Monday, February 28, 2011

Newsy Stuff :)


Dan’s Dog Eared Books was a blast this weekend. I gave a workshop that took the audience from finding their inner book, to submitting and what to expect from the industry. Everyone was most excellent to me, including Jeanie, my hostess, who sent me home with chocolate and a blinged out bookmark! I think I want to be adopted now ;)

The last of the editing for Delbert Dallas and the Dragon Diaries, #1 Voyage to Viking Island was finished this weekend. Look for the release on March 22nd. These short stories are fabulous reading material for middle-grade readers. I loved highlighting the Viking age in this first story. What fun! I had no idea what a byrnie was!

My blog tour continues with a few more fabulous new stops and places to be entered into a contest. Check them out here:

First, a HUGE shout out to Tea Mouse. Not only is she being a fabulous blogger and hosting a stop on my tour, but she also made the lovely banners everyone is seeing on all my blog stops. Thank you bunches, Tea Mouse!! Visit her blog here: http://teamouse.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/blog-tour-giveaway-with-j-r-turner/

Next is the Tales Compendium. They’ve been exceptionally wonderful to me. Visit them here: http://www.thetalescompendium.com/2011/02/jr-turner-blog-tour-interview-and.html

And last but certainly not least, Reading, Writing and Waiting has a beautiful site to visit: http://youngadultbookworm.blogspot.com/

Over all though, Paranormal Indulgence (run by the wonderful Asher Knight) has some really amazing and unique things going on over there. Check it out here: http://paranormalindulgence.blogspot.com/2011/02/end-of-week-rally.html You really don’t want to miss this one! :)

Okay, back to work for me. Lots happening and some really great books coming out from Quake and Echelon Press soon!

Warmly,
Jenny:)

Friday, February 25, 2011

This and That :)

Supernatural is on tonight and it looks like it will be a mind-bender, for sure! :) Sam and Dean go to a parallel universe where they're actually actors--Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. Imagine that! :) Okay, on to "that" part of the post:

Yesterday I was sort of under the weather and couldn't sit at my computer for any real length of time. Today I'm much better and back at work :)

You can still leave a comment to be entered into the drawing here: http://www.wordforteens.com/

And Asher Knight still has some fabulous contests and give aways going on over at Paranormal Indulgence: http://bit.ly/feFIl0

Tomorrow I'll be in Medford for a great weekend shindig with Dog Eared Books. Please drop on by and say hello if you're in the area :)

Voyage to Viking Island was turned in this week, so I'm excited to see this first installment in my Electric Shorts series, Delbert Dallas and the Dragon Diaries, released on ebook for middle-grade readers.

There's a lot going on, but they say when you're doing what you love, then it ain't work ;)

How are all of you?

Warmly,
Jenny:)

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Welcome Marvin Wilson!

Hi everyone!

Today I’m dedicating my blog to Marvin Wilson, author of Beware the Devil’s Hug. This is an interesting book getting some very interesting reviews! Check it out:


What if a homeless, smelly, ugly, unkempt old man had a hug so powerful it could cure cancer? Cause a prostitute to stop hooking and seek true love? Shake the demons of addiction free from a junkie? Make a radical terrorist Muslim want to befriend and love a Christian and visa versa? But rare is the beneficiary of his divine embrace--nobody wants to come near him out of fear.

Beware the Devil's Hug is available on amazon.com and also directly from the publisher, All Things That Matter Press, at:
https://www.createspace.com/3478953

To view the book trailer, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3KIe8QxZms

And to embed the trailer in a blog post, here's the html code:



“Beware the Devil’s Hug introduces readers to a mishmash of deftly-drawn, misguided characters who are prone to bad decisions and worse circumstances. But as one homeless man proves, things are not always what they seem. This book is part-magical realism, part-spirituality and part-social commentary; and remarkably, Wilson’s cornucopia works harmoniously to create an utterly engrossing and enlightening story.”~ Jen Knox, author of Musical Chairs (a memoir), and the forthcoming novel, Absurd Hunger

