Archive for the ‘indies’ Category

Heartbreak

Posted: September 15, 2018 in amazon, authors, facebook, indies, Uncategorized, venting, writing
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Heartbreak

 

One always hopes that they will experience a soul shattering experience, alone. Well, I should say that one really hopes to never experience a soul shattering experience.

It isn’t detrimental. You will come out of it, gasping for air and clutching for purchase at any available surface, but you will be genetically altered for all other experiences to come.

You won’t want to be alone in your suffering forever, but in that one moment, when you realize your world has been flipped over and turned inside out, you will.

Unfortunately, a moment like this can happen in a very public manner.

People most likely will be present when you stumble into this exact moment.

You may even receive a voicemail explaining how sorry someone was and they could feel the shattering of your soul as your heart broke. They might even provide a blow by blow of the exact moment as seen through their eyes.

You’ll listen to this voicemail while refilling your diet Pepsi, and vodka. You’ll watch the tepid soda widdle down the ice cubes. You will almost smile at the words coming out of your phone, almost.

A person declaring they could feel your heartbreak.

Ha!

The almost formed smile, will feel foreign on your face. The muscles will crack from the strain of lifting up the sides of your mouth. You’ll have a hysterical thought that you will never be able to smile organically again.

How could someone feel your emotions, at the exact moment you went numb?

Maybe, it was some residual instinct left over from the caveman times. When a member of a tribe experienced something they were unable to handle, the other members siphoned off the emotions making it less to bear for the suffering member.

You hope they keep it, you think to yourself as you wash down a sleeping pill with your vodka laced Pepsi. It isn’t a suicide kick, you just want to ensure that your body stays numb just a little longer.

Your tribes-members seem to already be getting tired of hefting the load they had siphoned from you, and start to release it back to you. Like a rubber band more emotions would hit you, springing on you unexpectedly while knocking the breath out of your lungs.

You lay down, and rub your palm over the spot where your heart beat. You picture it pumping away with less enthusiasm, and wondering when it would get the spring back in its mechanics. Atrium, ventricle, lungs, atrium, ventricle, body. Forcing blood through you, knowing something was off, but doing its job none the less.

My cocky stance

Posted: May 11, 2018 in #Romance, amazon, authors, book blog, book lovers, branding, cocky, cockygate, facebook, goodreads, indies, rebel, venting
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So I waited. My two cents are mine, and really what the fuck can you buy with two cents?

At first I was going to write something awful and demeaning toward the cocky author. Something along the lines of…

Get me some syrup because I smell a major twat waffle. Mrs Cocky maybe you should stop writing and go teach victim 101. Where of course the space would limited as your ego would encompass most of the room.

But I didn’t write that. What good would that do? I mean it would make me feel better but this would just be another chapter in her victim text book.

So instead….

Let’s talk about branding. No let’s talk about books and specifically genres.

Stay with me there is a point to be made.

I will admit on my kindle there are way too many titles that include the words Highlander, Earl, Duke, pirate and many more historical romance verbiage. Historical romance is my jam. I love reading stories outside the genre’s I write.

The titles are a combination of those words. The earl highlander, the pirate Duke so on so on. I pick the books because they are in the genre I like to read. A lot of times it’s based on the title, because it lets me know what genre it’s in.

Now with the word cocky an image of an alpha male comes to mind. A cocky male who’s most likely is going to be a jerk. One who has slept with a ton of women and thinks he is Gods gift. He’ll meet a chick he fights with and in the end they will find they can’t be without each other. This is a genre MANY people like to read. The alpha male is one most women want to conquer. Why not read how others have done it.

Why stop at one book? Why not read them all?

When readers who enjoy the alpha male romance see the words ALPHA COCKY DICKSLINGER they know what they are in for. And if they enjoy them they want more

And this may come as a shock but readers can read more than one book. WHAT? NO! REALLY?

And readers will read what they like. I will admit I don’t just read historical romance I branch out, but I know what genres I like. And that’s what I spend my money on

I read more than one author. AND SURPRISE SUR-FUCKING-PRISE most readers do as well. Especially avid readers. So unless our favorite author is publishing a book a day, because let’s face it people can devour a shit ton of books readers will need to read other authors.

