Eve Paludan is seeking subsidiary rights deals for all Translation Territories, Print, Audio, Film/TV for the science fiction romance novel, FULL OF STARS.
See rights posting: http://publishersmarketplace.com/rights/display.cgi?no=14893
See ebook: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M5C70R6
Thanks for your interest in FULL OF STARS, a sci-fi romance novel!
✨#WITCHY BUSINESS✨
#SCOTLAND
#paranormal #mystery #romance
IN IMMINENT DANGER from Niall and the coven, Fergie and I didn’t return to Edinburgh after our trip to the Isle of Lewis where I’d met Colm Finnegan, my long-lost enchanter father. I called him Finn.
Siobhan, the goblin member of our witch detectives, had stayed behind at my father’s estate with her newborn daughter and the baby’s father, Luc, the goblin king.
Rebecca had stayed behind as well, too, to spend just one more day with my father, her longtime lover.
So, Fergie and I, just the two of us for now, had headed straightaway for London.
Now in London, the gray sky was pissing down rain and making the wet auto exhaust burn my nose and throat. We were cold, wet and eager to get started on our urgent case investigation here. Our meeting was set for tomorrow, which gave us a bit of time to get ready.
Fergie and I had just exited Selfridge’s, where we’d just purchased new business attire for our client meeting. And warmer outerwear, too.
We stood under an awning waiting for the rain to let up, the driving rain sheeting down all around us and almost drowning out the traffic noise.
I looked at Fergie. “We should have used the valet for the car. Now, we’ll have to run for it.”
“I’ll go,” he offered. “No need for us both to get even more wet than we are.”
I shook my head. “Let’s wait a minute and see if this deluge lets up. I don’t really want to be separated from you, in case someone’s hunting me. And caught up.”
He nodded, concern in his amber eyes.
“Every time I come here, even in summer, London always seems colder than Scotland,” I said as a passing car splashed us from the gutter.
He scratched his werewolf’s shadow of a beard. “Maybe it just feels like that because we’re far from home and we can’t just have a cuppa anytime we want and put our feet up on the hearth.”
“A cup of hot tea sounds so lovely right now. Your legs are probably freezing in your kilt.”
“My body temperature does run hotter than yours, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to wearing my new wool trousers for the duration of our stay here.”
“Same here. I’m abandoning all gesture of wearing a skirt suit in this weather, even to the client meeting.”
“Practicality over style?” he teased.
“I don’t care about style when I’m cold. And I’m not a clothes-horse like Rebecca, who dresses to the nines even to stay home and watch the telly.”
Fergie chuckled. “It likely takes her hours to look like that. Whereas, you can roll out of bed and splash your face and run out the door with the face Gaia and your parents gave you.”
I laughed. “I think you’re starting to know my morning habits too well.”
“Well, it would be a shame to cover up your freckles with all that goop Rebecca uses.”
I stuck up for Rebecca. “She’s very pretty!”
“Of course she is, but she doesn’t have your confidence about her appearance.”
“It’s not as much confidence as much as it is not wanting to bother in front of a mirror. It takes too long to mute out my freckles with makeup. I gave up long ago.”
“I hope you never feel like you have to do it.”
“What you see is what you get.”
“Good to know.” He eyed the running water in the street. “I’m going to jump the gutter and it’s kind of a long leap. You won’t make it without getting water down the tops of your fancy leather boots. Hand me those packages and wait here.”
“Are you sure?” I said gratefully.
“I’ll bring the car around. No use both of us getting soaked to the knees. I’ll only be gone for two or three minutes at most.
At my worried look, he said, “What kind of coven hunter do you imagine is lurking outside Selfridge’s waiting for you?”
“All right. Go on then. Please hurry.”
He made the leap gracefully when I would have splashed right down in it and been knocked down by the current that was dragging every piece of garbage toward London’s storm sewers. I watched him run down the wet pavement almost in a blur toward the parkopedia where we’d left the car we’d hired.
I took a deep breath and was sorry I had because I ended up coughing. I already missed the fresh air of the Isle of Lewis and Harris. London smelled more like auto exhaust and sodden garbage. And Edinburgh never smelled like this.
I felt a cold prickle of warning down my neck. Or maybe it was rain leaking inside the back of my collar. I looked around me anxiously. I felt paranoid without Fergie beside me, knowing there was a coven hunter after me. A witch hunter employed by witches.
