hopefully I can help nurture those loves in my son as well.

I'm shy and not terribly exciting, but I love getting to know new and old friends alike. Tell me something about yourself, please.

Winners of The Alpha blog tour giveaway and updates

My little guy is singing a song in honor of the winners of The Alpha blog tour giveaway. Thank you so much to everyone who entered. Next month, I'll be having another giveaway with The Dragonslayer blog tour. Check the 13th Floor series page for all the stops. It's a big one this time around!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congratulations to the winners! I've already emailed you.

I'm working hard on the next book in the 13th Floor series. My son has stopped having naps, so I've lost a good chunk of my writing time. It's frustrating, but it was inevitable. If I'm around even less on the blogs, I hope you'll forgive me. I need to write. I had hoped he'd still take naps for another year. At least I have two mornings a week while he's in school, and starting the next school year, he'll be doing three mornings a week.

I received my first rejection for the year. It was from Tor. I was aiming high! Also, another anthology I had a story in has been cancelled. The publisher has closed down. I didn't get an email or any sort of notice. I found out on a friend's blog. Now I need to start submitting stories elsewhere because I have nothing out there at the moment.

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend! I'll see you on Monday for the Re-Introduce Myself Blogfest.