Why would you want to alienate authors from your genre? This doesn’t make sense.

I write rock’n’roll romances. My books are pretty far between each other (sorry. I promise Van and Jesse are coming) Why would I as an author not want my readers to read other rocknroll books?

Keep my readers immersed in the world of rockstars while waiting for the next JackholeSseries. Have them excited for my book by reading other rocknroll books and seeing what my characters get onto as opposed to other rockstars.

I don’t question my readers loyalty to the JackholeS if they read other rocknroll books. And I don’t think my readers are silly enough to buy a rockstar book and think it’s mine because of the title. I give my readers more mental credit. Also I don’t own them and would never think to tell them what they can and cannot read.

Also Amazon has this nifty little feature called the “read the sample”

This feature allows a potential reader free access to the first 10% of a book. At the end of the 10% the potential reader is given the option to pass the pay wall. They can decide if they want to pay and become a reader or they can pass and go onto another title. The reader has no loyalty to the book. And much to my chagrin Amazon also gives a reader an option to return the book for a refund before a specific amount of time with no questions asked.

With this any reader has the option to access a book. And just in case they did get confused because there was an innocuous word in the title. They can return it or not pass they pay wall.

This whole thing makes no sense. I’m not saying I don’t want my book to be the best rocknroll romance. Of course I want it to hit NYTBS list, but I’m not going to practice shady business to get there. I have enough faith in my books that they can make it there on there own without destroy anyone else in the process.

Also I would never talk bad about another book in my genre because different options are the spice of life. I wrote this post in 2016

https://itsjoysworld.net/2014/09/28/cant-we-all-just-get-along/

And I still feel the same.

So Cocky author suck on this cocky post. I hope you get over yourself and eat crow. Or should I say cocky.

I’m alive??

Posted: October 6, 2016 in #Romance, amazon, authors, book blast, book blog, book boost, book lovers, book release, comedian, comedy, facebook live, giveaway, Halestorm, Hollywood, Hollywood Improv, humor, improv, indies, love yourself, new release, stand up comedy
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Hello,

Remember me?

Yeah, me neither.

I have been telling myself that I need to write a blog post. I guess I’m finally taking my advice and doing it. I’ve become rather bossy inside my head.

Life has decided to give me a big middle finger.

I’m going to try and make this short, and see where it gets me. My kids are also on fall break. What does that mean? It means I’m secretly writing this on my phone hoping to get through it before someone gets hungry or hurt.

Aug. 21st I went and preformed at the Hollywood Improv. I was trying to juggle everything so blogging kind of went on the back burner. Also I had a book coming out Sept. 13th that I was getting ready for.

How was your set, you ask…

https://youtu.be/TGEOSsFCo1k

It was amazing. The audience seemed receptive to my brand of Jackassness. I’m pretty sure I floated off the stage.

That was on a Sat. Three days later the foundation I was firmly standing on shook. I’m still trying to recover my footholds and feel secure in day to day life 

I received a text from my dad saying that my mom…MY MOM…had a stroke. If you have been one if my loyal followers you would know how special my mom is to me. She is the one I take to Halestorm. She is the one I word vomit all my problems to 

My dad is the worst at relaying information. Hell, he’s the worst at answering the phone. I’m pretty sure when he sent me the text he pressed send looked down at the electronic rectangle, shrugged, thought I don’t need this any longer, and chucked it into a magical ocean that appeared to take the only form of communication I had with him. Suffice it to say it was the longest three hour drive of my life.

When I got to the ER my mom could only say Hi and I love you. She kept repeating it over and over again, while internally I was begging myself not to have a complete break down.

In the ICU she was only allowed to have two visitors. I convinced my dad and brother to go get some rest. Here is the thing about ICU they don’t want you to stay. I had one hard chair and nothing else. It didn’t matter I wasn’t leaving her.

That night she was woke up every hour. I was with her throughout the whoke thing. It was also the night she looked at me and said, “I love you, Joy” then turned aroud and corrected herself to,  “I love you, Sissy.” Yeah, the tears flowed.

