SHADOWS OF THE THINGS THAT WILL BE
(AND A FREE SHORT STORY!)

“Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?" That's a quote from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Last night, we watched The Man Who Invented Christmas with Dan Stevens, which is a creative interpretation of how Charles Dickens created Scrooge and his famous tale. Regardless of profession, we all love a movie or TV show that depicts the job we know best, in ways that have us nodding vigorously or declaring, "Yes, exactly that!" during the course of the story. And it works out so nicely that this one has a Christmas theme. It may be my new favorite holiday movie. Every time Charles Dickens (who Dan was portraying) was in the midst of a writing epiphany, where the characters had appeared around him and the story arc was taking off, he'd be interrupted by some domestic issue or other crisis. My husband cocked his eyebrow at me while I was chortling through one of those parts and said dryly, "You're relating to this a little too well."

That aside, from beginning to end, it's a great movie to comprehend the truly crazy, wondrous process that happens in an author's brain, and how it connects to the people we are and the experiences that have shaped us. It also reminds me how lucky I am to have the chance to experience that journey with different sets of characters.

It's been an eventful year with a lot of changes for Scott and me, the kind of changes that make me think about and appreciate the blessings of my life. You all are a big part of that. Thank you so much for reading my work, for your kindness and support, for sharing the love of my books with others so I can continue to write more of them. I hope you and yours have many blessings at Christmas and during the new year. Can't wait to see where 2019 takes us all. Now, enough mushy stuff (grin). Want to talk about what's happening with the current and upcoming titles?

MARKETING EPIPHANY - WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU? (aka MY BELOVED READERS)

Last issue I mentioned that I would be doing something I've never really done before, at least not to the extent I should, and that is spend a couple months really working on marketing efforts related to my books. Always before, I have considered this as a distasteful necessity. I guess I've always viewed marketing as pushing my books on someone. I love my characters and stories, and I want readers to love them too, but it's difficult for me to "sell" them on the idea of reading the books without feeling that I'm being pushy, rude and intrusive. Something I never want to be to readers! But I recently came upon some marketing information that struck a chord. It suggested that every marketing effort should keep as its focus "what will this give my customer?" (aka my readers). In short, "value-given" marketing. And suddenly, when I'm creating social media posts, designing pretty graphics, etc, what I'm thinking is "will my readers like this, enjoy this, find this useful, want to share this with friends, etc etc etc." And it's sort of become...fun. Yeah, lesser miracles have happened. So here's an example. I was thinking about how crazy Christmas can get, and how often we get swept up in it and stressed out. So I thought about the things I do to de-stress and remember the joy of this season. The result of these thoughts? A blog post called Solo Indulgences at Christmas - What Are Yours? Hope you like it and it gives you ideas and/or reminds you of ways to enjoy the season.

SO, HAVE YOU READ VAMPIRE'S EMBRACE? AND WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT A FREE SHORT STORY?!

"There is no question, that Hill knows how to bring the heat. But, she also has the unique ability to create characters that evoke emotion and seem all-too-real. She is a master at bringing a sense of humanity to the inhuman and infusing her story lines with just the right balance of desire, passion, sentiment and naughtily-delicious dollops of kink. In Vampire's Embrace, I found absolutely everything that I crave in an erotic, vampire fiction novel and then some. I was easily swept away by the familiarity and distinctive allure of her Vampire world and found myself wanting to stay inside the creative confines of that realm for as long as possible. Quite simply: Hill is always fangtastic and never disappoints!"

So, if you've had a chance to read Vampire's Embrace (or plan to do so in the future), I hope you enjoyed it as much as Tam of Booknerdia Blog did. I'm delighted by her reaction and that of the other readers and reviewers to Alistair and Nina's story. Thanks to you all, Vampire's Embrace made it to the top ten in three different Amazon categories and stayed there several days. I'm in the process of collecting questions for another Q and A video for my YouTube page. What? You didn't know I have a YouTube page? I do, and I have a whopping FOUR different video offerings there so far! If you have any questions you'd like me to answer about the book, be sure and go by the Joey W Hill Members Only Facebook page at this link and leave the question. Or you can email me directly at storywitch@PROTECTED.

