Welcome to the weekend!
I hope that you’ve had a great week. I’ve got so much to tell you, but I’ll try (and probably fail!) to not write a novel for you, this week. I’ll keep the Cruise Control update to the end, so that’ll help! But yes, I did re-write The First Song from Gabriel’s POV and also wrote an extra one-shot that will go at the back of The Album as as sneak peek for Gabriel’s Album. I’ll link to both PDFs in the Cruise Control update if you want to read them.
Before that, I’ve got one BookFunnel giveaway, two StoryOrigin giveaways (one of which is entirely review copies of books, and yes, The Album is one of them, if you want to read it for review!) and four books from other authors (including the first book of Pax’s Love at Work series!).
I’m also doing an Ask Your Author session with All Author on Instagram, today. It’s at 3pm Perth time, which I know is about the middle of the night in the US, but if you check out their Instagram afterwards all the questions and answers will be there for your reading.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself, on to the newsletter!
Group Giveaways
This BookFunnel giveaway is filled with a selection of books that are mystery & suspense, romance or sci-fi & fantasy. So, there’s a good mix of genres to choose from, if you’re looking for something new to read. There’s 114 books to check out by clicking this link.
If romance is your entire jam, however, this giveaway is probably for you. There’s 16 books in this one and they’re all feelgood romances. Check it out here.
Oh, I’m really really excited about this one! There are 13 books in this giveaway that are up for review and The Album is one of them. This means that you can get a free copy of the entire book. As you know, I submit a sample of the first two chapters to these promotions, so this is the first time you can get the entire book for free!
Do remember, that these have been submitted as review copies. Of course, it’s not a requirement to review, but it’s definitely appreciated if you do. Personally, I like reviews on Goodreads or Amazon, but if you want to email me your thoughts you can always just hit reply to this email! 😘
Get free books to review by clicking this link.
Books
Carter thinks it’s up to him, but there’s only one way this can go.
If he stays, I’ll have my dream life. If he leaves, I’ll get him back the only way I know how. Sagan has made it clear that he wants me. He thinks he can change my mind about Carter. Well, he can try. The question is always the same: What are you willing to gamble, steal. or throw away… for love?
A romantica / erotic triangle romance and the first of the Love at Work novella series. This book is a standalone. Contemporary steamy romance.
Guys, you know that I have great amounts of love for Pax Sinclair’s books. This is the full novella, Trinal, which is the first book in her Love at Work series. Go, go, go and get it now by clicking here.
When a handsome sculptor from her daughter’s art collective asks her out, Jane is naturally suspicious of his motives. But she’s soon rewarded for letting go of her inhibitions. His carefree lifestyle is far from her world of control and opulence.
Will she break free from what’s expected of her and give in to the magnetism that is Atlas Sky? Or are her family and friends right about his gold-digging intentions?
The Prime of Our Lives seasoned rom-com novella series continues in this sexy third installment.
Atlas Be Mine is a cute novella that you can get by clicking this link.
Warren aches for her. No man is worth risking Hayley’s career. When they’re thrown together, can they keep their distance?
Officer Warren Hathaway came to Blackjack to help his newly widowed sister, he didn’t plan on landing a supervisor who made him want to stay.
Sergeant Hayley Moreno is tempted by the tall, lean officer, but her career is worth more than any man. And sleeping with an officer, that would be career suicide.
When danger interrupts their well-planned lives, can they keep their feelings hidden? Pick up Waking up Cuffed today to find out if Warren and Hayley can work it out or if love will be another casualty in the line of duty.
Get Waking Up Cuffed by clicking here.
In Sam’s experience women were like business deals. You found the opportunity.
Exploited the weakness.
Sealed the deal.
Moved on.
So now the deal’s done, what’s keeping him from leaving?
Get The Art Of Love by clicking this link.
Cruise Control update
Okay, Cruise Control time! I have so much to tell you, that I practically don’t even know where to begin. Let’s start at the beginning, I guess? Book one!
The Album
Right, so as I mentioned last week, I needed to rewrite the gift that you get when you sign up to my newsletter to match the rewrite of The Album. I’ve done that, now, and you read it by clicking here. It’s in first-person POV and a friend of mine even made me a low-key cover to use for Gabriel’s Album until it’s released.
I cannot stress enough that this is highly unlikely to be the final cover of the book. I’ll have my cover artist, Mark, make something that I’d hope would be a lot better. In the meantime, let’s all appreciate Daena’s epic graphic design skills (read: she stuck a sticker over The Album’s book cover in Facebook Messenger for me! 🤣).
I also got some wonderful feedback on the rewrite of The Album by a lovely lady from Goodreads. Her initial review was one star and was utterly brutal. Now, Goodreads said to me, “Sian, don’t reply to this review. It’s a bad idea. Really bad. Don’t do it, you’re making a poor life choice.” (I could be paraphrasing), but I replied, anyway. Only because she loves Heather and Sebastian and they feature so heavily in The Wedding, plus Ariana gets consequences for her actions.
After reading the rewrite, she’s updated her review to three stars and you can read it here (her review does contain spoilers, so click with caution!). It has the initial review at the bottom, so you can see how brutal it was. I actually like that it’s still only three stars. It means that she didn’t let the fact that we’ve been messaging back and forth and chatting together affect her honest assessment of the book. Also, that’s still a 200% star improvement for the rewrite!
Anyway, part of her feedback was that she’d love something from Gabriel’s POV. I toyed with adding in some of the chapter above, but ended up writing a one-shot of him writing The First Song. If you want to read it, you can find it here (be warned: there’s spoilers for The Album in it). I kind of adore it. Gabriel is a complete and utter sweetheart.
