An Author's Advantages

We've met a few new people last month. Of course there's Sehloho Rampai, our author of the month. One person I chatted with was

 Ethan Wacker. Funny thing was my niece loved watching 

Bizaardvark and one of her favorite characters were Bernie Shots. 

(She felt bad for his push-aside character on the show.) But after the show she

was worried about him with the entire quarantine issue. I told her I might be able to 

get a hold of him. "Ask him how he's doing?" she told me.

Now this was around the time I was writing my new book for Magical Times.

 As I started writing to him, my niece asked me about my story. I told her 

it was about magical twin brothers and their talking dog.

 "Do you think Ethan would like to be in your book?" she asked.

 I told her I wasn't sure, but I'd ask. Now, when I don't sell many copies of 

my work, but I do have a collection of fans (my niece and a few of her

 friends.) They were all excited to know if Ethan would like to guest star in 

my story. 

A day or two later Ethan messaged me back saying he would

 love to star in my book. Hopefully, I can get this book done soon, because

 I want Ethan to like it. Right now, you can catch a glimpse of the book

 at wattpad.com 

If you haven't heard already, Shiver and Fears had quit working with 

Lulu and is now looking for another print publishing company to work with.

 I know, I know. Shiver and Fears is putting a hold on publishing for 

now on as I said before, and we are. We're taking a break, while we look

 into some options. But right now Ethan can't wait to read the

 next Magical Times story. I bet you can't either.

Let's Meet an Author: Sehloho Rampai

We have another author for June we want to introduce. In my opinion, he's unique. I'm sure you'll like him too.

Meet Sehloho Piet Rampai

He has written four Poetry Books including The Word, Poetic Justice, Poetry O'clock and Mabinabine

You can find his work at https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Rampai

His hobbies are coaching and playing Rugby as he is a qualified Rugby Coach and enjoy farming a lot

Sehloho has a blog: Sehloho Piet Rampai.com and a website Word Press.com

Sehloho's favorite book genre to read and write is poetry!

Hopefully, you enjoyed our first poet, can't wait to know our next author!

We don't get a lot of male poets. Comment below on what you think about our author this month. Want to learn more about him? Comment your questions below or visit him on facebook

Attention to the Authors of...

    Just yesterday May 20th I posted a request for writers to take an interview for Shiver and Fears blog. Over 100 comments replied to this post. In order to keep things organized, we had to lead them to Shiver and Fears facebook page to ask a few questions for them to answer.

   In this result we've placed 9 authors in a blog. That's enough for the rest of this year and 2 extra months! Within 1.5 days! You might not think it's so impressive, but it sure amazed the team. Today there are still authors wishing to be a part of our blog, but at this point we have to wait for 2021 if we planned on continuing this oppertunity.

   Why do we do this? It's what we call "Help Me Help You" As I explained in the live video earlier, thousands of authors want to be noticed, so they tend to always introduce themselves. Imagine if one author introduced someone else. Their fans would pay attention to that one author, because they've included their favorite author. Now question is, who is this stranger? This stranger is an author himself!

   So what I hope come out from this is that the author will share the kindness given from the stranger which helps promote them more and get the stranger noticed as well. Confused? Don't be. What happens here is similar to what happens in life. You share what's being shared about you, and by doing that, you're sharing them!  

  In the kindness of letting Shiver and Fears use a year worth of authors to write about Shiver and Fears has given each one a free audiobook written by the author (me), AJ Hard. What we want in return is very simple, just to redeem the book, listen to it, and give a public review on the audible site or a  social media post (tagging Shiver and Fears, of course) about what you thought about the story. 

Just remember to redeem your code by the end of the month (I can't hold an unused code forever)

Dear Future authors of America

As an author, I have made many choices in publishing books. Now that I've learned a few things, let me pass this advise to the future writers of America.
One thing I've noticed for sure is that self publishing is a little complicated for first term people. Some simple things that I've learned, (and maybe you already know) is that:
Title is most likely used for book series, chances are the Subtitle is where you place the title of the story for the series. So keep that in mind.
I think the hardest part about making a book is fixing the cover. From what I've experienced there are two choices to making a cover. 1Make it yourself or 2 Use their cover choices (which leads to an image cover or just a title cover) My best advise is go for their choice in covers ONLY if you're unskilled to make your own.
What's hard about making your own cover is fixing the proper size and that everything placed satisfies the company. I've worked with KPD before, They have unusual covers that may or may not work for you. The back must mostly include a description, bio and self picture. For image covers  it doesn't need the title and author name because they are placed for editing for you.
Now another company I tried was Lulu. They want everything in PDF fonts matter, size matters, and you also can create the cover. I quit working with them when they upgraded everything. Too complicated!  I sent in the manuscript 20 times and each time it was not accepted by lulu, because of DPI, font embedding, and proper size in PDF (oh brother!)
The best company so far is Barnes and Nobles Press, which reminds me. With KDP books will be published in Amazons around the country, they use to do more... Lulu will send copies to their book shop, ingram and Barnes and Noble (I think) But ONLY if you order a copy for yourself! Barnes and Noble Press will just do Barnes and Noble, I believe.

I do want to announce that the best audiobook publisher to go it in author's republic site. The only down side is you'll have to do the reading yourself, That is unless you work with audible where you can hire a narrator. You can either share the royal or pay up to $300. (I share the royal)
Think your ready to be an author? Have a better idea in what your looking for? Did my advice help any at all? Comment below.
BTW marketing, you're on your own!

Let's Meet an Author: Shana

How's it going my fans? Since it's May it's time to meet another author. I haven't met her in person but I can tell she has a heart for people.
Meet:
Shana W. Gourdine

she wrote the book "The Mask Behind The Mask"


You can find that book here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1796017639/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_XnsHEb5EA5XCF


She enjoys writing, cooking, movies, going to different restaurants, spending time with her family and dancing

Learn more about her at Shana Gourdine Author on Facebook


She enjoys reading Romance, poetry and writes Poetry

Be on the lookout for more author interviews from AJ Hard! I haven't heard from anyone yet, but there's still time to spear.

2020 Quarantine Message- Stay Positive

What's the result?

 So let me tell you what's planned for this summer. Shiver and Fears is publishing their last book! With this stupid virus being a fake hazard The bookaversary party will be hosted live video and Shiver and Fears is taking the last breaths.
 Books have been selling, but still at a slow rate. If I were living off the sales of these books. My office would be the library and I'd be living in a box on the street. (Kind of depressing huh?) Well, it's come to the conclusion Shiver and Fears don't need to be sold if they are even made for money. Which is good, because they aren't making any anyway.
So this is what's happening to Audiobooks  We're posted samples of them on Youtube, book 31- will be posted on Wattpad for now on, no more contests, events, fewer comments and attention grabbers. Free audiobooks will only be given to the first 5 birthdays of each month until 2021 then free audiobooks will be no longer e offered.
It might sound like Shiver and Fears is closing, but that's not what's happening. What's going on is we're taking out the time and effort to produce and promote it.
You might have questions, and I'm willing to answer. It might help you understand what's going on.