The second night they realized I wasn’t leaving and a nice nurse brought me a blanket and pillow. 

My mom had a stroke that was caused by a clot breaking free from an aneurysm. Aneurysms run in my family. My grandma and aunt had one both at 56. (in about 10 years I suppose I’ll go get checked) Her aneurysm didn’t bleed or burst. It just had a piece break off. Of course my mom doesn’t do anything half assed. She had a huge aneurysm in the front of her brain in the middle of where the artery branches. 

She had surgery where an amazing surgeon and team placed a coil in the aneurysm and two stints on each side. 

I’ve never understood people wearing sports jerseys, but I can tell you I would proudly wear a jersey with her surgeons name on the back. Also her PT, Norman. He was a PT god, I watched him use PNF stretching where she moved her leg for the first time. He also let me do the PNF on her. Yeah, always the teachers pet. Or at least my mom teased me of that. 

Keeping myself busy in the hospital

Every day my mom improved. She was in the hospital for a month. I’m so proud of her. She is now home. She can walk without her walker ( I named it, Paul) She still gets frustrated, but it is amazing to see her get better and stronger every day.

 

Also during that time I pushed my book release back to Sept. 27th. I worked my ass off to get everything done but I had a lot on my plate. 

I made teasers and banners of my beautiful book cover. I ordered paperbacks for the signing I have on Oct. 22nd. On my release date I was so damn excited. Until around 11 o’clock when I got a message asking if I meant to spell Survivng wrong.

Nope

No

I sure did not

I looked at that damn cover over a thousand times and not once did I recognize it was wrong. 

Ughhhh

I called my printer but it was too late to find out of theg had been printed yet. The awesome customer service lady said she would email me if she was able to pause the shipping. Imagine my hysterical laughter when she sent me my tracking number. 

I owned up to it live on Facebook. Explaining that Surviing Faith paperbacks will be at the signing because I didn’t have time to order another set.

Readers were supportive and understanding. Some even saying they wanted the misspelled cover. The cover is now fixed so any other books I order will be spelled correctly.

So that has been my life lately. I’m still crusing along. I have a paperback giveaway going on right now. To enter all you have to do is add a review of Surviving Faith to amazon. I’ll pick the winner live at the author by the beach signing Oct. 22Nd. Also keep an eye out for the costume I’ll be wearing. 

Hollywood Improv

Do you know Kristen Hope Mazzola?

Posted: April 5, 2016 in #Romance, amazon, authors, book blast, book lovers, indies, Uncategorized
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So one year ago I went to Vegas. I went to support my friend Rebecca Fisher in her first author signing. This was also the trip that I met an amazing person(s). Rebecca’s table was across for Kristen, her PA Dayna, and next to them was Mary Catherine Gebhard.
The trip a year ago https://itsjoysworld.net/2015/04/14/vegas-or-bust/
We hit it off immediately. These were the girls that I ended up spending the rest of the week with.
Kristen was super supportive of Breaking Faith. This was before I was convinced that I was even going to publish Breaking Faith. Kristen felt that if I had a cover I would maybe be more inclined to publish.
She was amazing and I was a pain in the ass, but she found the cover for Breaking Faith. Honestly, she also made the covers for Surviving Faith and Becoming Faith. I know what those look like. Sorry had to rub that in.
Breaking Faith has been an adventure for me. Kristen helped me with everything. She was seriously as patient with me as a kindergarten teacher. She held my hand (through the phone) and helped me with everything.
Kristen gave me faith in humanity. Kristen along with all the other amazing indies helped me get through something very near and dear to me. She posted that this was around one year since we met. I wanted to write this post to tell her how much I appreciate everything she has done for me. If you loved Breaking Faith then you should be thanking Kristen, because if it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t have published.
So this is my Thank you, Kristen.
If you haven’t heard of Kristen her links are below. I highly suggest checking her out. You will not be disappointed.
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorKristenHope/?fref=ts
http://www.amazon.com/Kristen-Hope-Mazzola/e/B00H85N5QQ/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1459828588&sr=8-1