Lauren Dawes's Blog

I'm so pumped for this! Early reviews for Shadowed Lover are in! If you've read my books, you'll know I love the multi-character POV. Shadowed Lover is exactly the same, so you have about 6 different 'voices' in the book, all weaving together to create something magical!

Here are what people are already saying:

"Captivating. Additive. Passionate."
"The story line was COMPLEX and ENGAGING..."
"I HIGHLY RECOMMEND others get lost in this world."
"A great read full of SUSPENSE, MYSTERY and ROMANCE."
"An easy read that kept me HOOKED."
"I absolutely LOVED IT."

You can grab your copy May 11 with the introductory price of $2.99

Or find out more about my characters and their world at: https://www.authorlaurendawes.com/sha...

I asked my ARC team to pull out some lines from the book that they loved. So far, we have these, but I know there's going to be more.

"Our bond sparked the moment I saw you in your cat's form. Whether you accept it or not, I'll always be yours. Always."

"Her spirit incited him, the spark of her soul inflamed him, and if he wasn't careful, she would brand herself on his soul."

"Males protected their females. Shadows worshiped theirs.

The ARCS for Shadowed Lover have been sent to my ARC team! I'm a combination of excited and terrified. Why? Because Shadowed Lover has turned into so much more for than just a book. It's had so many evolutions and characters arcs and it touches on some sensitive issues.

I have a trigger warning at the start. I'm not fan of having trigger warnings at the start of books but I ABSOLUTELY understand why some books needed them.

Anyway, early reviews are super positive with many people choosing whether they'll be #TeamDrake or #TeamJett. Who will you choose?

"Shadowed Lover" is STILL with the proofreader! I feel like I'm having déjà vu here!

Rest assured, ARCs will be going out at the start of next month!

If you want to find out more about the characters, you can check them out HERE

"Shadowed Lover" is with the proofreader! I feel like I'm having déjà vu here! I said this not too long ago, but after the final pass with the editor, I still felt like it wasn't 'done' yet.

I bit the bullet, spent another thousand dollars and had it re-edited with someone who tore it to shreds (which I loved every damn minute of BTW)

ARCs will be going out at the start of next month! If you love my books and have reviewed them before, I'm still looking for fans to join my ARC team! You can sign up HERE

 
We've all struggled with marketing, so why not hear from an author who has a decade of experience under her belt. Ann Gimpel is a USA Today Bestseller, and the author of more than 70 books. I've had the privilege of working with Ann for a number of months now, and you'll not find another big name author so willing to share her knowledge. Here she is with her advice on marketing... 