“Marvin D. Wilson has created an intriguing allegory centered around a Christ-like figure who, despite his abilities to heal and forgive, is much more human than divine. Beware the Devil’s Hug is sometimes irreverent, sometimes uplifting, but always a fascinating read.”~ Steve Lindahl, author of A Motherless Soul

“This is a journey of awe and inspiration! Marvin Wilson has penned an intriguing and imaginative tale. Beware the Devil's Hug is part parable, part allegory, and it brilliantly calls into question one's truth, faith, and essentially one's personal belief system in an often jaded world. Beware the Devil's Hug will surprise, mesmerize and challenge one's precepts in ways that many of us just might need to be challenged.”~ L.M. Ross Author of Manhood and Like Litter In the Wind

Marvin D. Wilson has a widely varied and rich life experience background-from Hippie Rock and Roll musician, to nightclub entertainer, to Zen Buddhist minister, to carpenter, to small business owner, to network marketer, to sales and sales training, to skilled trades instructor and adult education teacher, to public speaker and motivational coach, to now in his chosen “golden years” career, a writer and multi-published author with the self-proclaimed, “audacity to write novels.”

Wilson describes his spiritual path as one who is a non-religious, dogma-free, maverick spiritualist Christian, with a strong bent toward Zen, Taoism, and the Law of Attraction, and who believes in the Oneness of all creation and all paths leading to re-awakening to the On e. He is a family man with three grown children and six grandchildren, and works with his son and oldest daughter in their organic compost and vegetable farming business when not writing, traveling, and marketing his books.

Marvin writes primarily in the spiritual/inspirational genre, but likes to pen “cross-over” novels that appeal to a wide variety of readers. His books are uplifting, sometimes weighty, oftentimes humorous, abidingly thought-provoking, meant to instill and create passion and emotion, more than occasionally provocative to the point of controversial, and always “tell it like it is”, real world, no punches pulled writing. He likes to deliver spiritual messages in a non-preachy, often irreverent, sometimes sexy and ribald way, through the medium of an entertaining story.

Thanks so much to Marvin for visiting my blog this month! To find out about other publications and make friends with Marvin online, visit these links:

Blog: http://theoldsilly.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Paize_Fiddler
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Theoldsillymarvin?ref=profile
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/dashboard

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Blog Tour Galore! :)



Let's see where we are with the contests and stuff :)

2/7: Simply Megan Winners: Lisa Potts and Aleetha
http://www.simplymegan.blogspot.com

2/9: Karen Syed-Publisher blog Winner: Reggie Ridgway
http://klsyed.com/

2/11: Sean Hayden-Author Blog Winner: Pam Ripling
http://shaydenfl.wordpress.com/

2/14: Chris Redding-Author Blog: One week left to enter!
http://chrisredddingauthor.blogspot.com/

2/15: Paranormal Indulgence: Awesome ongoing contest and give away!
http://bit.ly/feFIl0

2/17: The Subtle Chronicler Winner: Leonor!
http://thesubtlechronicler.blogspot.com/

2/18: Sarah’s Random Musings: Contest ends Monday!
http://sarahbear9789.blogspot.com/

2/19: Jen Wylie-Author Blog: Contest ends Monday!
http://jlwylie.wordpress.com/

2/21: Teens Read and Write: Contest ends March 6th
http://www.teensreadandwrite.com/

2/22: The Tales Compendium: Contest ends Friday, 25th--leave a comment to win!
http://www.thetalescompendium.com/

2/23: Tea Mouse: Contest ends Sunday, 27th--leave a comment to win!
http://teamouse.wordpress.com

Lots of very cool things to win--including books, ebooks, and book thongs. To be entered into the contest is simple: click a link where a winner hasn't been chosen yet and leave a comment.

Looking forward to seeing y'all on my tour!

Warmly,

Jenny:)


Sunday, February 20, 2011

Ask the Editor, Published Author, and Busy Mom Day!


