Sunday, January 31, 2016

January 31, 2016

Hiya, lovelies!

So last week I mentioned doing a giveaway for the publication of Twisted, where the prize will consist of a FREE print book with a little something written inside! If you're digging that idea, then keep reading!

Basically, I'm going to be holding this every Sunday throughout the month of February. I will give a week to get names recorded, then when Friday comes, I will randomly select a winner! Therefore there will be one winner per week!

Here is a an excerpt from the story:

“I’m sorry,” he said and shoved his hands in his pockets. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
            “Why not?”
            “You know why, Claire.”
            I swallowed thickly, a lump forming in the back of my throat. “I don’t care.”
            His eyes bored into my own. They had darkened into burning pits, his lips pulled back into an ugly sneer. “Have you forgotten who I am? I—” he raked a hand through his hair, shaking his head.
            “I like you,” I whispered, the words leaving my lips without my brain registering. Too late to turn back now. “I really like you, Heath. Not for what you do, but for who you are.”
            “For who I am?” He stepped closer, hands tightening into fists at his side, and I suddenly became aware of how tall he was. He towered over me, and a flash of fear crawled along my spine. I saw a brief glimmer of the assassin Heath was. I’d stand no match against him. “For some people, I’m the last person they see. I kill people. There’s a reason for it, but that doesn’t change what I do.”
            My back hit the door, and he kept stepping closer, and I couldn’t look him in the eyes. “I’m not afraid of you,” I said, but my voice shook.
            “You are,” he murmured, as an observation. “And that’s how it should be.”



How this is going to happen will be like this:

1) I will make the announcement, ya'll will tweet #TWISTEDGIVEAWAY and you must also tag my username too - so I can see it! My username is @SmilinForYa ; by doing this, you will automatically be put into the box to win the free book. But you HAVE to tweet with the tag AND my username - I will be looking for it! I'll favorite your tweet, to let you know your name is down.

2) On Friday, as I mentioned above, I will randomly 'pull from the box' and select the lovely winner!

3) Then on Sunday, it'll commence again!

As I've mentioned before, when the book is published, it'll only come out as an eBook format to the public eye initially. I do plan on printing a few to give to family and friends, but until I reach enough sales, I unfortunately won't be able to do it immediately.

So, this will be the first week of the #TWISTEDGIVEWAY ! Start tweeting !!

Love,
Sarah xx

Friday, January 29, 2016

Sarah Reeves



--SARAH REEVES--

RANDOM FACTS ABOUT ME

1) A Texan for over 10 years or so



2) Mountains > the beach



3) Food is EVERYTHING


4) Love to bake!! 


5) Currently going to Texas A&M University for an English degree (subject to change)



6) Favorite place I've been to out of the USA is the Aran Islands, in Ireland! (photos courtesy of me!)






7) Love writing fan fiction! (though I haven't updated any of my fics for a while)


8) Some favorite music artists at the top of my head: the Beatles, Journey, Kansas, Boston, Poison, Breaking Benjamin, Radiohead, One Direction, Lady Gaga, The Weekend, Queen, Ed Sheeran, and Within Temptation! 


9) Some favorite movies at the top of my head: What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Titanic, Dances With Wolves, 17 Again, Chocolat, Never Been Kissed, 10 Things I Hate About You, The Dark Knight, The Iron Giant, and the original Halloween! 


10) Favorite books at the top of my head: Anything by Sarah Dessen, though my favorite right now is Saint Anything, the 5th Wave, the Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns, the Halo series by Alexandra Adornetto (shout out to Jasmine for suggesting this to me! SO GOOD), Tiger Lilly, and the Book Thief!


11) Winter > summer or in other words, cold weather > hot weather


12) Favorite color is black!


13) Favorite video games: Skyrim (DOVAKHIIN), Minecraft, Left 4 Dead, Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty Nazi Zombies, Sims, Kingdom Hearts, Ico, and Shadow of the Colossus! 


14) Favorite fruit is strawberries! 


15) favorite snack is bananas with peanut butter! 


16) I am part Italian and part Irish! 


17) My first book I had ever finished was one I wrote for Santa Clause when I was a little girl. I even illustrated the pages, and though it was ghetto, with me stapling the ends together, I was so proud of it! Took me a while to finish making it haha! 

18) When I was a kid, my biggest dream was to either become a princess or live off in the woods somewhere with horses, away from society! Two very contrasting dreams, huh? 

