AudaVoxx: for the audio book enthusiasts among us

Indelibles Author Cheri Lasota has launched an exciting new venture. One of the first of its kind--if not THE first--AudaVoxx is an email newsletter devoted to promotion and giveaways of Audible/iTunes audio books. If you're an audio book fan or an author/narrator/publisher looking to promote a title, read on...

Discover amazing audio books and enter to win FREE audio book coupons!

The inaugural editions of the free AudaVoxx Newsletter will be released on May 30th! We'd LOVE for you to try it out and see what you think.  

The AudaVoxx Email Newsletter brings together listeners, authors and narrators of audio books. Audio book listeners need quick, reliable sources for discovering audio books. Authors and narrators need a way to share news of their audio books and a platform to give away their promotional coupons. AudaVoxx serves both needs at once.

Listeners sign up to receive email newsletters based on the genres they like to listen to and authors and narrators now have an opportunity to reach their listeners in a way they never had before.

The idea is simple

• Sign up for the audio book genres you love.
• Receive a new edition featuring your favorite audio book genres via email every Friday.
• In each edition, you'll discover new audio book possibilities and also enter giveaways for free audio books, if you like. Audible audio books are rarely on sale, so having a chance to win audio books from your favorite authors--NYT and USA Today Bestsellers have already signed up!--would be awesome, right?
• Also learn about the accompanying e-book versions for some audio books. If you purchase the audio book you'll often receive a discount for the e-book and vice versa. And with Whispersync technology, you can switch seamlessly between the e-book and audio book for an immersive experience.
• Learn more about the producers who narrate these great audio books with our Narrator Spotlights.

The newsletters available to sign up for are below (and you can change your subscription preferences at any time. 

• Scifi & Fantasy
• Romance
• Nonfiction
• General Fiction
• Historical Fiction
• Young Adult
• Mysteries & Thrillers

So if you've not listened to audio books before, you might be wondering what Audible is. It's the easiest way for folks to listen to audio books and for authors/publishers to create audio books. Via their free Audible app, you can listen to audio books on any smart phone, tablet, or computer. And you don't have to sign up for a monthly subscription in order to win a free audio book or buy the occasional audio book via AudaVoxx. Pretty cool!

Listeners: Sign up for the AudaVoxx Newsletter HERE. Happy listening!

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Author, Narrators, and Publishers

A new way to share  

With companies like Audible.com at the forefront of a popular trend, we can now listen to audio books anywhere on any device. There’s no better time to check out audio books!

Why promote your audio book titles, service or product, e-book, or coupon giveaway with us?

There are many e-book advertising services available online, but there are few if any services to help promote Audible audio books, audio book authors, or narrators. AudaVoxx fills this need and then some.

AudaVoxx Features

• First come first serve for qualified Audio Books.
• Audio Books are not required to be discounted.
• Many ad types available: Top Banner Ads, Main Newsletter Ads, Sidebar Ads, and Bottom Banner Ads.
• Our competitors in the e-book advertising market are upwards of $500. We want to make advertising your Audio Books extremely affordable, with prices starting at just $3!
• Raffle your Audible Free Coupons to a larger audience than ever before.

Authors and Narrators: Learn more about AudaVoxx HERE.

New Book Release! Echoes in the Glass now available on Kindle

Now available on Amazon US or Amazon Worldwide!

You've heard about it. Now you can have it. Echoes in the Glass is Cheri Lasota's follow-up to her Cygnus Award-winning debut, Artemis Rising. A genre-bending young adult novel, Echoes in the Glass, is a little mystery, romance, and ghost story all wrapped up in one.

"This is an OMG, blew me out of the water (pun intended) kind of book. I am only on page 178 out of 274... And I seriously paused and waited a few minutes before picking up my jaw off the floor. This book... It's amazing so far, and I can't wait to finish it."

—Amanda Kiekbusch

The grand symbol of the story, the magnificent Cape Sorrow Lighthouse on the Oregon Coast, sets the backdrop for a story of redemption for Finnian Bell, a boy who commits a terrible crime. Can he rebuild his life as he restores the lighthouse to its former glory?

We also follow Carina Jane's terrifying experiences at Cape Sorrow back in 1935, during the lighthouse's heyday. The lighthouse harbors shocking secrets that have far-reaching consequences for both Finnian and Carina. Will they learn the truth too late?

The Inception of a Novel

A couple of years ago, my agent at the time asked me to come up with a new idea for a novel within a two-day timeframe. Given that the previous project (that she was pitching to the big houses at the time) took me years to fully develop, I thought this an impossible task.

But a tiny idea popped in my head at some point on Day One of the Impossible Task. I was celebrating a milestone in my writing career at the time, and when I celebrate, I go to Cannon Beach, Oregon, one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Years before, I had dreamt up the idea of a short story involving a famous lighthouse off the coast, but I never got around to writing it. I also had the skeleton plot planned out of a sequel to my debut novel, Artemis Rising, half-done and wallowing in no man's land. I brainstormed like mad as I stared off at Tillamook Head Lighthouse a mile out to sea from Cannon Beach, Oregon.