It would seem that over the last week, I've gained a bunch of readers! :) Thanks so much and WELCOME! I'm always interested in answering questions or responding to comments on my blog.

So today, followers new and old, readers new and old, feel free to ask me a question or leave a comment.

As an editor, I can share what I know about the industry, Quake, Echelon Press, Wisconsin Regional Writers' Association, and Rotowriter Critique Service.

As an author, I can share what I know about writing, publishing, marketing, and promoting.

As a mom who loves to cook, craft, and camp--I can share tips and tricks I've learned over the 18 years I've been a mom! (18 years, wow! Lol!)

So let's hear what you're thinking about today!

Warmly,
Jenny:)

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Next stop, Jen's House!

Hey y'all :)

I'm over at Jen Wylie's today, celebrating the release of Detour 2 Death! She's a great person and an awesome writer. Her short story Jump is #1 on Omnilit and she's got a great novel "Sweet Light" coming out later this year.
So stop by and visit with us, the two Jens, and we'll have a fun Saturday together! :)

Warmly,
Jenny:)
Don't be pushed by your problems...be led by your dreams!~favorite fortune cookie note :)

Friday, February 18, 2011

The Blog Tour So Far



Fabulous Friday to everyone! Hope you can escape your daily grind for just a moment to visit one of the many fabulous stops on my blog tour. These bloggers have all been exceptionally wonderful. Below you'll find the list of winners and the contests still open for you to enter:

2/7: Simply Megan:
http://wwwsimplymegan.blogspot.com/
Lisa Potts won a copy of DFF: Dead Friends Forever
Aleetha won a book thong in her favorite color

2//9: Life as a Publisher:
http://klsyed.com/
Reggie Ridgeway won a free book thong

2/11: Sean Hayden-Author Blog:
http://shaydenfl.wordpress.com/
Pam Ripling won a free book thong in her favorite color

2/14: Chris Redding-Author Blog:
http://chrisredddingauthor.blogspot.com/
Winner not yet picked…Still time to leave comments!

2/15: Paranormal Indulgence:
http://bit.ly/feFIl0
Fabulous ongoing contests with a chance to win books!

2/16: The Soul Sisters:
http://www.the-soul-sisters.blogspot.com/
Wonderful stop on my tour—still time to leave a comment to win!

2/17: The Subtle Chronicler:
http://thesubtlechronicler.blogspot.com/
Mike is a great guy, and you can still enter to win by leaving a comment!

2/18: Sarah’s Random Musings:
http://sarahbear9789.blogspot.com/
Will be up soon, and there IS a contest!!

Take five, relax in your ‘puter chair, give a little read, drop in a comment or two, and see if you win a prize as well! You deserve a read today! :)

See you there!

Warmly,
Jenny:)

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Blog Tour Continues!

Hey everyone. We got a little sidetracked yesterday, but there's another great stop on my blog tour to announce:

Visit the Soul Sisters book blog here: http://the-soul-sisters.blogspot.com/



Louisse is really a great person and came on later to the blog tour, so please visit and leave a comment! :)

See you there!

Warmly,
Jenny:)

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

AW Bans Intelligence

*Fifth Update* Here's the deal. I took my blog down yesterday because I didn't want to waste my energy on this. All the folks at AW were screaming something be done to end all this.

Guess what? As soon as my blog went down, they all worked really hard to post it back up at the forums. Uh, hello???

So beyond that, now they're talking trash about me on the Echelon Press thread--saying FAR, FAR worse things than anything I ever did to get banned.

You want proof of nepotism? There ya go...

Hey, AW, thanks for proving ALL my points! Have a nice day :)

*And now back to your regularly scheduled programming!*


*Fourth Update* Apparently Echelon Press should fire me now, LOL :) At least Lynn Price of Behler Publishing would fire her editor, er...guess that means herself...if she made libelous personal attacks...

