9.75 Years in the Making

Roll back to 2010 for a minute.  Can you remember what you were doing?  I can–in publishing terms, at least.

  • Ellora’s Cave was in the early stages of its death rattles–things were pretty ugly.
  • I was still working a day job and squeezing writing in on the side.
  • The Amazon Kindle had been out for only 3 years, but was already spawning dozens of wannabees and look-alikes, such as the Nook and the Kobo.
  • Sony’s eReader was still around–but not for much longer.
  • And a guy called Joe Konrath was blogging endlessly about the glories of indie publishing and how any author who didn’t indie publish was f***ing stupid.*

[*In fact, Joe’s second last post in 2010 was entitled “You Should Self Publish” — which has been his theme ever since.)

Lemme tell you something about me:  I’m usually the last person to jump aboard a train that everyone else is catching.  Usually because I miss the significance of whatever train they’re catching.  However, I’ve always been ahead of the rest when it comes to tech.  I had a computer before anyone I knew was even sure what they were, and even ran a small home business on it, typing resumes–a Commodore 64, with floppy disks and a printer.

I got onto the Internet before anyone I knew even knew there was an Internet.

And in 2010 I started listening to people like Joe Konrath.

In early 2011, I had a nasty incident with my publisher, Ellora’s Cave, and as a result, did NOT submit my next book to them.  I held it back, and after a few weeks of dithering, and researching, I took a deep breath and indie published the book in March 2011.

That book was Blood Knot, the first book in the Blood Stone series.

___

Fast forward 9.75 years, and I’m just now publishing the complete series boxed set.

And man, have things changed in publishing since 2010!

  • The vast majority of genre fiction authors self-publish
  • Far, far, far more authors earn enough from self-publishing now, they can afford to write full time — including me.  It was only a tiny, very lucky minority who could afford to write full time when publishing through traditional publishers
  • Sony shut up its bookstores and stopped selling their ereaders
  • Ellora’s Cave has also shut down
  • Most romance authors now
    • indie publish, and
    • use Kindle Unlimited for distribution.
  • Readers have adopted ebooks as their preferred, cheapest option for reading.
  • And ebooks have exploded–there used to be perhaps a million ebooks on Amazon.  These days, I’m not sure anyone knows how deep the lists go–but into the multi-millions, at least.  Just like TV viewers, readers will never run out of stories to consume.

There’s a lot more about the intervening years between then and now in the boxed set.  I have essays in between the books, talking about their publishing history and mine.

Flesh + Blood was released yesterday at all bookstores, including mine.  [Although that situation will change in a few weeks.  See here for more.]


The entire sexy vampire urban fantasy series in one boxed set!

The acclaimed and beloved Blood Stone series—five novels, a novella and two short stories—all collected together for the first time.

Nathaniel (Nial) Aquila Valerius Aurelius is over 1,500 years old and a master manipulator of people, hearts and emotions. He has grown tired of hiding behind masks and knows the modern world will soon force vampires out of hiding, if they do not step into the light themselves.

There are those who oppose Nial and his liberators’ plans to expose vampires to the world, including the Pro Libertatus, who hide among the powerful of the human world, with enormous resources and manpower to bring Nial and his friends to heel.

Then there is the League for Humanity, who are anything but humane. They consider humans the underdogs, mere servants to their vampire overlords and useful cannon fodder. They hide in shadows while humans do their very dirty work, as they try to bring Nial’s people back into line. They have no intention of becoming the equal of humans.

Just those two opponents are overwhelming, but Nial and his friends face more difficult foes as time goes on: The Unspoken Ones — vampires so old they have regressed to ways of thought and speech that modern humans and younger vampires can barely comprehend, but they wield powers unmatched by anyone on the planet.

Then there is the Blood Stone itself.  Is it myth, or real?  If it is real, it has the power to change the world as we know it.  Who finds it, who wields it and who breaks it, will decide the fate of humans and vampires, both.

Reader Advisory: This paranormal MMF urban fantasy series contains more than two hot, sexy alpha heroes, frequent, explicit and frank sex scenes and sexual language. Don’t proceed beyond this point if hot love scenes offend you. No vampires were harmed in the making of this series.

Includes interstitial essays by the author.

The Blood Stone Series:
1.0: Blood Knot (#1 Amazon Best Seller, Fantasy Romance)
1.5: Amor Meus (Blood Drops Collection)*
2.0: Blood Stone
3.0: Blood Unleashed
4.0: Blood Revealed
5.0: Blood Ascendant

[*Blood Drops are short and novella length stories featuring the characters and situations in the Blood Stone series. Droplet sized morsels for your reading pleasure.]

____

#1 Amazon Best-Seller – Fantasy, Futuristic & Ghost Romance (Blood Knot)
Amazon Best-seller – Vampire Romance (Blood Knot)
Winner, Coffee Time Reviewer’s Recommended Award (Blood Knot)
Goodread’s “Most Drool-worthy Covers” (Blood Knot)
Erotic Vampire Book of the Year, The Romance Reviews, 2011 (Blood Knot)
CAPA Nomination, Best Paranormal Book of the Year, The Romance Studio, 2011 (Blood Knot)
Reviewer Top Pick, Night Owl Reviews.  (Blood Stone)

It takes a special talent to gradually get the reader so involved with the characters that they feel real, and when things go wrong you want to cry for them, hoping for something to go right. As always a cracking story– definitely a keeper series—Jeannie Zelos Book reviews.

I’m rapidly falling in lust with all these characters and stories and can’t wait to read more.—Carrie Reads a Lot


Buy FLESH + BLOOD directly from me,
or from your favourite bookseller.


If you don’t like boxed sets…

A great many of you just gasped when you read that, because you love and adore boxed sets.

There are some readers who do not, including me.  Anal geeky me like to have all the books of a series stored individually in my ereader so I can see the covers (for some reason, many boxed sets don’t include the individual book covers), and so I can open and read which book I want to read, and not have to navigate a huge number of pages just to reach it.

So, if you’re a reader who does not like boxed sets, but you’re intrigued about the series, then you can check it out and still get a discount, for the first three books of the series are discounted for release week:

Blood Knot, 99c

Amor Meus, $2.99

Blood Stone, $3.99

These discounts are across the board–on all retailers, including me.

When I first put the boxed set up for pre-order, I couldn’t put it on Amazon, and was going to leave it that way, and give readers the price break.  However, as all the books in the set will soon be on Kindle Unlimited, that made it imperative the boxed set also be available on Amazon.  So now, the list of retailers includes Amazon.

Enjoy!

Cheers,

.

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