And then it hit me, as story ideas often do. Rather, those two story ideas hit each other and exploded in my mind. So the basic story came together literally over the course of the day as I wrote down the ideas at a fever pitch. Echoes in the Glass, my second novel, was born that day.

Today, years later, I come full circle to a story I've been working on for about three years. My world changed over the course of those years. I fell so ill I had to take a year off my life to recover, and I'm still recovering. I met, fell in love with, and married my husband. I published my debut novel--a feat I had dreamed of since I was eight years old (but never thought possible). Mainly, I spent a lot of time surviving. But I'm still here and this second novel is another dream that I didn't think would come true. But in December, this one will be released, and I'll move on to writing my first trilogy. You just never know how it's all going to shake out, do you?

I've moved heaven and earth to make it this far. And I'm grateful I survived, that I found love, that I found readers who love reading my writing as much as I love writing for them. I'm grateful for so many things, it's hard to put into words, but I will try.

Thank you to Stephen for giving me time and space to write. It's hard, I know.

Thank you Lyndsey Shaw, Charity Heller, Auburn Seal, Jaymi Elford, Nancy Kelley, Jessica Samuelson, Andy Bunch, Jeff Blackmer and Adam Copeland for being my local support. I treasure your friendships and advice.

Thank you to the Indelibles, Historical Fiction Authors Cooperative, and Pacific Northwest YA Authors groups for your amazing support and advice. I'm in awe of all of you. Thank you especially to Alice Lynn, M. Louisa Locke, and Megg Jensen for your unwavering support, advice, and editing eyeballs!

Thank you to my dear parents for reading. You know what that means and how grateful I am.

The Story

Finnian bears the scar of an unspeakable crime. Tiria hides the pain of a terrible betrayal. When all their secrets are laid bare, will the truth rip them apart or forever silence the echoes of the past?

Seventeen-year-old Finnian Bell has been on the run for years, but he finally has a chance to rebuild his life while restoring an abandoned lighthouse on the Oregon Coast.

Tiria Lucas, the lightkeeper’s daughter, is still reeling from the pain of an event that has shattered her innocence. Fear and bitterness have turned her heart from Finnian, but he is determined not to let her go.

The lighthouse harbors dark secrets of its own…

When Finnian and Tiria uncover the story of two teens hidden in the tower back in 1935, they discover a shocking connection that bridges time and death.

Echoes in the Glass is for readers who loved Saundra Mitchell’s The Vespertine, Libba Bray’s Diviners, and Jennifer Donnelly’s A Northern Light.

Want to read a short excerpt?

Check out an excerpt of the book's opening here.

Available worldwide on all Amazon sites. Quick links:

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon Canada | Amazon France

Do you read on Nook, Kobo, or iBooks?

Message me via the "Contact Author" form located at the right-hand side of this page and I'll help you out.

July New Releases by Indelible Authors!

More Great New Releases! UNDERTOW by Leigh Talbert Moore Falling in love will pull you under... -Bill Kyser has a plan to take the sandy farms of his hometown and turn them into a world-class tourist destination--and become a billionaire in the process.  -Alexandra "Lexy" LaSalle has a plan to change her life by becoming a world-famous artist.  -Meg Weaver has a plan to hold onto Bill no matter what she has to do. Three friends, three dreams. One fatal decision will change all their lives forever. In Dragonfly, Bill Kyser gave Anna the three journals that held the story behind the powerful developer's seclusion and the damaged lives of his family members.  Anna hopes to find a way for Julian to know the truth, but as she digs deeper into the tragic events of the past, she realizes silence could be the only option.  Now she's in an alliance with the man she formerly feared. And if Julian finds out what she knows, she could lose for good the boy she's starting to love. PURCHASE LINKS: Amazon: http://amzn.to/15IW1ep Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/15fYMBP Kobo: http://bit.ly/15fJcWM iTunes: http://bit.ly/17fVcZK Paperbacks on CreateSpace: http://bit.ly/18yKqTb Amazon PB: http://amzn.to/137pBpE Design and Upload Your ePub: The Steps to Your Success This guide will cover several types of e-book design software and help you navigate the upload process for all the major vendor sites: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and iBooks. In addition, learn basic and more advanced coding and design techniques to make your novel unique, interactive, and beautiful. We'll cover e-book format conversion, epub validation, coding for interactive elements, and much more. Episodes 8 & 9 plus the full season. What’s your life worth on the open market? A debt collector can tell you precisely. This dark and gritty future-noir is told in nine episodes across the first season. Now, the final two episodes of the Debt Collector serial by Susan Kaye Quinn have been released, along with the full Season One! Available at Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, iTunes First Kiss VL. Virgin Lips. You may not have heard of it, but where I live, it's a thing with a card, even if it is a figurative card. I was Brooklyn Hamlin, certified virgin lips, and I planned on clinging to that figurative card with all I had--while dating as many of the hottest guys at school as I could. Maybe that's a bit strange. I mean, what teenage girl isn't interested in kissing? Locking lips definitely interested me, but the drama that came with it didn't. No kissing, no drama. Simple. But on my sixteenth birthday, on my first real date even, the drama found me. His name was Luke Graham--cute, funny, and bad news for the whole female race. Only .99 cents Amazon Stolen Kiss Episode #2 of Confessions of a 16-Year-Old Virgin Lips With my VL card gone, my flickering light of hope lay with Ryker, someone else who'd caught my eye. Only he could erase the memory of Luke, the boy who lip-raped me. Unfortunately, Luke was determined to keep me, or at the very least, ruin me. Stolen Kiss link- only .99 cents Amazon

