Below is the new novel cover for the next novel, Times of Turmoil, which is a prequel to Times of Trouble. It should be finished sometime this month.

Plus, I’m the featured author this month on the Independent Author Network

Plus…. Beyond the New Frontier is FREE March 5-7, follow the link to find all the Kindle store links http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=fe95a009444c7a02f2d75da25&id=4226f147d8&e=

If you want to, please sign up at the new site, but I’ll continue to post here for another month or two.

Thanks!

Title: The Missing Piece (Inspirational Love Story)

By Carol McCormick

About the Book:

“Fresh dialogue, realistic characters, a powerful message,” The Romance Readers Connection

How does a man pick up the pieces when his world crashes around him? Misplaced priorities shattered his marriage. Problems almost crushed him. Love motivated him to mend the damage, once he found all the pieces.

After only a few months of marriage, Lorraine left Dylan on a wintry night after he’d spent one too many nights out with the guys. Unable to cope with the loss, Dylan escapes the painful feelings by drinking them away. This decision costs him a year-and-a-half of his life after he stops in a little mountain town and ends up in the local jail. When he’s released, he returns home in search of a job to get his life–and his wife back.

THE MISSING PIECE is not only a love story about a man who loves a woman, but is also a love story about a merciful God who loves mankind, even when he falls. The novel is an emotionally-charged journey of hope and redemption with a touch of spunk, a hint of humor, and a few twists along the way.

“Inspiring and encouraging. Anyone who desires a restoration to their spirit should read THE MISSING PIECE,” Myshelf.com

“A wonderful, heartwarming Christian romance. This is definitely a story that I recommend to all lovers of Christian romance,” Escape to Romance

Download on Kindle | Purchase Paperback

Carol McCormick
Carol began writing years ago after reading a ten-page story her grandmother wrote about growing up in the early 1900s. It was then that she began to write down her own stories to share with her daughters someday.

Later, she began to write as a way to draw herself and other people closer to the Lord. Carol writes for Christians to encourage them in their faith. She also writes for those who are unaware of God’s grace, to show them how to connect to Him in order to experience His love and goodness. Her writing is applicable to life with its direct, yet sensitive, and oftentimes humorous messages and lessons.

Carol has been a speaker for Christian Women’s Connection (Stonecroft Ministries International) for over fifteen years. She is also an international bestselling author who has appeared on regional and Christian television programs and has been a guest on over fifty Christian and secular radio stations.

Follow Carol McCormick
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LaTawnia Kintz Book Review Blog

‘Times of Trial can be read as a stand-alone or with Times of Trouble. Like Times of Trouble, Times of Trial is about the end-times and persecution of Christians in the United States.

The president of the United States is a hater of Christians and Jews and will stop at nothing to make sure he remains the president. He and his equally power hungry goons implement Agenda 21. (Now if you don’t know anything about Agenda 21 – which is very real check it out here. There are also lots of other listings about it.)

Cliff has again written a very insightful novel involving end-time prophecy and current events. This is a very easy book to read but don’t let the ease of it detract you from the reality of what could actually take place.

All right, now I have a couple of critiques… though Cliff has done better in filling in the plot with detail, his dialog is still a bit choppy and stilted. I only say this, because I know how difficult it is to write dialog. So Cliff, this is just to encourage you to write your dialog more fluidly. That is probably the only thing I can think of that may be a distraction for the reader.

I appreciate Cliff’s dedication to get his work out for the public to read. Since he is a self-publisher, it can be a bit harder to get the word out. So I am more than thrilled to review for him.

Thank you Cliff for providing me with a free ebook copy for me to review.”