What I have to say relates to all authors, though. Even if a newbie gets lucky and lands a trad deal, the trad pub will do less than nothing for you. So you’ll get far less money per book sold and be stuck with all your own marketing costs as well. Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt.
One thing I didn’t realize when I started in this business a decade ago was that writing would actually be the least of my job timewise. Too bad, because it’s the part I like best.
Over the years, my single strongest marketing tool has been and continues to be my mailing list. I’ve built it mostly organically, and it’s close to 50K subscribers. Because I started a while back—six years ago—I was able to build a successful list that works for me. It’s much harder now. If you don’t already have an active list, I’m not sure now is the time to start one.
Why you might ask? Well, because everyone and their dog jumped on the newsletter bandwagon. You don’t have to dig too deep to find newsletter building “opportunities.” None of them mention the deep and pervasive newsletter fatigue out there in readership land. Unless your name has become familiar, no one wants your newsletters. In fact, they don’t want half the newsletters cluttering their inboxes and are unsubscribing in droves.
Even with my longstanding list, I see a couple hundred unsubscribes each time I send, which is twice a month.I took part in two small newsletter builds this last year, and I won’t be doing any more. I’ll take the folk on my list and the ones that trickle in from signup tabs on my websites and my blog and be happy with them.
Speaking of websites. You NEED A website. Preferably a professionally designed one that’s eye catching and organized in a logical fashion where finding things is easy. You do not need a blog. I still have one, but it’s a holdover from 2011 when I started it.
You also might want to consider setting up your own online store. Mine is set up on Ecwid. It has its own URL, www.anngimpelbooks.com and I make money selling direct. It also offers the opportunity for me to give coupons to my newsletter subscribers independent of the books’ prices elsewhere. As you hunt for an online store steer clear of Gumroad. They never paid me. You want a store where the money flows direct to you without first stopping at the vendor.
My websites (www.anngimpel.com/ www.anngimpelaudiobooks.com) and my online store have the same design. You want to come across as a professional, not as someone who schlocked something together.
Beyond newsletters, boxed sets used to provide an opportunity for readers to sample new to them authors. Back around 2015, they actually boosted your readership. But they too have fallen fairly hard. For one thing, readers are sick of them mostly because the story quality has been so inconsistent. For another, a few unscrupulous set organizers learned to game the system, so their sets always hit the USAT list. Beyond that, readers have grown weary of million-word tomes. They might read the first couple of stories, but the rest never see daylight.
The “new” solution is shared worlds. I’m not talking about Kindle Worlds where you sign away your rights for 70 years, but a shared world where you band together with other authors and write books in the same world. I’ve been part of a few of those with two more upcoming before the end of 2018.
This is getting long, and I want to touch on advertising sites. Most of them won’t return your ROI. A few that used to be wonderful aren’t anymore. I believe that’s because the ad services are also newsletter based. Remember that newsletter fatigue factor I mentioned earlier? Well there’s also newsletter overlap. The pond is only so deep.
The collective wisdom once upon a time was readers needed to see YOUR book at least seven times before they click on it. This is no longer true. You have one chance to hook that reader and it’s the first time your cover—in thumbnail size—scrolls past.
Ad sites I use include Bookbub, ENT, Bargain and Free Booksy, Book Barbarian, ILVN, Robin Reads, and Read Cheaply. Lots more are out there. And much of how your book will do is luck of the draw. Even BB, though, which has always been the gold standard, has fallen off. My last couple of BB Featured Deals I made my ROI back (whew since it’s expensive), but not a whole lot more. The thousands I used to plan on plus a long sales tail have dried up. And not just for me. This is the consensus pretty much across the board with the odd exception.
The bottom line take home message is that nothing remains the same in this business. Things that worked a year or even six months ago might quit working and you have to look for something new. Publishing is a cutthroat business. Authors are no longer the valued, “golden” children. Be kind to yourself. Take care of yourself. I’ve seen this business break a whole lot of people.
On the plus side, if you choose carefully, there are a lot of warm, wonderfully supportive authors out there to bond with.
Thank you to Ann for taking time out of her busy schedule to write this guest post. Make sure to check out her website and social sites too!
About Ann:
I'm basically a mountaineer at heart. I remember many hours at my desk where my body may have been stuck inside four walls, but my soul was planning yet one more trip to the backcountry.


Around the turn of the last century (that would be 2000, not 1900!), I finagled a move to the Eastern Sierra, a mecca for those in love with the mountains. Stories always ran around in my head on backcountry trips, sometimes as a hedge against abject terror when challenging conditions made me fear for my life, sometimes for company.

Eventually, the inevitable happened. I returned from a trip and sat down at the computer. Three months later, a five hundred page novel emerged. It wasn’t very good, but it was a beginning. I learned a lot between writing that novel and its sequel, and I've been writing ever since.