Starter Covers

Hey there, Elle Strauss here.

You know that term, starter home? It's the cute little house built for two that you buy when you're young, maybe have a child or two and feel totally squished in when you get the family pet? By then a few years have gone by and (supposedly) you have some equity with which you can buy a bigger house? One you can live in for the next many years and raise all your children?

Yeah, it didn't work that way for me either. But, that's a long winded segue into my topic of Starter Covers.

A starter cover is the first cover a book receives before getting a makeover cover.

My book Clockwise had a starter cover.

starter

makeover

Why did I change it? I was concerned about lagging sales and a few people suggested that the first cover looked too middle grade, primarily because it was illustrated. I loved that cover but I agreed that it didn't have the "read me" factor for an YA audience.

Interestingly, Clockwise was chosen for a cover challenge  last week and the voting results surprised me, 12 to 11 for the original!

I still think I did the right thing by changing the look of book one before putting the rest of the series out, but chances are if I'd stuck with the first theme, it would've done as well.

The main point here for me is, as an Indie it was my choice. I wanted to change it and I did. =)

I'm not alone in this starter cover syndrome. Several of my writerly friends have changed their covers recently, some for the same reasons as me and some because they thought it was time to try something new. Traditionally published books get new covers all the time, when the paperback comes out, for instance, or to update a book or series that's been out for more than a year.

Sometimes they update too soon, and make readers angry, but I'll get to that in a minute.

starter cover

 makeover

starter

makeover

starter

makeover

starter

makeover

Megg said: I just wanted to mix it up a bit. The old covers sold well but they've been around awhile.

Stacey said: It didn't stand out as YA. Readers couldn't tell what genre the books were just by looking at them. When they did read the books, I got complaints that the more mature upper YA subject matter didn't jibe with the illustrated covers - which made people think they were MG. Now readers love them and are picking them up because they love the covers. They are recognized as the Zellie brand now and the next trilogy will have similar covers. 

Cheri said:  I'm an indie author, and I love to try new ideas. I had a theory about covers with vivid images on a black background and wanted to test it out. I also knew that in the tiny thumbnail image, the beautiful swirling font of my book title is difficult to read. I wondered if that was a deterrent to potential readers, so I wanted to test that out as well. 

Magan: When I first went through the whole cover design process I was looking for someting in the realm of HP Mallory with the cartooney covers. Both our books are comedic with romance, so I thought a cutesy cover would do the trick. Then the reviews started to come in and I realized alot of people weren't picking up the book because the cartoon cover was giving off a middle grade vibe and that wasn't what I wanted.


Though it's great to change covers, authors have to be careful not to annoy their fans by changing covers they might love, especially mid series. There's some talk on the 'sphere about series books getting a make over midstream. For people who bought the first book, or the first two books in the series, it's annoying when the next book no longer matches. See this post by Narratively Speaking. She's particularily upset by the recent change made to Beth Revis's covers. I for one have Ruby Red sitting on my shelf and have long waited for book two to hit shelves. I'm a little annoyed that the covers have since changed and now my series collection won't match. Plus,the collection loses value when this happens. I'll still buy it though, since I loved book 1.

Megg and Stacey both changed covers for their whole series once the series was out. I, on the other hand made the choice to change the cover theme after the first book was out, believing it would be better in the long run and hoping I wouldn't put off any of my readers who bought the first one. I didn't have a lot of readers yet at that point, and no one has complained so far. (Magan has done the same.)

What do you think about the cover updates? Does it bother you if series covers change before the series is complete?

 

Elle Strauss writes time travel and merfolk chic-lit, light SF and historical YA fiction. When she’s not writing, she’s reading, hanging out with friends and family, and sometimes traveling. To ward off writer's butt she does a bit of hiking, biking and yoga. Elle is married with four children and divides her time between British Columbia, Canada, and Germany. Find out more about her and her books at www.ellestraussbooks.com