Now, just a reminder of things you might want to know about the book:

Free Short Story! Did you know I wrote a fun little short featuring Wolf and Ella? Wolf is a vampire Dom at Club Atlantis, who made his first appearance in Vampire's Soul. He was only in one scene toward the end of the book, but he made a significant impression. There is a submissive on staff at Club Atlantis, Ella, who has caught his eye. If you drop down to the "What's Next" section of the newsletter, you'll see I hope to write their complete story sometime in 2019. After you read their short story, you can tell me if you like that idea! Anyhow, you can find "Dreams of A Vampire Master" here in all the popular download formats. And since I haven't written their story yet, there are no spoilers, so you can just introduce yourself to them in this little feature.

YouTube Video About the Creative Process - On that YouTube video page I mentioned above, I have posted a "Behind the Scenes: Editing Vampire's Embrace," where I explain my editing process AND let you sit on my shoulder as I edit ten pages. Titillating stuff, I know (grin). But I hope you like this glimpse of how it works, at least for me.

Buy Links - If you haven't already found them at your preferred vendor on your own, the book page on my website has direct links to Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Kobo and Print here, directly beneath the blurb. Don't forget, my books are eligible for the Kindle Match program, so when you buy the print version, you can get the Kindle copy as well!

Excerpts - You can find Chapter One on that same book page. If you belong to the JWHMembersOnly group, I also gave them the exclusive Chapter Two bonus excerpt not too long ago. The direct link to it is here. You can join the group here.

Pinterest Page - Want to see my vision of Nina, Alistair, and other elements of their story? There are some very cool secondary characters in this one! Here's my board.

SO WHAT'S NEXT?

Dark Knights (or The Problem with Witches - still playing with titles - grin): - In between the marketing and day job stuff, I've been scribbling away at this crossover novella between the Arcane Shot and Knights of the Board Room characters. Something seriously bad is about to bubble out of the Mississippi River, right on the banks of New Orleans, and Derek, Mikhael and Raina are in town to stop it. But they need Ben's help, because they have to locate a voodoo priestess who is hard to find. And Ben has an exceptional link to her from his youth. Here's a little early draft clip from the scene where they find Ben on the parking deck at Kensington and Associates, after work one night. He's meeting Mikhael and Derek, both Guardians (powerful sorcerers) for the first time...

* * *

The man dressed like a cowboy, but carrying a sorcerer's staff, had a face that was lined and rugged. Maybe forty-something, unless you got to the eyes, and then Ben thought he was looking at someone, or something, way beyond room for candles on his birthday cake. Unless the red velvet with buttercream was the size of a football field. The eyes were blue steel and the set of his mouth and jaw said cop to Ben, no matter the odd get-up.

Asshole number two stepped into the light a few feet away from Cowboy Gandalf. Also tall and broad-shouldered, but this one wore a black suit so well-tailored Ben was going to find out where he had it custom cut. No staff, but there was an odd energy vibrating around him. Hair was dark, thick and silky, enough to make Jon, their resident Kensington and Associates pretty boy, trade hair product recommendations with him. But like Jon, there was nothing pretty boy about the eyes. This guy’s were so dark Ben couldn’t detect pupil from iris, a late-night-vampire movie effect not so easy to laugh off in the middle of the night.

But he’d faced a lot scarier things.

“Getting bored,” he said sharply. “I do have office hours. What do you want?”

“A voodoo priestess named Elagra Bluebird Jones.”

Okay, that was one of the scarier things.

It was perhaps the last thing he’d expect someone to say to him. Though as soon as the name was spoken, he was aware he’d always known it would be something he’d have to deal with again. Out of all the disturbing things that woke him at 3am, one of them actually was a witch. The memory of Elagra Jones.

Drip, drip, drip. Just water from a distant pipe on the parking deck, punctuating the sudden silence between him and the two strangers. But when he’d been younger, the rust had turned it red, and when he woke with it staining his skin, she would say it was blood and smile. He could hear her voice, dragging up his spine like barbed fingernails.