The hook’s the thing…
People ask me how I know when to start a story. I have a hundred things I could say about “the hook,” but the most important thing is for the reader to get a sense of the characters and how they are going to interact with each other. I try to make their meeting as intriguing as possible so that first page gets turned and then, I have the reader in the palm of my hand for some madcap adventure.
It doesn’t have to be the hero and heroine who meet in the first scene; it could be the protagonist and the villain, or even just the villain (if you’re into the detective stories that start out with revealing the crime in the first scene). Each person in that first scene should be well-drawn and without an overload of backstory explaining. The hook also nails the genre right away if I am doing my job right. And sets the tone. Right away, you know that there are going to be some sexy sparks between these two…
I was standing behind the bar in my blood club when she walked in.
The first thing I noticed was that she looked like death warmed over. Lips like lush black cherries. Skin like milky silk. Hair like endless nightfall. Undead eyes with black irises. I was struck by the realization that she looked like a younger Samantha Moon.
Be still my heart…oh, right.
The second thing I noticed was her vampire bite tattoo, right where my eyes loved to roam the most, on her satiny neck that was exposed by the neckline of her slinky black dress. All of me perked up.
No discernible pulse. No breathing.
The lady is a vamp.
“Welcome to Fang’s Place,” I said. “I’m Fang.”
(from VAMPIRES, SHE WROTE by Eve Paludan)
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♂️ #Fang of #vampireforhire falls for a vampire novelist. And vampire.
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There was a year where I truly wrote 15 books and stories that were published that year, some by a publisher, some by me. This is not that year.
Good news, though! I’m 17,000 words into writing Witch List (Witch Detectives #5). I have had seven false starts that I completely trashed, but this current version in progress is THE ONE. It’s taken me months to tie a certain important plot arc into this novel to keep the series consistent and not just have a bunch of random standalone stories. This thread has carried through the series and I figured out something amazing, or my protagonists figured it out and told me the secret. I thank you all for being so patient and kind while I bring my best books to you!
I’ve written dozens of books (at least 40) and I can attest to a certain professional pressure from the writing community to be a productive writer every day. For years, I worked 10, 15, even 20 hours a day. Hardly sleeping. Just writing, editing, sitting at my computer, not sleeping well, not eating properly, not exercising.
Things are different now. I’ve shed 40 pounds (I have more to go!), changed my diet, found new exercises that worked better for me (because I like them), and am not at the computer as much. I took care of a loved one for months before she died, I have 5 grandkids and am sometimes the transport to/from school. I have Sunday dinners with family. I am finding balance, finally. But, readers have noticed my books are coming slower than they like.
I really want to say it’s okay to set aside a book in progress, and to not have a writing quota. I feel a lot of pressure when I have a book contract and a deadline. I once contracted to write a book in 18 days for a specific special launch and I got it done, but it had a serious impact on my health and future creativity. I set aside everything and everyone else to get it done. It was a #1 book in its category for a couple of months, and it’s really good, and I am proud that I did it.
But there was a book that I finished 27 years after I started it and it remains one of the favorites I have ever written because it took me that long to work out the various endings until I had one that satisfied me.
I’ve written a cowboy romance novella in 5 days that was super fun to write and I did not have a contract for it. It’s sexy and heartfelt and I had no real idea that I would make it a series until I wrote book 2.
I also wrote an 85,000-word novel in 3 months because I had a book contract and I was agonizing that I very nearly missed my deadline because I had spent the advance! I delivered it, late, but it was very, very good. I worked at least 10-12 hours a day and at night, I slept with ice packs on my poor wrists so they would stop awakening me with their protests.
I also wrote a very long book over 3 years that had 3 agents and 5 editors and by the time I wrestled it back from the publisher (after I found out a colleague only got a $5,000 advance from this mega-publisher for her bestseller, and no money for years afterward), I published it myself and am so, so proud of that book.
I learned that if you write for the love of it, at your own pace, the quality of the book is better. Writing is a fine balance between supporting oneself and enjoying the process.
Everyone finds their own speed and path. I don’t presume to tell people that they should write a certain amount of words per day because they often end up being words that get cut by an editor. With good reason. They seem like filler. Seriously, thank goodness for good editors.
I love to not have these scary deadlines and consequences if I don’t meet the deadlines, and I feel sick that some writers believe that word counts spell success or failure, instead of what I believe is more important: the readers’ enjoyment and readers’ experience. I strive to write books so good that even at 85,000 words, readers feel like the book was too short and they want MORE. They forgot that they were reading, and instead became immersed in a world I created with characters that resonated and endings that brought out the tissues and the tears.