In addition to turning out books, I enjoy wilderness photography. A standing joke is that over ten percent of my pack weight is camera gear, which means my very tolerant husband has to carry the food -- and everything else too.

http://www.anngimpel.com

This week's #WritingWednesday tip is about branding. 
What, I hear you ask? I'm an author. What do I need a branding for? Well, Brandi Kennedy, contemporary romance author and all-round kick-ass human being has kindly agreed to write a guest post about this very topic! 
I asked her because in 2017 she re-invented herself and re-modeled her writing to become not just a singular thing she did, but to make important issues and themes (that show up in her books!) the focus of her lifestyle blog.
Curious? I'm glad you are. Read on and discover the secrets...
"As the new year looms closer and closer, entrepreneurs all over the world are thinking about whether or not their wallets can withstand another year of holding out and hoping all their hard work will pay off. Just kidding – most entrepreneurs are chronically hopeful and are always seeking success in some fashion, so what most of us are doing these days is thinking hard about how to make 2018 better than 2017 ever dreamed of being.
For me, 2017 was about opening my brand to encompass all the things my writing covers – fiction romance writing is and will always be my first passion (because who doesn’t love a love story, amiright?), but I also love running my mental health and lifestyle blog, writing soul-drenched poetry, and even writing and recording my own podcast! But my branding as a writer was based on my fiction only – “Real Characters, Honest Love” – so as 2017 slowly progressed, I started spending more time thinking about the common thread that pulls all of my writing together. I knew I needed something more inclusive in my branding, and after almost four years of using the same slogan and logo despite all the changes in my life and in me as a person, my image definitely needed a refresher!
It wasn’t hard for me to find what I was looking for, either – fiction or non, my writing is and will probably always be based on mental health and personal development. You see, I have what some people find to be an interesting story – some see it as tragic, others look through the darkness and see my story as inspiring. What matters most though is what I see – and I see survival. I see the willingness to persevere.
So after four years of using the same branding imagery and seeing career growth that was much too slow to satisfy my hunger, in 2017, I changed things up. Here are a few of the major changes I made in 2017 – and how I hope you can use these strategies to make the coming year your best yet.
In 2017:1. While I kept the colors and fonts of the branding I’ve always used, the most major change was to my tagline. I needed to leave “Real Characters and Honest Love” behind, but that was only because I was writing so much more in terms of content – “Love Stories AND Lifestyle for the Undaunted Woman” more completely encompasses not only the content of my fiction novels but also the content of my non-fiction lifestyle blog and the women I imagine myself writing for. Because I write encouragement and empowerment for women of all sizes and backgrounds, regardless of where I found them, whether it be in a story, a poem, or a blog post – and I needed a tagline that expressed more clearly the different aspects of my work. Do you?2. The second largest change I made was getting more active on social media using Buffer. The last few weeks aside (where I’ve been largely radio silent as I enjoyed the start of the Holiday season with my daughters), I’ve spent 2017 building a newsfeed that fit my work and my themes as well as it fit my personality. Sure, I’m still talking about my favorite drinks and what I’m thinking – but I’m also keeping it in under the context of marketing myself, my themes, and my brand, so that potential lovers of my work are always being reminded not only that I’m there, but that I’m writing for them. Are you using social media to the best of your branding ability?3. The final, and perhaps most effective, change I made in 2017 was finding an assistant, without whom this year would have been a challenge I couldn’t overcome. My personal life underwent several changes in 2017, and as I adjusted to single mom life, two mental health diagnoses, and chronic health issues with both of my children, the burden of striving so hard for success as a writer got increasingly difficult to bear. My assistant has been incredibly valuable in the effort to keep up with the promotional side of things, and as she’s become more and more necessary for my writing success, she’s also become a friend I’m more and more thankful for each day. Are you still carrying your burdens alone, or have you begun delegating and outsourcing the tasks you don’t necessarily have to be doing?
Success is made of determination. Success is made of drive and will and grit and gut and so many other things. Success is made of hard work. Hard. Hard. Work. But it’s also created under the willingness to share the burden of climbing to the top, under the acceptance that we don’t have to build our empires alone, under the personal confidence required to let someone else come in to help. Because, like Rome, your empire won’t be built in one day.
And it won’t be built by just one person, either."
A huge thank you to Brandi for taking the time to write your post! I hope everyone has got something out of it, even if it's something small like techniques to get more active on social media (seriously, though, what did we do with our time before Facebook? #oneoflifesmysteries)
If you'd like to check out Brandi's work, you can at her website
Catch you all next week!