Oh wait, she did! I wonder what sort of severance pay her husband is going to offer her... Any guesses? :)

*Third Update* Well, it appears the folks over at AW are losing their collective minds--and tempers! LOL :) Apparently they've decided that asking a question about whether or not a publisher promotes their authors is considered "an attack" on said publisher. *SNORT* Also, they've turned the Echelon Press thread into a "Bash Jenny" thread because they're too cowardly to come here. What's funny is that I got banned for saying "thank you"--yet they're saying FAR worse things and being applauded.

Another sad, sad, day for AW. I feel like having an online moment of silence for the writing forum that once was. Naaa, they can't shut me up that easy, and it's driving them crazy! :)

*Second Update* There's a person named "Giant Baby* (lol, I couldn't make this stuff up) who is claiming she or he didn't have the guts to post here because that would be too "validating." I guess if you want to slunk off and talk behind someone's back, there's no better name for you than "Giant Baby." Aside from that, I know they're all reading my blog because the hits keeping jumping by the minute! Aw, shucks, AW, I didn't know you cared so much! :)

*UPDATE* It would appear that the WATB as my mother would call them, have decided to talk big where I can't respond. That makes them cowards. So here's a challenge all you big talkers over at AW--Come here and say it to my face. Or are you too afraid your ignorance will be challenged? It's easy to think you're all big and bad when you're hiding behind a Soccer Mom! Lol ;)


Okay, like many writers, I relied on Absolute Write Water Cooler for my information about the writing industry. Unfortunately, their reliability is no longer a certainty.

At one time, members I highly respected, were eager to find the negative aspects of a contract or a business model. Today, I find that “author farms” as Veinglory, the “Flying AW Mod Monkey!” with more than 16,000 posts, most certainly a knowledgeable member of the forums, calls them, are being touted as trusted “brands.” An author farm, if your as unfamiliar with the term as I was, is like an author mill in that a publisher simply contracts books at will, often doing a shoddy job of editing, or otherwise simply correcting typos and misspellings, except they don’t expect authors to buy their own books the way the mill would. An author farm, therefore, has a vast database of badly, poorly edited books.

Instead of AW warning aspiring authors about this however, they are using “Friendship” to determine what is acceptable and unacceptable. When all the reports for a particularly well-known massive epublishing house were all glowing and wonderful, I was surprised because frankly—I thought AW had higher standards than that. Of course, pointing this out didn’t win me any brownie points with those who are perpetuating this fraud on unsuspecting authors.

But here comes the absurd part of all this. They banned me for three days (so far) because I dared respond in-kind to snarky and often silly, accusations about my own publishing house. They claimed that my publisher was refusing to make money out of spite.

Now, if you’ve got any common sense, you realize how absurd that idea is. Still, it appears that someone complained they didn’t get a print run the publisher never promised, never contracted them for, and therefore, because of this absent imaginary print run, they didn’t have books for an event.

That’s right. It’s the old, “My publisher refuses to make money because they don’t like me!” argument.

As head-scratching as that may be to intelligent thinkers like you and me, it appears my response is just nutty:

“POD technology is used to keep books in print all the time. This means when a book is ordered from Amazon for print publication, the single copy is printed and mailed to the customer. This is not unusual with many traditional publishers.

A print run is where the publishing house forks over money and space to print a ton of books based on their projected sales for the author and the title.

If an author is great and the publisher believes that they have a quality book, they may not do a print run for quite a while, if at all, until the author and/or the title proves one is merited.

If an author stomps their feet and demands a print run, regardless of their sales or experience in the industry, it is not up to the publisher to give in to those demands. They can, however, continue to make the book available according to the contract the author signed.

If the author wants their rights back, then there are channels that author can go through to get them back.”

Nothing earth shattering there, right? That’s all fairly standard stuff and easily understood by anyone who has been in the industry.