Here’s what I wrote down in a notebook I have for such occasions:

The novel starts off with a narrator on a TV show  focusing on the life of a once famous musician, I guess like what they do on, I think it’s on VH-1, sort of a “Where Are They Now” kind of thing and how they got to where they were at. Then, the story will go back to the time when this musician was only known to his friends, family, and fellow church members, because he sings in church. He’s discovered, is asked to show up on a national singing competition, sort of like “Star Search” or “The Voice,” and he wins the competition. As he begins recording music with a record label when he gets the contract, the singer begins experiencing various temptations. He also ends up with an agent that will eventually convince him to leave Christian music behind because no one important listens to it and he’ll make more money in secular music (shades of Amy Grant, Whitney Houston, or Katy Perry). So our singer begins recording secular music (not sure which kind of rock yet). At a party, he’s introduced to a girl, who the singer eventually marries, but she is most definitely not a Christian. She introduces him to drugs and alcohol, while his agent gets the singer into all the right parties, eventually giving him enough visibility to win awards, like a Grammy.

He gains the attention of President-elect David Collins, who invites him to sing the national anthem at the inauguration, followed by an invite to the NFL to sing at the next Super Bowl, and an invite by NASCAR to sing the anthem at the Daytona 500. Our singer’s on top of the music charts, along with being the most popular singer on Earth, when tragedy strikes. His whole family dies in a plane crash on the way to wherever he was touring. Unfortunately for him, he had an argument with his wife over his gambling and all sorts of other things he shouldn’t be doing, and he went on tour without apologizing or patching things up. The singer feels guilty, but instead of praying and trying to get right with God, he responds by drinking more and more. His grief and general drunkenness gets to be so bad, he gets dropped by his record label and agent, his expensive cars get repossessed, and house gets foreclosed on. In an attempt to help him, his home church tries to reach out to him, but he angrily rejects their help, because he’d rather rely on his worldly friends, but they reject him. At his lowest point, when he’s living in a broken down car, he prays for the first time in years by asking God to forgive him for going down this path. He feels a peace come over him, when he hears a trumpet sound, and is taken up along with thousands of other Christians.

The novel  ends with the TV show saying they hope the singer is happy wherever he is.

So, what do ya’ll think? Would you read something like this? Or back to the drawing board?

Title: Winter’s End (Seasons of Faith)

By Rebekah Lyn

Book Two of the Seasons of Faith Series

Musician Michelle Burton just had the best night of her life. Her band Tangled Web opened for Wonderland in downtown Orlando and the crowd loved them. Too excited to sleep she makes a fateful decision to go to work early. The best night of her life turns into the worst day of her life.

Nearby, at boutique Hotel Lago, Stephen Longbottom, acting concierge manager, is anxiously awaiting the arrival of the board of directors for Silken Pleasures, a multimillion dollar company based in New York and specializing in high end cosmetics, fragrances and lingerie. Their incessant demands before they even arrive are driving him to distraction. Meanwhile Lizzie Reynolds, his boss is on a romantic ski trip in Vermont leaving him to manage his first solo event.

Hope, forgiveness and love are an integral message throughout the book and like a fine tapestry the threads of God’s master plan for the character’s lives are woven into a fabric of great storytelling, conflict and humor.

Readers who came to know and love the characters of Summer Storms will enjoy catching up with Lizzie, Stephen, Michelle, Jeffrey and Ian.

Kindle | PaperbackRebekah Lyn
Rebekah is a Christian with a heart for new beginnings. She is a Florida native and a graduate of Jacksonville University, Jacksonville, Fl. A love of history, research and journaling led naturally to a passion for writing. She enjoys travel and has traveled extensively across the United States and Canada as well as Europe and the Caribbean. Her reading taste run from the classics to light fiction. When she is not working or writing, she enjoys cooking,baking and sharing recipes on her blog, http://rebekahlynskitchen.wordpress.com

Her current works include, Summer Storms and Winter’s End, books one and two in The Seasons of Faith series, and Julianne the first book in The Coastal Chronicle series. She is currently working on the, as yet untitled, second book in the Coastal Chronicles set in coastal Florida during the early years of the space program.

Rebekah currently resides in Florida along with her “attack” cat, Mia. They would enjoy meeting with you on her Facebook page.

Follow Rebekah Lyn
Website | Facebook | Twitter

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This book blast is hosted by Crossreads.

We would like to send out a special THANK YOU to all of the CrossReads book blast bloggers!