Title:  Half Bound (A Helheim Wolf Pack Tale) Series : Half Blood Series #5 Author:  Lauren Dawes Publisher:  Vixen Publishing Date of Release: November 30, 2017 Genre:   Dark urban fantasy/paranormal romance Audience:  Adult Page Count:  288 pages Format : e-book and paperback




Synopsis:
An accident. An abduction. A choice.
Casey is no stranger to double standards. Her whole life has been filled with them, and as the only daughter of a werewolf alpha she has been fighting an uphill battle since birth. She’s determined to become an enforcer—a soldier for the pack—and even more determined to prove to everyone that she is more than capable of looking after herself…that is until she takes a phone call that could end not just her dreams, but also her life. She is faced with a decision that will not only test her loyalties, but also her own inner-strength.
Crippled by obsession. Resuscitated by love.
Broken and barely healed, Andrea has finally escaped the man who instead of loving, honoring and obeying her, beat, tortured and terrorized her. Uninterested in anything other than finding herself again, she is blindsided by Brax who holds the power to heal her shattered and distrusting heart. 
Half Bound is the electrifying conclusion to the Half Blood Series. 
Book Links
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B074ZMXQZ7 All other retailers: http://www.books2read.com/halfbound

Excerpt:
Screaming. High. Keening. Agonized.Saxon recognized the emotions because he had had them too. He’d screamed until his throat was raw and his mouth was dry. He had suffered unbearable pain, blanketed over by drug-induced hallucinations or vivid dreams. He preferred the dreams to this reality he was now living in. Another scream. It caused him to grit his teeth.The poor bastard.It was probably just another one of Vivian’s attempted converts. He had heard enough drips of conversation about what she was doing here; she was biting people, trying to bring them through the Change, but what Saxon couldn’t figure out was, for what purpose? Was she trying to create her own pack? A scream that chilled the marrow in his bones echoed through the walls. Another followed and Saxon stopped breathing completely. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to clear the drug cloud fogging his brain. He recognized that voice. Casey was here.“No,” he rasped. He strained his neck, trying to turn around to look at the wall—as if there was suddenly a window he could look through to see her there. But there wouldn’t be a window. He would just have to use his imagination to come up with the ways she was being tortured. Hearing her distorted voice over the phone had given him hope even though he didn’t deserve it. That hope crumbled, though, when she’d agreed to come…For him.He’d had a lot of time to think about whatever this was between him and Casey. She was the most infuriating female he’d ever met. She was nothing like the refined woman he thought he would eventually settle down with. He didn’t think he’d get the privilege of getting mated to a female wolf. He would have been content with a human, but…then there was Casey. Casey, who had blown into his life like a breath of fresh air. She challenged him, antagonized him, battled with him. And she was here now, protecting him when the roles should have been reversed. He couldn’t let her sacrifice herself. Despite the leaden feeling in his body, Saxon tried to break the ties on his wrists and ankles again. He struggled for a brief moment before fatigue took over. Whatever they’d been giving him, and whatever they continued to give him, was keeping him weak. “I knew her mewling would rouse you.”That voice, that vicious purring made Saxon’s blood pressure spike. He flared his nostrils, confirming it was only Vivian in the room with him. That meant…“Kade is with her,” Vivian taunted. “He is with her and he is not being a very good host.”
About Lauren:
Born in South Africa and raised in Sydney, Lauren Dawes is an urban fantasy/paranormal romance writer and the author of the Dark Trilogy and the Half Blood Series. In 2009, she quit her full-time job teaching English as a Second Language to finally begin writing “that book”, letting her overactive imagination pour out onto the digital pages.
She currently lives with her husband and daughter in whatever city the army happens to posted them to.
Website  | Facebook  | Twitter  | Instagram  | Blog
Other titles by Lauren Dawes
Half Blood Series
Half Blood (Half Blood #1): http://www.books2read.com/halfblood Half Truths (Half Blood #2): http://www.books2read.com/halftruths Half Life (Half Blood #3): http://www.books2read.com/halflife Half Cast ((Half Blood #4): http://www.books2read.com/halfcast
Dark Trilogy
Dark Deceit (Dark Trilogy #1): http://www.books2read.com/darkdeceitDark Desire (Dark Trilogy #2): http://www.books2read.com/darkdesire Dark Devotion (Dark Trilogy #3): http://www.books2read.com/darkdevotion  