19) I'm the middle child in my family! For my birthday last year, my dad told me: Thanks for keeping things interesting for us! I'm the so-called 'troublemaker' in my family, since my sister and brother are practically saints. Fun stuff! 

20) My OTP is Axel and Roxas, from Kingdom Hearts! They were the pairing that got me into reading fan fiction, and eventually writing it! 

WELL NOW MY HEART HURTS I'M GOING TO GO EAT A LOT OF CHOCOLATE BYE


January 29, 2016


Hiya, lovelies!

So things are getting INTENSE! I'm adding last minute ideas while my editor is doing the full-blown content editing. I'm also searching and discovering all kinds of styles and formatting for interior designs, so that's a lot of fun. 

The cover I commissioned from the artist on deviantart didn't come through - she worked hard on it, she came with a lovely piece, but after editing, our styles just didn't mesh. So now I've found another artist who has a bit more experience particularly for book cover designs, so hopefully our ideas come across better! Again, the 1st artist was so nice to work with and so talented, it just turned out I was the first one to commission her to design a book cover, so the fact that this was both of our first times at this made it difficult to communicate what we thought. Hopefully this time things work out better! So far the studio's portfolio looks amazing! In fact, if you want to go take a look, here's their website: http://ebooklaunch.com/ebook-cover-design/

I requested a quote from their Dynamic package, and here are some of the books they've done:


I certainly think these are eye-catching, and according to the package details, they're ultimate goal is to correlate the cover design with essences from the story, so to me, of course, that seems so promising! And they're asking me a lot about my book, to get the gist of what they're working to market, so they've very professional.

So far, self-publishing in itself has been one hell of an experience! I'm still getting my foot in the water, but it's definitely one of those things that you have to learn hands on how to do. You get out there, get connections with all kinds of people (and hopefully discounts hehe), and you find out more and more what you need to produce your product. It's a lot of work, but for me, it's very enjoyable and so very worth it! 

My editor said that she will hopefully have my manuscript ready by March the 3rd, so I'm hoping to have my book out on Amazon and Barnes and Noble around the 20th of March. 

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT! PLEASE READ!

All throughout the month of February, I will be having a #TWISTEDGIVEAWAY !! It will officially begin this Sunday, so keep an eye out for it! I will make the announcement and give way more details about what's happening, I just wanted to give ya'll a heads up on what was coming! 

I hope everyone's having a wonderful day! 

Love, 
Sarah

Sunday, January 24, 2016

January 24, 2016

Hiya, lovelies!

So it's currently 5 AM, and I can't sleep on account of me and my best friends watching scary videos on YouTube a few hours ago (who needs sleep anyway?!), so I've spent some time revising Twisted, and I came up with a neat idea!

To kick off the publication of Twisted, I want to do a little giveaway! Remember how I mentioned I was only going to publish the ebook version? Well that's kind of changed - I'm going to print a small amount, too, and the lovely winners (I haven't decided how many yet) will receive FREE PRINT BOOKS. And a little note from me! I'll be reminding ya'll more of this the more organized I get, right now it's just an idea, but I'm excited for it - I think it'll be an awesome way to kick start the publication!

So yeah, keep an eye out for the giveaways in the future! I hope to publish Twisted in March, but I'll keep ya'll updated!

Love,
Sarah xx

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

January 12, 2016


Wow, so I almost made the common mistake of titling this in 2015, but caught myself at the last moment! 

Hiya, lovelies! Happy new years!! Another new year coming our way, full of opportunities and, of course, challenges yet to be overcome. How exciting! 

Boy do I have some news for you! The cover design for Twisted has just came in this morning, and though it still has things that need to be tweaked, it is absolutely amazing! I got goosebumps just from looking at it. Once the artist is completely finished with it, I'll give thanks to her properly on here in case any other self-publishing author is looking for a credible cover artist. 

My sister is currently critiquing the manuscript - and it's a bit nerve-wracking but exciting at the same time. Remember last time I said that she critiqued my work and what happened? That I rewrote the entire manuscript? Yeah, I certainly remember that. But luckily this time, there was improvement, so she's not calling for me rewriting anything - she's just helping me with with believablity and characterization, which is actually always fun. I'm so lucky that she's willing to set aside time and help me out on this - and she has been a great help!

The only nail-biter is that my content/developmental editing starts officially the 20th, so I have 8 days now to polish the manuscript the best I can until then. Eight. Days. God help me.

And just to top it off, I start classes on the 20th - so that must be a magical day of some sorts. But anyhow, I hope everyone's enjoying the new year - keep your head up, stay positive, love ya'll! :)