*Gasp* AN UPDATE!

Yes, I know it's been a few weeks, but trust me, life has been crazy busy & I've been spending what free time I've got writing The Hunter. I assume you'd prefer that over a blog post every night, right? ;)

OK, so a few bits of news:

 1- You can now get War of the Seasons, book one: The Human on iBooks. YAY!
 2- The map on the Nook version of The Human has finally been fixed. If you archive the book & then re-download it, it should show up for you now.
 3- @Petullant on twitter has been live tweeting as she reads The Human. I've found it quite funny, but then perhaps I'm a bit biased... You can see an archive of her tweets on this (and other book reviews) here: http://www.bookshopgirl.net/ Example tweet: I'm not saying we need Team Elf! & Team Faerie Prince! tees but I'm decorating mine with glitter & a pic of a threatening dagger on the back and Most valuable thing I have that my dad gave to me is a kitchen aid mixer. Any quests of mine better be successful by the baking of brownies!
 4- Thanks for the shout out SirensCon!
 5- Speaking of cons, I was just added as a guest to GMX in Nashville, this October - hope to see you there!
 6- How about one link about self-publishing (or rather, Entrepreneurial Publishing)? This one's a short one, but I found it interesting...
 7- The Hunter, what I know you all really want to hear about, is coming along nicely. I'm about 25K words in ~ 1/4 of the way done with the first draft. I've got a progress bar on the right side of this website that I update almost nightly, so you can check and see how things are progressing. I also tweet random updates, so check me out there too. [...]

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Thank you. :)

I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who has read my book & taken the time to let me know what they think, whether it be through a comment here, on facebook, or via email. Your support and excitement over the War of the Seasons series is infectious & definitely keeps me writing! 

Just as a heads up, I wanted to let you know some tentative publishing dates for further installments of the War of the Seasons series. I've written a couple short stories that explore the back story of a few of the side characters - namely, Almera, Eánna, Milton, and Eilath. The first short story will come out in October 2011, and the second one in April 2012. These will be digital releases only, available for .99 cents. The Hunter, book two in the War of the Seasons series, should be ready for release, both digitally and physically in June of 2012.

One quick favor to ask of you all - if you liked The Human, please spread the word to your friends via email, twitter, text, facebook, or just old fashioned talking. ;) Also, please consider leaving a review for it on amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and/or goodreads.com. As this book is self-published, whether it "makes it" will be entirely due to you, and the awesome power of social media. For those of you already doing this, thank you so much! :)

That said, guess I'd better get back to writing The Hunter!

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Origins Game Fair 2011 wrap up

Fair warning, this is going to be a looooong picture filled post. To start out, I can't think of a better way to have spent my 32nd birthday than as a guest at Origins. If you were following my tweets/facebook updates at Origins, I think you pretty much have a fairly good idea what things were like for me & how much fun I had (plus how much I learned). But if not, here you go: I started out the convention on Thursday morning playing my very first RPG - no, not Rocket Propelled Grenade (which was my first thought) - but a Role Playing Game. I had no idea what to do - something I think the gamemaster quickly realized when she told me to get out my dice. "Why do I need dice?" So, there's something else I learned when playing an RPG - you need dice. The gamemaster kindly loaned me a set of her dice & between her & Mac they very patiently taught me how to play. Thankfully it was a Star Wars game, so I at least knew the "world" we were dealing with, and didn't have to be schooled in that - it was my saving grace/geek cred. ;) After the game (which turned out to be a lot of fun!), I had to head up to the author meet & greet, where, I've got to admit, it was VERY surreal to be "peers" with the likes of Aaron Allston, Michael A. Stackpole, & Timothy Zahn. I mean, I've been reading these gentlemen since I was 15, so yeah, this was surreal & awesome! I was also glad for the opportunity to get to meet the rest of the au [...]

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What's in a name?

