If anyone had told me that at this point in my career it would take me several freaking months to write a novella, I would have asked how many of my fingers had been broken, making me unable to type. But I am known for being blessed with some of the most loving and loyal readers in this crazy business for good reason. Almost without fail, each time I've had a despairing drama-queen day about figuring out how the heck to find the energy to write books the way I did fifteen years ago, when I had to do it as a second job as I'm doing now, I will get an email, tweet or FB comment from one of you, expressing your delight with my books, talking about an enjoyable re-read, or sharing your love of my work with others. Thank you SO much for that.
Because the best way I know to thank you all for that kindness and support is by giving you another story, I've put together a new freebie vignette. I've had Close Shave sitting on my computer for a few months. Completing it was derailed when I was working on the self-publish re-releases, noted further down in this newsletter. But now it's on my Cantrips page, where all my free short/novella revisits are. So what's it about? Lord Mason and Jessica of Beloved Vampire! This story was sparked by a reader talking about a "what if," as in, "what if a vampire could grow facial hair?" Because as you know, when I started my Vampire Queen series fifteen books ago, I made the incredibly short-sighted decision for my vampire males to have no facial or body hair (except eyebrows - grin). It's baffling why I did, because I've always loved a man with chest hair. Can't express how bloody tired I am of seeing grown, rugged men with all their chest hair waxed off in TV and movies - yuck!
Anyhow, in this little revisit, Mason decides to let himself be one of the first to try Lord Brian's idea for a treatment that will encourage the return of chest and beard hair. Since Lord Mason is already roll-your-tongue-back-into-your-mouth sexy, it just adds to the appeal. True to most of our revisit vignettes, we also learn a few things we didn't know before, like things about his and Lyssa's past together. We also get to hear from Gideon and his smart mouth, because he can't resist living dangerously and goading Mason about his decision, and the reasons he made it. So, go read it already, before I tell you everything, lol. One of my readers sent me a note after I released it, saying, "It’s such a pleasure to spend ever more precious moments with the characters that I love so much. Reading your words is like slipping into a hot bath when my muscles are really sore- Sheer heaven!" Hope you all have a similarly wonderful feeling about it!
Beloved Vampire, Vampire Mistress, Taken by a Vampire, Controlled Response and Honor Bound are all now available as self-published titles, with new covers and $4.99 or less pricing. I have my fingers crossed that several more books will be coming back to me in the next month or two. I'll keep you posted. If you haven't yet treated yourself to the lovely new covers, here are the links to their book pages on my website. If you click on the smaller version of the covers, they will blow up to a bigger size so you can see all the fabulous details.
Feel like posting a review? Technically, the reviews from the previous versions are supposed to repopulate the updated editions, but sometimes there's a lag. So if you've recently read one of these books and/or have never put up a review for one of them, and feel inspired to do so, I'd appreciate it greatly if you decided to put a rating or review at Amazon, Nook, iBooks or Kobo, your choice. It helps to position the book more favorably on the vendor sites, bringing them to the attention of new readers. Which is always a good thing, right?
Many of you have asked when the Vampire Queen series will be out on Audible. To date, only Nightfall has been offered in audiobook. Since I now have all but the first two books back, I have approached Audible to find out if they would have any interest in putting out any of them, and I'm waiting to hear back. I've also asked if they would be interested in Controlled Response and Honor Bound, since they already offer the rest of the Knights of the Board Room series. Keep your fingers crossed. My books aren't huge sellers for them, but I'm hoping they sell enough to make it worth their while to offer some of the more popular books in the VQS series and those two KBR books in audio format.
If you haven't signed up for it yet and want to go, NOW is the time. As we move toward April and May, we will get closer to the attendee limit, and the hotel rooms will start to get scarce. The organizers intentionally limit this con to a certain number of people to give it that intimate, cozy feel, letting readers and authors spend quality time together. You can find out everything about it here.
GIVEAWAY!! And if you are for sure going, and you email me to tell me that, I have a couple tickets to the Saturday signing ($25 savings!) to give away. Just shoot me a note at storywitch@PROTECTED, and I'll choose my couple of winners about a week after the newsletter comes out.
HAVE A BOOK YOU WANT TO BE SURE I BRING? If there's a particular book(s) you know you want me to have at the signing for you, shoot me an email and give me a heads up. With 46+ titles, there are only so many I can bring, and I want to be sure to have the ones you most want to purchase. You can email me at storywitch@PROTECTED (same as my Contact link on my website).