But OMG—you should have seen the heads spinning and the chest pounding going on in there. It doesn’t take much to turn some of these AW fanatics into stalkers. In fact, one of them made sure to follow me across threads just so I wouldn’t miss how they had put me on “ignore.” So of course I respectfully offered a “thank you”—pleased to know this person would stop stalking me. That, I believe, was why Soccer Mom--the referee apparently, for all this--decided out of everyone exchanging barbs, I was the one who needed a 'time out' as she put it! LOL :)

So be warned, folks. AW is not the most reliable place to get your information anymore, and in fact, should you ask or answer questions with a fair amount of insight, they might just start spitting pea soup at you!

Monday, February 14, 2011

Join Me!




I'm thrilled to share that Paranormal Indulgence and the amazing Asher Knight have kicked off a great week with two fabulous reviews of the Extreme Hauntings series. Check them out here:

DFF: Dead Friends Forever
School's Out 4-Ever

Let me tell you, I was really nervous about having Asher review my books. She's not afraid to tell it like it is and I was sincerely worried my books wouldn't be her cup of tea. Instead, she's enjoyed them so much, she's agreed to read Detour 2 Death and give us a cover quote! Woo Hoo!

Chris Redding is no slouch either! She's also supported my blog tour and done a fabulous job of getting everything up and prettified! :) Between the two blogs, there are a great deal of wonderful things for readers to enjoy--including contests to win freebies!

If you want to see where I'm going to be for the rest of the blog tour, visit my website when you get a chance. Almost all of my stops have a contest--and all you need to do is leave a comment!

I look forward to seeing everyone out there!!

Warmly,
Jenny:)

Monday, February 07, 2011

So Wonderful!

Love is Murder was a fabulous conference in Chicago this weekend. The food was great, the entertainment phenomenal, and the people were super cool! I don't think I've enjoyed myself more! I took my first pitches as acquiring editor for Quake and I heard about some outstanding stories I'm looking forward to reading. As always, Karen and I had a blast!

I got to meet Claudia Whitsitt, the author of The Wrong Guy and Gale Borger the author of Totally Buzzed. Both of these great ladies made the event a fabulous time for me. They are just as terrific in real life as they are on the page and the internet. I'm so looking forward to getting to spend more time with them in the future!

Of course I got to see a bunch of my favorite people as well. Luisa Buehler, always elegant and charming, did a great job hosting the conference. Allan Ansorge was there, too, and as always, very warm and funny! Nancy Sweetland, a super lady I know from WRWA joined me during the book signing and kept me company as we waited in line. It was great to see Carl Brookins, Amy Alessio, and so many more! :) I could go on and on. Not to mention the great speakers we had and the fun buzz about the industry I heard. (Mostly about how ebooks are becoming the standard.)

I'm so excited about everything that's going on in my writing life. There are many great things happening! February and March are going to be filled with awesome tour spots. Please stop by and let your friends know as well! You can find a clickable list of links on my website at Jennifer-Turner.com!

I've also going to be revamping my whole website as soon as I meet some writing and editing deadlines. Overall, life is great! Let me know how all of you are doing :)

Warmly,
Jenny:)

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Kathy Stemke Rocks!

Hey all!

Kathy is hosting me today as part of the February VBT! I'm excited. Check it out, leave a comment, and you'll be entered to win a beaded book thong in your favorite color!

A bit about Kathy:
Kathy Stemke has a passion for writing, the arts and all things creative. She has a B.S. from Southern Connecticut State University and Covenant Life Seminary, as well as graduate coursework from New York Institute of Technology and Columbia University. Hanging her hat in the North Georgia mountains she has been a dancer, choreographer, teacher, tutor, writer and an antiques dealer for many years.

As a freelance writer Kathy has published several articles. She is a contributing editor for The National Writing for Children's Center. Kathy's first children's books, "Moving through All Seven Days," came out in 2009! "Trouble on Earth Day," "Visual Dance Poetry," and "Sh,Sh,Sh Will the Baby Sleep?" will come out in 2010! Check out her Writer for Hire page to see her writing services!

Visit her here: http://educationtipster.blogspot.com/

See ya there!
Warmly,
Jenny:)