Or, like many others these days, you see a book mentioned on Facebook, Twitter, or on some message board somewhere online(unless its mentioned on TV and then its an instant bestseller, especially if Oprah mentions it), you ignore what seems like spam a few times, but one day you’re convinced to try it out. You read it, like it, and then tweet about it, like the book’s page on Amazon, like it enough to review it, and even share your new find on one of your many social networks. You do the whole digital word of mouth thing without going anywhere and your small amount of influence convinces others to take notice of those books, who influence others, and so on. Plus, you like the author so much, that you sign-up for the author’s newsletter or blog, follow them on Twitter, and join their Facebook page, where you buy every single novel hereafter.

For a lot of authors, Word of Mouth is the only way they find readers.

Here are a couple of ways to spread the word about a novel you enjoyed and helping the author out at the same time (which you’ve probably seen in one form or another on various authors’ blogs):

1. Mention the book online, like on Myspace (if you’re still there), Twitter,  Facebook, message boards, or wherever you frequent that allows you to mention books, and include a link to the store or author’s site.

2.  If you have Pinterest, create a board, like a “Favorite Books,” or “Book You Read Recently,” and link it to either the author’s site of store where you bought it from. The author might even be on Pinterest, so you could also follow their boards and “like” the book board they created for that particular book.

3. Tell your friends, family, co-workers, church members, etc through e-mail, phone, text, or talk to in person about the book. Include what you liked and why you think they might enjoy it. If you want, give them a copy of the paperback to read if you have a paperback copy, or even lend them the ebook version, depending on your e-Reader.

5. Leave a review on Amazon, B&N, or wherever you bought it from, you can even leave a review on all the sites if you want. If you’re on Goodreads, Shelfari, Librarything, etc, you can leave a review there.

So reader, how have you been influenced to buy a book? Through Word of Mouth or by way of something else?

When I first started publishing my novels in 2008, I had been using Xanga or Livejournal to do a little bit of blogging before that, but I found that neither one received very many visits, mostly because I had absolutely no idea about keywords or SEO. When I published Out of Time in 2008, I knew I needed to create a website since I did a little research on the subject, and found that people were using Geocities for their website host. Unfortunately, a couple of months later, Yahoo bought out Geocities and closed it down, so I had to search for another host. I tried out Blogspot (or Blogger as it’s known now), which I still have, but I found the design mechanics to be kind of odd at the time and kind of limiting since it seems like it required a high learning curve. Blogger also seems kind of buggy and really slow at times, so I searched for something else. I did some more searching and found WordPress.com, so I tried it out, and found that I liked it better, but I still found it better suited as a blog more than anything. I use a lot of different blogging platforms mostly to get seen on Google, Yahoo, and other search sites for those random hits I tend to get when they search for a certain keyword.

I finally found out about freewebs.com (now webs.com) in 2009. Having only two novels at the time, I questioned the idea that author’s needed a website, mostly because I had no idea about optimization. At first, I put the picture of the novels on one page and the descriptions along with them, and a link to Amazon. Around this time, I researched how to get hits, and found many, many references to SEO and software that would submit your site to all the search engines and  even sites that send you hits if you paid for them, because they said it was all about getting those thousands of hits so you could be ranked on Google. Talk about being one of those suckers born every minute. You pay for hits all right, but they’re random, and nothing happens as a result, and you’re out a couple of bucks. Frustrated, I researched some more, and found out about lacing your site with keywords that will get hits by people searching for those particular keywords, so I tried that, basically putting all the keywords at the bottom of my page, thinking that was how to do it. Wrong! One day, I was looking around the dashboard of my site, where I found the settings, which had the site information for the site tagline, site description, site tags/keywords. I put in everything I needed, and hit save. Then I saw that there was a spot for the Google webmaster tools, so I “googled” the term, and found out that Google had ways of submitting your site to their search engine, so I signed up for that. Once my site was officially seen by Google, they crawled it regularly and I slowly began to get hits from various searches.  If you want detailed stats, I found that Statcounter.com works really well. You add your “project” and it gives you the install code for the site you’re using, most of the time it’s HTML, but they have different install guides for various websites. You can see where your visits come from, where they go on your site, countries, visit length, and other various activity.