“All the blood shed on a night in New Orleans, in dark places, where hope has never been allowed... It all flows to me, for there is a power in despair, the power to turn and twist a man’s heart, anyway I wish, make him abandon his soul, so he can never find it again. Even if he looks like the strongest man in the world to unseeing eyes, he is a naked, shivering thing, always."

* * *

Can't wait to see where this story takes us! And for those of you who have been jonesing for Ramona's story to be told to round out the Arcane Shot trilogy, she's going to make a prominent appearnace in this novella, which I hope will inspire the muse in that direction. I'm having to work on this novella in between learning how to balance a day job with the writing and domestic demands, so I don't have an estimated release date yet, but as soon as I figure it out, you'll be the first to know.

Vampire Master - This is likely the next book I'll be doing, featuring Wolf and Ella (yes, the same Wolf and Ella mentioned in the short story above). For a long time, I thought Ella and James, the head of Atlantis security, would end up being a couple, but James has made his decision, and it's Ellen (a character from the Nature of Desire series book Rough Canvas, and she is also in Unrestrained, as Athena's secretary). They'll meet when James takes a much needed vacation to New Orleans. And it's when James is on that vacation that Wolf and Ella's story takes off, because Gideon is up to his eyeballs handling James's security duties. Wolf ends up being the Dom keeping an extra eye on Ella, since she has a tendency to get in trouble. Now, if you're thinking that sounds like two books in one, you're right. James and Ellen will have their own book, too.

So I have three possibilities to feed my muse while I do the dreaded marketing. I'll keep you posted on how that's going.

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USUAL STUFF

CONTACTING ME - Remember, you can find me online through my website email contact link or email me directly at storywitch@PROTECTED. You can also leave a question for me under my Author Profile on GoodReads. I'm on Facebook under Joey W. Hill, and you can visit the JWHMembersOnly FB fan forum group here. I'm @JoeyWHill on Twitter, and my Pinterest boards related to the books are here.

Thank you all so much for your support of my work!

DIDN'T GET A RESPONSE? It seems those darn online filters are becoming more and more aggressive. And don't get me started on the many ways Facebook plays tricks with my messages, lol. But responding to my readers, and doing so in a very timely manner (within 24-48 hours), is extremely important to me. So if you have sent a communication to me in any of the mediums I've mentioned - direct email, FB, GoodReads or Twitter - and have not received a response, a technical glitch has occurred. Either your communication did not get through to me, or my response did not reach you. If you suspect that's the case, use one of the alternative communication methods to send me a "Hey, Joey, I sent you a note through email (or FB, or a tweet, etc). Did you get it?" message, and we'll make sure we sort it out. I will never intentionally ignore my readers!

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NEWSLETTER NOTES

While you can subscribe to the newsletter through my website, you may find your email host isn't letting it through, thanks to broad spam-blocking mechanisms that don't separate communications you've specifically requested to receive from those you haven't. Regrettably, there's not a lot we can do on this side if the newsletter is hitting an email filter that is bouncing it without notifying either one of us. However, we do have some things you can try that seem to have worked for folks:

FIRST - make sure the newsletter email is part of your contact list: "newsletter@PROTECTED."

SECOND - Check whatever filters you do have for spam and the like and see what methods are available to you to ensure an email like this gets through. My newsletters have a plethora of links in them to make it easy for you to find the things I'm talking about, but the flip side of that is it can get the newsletter tagged pretty quickly as spam.

THIRD - Contact me at newsletter@PROTECTED and ask to be unsubscribed. Once we confirm with you that has been done, rather than us sending you an invitation (which can bounce for the aforementioned reasons), we have you go in to the website newsletter link and subscribe yourself - here's the link to that. If it works, you'll get an automatic invitation to confirm, and then, fingers crossed, you should be set.

FOURTH - If none of this works or all of it is just too frustrating and you want to say "screw it!" (and I can hardly blame you, lol), then just make sure you've liked my FB page or are following me on Twitter. This is because EVERY MONTH I will post the latest newsletter link on both of those, to make sure it reaches the widest number of people possible! It's the same link monthly, so if you want, just put https://storywitch.com/newsletter/?latest as one of your Favorites. You can click on it anytime to see if an update has been posted. I post a new one every 30-45 days, give or take a few days.