I think my latest blog topic has been inspired by thoughts I've been chewing over related to my love of the "rescue" scenario in romance. I'm sure the endless Captain Marvel controversy vlogs my husband has been watching have also goaded the topic into life, lol. See if you agree with me.
Don't forget, I recently released TWO Q and A videos, "Many Questions Part 1" and "Many Questions Part 2." They are now live on my You Tube Channel, Story Witch Press. And if you don't have time to watch all of them, the questions I'm answering are listed in the description, in the order that I answer them, with time stamps. So you can listen to the question and answer that interests you the most. While you're there, feel free to watch any of the other videos. I have a book trailer, a Christmas card video, another Q and A and a couple chapter readings. If you like these, be sure and subscribe to the channel so you'll get a heads up when a new one is out.
Don't you just love those titles that are like the beginning of a "Who's on first" joke, lol. Anyhow, as you know, I've been sharing a few little teasers along here. At this point, I'm getting close to finishing the first draft, maybe in a couple more weeks. Then I should be able to begin the editing process. I'm hoping I'll find that the book's in pretty good shape so that process will go quickly. If so, I can deliver on my tentative promise to have it out to you before spring ends. Just as a refresher, this is a crossover novella of the Arcane Shot and Knights of the Board Room characters. There's something seriously scary about to happen in New Orleans if Mikhael and Raina from In the Company of Witches can't stop it, but since they pull in Ben and Marcie of Hostile Takeover for help, as well as some other characters you know well from both series, the bad guys don't have a chance. We hope.
And just a reminder to those who have been after to me to tell Ramona's story to round out the Arcane Shot series into a trilogy. She's going to make a prominent appearance in this novella, which I hope will inspire the muse in that direction. I don't have an estimated release date yet on The Problem with Witches, but as soon as I figure it out, you'll be the first to know!
Vampire Master - I'm learning to write by recorder during the daily commute, so when I'm going through the day's audio notes, at least a good half of them are story arc ideas and scene snippets for Wolf and Ella's story. Remember, Ella is a submissive at Club Atlantis, introduced during Vampire Mistress/Trinity, and Wolf made his appearance in Vampire's Soul. A few months back, I gave you a little teaser story about these two in Dreams of a Vampire Master. For those who want to see me do something along a contemporary vein, don't worry. I'm sure after I finish these two books, next stop on my list will be a contemporary story, likely a Nature of Desire series story. You can see some of the ideas I'm playing with on my "In the Works" page on my website. Exciting stuff ahead!
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!
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.
12/15/2019 - Vampire Master - Book 16 of the Vampire Queen series
08/2019 - Naughty Bits - re-release as a self-published title in print and ebook.
07/2019 - Vampire Queen's Servant - re-release as a self-published title in print and ebook.
6/30/19 - The Problem with Witches - A Crossover novel of the Arcane Shot and Knights of the Board Room series
2019 - The Problem with Witches - TBA (see What's Next in the main body of the newsletter for more details)
01/21/2019 - Re-release of Beloved Vampire, Vampire Mistress, Taken by a Vampire, Controlled Response and Honor Bound as self published titles. See main body of newsletter for all book links.
11/15/2018 - Vampire's Embrace - Alistair and Nina's story, Book 15 of the Vampire Queen series (but the book can standalone)
GoodReads Blog - Whenever I have something half-way interesting to say (hopefully), I post it on my blog. Check out the latest, as well as the backlog of over 80 posts!
For my most up-to-date appearances info throughout the month, follow me on Twitter or "Like" my Author Page on Facebook - I'll keep you in the loop as things happen!
GoodReads Blog - Whenever I have something half-way interesting to say (hopefully), I post it on my blog. Check out the latest, as well as the backlog of over 80 posts!
For my most up-to-date appearances info throughout the month, follow me on Twitter or "Like" my Author Page on Facebook - I'll keep you in the loop as things happen!
SEXY AND SASSY SIGNING 2020 - July 9-12 - next year's popular reader/author event will happen in Norfolk, VA. The theme is Sinful Fairy Tales! Click on the link above to find out more. You can also join the SASS Attendee group once you've registered.