In 2011, I was taking a Technical Writing class where we had to create an e-portfolio. The instructor used Weebly for her site, so she had us create our e-portfolio on there. I found Weebly was incredibly easy to use and that I could create a site that fit what I wanted. By this time, Webs.com, for me, was really clunky. The way you had to install HTML code was kind of dumb, their templates were sorely lacking, and customization in general was frustrating for me. I ended up with a site that looked kind of unprofessional, to me anyway, and I couldn’t get various things to work correctly. Plus, if you aren’t paying for a premium package, there are only so many pages you can add, which limits an author who has more than a handful of books. I took to creating separate sites on Webs.com for each novel, but I never liked the way they looked, so when Weebly came along, I decided to try that. I like how Weebly is really easy to customize: from landing pages to having headers with pictures or no pictures, and even creating links to various pages your way instead of the default links at the top of the page.

If you want to create a site using Weebly, here are some of the things you can see when setting up the site:

You can customize your themes, even if you know nothing about HTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Just select a theme and then you can customize it to your heart’s content. There’s ribbon at the top of the webpage that has “Elements,” “Design,” “Pages,” “Editors,” and “Settings.” Click on “Design” to take you to the themes page. From here, you can choose a basic template, and under “Design Options,” you can customize the font, link colors, social media icons, etc. If you’re the type who likes doing everything from scratch and you have lots of patience and time, you can build a really customized site through the “Edit HTML/CSS button on the right hand side of the Design screen under “Favorites.” From there, it’ll take you to the theme editor so you can plug in all the HTML you can stand.

Once you’re done with themes, click on the “Pages” button. This will take you to the page where you can create pages for your site. You can customize the page layout, so if you want a landing page, there’s an option for that. You can create a main menu and sub-menus. You can link a page to another website if you choose not to create a specific page or links on your page. So, if you’re an author who doesn’t feel like creating multiple pages, you could skip creating individual links on a page to using a sub-menu that could link to the various stores for your novels. It’s all up to you.

Also on this page, you’ll see the “Advanced Settings.” When you click on that, what you see in the picture is what will come up. You see the page title, page description, meta keywords, footer and header codes. As you can see from what I entered in my own site settings, it’s fairly straightforward. If you’re using Statcounter, you put the code in the Footer area. When you come to the “Site Settings,” you’ll have to make sure that your page title doesn’t interfere with the site title, because through my own experience, I’ve had “Cliff Ball – Author” repeated at least two times on the site description when I posted a link somewhere, so pay careful attention to that.

Now we come to the “Site Settings.” As you can see from the picture, there’s the settings for “General,” “SEO,” “Ecommerce,” “Mobile,” “Archive/Un-publish.” Under the “General,” you can change your site address to a domain name if you own one. But, if you have a domain name, it has to be parked somewhere else, like GoDaddy or some other hosting site. Weebly doesn’t do hosting. You can change the site title, decide whether you want extra pages to be under a “More” tab, link to a Facebook page of your own choosing, and three other things that require a “pro” account.

Now we come to the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) settings. As you can see, you enter the site description, all of your meta keywords for the site in general, the footer code from whichever tracking site you use, the header code from Google Webmaster Tools, the option to hide your site, and the option to do 301 ReDirects if you’re migrating from one site to another.

After this, you have the “Ecommerce Settings.” It gives you the option of Paypal or Google Checkout, but I don’t think you can use both on the site. This is good if you want to sell something directly from your site.

Next is “Mobile” settings. You enable this so when someone using a mobile device visits your site, they can see it. You can choose whatever color that you choose for that visitor to see your site in.

Lastly, you see the “Archive/Unpublish” link. You can archive your site in zip format or un-publish your site altogether. Once you’re completely done, designing your site, click “Publish” at the top right of the screen, and your site will be published.

I hope this helps you with your website decisions and helps to show you what you can do or what not to do.