Giveaway:

Dealing with bad reviews as an Author
It is a strange thing is when you start to write and to put yourself out there, you will encounter people who just don’t like your work. These potential reviewers could be from ‘not their genre’ or ‘didn’t like the writing style.’ You can be understood as you are a reader yourself and there are books out there that don't click. It is the personal attack that just comes out of nowhere and destroys your creation, how to deal with it?
One morning, you decide to check reviews, then head to Goodreads or Amazon, wondering if anyone has read and reviewed your book. Once there you see that your star rating has gone down, significantly. It happens you tell yourself, and of course, you then read the review. Worse mistake you can make, but you have to know.
This is one from my books, before this, I have not gotten less than four stars for a review.
‘Horrible. I can't even tell you how bad the story was because I was too distracted by the abysmal writing. Poor word choice, wrong word choice, mixed tenses, missing commas, extra commas, misspelled names, missing words, repeated words. Author needs a proofreader to fix his writing even more than an editor to fix his story.’  
This was a one-star review, and when I saw it, I was dumbfounded, and that is when the questioning starts. You first forget the excellent reviews that have already written, and you start to base your entire book on this one review.
Depression sets in, should you take your book down? As this one person says, it the worst book in the entire world! Then after all this, sometimes you go and get some support from your friends, this could be good or bad, it doesn’t matter. What does matter, is that you dare to publish something, you are a fantastic writer, and there will be some people that hate your work. Don’t worry, move on to your next book. Naysayers will come and go; it is you who is marvellous and creative.
Never give up, push forward, look at this review and use it as fuel to do better. Also look at your great ones too, as they will show you that people out there love your work. Once you accept that not everyone will like your book, you can concentrate on being the best writer you can be.
By Samuel Colbran
I'd like to thank Sam for taking the time to write this post and share his advice on receiving bad reviews. It happens to all of us, and it's true that you can't please everyone all of the time. If you do get a not so glowing review, check out E.L James's one-star reviews for "Fifty Shades of Grey"; it'll make you feel better.
If you'd like to find out more about Samuel Colbran, you can check out his website here: www.samuelcolbran.com  

Happy New Book Saturday. If you're a regular of my growing New Book Saturday posts, welcome back. If this is your first time here, what took you so long?
I've done something a little strange for this week's installment. I've chosen the third book in a series rather than the first. Why, I hear you ask? Look at the cover! That's why! I was totally drawn to this and couldn't NOT look at it. Then when I read the blurb, I kind of knew I had to blog about it. Flash those keywords for me: #unseelie #fae #demonking #treason 
<sigh> You can see why I had to do it. I love stories about the fae, especially those on the Unseelie Court. If you haven't read Laurell K. Hamilton's Merry Gentry Series, get on it.

There is nothing the Unseelie king doesn’t acquire.

That was until he meets Fionna Cathbad.

A fierce druid, who won’t bow to anyone. Especially Lars. The demon king has every right to kill her, her treasonous acts against the crown are undisputable. But, she is the key to the one thing he wants more than anything. The cauldron of dagda. A powerful treasure that no fae should possess.

To get what he wants, he finds the very thing that forces her to help him, leading them down a dangerous path.

Because it’s not only Fionna who is deceiving him. His own mind is starting to turn on him, twisting his sanity, and releasing the demon he keeps pinned up.

As old ghosts and new foes step up into this game, Lars needs to find the cauldron before all is lost.
His kingdom and himself.

Like the sound of it? Get your own copy here: 
 





If you'd like to check out books one and two, click on the images below...



Disclaimer: As always, I have no affiliation with this author, publisher or book. I simply chose it because I liked the look of it. Happy reading!