As I said, before, if you want a review copy please go ahead and grab it from the giveaway! If you want to buy it, it’s still on sale for $0.99 USD till the 2nd of May and you can get it by clicking here.
The Wedding
Oh, dear…I got my editor’s feedback on Heather and Harrison’s book. Look, I knew when she made it very clear in her message to me that she LOVED the book, that her edit was going to be tough.
Yup. Tough, indeed. My read-through of her edit basically just consisted of me yelling “NO!” at the screen for hours. I’ve been sitting on it for a couple of days, so I can try and be objective about it.
She did have some very good points, and let’s not forget that I literally just rewrote The Album to something that she mentioned in her edit of it. So, there’s probably something in that.
There are parts of it that I viscerally disagree with. For example, she wanted me to cut a whole section that was the only time that we acknowledge Hayden’s 30th birthday. Everyone else gets a massive party, but they’re busy recording, so he doesn’t. Nope. Not cutting. Hayden deserves love, too!
Other things that she felt should be cut tie into The Baby, so they’ll stay. Some of the other stuff…*sigh* I’ll think about it. Just…don’t be surprised if The Wedding gets released and it’s more like 140,000 words because I’ve added the stuff she wants me to add and cut nothing, okay? I mean, have you read my newsletters? My books aren’t going to be short…to be honest, I’m surprised that The Album only gained 5,000 words in its rewrite and sits at 90,000 words, now! 😝
The Wedding comes out on the 6th of June (literally the day the books starts, Harrison’s 30th birthday!) and you can pre-order it by clicking this link.
Oh, dear…I got my editor’s feedback on Heather and Harrison’s book. Look, I knew when she made it very clear in her message to me that she LOVED the book, that her edit was going to be tough.
Yup. Tough, indeed. My read-through of her edit basically just consisted of me yelling “NO!” at the screen for hours. I’ve been sitting on it for a couple of days, so I can try and be objective about it.
She did have some very good points, and let’s not forget that I literally just rewrote The Album to something that she mentioned in her edit of it. So, there’s probably something in that.
There are parts of it that I viscerally disagree with. For example, she wanted me to cut a whole section that was the only time that we acknowledge Hayden’s 30th birthday. Everyone else gets a massive party, but they’re busy recording, so he doesn’t. Nope. Not cutting. Hayden deserves love, too!
Other things that she felt should be cut tie into The Baby, so they’ll stay. Some of the other stuff…*sigh* I’ll think about it. Just…don’t be surprised if The Wedding gets released and it’s more like 140,000 words because I’ve added the stuff she wants me to add and cut nothing, okay? I mean, have you read my newsletters? My books aren’t going to be short…to be honest, I’m surprised that The Album only gained 5,000 words in its rewrite and sits at 90,000 words, now! 😝
The Wedding comes out on the 6th of June (literally the day the books starts, Harrison’s 30th birthday!) and you can pre-order it by clicking this link.
The Baby
Okay, so clearly I had a bad writing week. Last Saturday I was at 90,863 words and as of right now, it’s at 96,959 words. I don’t know what my problem is. After I sent last week’s newsletter, I outlined the rest of the book.
I know exactly what’s up. There’s 10 chapters left to write and that might be the problem. I have 23 chapters written, so this thing will have 33 chapters. It’s already almost 97,000 words…it’s going to be huge.
Basically, I hope you guys like long books. I’m always down for a novella, but I doubt that I could write one. I’m hoping that once today is over, I can get back to writing properly.
Why today, you ask? Because today is five weeks of writing The Baby. For those playing at home, The Wedding was written in exactly five weeks and in an amazing act of self-sabotage, I have added only 13,071 words to this novel in a two-week timeframe. By this point of writing The Wedding, I was churning out 4-5,000 word days, easily.
Maybe, it’s because writing this one is less emotionally taxing and I enjoy spending time with Sebastian and Lita, too much. Maybe, it’s because I’m aware that my editor will tell me to cut 50,000 words “for pacing” when she finally reads it.
Either way, maybe I’ll get back into it, soon. I did write 1,347 words of it, yesterday, and it’s not being released until November 17th, so there’s plenty of time. Also, as soon as it’s finished, I can start writing Gabriel’s Album in earnest.
I’m kind of excited about this, because I haven’t really connected with Hayden as a character. It’s not his fault, but he doesn’t have a lot to do with Ariana, so we don’t see much of him in The Album. Heather is much closer with Sebastian (some editors would say too close!). Lita barely knows the band at all, but Hayden was her favourite band member, except he’s not the one she falls in love with.
Basically, I need to write Gabriel’s Album and Harrison’s Wedding to get a handle on him as a character. I already got more insight into him by writing that one-shot with Gabriel, which was cool. What I know about him? He’s very thoughtful, he loves playing pool (but is terrible at it), he’s also very forgiving and slow to anger. I guess when I think about him like that, I can’t wait to write his book and get to know him better.
As usual, this email has become “too long” again. Sorry, guys! I hope you enjoy the giveaways, I’d love if it you grabbed a copy of The Album for review, but you can also buy it here.and pre-order The Weddinghere.
Well, that’s it for this week. I know this was long, I’m sorry! I do try to write less…okay, that’s a lie, I don’t try to write less, but I do feel bad for not writing less if that counts for anything?
I hope you have an amazing week and I’ll see you next Saturday for another stupidly long email that you’ll hopefully enjoy reading! 😘