These days, I opt in for reader enjoyment and reader experience above word count. I write more slowly than some other authors because I don’t want to write endings that are about typing THE END–instead of building reader satisfaction. If you love my endings, you’ll buy the next book. I do thank you for that! And if I seem slow, it is not that I have not been working. I have! WITCH LIST is growing slowly and carefully, and I am making good headway. I am the kind of writer who might re-write the beginning dozens of times and the ending a hundred times. You can probably tell. I hope you can!
I know it’s been a long time since I put out 15 books in a year. Since then, stuff has happened. Two people that I dearly loved died and it has thrown me for a loop for a little while, but that’s normal because everyone has people they love and when they are gone, a piece of you, even a writing piece, goes with them. And a writer has to build new things inside the mind. Beautiful things again. Dark things, in real life, impact productivity.
I want to ensure that WITCH LIST is the continuation of the Witch Detectives series and not the end of it, so I strive to bring you the very best plots and characters I can. I even research my competition and purposely avoid imitating what has already been done in the genre. Hence, tossing out all of those false starts when I saw someone else had released something similar. I don’t write to a trope. I mix genres all the time in my books. Usually considered a no-no, I want to write books that transcend any one genre and have a uniqueness that, if you are a reader, you could recognize my book in a crowd of others because my style is unique and my plots are not some oft-used trope. My wish is that my characters feel real to you, and hopefully, the heroes and heroines are people you grow to like, maybe even love. And cheer for.
Nor do I begin writing by cribbing parts of previous books. I start with a blank page. And that is intimidating, but also, the most rewarding for readers. I do it for you.
Thanks for sticking with me while I work to bring you WITCH LIST. When you read it, I think it will blow your mind. I hope so!
p.s. I have multiple Vampire for Hire books in progress as well. You know me. I like to have a lot of irons in the fire. And readers, you are my flame-fanners. The reader experience is more important than cranking out a mediocre book every two or three weeks. I don’t do that because, seriously, I love you! And I respect that when you spend your money for a book I wrote, it better be good, very good or even great!
I’m getting older now. I’m in my 60s now, and I don’t (want to) write crap. Amazing books take me a while. I promise, the wait will be worth it.
I fear the reaper, but it’s on my bucket list to have 100 books and stories published before I die, so, back to work. For you…
🐉 #DRAGON LESSONS 🐉 Now available internationally!
#Free with KindleUnlimited subscription (in participating Amazon markets)
$2.99 ❤ #VAMPIRES #VAMPIRE #WEREWOLF ❤
The daughter of #vampireforhire #SamanthaMoon falls for a #dragonshifter!
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THE VAMPIRE AND THE WEREWOLF
$2.99 ❤ #VAMPIRES #WEREWOLF❤
#sexy #BeautyandtheBeast #fairytale #romance
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New title (the old title was Vein Glorious). New book cover. New interior design. A fresh edit!
As well as selling my books on Amazon, I am now going wider with my book marketing and I already have some selling at other venues besides Amazon. (First, I un-enrolled them from Kindle Select to comply with Amazon rules because I wanted to leave my book for sale there, too, of course.)
However, if you want to go wide with your books, instead of just relying on Amazon sales, and would love to see your books selling in Barnes & Noble, Apple, and many other online retailers, just click on my referral link to find out about free publishing in multiple venues via Draft2Digital.com:
https://www.draft2digital.com/gowidewithyourbooks
There are GORGEOUS, INSTANT interior book styles to choose from with beautiful drop caps, chapter head styles, and a very professional presentation for the interior of your book, without a lot of formatting headaches. Want to change styles? It’s ONE CLICK to switch to a different style (from the pre-made styles available).
Do you want your book interior to look like this?
Please check it out. What have you got to lose by going wide with your books?
(Just remember to remove your books from Amazon’s Select program by unchecking the auto-renew box under “manage your enrollment” before you go wide and wait until your enrollment expires before publishing your books via Draft2Digital.com. Leave your book for sale at Amazon, too, but add the other retailers with D2D.)
Sales dropping? Page views dropping, too? It’s time to get serious about getting your books in the hands of more readers. Maybe it is a great time to think about the bigger picture for marketing your books via multiple venues.
Get your book on Nook and phones and tablets and everywhere. It is just ONE upload of your book and cover that will push your book into multiple markets!
Draft2Digital.com makes it so easy to “go wide.” Make today the first day of your plan to get your book in many markets! I chose Draft2Digital.com to augment my presence at Amazon with other online retailers–I hope you will, too.