First off, all pre-ordered signed books have been signed, packaged, and will be shipped tomorrow. Any books ordered after today will have a 3-5 business day turnaround (longer in the case of a convention weekend, like Origins this weekend). And now onto the point of this post - or rather, the purpose of my ramblings: As I was sitting here, munching on a brick of fudge (don't judge me), and revising the outline for The Hunter (then I went on to write the first 10 pages, wooo!), I received a text from a friend. "Spendlove??? Really??? How did you come up with THAT for your pen name?" "LOL, well, believe it or not, it's the name I signed for 21 years of my life." "Whaaaaaaaat?! Too funny!" So there you have it - my pen name is not a silly made up name (it's silly, but not made up), or just a fanciful name I came up with for the purposes of publishing. It is, in fact, my maiden name. It just so happens that I have a memorable, fun, whimsical maiden name - sometimes you just get lucky and life helps you out. :) Which brings up the question, what exactly is my current last name? Well, does it matter? Not really, no. I mean, it's not a big secret or anything, but part of the reason I decided to publish under a pen name is that I wanted to keep my two professional lives (writer me & U.S. Marine me) separate - well, as separate as possible in this day and age, because let's face it, THE INTERNET KNOWS EVERYTHING! Again, it's no secret that I'm in the Marine Corps, or what my legal last name is - and at conventions, and meeting people, I'm more than happy to talk about these things, but for my author "identity" (especially online) I wanted to create a specific image, because let's face it, that's a lot of what a pen name is for (much like a stage name for a musician): A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen [...]

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It's everywhere!

OK, well maybe not everywhere, but darn near! You can now get War of the Seasons, Book One, The Human for your Kindle and your Nook for only $4.99! The iBook version (also for only $4.99) should be due out any day now. That said, I need to bring up a problem the Nook version has been having. For some reason the map of Ailionora is not showing up. The weird part is if you open it up on your Nook app on your iPhone/iPad or computer it works just fine. It's only on the actual Nook that it won't show up. It's baffling the B&N Nook techs, that's for sure. Hopefully they'll have it solved and push an update to your Nooks soon. Until then, here is a clickable thumbnail to the map so you can know where in the world you are... Not into reading digital books? You can purchase a signed copy of my book in my shop. Not into collecting signed books, but still want a physical copy? You can get it on createspace or Amazon. Want to test drive before you buy? You can now read Sample Chapters here. And if you do happen to read my entire book, and feel so inclined, I'd love a review at any of those places - Amazon, B&N, Goodreads, your own blog... Let me know what you [...]

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War of the Seasons: The Human, Pre-Sale

My book went to the printers yesterday, and it's almost here! And now, you can pre-order your very own signed and personalized copy from my shop! I'm so very excited! Can you tell? Don't worry, very soon you'll be able to order it for your Kindles, Nooks, iPads, and more. One again, the link to my shop: http://www.ailionora.com/shop/ Hope you enjoy it. :)

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Proof & a Song

Not gonna lie, things have been very stressful (I'm sure my editor would agree), but in a good way, because LOOK: I'm VERY excited about my book! I'm less excited about my new haircut. Bleh. At anyrate, hopefully War of the Seasons, Book One: The Human will be available for purchase in a week or so. *fingers crossed* It's be available for purchase on Nook, Kindle, iBook... you name it! And of course, you can still go the old school ACTUAL PHYSICAL BOOK route. :) Keep an eye out - a free preview download of the first two chapters should be available in the next couple days... Now, onto other news, I HAVE A SONG! I've noticed (and had pointed out to me by several friends) that the growing trend is to have a promo vid for your book. So my ever talented webmaster, Rich, is creating one for me. The thing is, you can't just go using people's music willie nillie for commercial purposes without licensing it, so I contacted one of my favorite bands, The Steelwells to work out me possibly licensing one of their songs for my promo vid. They were, thankfully, on board, and so now, I HAVE A SONG! They have many wonderful songs, but the one I felt fit best with the tone of my book was "Our Fabled Little Rabbits." So here you have their fun & quirky music vid - I'll obviously post my promo vid once it's complete.

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