SEXY AND SASSY SIGNING 2020 - July 9-12 - next year's popular reader/author event will happen in Norfolk, VA. The theme is Sinful Fairy Tales! Click on the link above to find out more. You can also join the SASS Attendee group once you've registered.
Want a Kindle signature? My books are listed at the Authorgraph site, so if you'd like a "Kindlegraph", send me a request! Just go to Authorgraph.com, put Joey W. Hill in the search line, and it will pull up my books, with a "Request Authorgraph" button beneath each.
Want a signed bookplate for your print book and a bookmark? No need to be bummed about not seeing me at a book signing. Just shoot me an email at storywitch@PROTECTED with your mailing address and the title(s) of the book(s) for which you want a signature, and I'll send you personalized bookplates anytime, free of charge. And I always send it with a signed bookmark!
HAVE YOU CHECKED THE AUTHOR'S WEBSITE?
I am ALWAYS delighted to hear from my readers, and I never mind answering your questions. However, about 90% of the general questions I receive on email can be quickly answered on my website, www.storywitch.com. And the cool thing is you get your answer in the time it takes you to do a couple clicks, versus having to type up your question and send it to me, then wait for me to emerge from my writing cave and check my email.
A lot of authors experience this now. Because we have so much more of a presence at FB, Twitter, and the like, it's easy to forget that most authors still maintain a website where you can quickly get info. On my site, you can not only find BLURBS and FREE EXCERPTS for every book I've published, you can find SERIES ORDER, including recommendations on which ones can stand alone or need specific titles to be read first. Under the In the Works page, you'll find information about UPCOMING RELEASES and what's percolating (the popular "will you ever write a book about so-n-so" question would be answered there).
Just go to my website, storywitch.com, and enjoy your visit. It is specifically and deliberately designed not to be flashy or confusing. Just look at the drop down menus at the top for what you're seeking.
Want a Kindle signature? My books are listed at the Authorgraph site, so if you'd like a "Kindlegraph", send me a request! Just go to Authorgraph.com, put Joey W. Hill in the search line, and it will pull up my books, with a "Request Authorgraph" button beneath each.
Want a signed bookplate for your print book and a bookmark? No need to be bummed about not seeing me at a book signing. Just shoot me an email at storywitch@storywitch.com with your mailing address and the title(s) of the book(s) for which you want a signature, and I'll send you personalized bookplates anytime, free of charge. And I always send it with a signed bookmark!
"I have a question."
Answer: "Have you checked my website?"
I am ALWAYS delighted to hear from my readers, and I never mind answering your questions. However, about 90% of the general questions I receive on email can be quickly answered on my website, www.storywitch.com. And the cool thing is you get your answer in the time it takes you to do a couple clicks, versus having to type up your question and send it to me, then wait for me to emerge from my writing cave and check my email.
A lot of authors experience this now. Because we have so much more of a presence at FB, Twitter, and the like, it's easy to forget that most authors still maintain a website where you can quickly get info. On my site, you can not only find BLURBS and FREE EXCERPTS for every book I've published, you can find SERIES ORDER, including recommendations on which ones can stand alone or need specific titles to be read first. Under the In the Works page, you'll find information about UPCOMING RELEASES and what's percolating (the popular "will you ever write a book about so-n-so" question would be answered there).
Just go to my website at storywitch.com, and enjoy your visit. It is specifically and deliberately designed not to be flashy or confusing. Just look at the drop down menus at the top for what you're seeking.
"I have a question."
Answer: "Have you checked my website?"
I am ALWAYS delighted to hear from my readers, and I never mind answering your questions. However, about 90% of the general questions I receive on email can be quickly answered on my website, www.storywitch.com. And the cool thing is you get your answer in the time it takes you to do a couple clicks, versus having to type up your question and send it to me, then wait for me to emerge from my writing cave and check my email.
A lot of authors experience this now. Because we have so much more of a presence at FB, Twitter, and the like, it's easy to forget that most authors still maintain a website where you can quickly get info. On my site, you can not only find BLURBS and FREE EXCERPTS for every book I've published, you can find SERIES ORDER, including recommendations on which ones can stand alone or need specific titles to be read first. Under the In the Works page, you'll find information about UPCOMING RELEASES and what's percolating (the popular "will you ever write a book about so-n-so" question would be answered there).
Just go to my website at storywitch.com, and enjoy your visit. It is specifically and deliberately designed not to be flashy or confusing. Just look at the drop down menus at the top for what you're seeking.