First Week of Big Ol’ Virtual Tours

Just a quick round up of this week’s virtual blog tour. Check out these blogs beyond interviews and my articles; some are authors and editors. Also follow along for a chance to win a Gift Card to an online book seller of your choice (Let’s be honest, almost everyone will pick Amazon but I’m a Kobo reader). Just always be respectful in the comments when it comes to opinions.

Witchslayer’s Scion (Interviews and Articles)

Sadie’s Spotlight

Andi’s Book Reviews

Kit ‘n Kabookle

All the Ups and Downs

Lisa Haselton

Book Reviews for The Mermaid and the Unicorns

Kit ‘n Kabookle

Sandra’s Book Club

We got more of the same for the next few weeks. Witchslayer’s Scion will run during the week until May 13, and The Mermaid and the Unicorns the reviews will launch Tuesday until May 17. In the meantime, if you’re new to my work or the blog welcome, feel free to ask questions and I’ll try to keep it book related, but my property is slowly becoming waterfront. Eeep.

So About Free Stuff (My Books; Library Apps)

If you’ve been paying attention on my blog, you’ll know that I said I was going to make The Mermaid and the Unicorn ebook free during the duration of the blog tour. Now, I’ve seen other authors do this, but I went through Ingram Spark (great quality books, BTW) and the lowest they’ll let me go is $0.99.

Not wanting to be a complete fibber, I’ll give it to you for free if you send an email to leiagetty@shaw.ca until May 18, 2022. No newsletter sign up, no anything, just ask for an .epub or a .mobi. If you want you can send a clean meme or a picture of your pet, but I have no problem giving away copies if you ask nicely. I will be at work and it may take a few days. If you don’t see me responding within say, three days, ask again nicely. Once you have it: Share away.

If you want to do a girl a solid, leave an online review: Good, bad, indifferent. Obviously, recommending it to the right person or giving copies as gifts helps too.

I also hit the “approve” button for Garnet and Silver. It will be available May 3, 2022. Let me get a few print books to ensure everything is fine, but seriously, everything should be just fine.

While we’re on the topic of Free, I’m surprised how many people don’t realize that many libraries offer ebooks to people with library cards. Now, I’m Canadian, and I don’t know what your local policies are, but I use an app called Overdrive on my tablet and Libby on my phone. The accounts are linked, and generally I read ebooks on the tablet, and listen to audiobooks on my phone. My library allows me to make recommendations, so even if you think, “Hey, this is all popular stuff. I prefer smaller, indie stuff.” Again, see what I said a few paragraphs above about recommending books as a way of helping authors. A few months ago, the library fulfilled about 8 books all at once, including one of my titles. So if you’re Manitoban with a library card, you can also download a copy of Witchslayer’s Scion from your library. I’m not sure how interlibrary loans work with ebooks.

If you don’t know, talk to your local librarian and see what your policy is. I technically have to pay a whopping $20.00 for a two year membership as I live in an RM without a library, but if I have to pay for a membership for the rest of my life, the amount of times libraries have helped me out in a pinch growing up, it’s money well spent.

I’ll do a round up on the Virtual Book Tours hopefully for Friday; I am back at work tomorrow so it’ll be later if not on the Saturday.

Also, on a personal note I’m officially car shopping. I’ve known I will need to replace mine, and my guess was that blizzard did it in. A friend of the family took a look at what it needs, and right now it’s not worth the cost of repairs. It’ll be a busy few weeks, but feel free to chat here during the book tour. I can talk about the self-publishing process, finding covers, whatever.

Upcoming Virtual Book Tours, Snowmaggedon 2022, and Back at Shows

So I’m not sure if I actually had COVID, whatever I had was weaksauce and work wanted me back after 5 days. I wanted to be on the safe side and pushed it to six. Now we have a policy that demands we stay away for 8.

If you’re on FB you might have noticed that I posted a picture where my cat Calypso was in quite a bit of snow.

I live in a place where I’ve seen snow in every month other than July or August. Yeah, it kind of looks like winter but it’s actually all melting. Normally I wouldn’t care but I had back to back car issues, so I’m kind of in limbo as me driving a car that’s riding low wouldn’t be an issue if they weren’t waiting for the roads to melt. I was also stuck at work for 48 hours, but let’s be honest I saw it coming. I just work and the Union would take me seriously when I say storm stay protocol. Dodger I bombed to my sister and Calypso was fine. I did give my coworkers keys, but I’ve learned that people also misplace keys. I’m hoping I get to know my neighbors good enough soon to trust them, it was just lousy timing with me moving and the pandemic happening shortly thereafter.

Speaking of, R.J. Hore and I did two shows, and it’s nice to have more than one title, lemme tell ya. I’m pretty much ready to hit the ‘approve’ button for Garnet and Silver, but I don’t really feel like I’m in any rush either. At this point I will not be attending Keycon, and it’s because of the Passport Policy. To be fair, I’ve been frustrated with Keycon’s managing things before, but everyone else seemed happy, so I let it slide. I do not and will not violate PHIA, so I’m sorry if you are looking forward to seeing me there to hang out or chat. We are planning on doing Shelmerdine’s Farmer’s Market and I think I’d like to hit up a little Pinawa Farmer’s Markets, but we’ll see. I looked into having a book launch at McNally Robinson’s Grant Park, but they too are keeping with a passport and mask policy. No and no I don’t care if I never sell another book again.

Starting April 25 Witchslayer’s Scion will be on a Virtual Book Tour and the next day a Review-Only tour will take place for The Mermaid and the Unicorns. It’s by dumb luck that they occurred at the same time. I am going to put the discounted price in effect April 22, 2022 for The Mermaid and the Unicorns, so you can get an ebook copy for basically $0.99 in your neck of the woods. I know the Canadian Dollar and the American dollar are different, but it’s the lowest I could go. Follow along for a chance to win a Gift Card to an online book seller of your choice (Amazon, Kobo, B&N etc.) So if you’re on the fence about the ebook, wait a few days and it’ll be on sale for the duration of the tour. I don’t set the prices for Champagne’s titles, but I’ll tell you if anything I have does go on sale.

Other than that I was chatting with Cassie, owner of Champagne Books (Tower of Obsidian, Dreams of Mariposa, Witchslayer’s Scion) and while I don’t have a contract yet, it’s looking good for books 2 & 3. I’d love to be able to tell you I sent in Titan’s Ascent and I’m brilliant, but I’m almost there. It feels like a broken record because I thought I was almost there in January. I’m honestly burnt out and my mental health still kinda sucks, but hey if I go trilogy and I get the “That’s Enough” from everybody, I’d be content with this prequel set even if I don’t do the series I have in my head. I can see a massive shift in quality from Book 1 to 2, which was honestly pretty gradual because I noticed a shift when I was in University after I took a course in stylistics, but really hadn’t seen anything truly noticeable from project to project until now. I have enough other stuff that I could probably spend a decade editing it and either developing it for self publishing or going the traditional route, but all in all I feel like I’m no longer just treading water.