— Eve Paludan
https://www.draft2digital.com/gowidewithyourbooks
p.s. Soon, I will tell you about Draft2Digital’s universal book links. Here is a sneak peek!
In GHOST FIRE, paranormal investigators Ellen and Monty Drew go to West Los Angeles for some rest and relaxation, as well as to shop for items to redecorate their home. But, apparently, there is to be no respite. Ellen is a ghost magnet, so they now have 48 hours to solve a spontaneous combustion mystery in a haunted co-op art gallery before its grand opening in Venice, California.
Spirits abound, including a flapper from the 1920s who haunts the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, the tormented ghost of a jockey, the spirit of a horse that shows up at a barbecue, the ghost of a former professor’s wife, the possession of a cab driver, an ex-nun who paints dead people she’s never met, and the accidental release of one ticked-off chupacabra spirit.
Will Monty and Ellen get roasted by the poltergeist? Will they ever get to the beach? This is Ellen and Monty Drew’s most ghost-packed paranormal investigation case yet.
Thank you to my readers and to my publisher, Rain Press (the imprint is J.R. Rain’s Vampire for Hire World).
FIRST, SOME EXCITING NEWS FROM J. R. RAIN:
“I’m excited to announce that J. R. Rain’s Vampire for Hire World is now live! Since Amazon’s Kindle World has now officially shutdown, I have taken over the publication of some of the books published in my (now closed) Kindle World. These stories are set in the universe of Samantha Moon and are considered unofficial fan fiction. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t totally bitchen. Folks, these stories rock, and they are a great way to feed your Sam Moon fix while you’re waiting for Vampire Sire, book #15.”
J. R. Rain started things off by announcing Vampire Apocalypse by bestselling author, J. Thorn, and I have been waiting for just the right time to tell you *my* book news, too! Now is that time. Some of you had already guessed it because the books are live at their brand-new URLS on Amazon.com.
J. R. Rain’s Vampire for Hire World is now my *official* book publisher for:
Not only are these books live under his own imprint, but ALL of my related series *will continue.* (I am already 30,000 words into my next book, which will be announced closer to the publication date.)
I want to thank you all for supporting my longtime book love with Samantha Moon, the world’s most awesome vampire private detective. And I want to thank my publisher, J. R. Rain and Rain Press, for allowing me to continue the FOUR series I started in his World. I have come a long way from that initial launch of Wolf Moon and I have long-term expansion plans for all of these series.
You may have also noticed that the series, Brotherhood of the Blade (starring Rand, the globe-trotting vampire hunter), is also branded in J. R. Rain’s Vampire for Hire World. As it will be from now on. So, that is actually FIVE series!
So, I already have SEVEN books in J. R. Rain’s Vampire for Hire World. Seven! I could not be more thrilled. It was the best thing that could have ever happened to these books and it makes me so happy.
As most of you know from the recent announcement, J. R. Rain’s *own* Vampire for Hire novels and stories are soon to launch a TV show. I’m thrilled for him, too. If you want to know more, head over to his page: https://www.facebook.com/jrrainauthor/posts/10160864622190624
How did I even get here? On Sep 8, 2009, at 4:04 p.m., J. R. Rain sent me a PDF of Moon Dance and asked me what I thought of it. I had already read his novel, The Body Departed, and knew it was one of the best books I had ever read in my life. That PDF of Moon Dance was about to change my life even more as a reader, and as a writer. This has been a long time coming and it has been a lot of fun and a lot of hard work. But here I am, with the best publisher I have ever had. And I have the great honor to write about Samantha Moon. I take that honor seriously. As some of you know, I rewrite my book beginnings and endings up to a hundred times, and I hire the best editors to help me put my best foot forward. (Shout-out to you, Tracy Seybold!)
One of my bucket list items for the last 9 years:
✔ Talk J. R. Rain into allowing me to write in his Samantha Moon universe.
Brotherhood of the Blade was a phenomenal beginning. I just love checking off those bucket-list items!
Thanks to my friends and family for the book love and support. It means the “World” to me! And I mean that literally, because now, these books are available globally—in every country where Amazon has a presence.
Before I close…
A long time ago, a dear friend named Sharon Wagner was one of the ghostwriters for the Nancy Drew series and she said she had the best world to write in and that was true back then! She planted a seed in me that someday, I would find the right already-established mystery series where I could spread my creative wings, too. Well, I found it!
More books are coming from me in J. R. Rain’s Vampire for Hire World. Stay tuned! And thanks again. Without you, my readers, this never could have happened!
All the Best,
Eve Paludan
