Welcome to your second stop on the blog tour for Taking Chances by Loni Flowers, hosted by Reading Addiction Blog Tours.
Author Bio:
Loni Flowers lives in Elm City, North Carolina with her video-gaming husband, who makes her laugh every day; two wild toddlers, who never slow down for a second; and three couch-potato dogs, who only raise an eye when foods around. She works a full-time professional job and when she's not playing on the internet or chatting on Twitter, she spends her free time with friends and family waiting for the next big idea strike. Taking Chances is her first novel.
At age twenty-three, Alex has had a hard life. His parents died when he was quite young, leaving his grandparents to raise him. Right before his high school graduation, his grandparents passed on too, leaving him all alone. After losing everyone he's ever loved, Alex turns to the streets in a self-destructive pattern until he finally ends up in Springhill, where he tries to make a new life for himself.
Clair’s childhood was normal until age thirteen, when her father left the family and she never heard from him again. Consequently, her mother went into a deep depression, forcing Clair to grow up quickly. After finishing high school, Clair’s heartache over her father’s absence as well as her unbearable mother drive her to strike out on her own. But having nowhere to go and no family to speak of, Clair wanders aimlessly from town to town, homeless, and without purpose. Looking for work wherever she goes and living hand to mouth on the streets is tough, Clair discovers, but living with her mother is worse.
Now twenty-one years old, Clair has found her way to the last place she and her family took their final vacation as a family--Springhill. While in town, she crosses paths with Alex and their ensuing relationship grows faster than expected. Soon Clair wonders if coming back to Springhill and meeting Alex was the best decision or the worst decision she ever made.
Guest Post from Loni Flowers:
Starting
Out as a Writer
(5
things you should know)
Through
the journey of writing my own novel I’ve come to realize a few
things. Please note, what I’ve listed below are merely my own
observations and certainly may not apply to everyone. Since I decided
to go the Indie publishing route; one or two of these follow more
along the lines of self-publishing.
- Crazy emotional feelings!
- I know this one might sound funny but it’s so true (at least for me). When I started out writing, I thought on more than one occasion… “What are you doing, this stuff sucks!” and then the very next day I’ll write a scene or paragraph or line and think, “Holy crap! This is amazing. I sound so writerly!!” I’ll have good days and bad days. My best advice is to keep writing. It may suck today and be awesome tomorrow… everyone will feel like this, its part of the job I think.
- You’re finally finished writing your book. You’re done!
- Not!! You’re not even close to being done. Sure that seemed like the hard part—while you were writing it—but now you’re done and you have to edit, edit, edit… after all, you want it to be the best it can be.
- Then if you decide to query, you’ll need to research an agent/publisher that’s right for you, send tons of letters (if you’re not lucky to get a hit on the first go). But if you decide to self-publish, like I did, you’ll have to get yourself a fancy book cover made. And next comes formatting it all into an eBook format or you can pay for these services.
- Self-publishing can be done 100% if you have the time, patience and skill for it. If you don’t, there are plenty of books and blogs online to get the help you need.
- Books don’t sell themselves.
- True statement. They don’t. You have to be willing to promote however you can. I’m not one to force something down someone’s throat and I take a, “Read it if you’d like… if not, okay.” I don’t tweet about it fifty times a day or post my author page link all over my FB page. Don’t get me wrong, for those that do, that’s up to you, but for me, I just can’t be so pushy. It makes me feel pushy, like I will start aggravating others with my constant…”Buy me, buy me,” campaign slogan. I try to find a happy medium. I may tweet a couple times a day—one of the morning crowd, one for the night—and let it be. Which also may very well be the reason I don’t sell more than I do. This leads me right into the next topic…
- Don’t write to be rich… it’s not going to happen!
- If you’ve got it in your head that you’re going to write this book, publish it and quit your day job a month after its release… well you can go ahead and hang your hat up. It’s more than likely not going to happen. Kudos to you if it does! I’ve not heard of anyone yet that it’s happened to. I think if you write because you love it, that’s reward enough in itself
- Grow thick skin.
- Seriously, if you can’t take the heat… get out of the kitchen. It’s better if you have a little talk with yourself now Not everyone is going to love your story. I’ve accepted it. But it still hurts like hell. It’s part of deal though. Everyone is entitled to have their own feelings about whatever they want—including your book, so if you can’t accept that, you’re not going to make if very long in this business.
Thanks
so much for having me and letting me add a grain of sand to wealth of
information that’s out there online, it’s been a blast!
Now, to the giveaway; there's an ebook of Taking Chances up for grabs. Enter your name in the Rafflecopter giveaway below for your chance to win and let me know in the comments!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Here are the links to all tour participants:
May 7 - Musings of a BookWorm - Giveaway/GuestPost
May 8 - Willing to See Less - Giveaway/Guest Post
May 9 - Reading It All - Giveaway/REVIEW
May 10 - Tana Rae Reads - Interview/REVIEW
May 11 - Taking It One Page at a Time - Interview/Guest Post
May 14 - Paulette's Papers - Giveaway
May 15 - Trisha's Book Blog - Giveaway/REVIEW
May 16 - Kindle Obsessed - Giveaway/REVIEW
May 17 - Basias Bookshelf - REVIEW
May 18 - Back to Books - Interview
