I’m getting a lot of requests for a third The Legacy of MacLeod book which I’d love to provide, but since I never planned for this to be a series I didn’t set the stories up with an obvious third character to give a happily ever after to. If you’ve read either Charming the Shrew or Daring the Highlander (or both!) who would you like to see as the hero or heroine of a third MacLeod book?
Leave a suggestion in the comments. More than one answer is fine!
No spoilers, please!
Laurin
To read an excerpt or buy the book please click on the cover.
The free promo for The Devil of Kilmartin is over, but it’s still bargain priced at only $2.99. It’s also still part of the Amazon Prime lending library, so read on!
Happy New Year!
Laurin
The Devil of Kilmartin is on sale for $0.00 for two days only at Amazon.
On Monday 12/26/11 & Tuesday 12/27/11 you can “buy” this ebook for nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada. Rien. Nuttin.
How?
Amazon US: Click here
Amazon UK: Click here
Amazon Germany: Click here
Amazon France: Click here
Amazon Italy: Click here
Amazon Spain: Click here
Get yourself a little after Christmas present for FREE!
Whee!
Laurin
I’m happy to report that The Devil of Kilmartin is now part of Amazon’s Kindle Lending Library. What does that mean? It means if you are an Amazon Prime member AND you own a Kindle, you can borrow one participating book per month for free. (Note: Prime is $79/year, but they have a free trial month offer right now. You also get free shipping and streaming video so it’s not just 12 free books.)
There’s a lot of discussion going on among authors about the pros and cons of opting into this program because, among other things, it requires that we only offer the library book(s) for sale at Amazon while it is in the program. Authors do get paid for each “borrow” of our books and our books are still for sale as usual at Amazon sites in the US and Europe.
I’ve grappled with the exclusivity issue before and keep coming back to the way Amazon keeps creating new ways to help readers find my books — what book industry people are calling “discoverability”. This is another one of those routes to discoverability, so I’m experimenting with one book.
For at least 90 days (starting about 10 days ago) The Devil of Kilmartin will only be available for purchase at Amazon, however, that doesn’t mean you can’t read it on your Nook, Sony, Kobo, etc. reading devices but you will have to convert it to the format your device prefers. I’m told by reliable sources that Calibre is a good program for doing that, and it’s free.
I know this is an extra step in getting to the reading experience, and I hope that those of you with non-Kindle devices will give it a try. I’d love to know how it works for you, or if this extra step is just too much hassle. Your feedback will help me determine if I want to continue in this program after the initial 90 days.
My other two books remain on sale through January at most book retail sites. Come February, they are being re-released in a new edition. I haven’t seen new covers yet, but I know they are in the works.
It’s both an exciting time and a confusing time to be an author with so many things changing over the last few years. I truly appreciate each and every reader who gives my books a try.
I hope you all have a peaceful and joyous holiday and a very happy New Year!
Laurin
Thanksgiving is done and Christmas is upon us (I know not everyone celebrates Christmas but it’s looming large in my household!) and already I’m looking ahead to February.
Now normally February isn’t my favorite month. It’s generally damp and cold and bleak. We don’t even get much snow here in southern Virginia. Snow would make it so much better! At least it’s a short month.
But this year I’m excited about February. Really. I’ve been told my books Charming the Shrew and Daring the Highlander will be released from Montlake Romance in their all their new e-edition glory in February! I don’t have exact release dates yet, but hey, there aren’t that many days to choose from in the shortest month of the year.
FYI – These two books are available now in my self-pubbed e-edition (or in the original paperback version from used book sellers at Amazon) so you don’t have to wait until February unless you just want the new cover and probably some spiffier page design than I was able to accomplish on my own. The big change coming from the Montlake release is the marketing muscle they will put to work for me and my books making them easier for new readers to find.
In addition to that wonderful news, I’ll be teaching my Scene CPR online writing workshop for four weeks starting Feb. 4th. You can get info here: Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal Chapter of RWA.
NOTE: FF&P is moving from their old web site to their new one and the workshop info hasn’t been ported over as of 12/3/11 so check back with that link soon.
If you look to the right, just under my smiling face, you’ll see a place to sign up for my new mailing list/newsletter. Please go do that now! I’ll wait right here… go ahead, it’ll just take a sec. Really. Go.
‘Kay? Good. Thank you!
I’ll be sending out a newsletter when there is news to share - roughly quarterly, but definitely no more often than monthly (and since I really don’t write books that fast I’m not likely to have news all that often) so I promise not to clutter up your probably already overstuffed in-box. And if I do get annoying (no, not possible, right?) you can unsubscribe at anytime.
I’ve also added an Events & Workshops tab on the menu up above. I’ll be listing guest blogging, book releases, workshops, conferences, etc. on that page so if you aren’t getting my newsletter often enough to suit you (it could happen!) then you’ll always be able to find out what I’m up to on that page at the web site.
All right. I’ll let you return to your shopping and wrapping and decorating now. Just don’t forget to set a little time aside over the holidays to take a little “me time” and curl up with a good book. I recommend a nice fire to sit next to and a hot cup of your favorite beverage to go along with the book. Okay, a little taste of chocolate would make a good addition to your “me time” escape, too!
Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays!
Laurin
So much has been happening lately that I can barely keep up with it!
First, if you look to the right, you’ll see my beautiful new cover for The Devil of Kilmartin, designed by the talented Kim Killion at Hot Damn Designs. One of the real pleasures of independently publishing is that I get to experiment with all sorts of things, including covers, so after a year of wonderful sales with my lovely green Celtic knot cover, designed by Kristin Lawrence, I thought I’d see how my book fared with a more traditional romance cover.
What do you think? Will it attract different readers than the green knot one?
Now, on to even bigger book news: I have signed a contract with Amazon’s new romance line, Montlake, to bring out Charming the Shrew and Daring the Highlander in new editions. That means new covers, new descriptions, new marketing that will go way beyond anything I can do on my own to get my book discovered by new readers. It also looks like these books will once more be available in print while also remaining available for the Kindle. If you don’t have a Kindle, never fear, there are free Kindle apps for most any device you can think of.
I’m looking forward to embarking on yet another new adventure in today’s publishing world and can’t wait to see what the new editions of these books will look like. Publication dates are yet to be set, but I was told they will be out in early 2012. How wonderful to sign a publishing contract and not have to wait a year or more to see the results!
Stay tuned for more information as soon as I have it.
Oh, and never fear, I’m hard at work on a new Scottish historical romance – the first of a trilogy. I don’t have a title for the book yet, but the working title for the trilogy is The Highland Targe.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and here’s hoping everyone gets lots of good books (and maybe an eReader!) for Christmas!
Laurin
It’s not often I get to sit overlooking the Gulf of Mexico and write but this morning that’s just what I’m doing. I’m at the Novelist Inc. conference in St. Pete soaking up the wisdom and experience of publishing industry insiders, media folks, and bunches of wonderful fellow writers. It’s a really exciting (and sometimes scary) time in the book industry as everything is changing, to quote my own mother’s book, “at the speed of imagination.”
It really does seem that if you can imagine it, you can write it/publish it/market it now. It hasn’t always been that way. Once, agents, editors and the publishers’ marketing departments were the only folks who got to decide what ended up in bookstores and even, to some degree, what became best sellers. Today those industry people still have some say in how books get into physical bookstores but, with the exploding world of ebooks, writers can publish what we want (and yes sometimes it’s sublime and sometimes it’s dreck, but really, that was true in the past, too!) and you, the readers, get to decide what is worth recommending and what isn’t. It’s a new way of “gatekeeping” as the lingo goes.
You, the reader, have become the person who says what’s worth reading and what’s not.
Have you ever posted a review at Amazon or Barnes and Noble? Have you ever “liked” a book at either place (or the book retailer of your choice)? Do you tell your friends about the great book you’re reading or the wonderful new author you found? Have you ever visited a review site or a blog and commented on a book you love? If you have, you have established yourself as one of the legion of gatekeepers in this new era of publishing.
So I’m off to another session at the conference, in spite of the beautiful beach beckoning me to come play, but I’m all fired up to learn some new stuff about this crazy world of books so I’m going to the session. I will play on the beach before I leave, just not today. I hope that what I’m learning here will help me bring new stories to my readers faster and more often and that I’ll learn how to help new readers find my stories.
So while it’s a confusing, sometimes scary, often exhilarating time to be a writer, it’s an awesome time to be a reader. All the increased opportunities for writers means increased story diversity, in both format and type, for readers. And you get to decide what’s worth recommending!
If you haven’t “Liked” my books, please drop by my Barnes & Noble or Amazon book pages (links to each in the right column under the book covers!) and take a moment to click the Like buttons. If you have other favorite authors or books, do the same for them. If you’ve never left a review, don’t be intimidated. A simple star rating and a couple of words is really all it takes.
So help other readers find your favorite books and authors. Go forth and be a gatekeeper!
Psst… check back in a couple of days for some book news!
Laurin
There’s nothing like the first really hot days of summer to make me want to curl up somewhere cool and escape into a book. Last week, here in Virginia, we hit 99 and the heat index was over 100 so I thought it was high time to make The Devil of Kilmartin such a deal that you couldn’t possibly pass up the opportunity to escape the heat and journey into the Scottish Highlands where the men are braw and the women like them that way.
To whet your appetite here’s a couple of pictures I took on my research trip for this book.
This is the spot where the hero and heroine meet:
And here is the castle that inspired my Kilmartin Castle:
In true writer’s style, I lifted this castle, moved it west to Argyll,
and plopped it down where a medieval structure once stood.
I fell in love with this castle and my characters really came alive for me within its walls.
Once you’ve got your copy, pull up a piece of shade, or a comfy chair next to an air conditioning vent. Get yourself a cool drink and enjoy one of the pleasures of summer – reading!
It’s been a crazy busy spring so far which explains the dead silence here, but I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to share this HUGE sale going on for one week only (May 16 – May 23) via Backlist eBooks at Smashwords.com.
Backlist eBooks is a group of traditionally published authors in many genres who are now bringing their backlist (previously published books now out of print) back as bargain priced ebooks available in just about any electronic format you need or want.
Smashwords.com allows us to offer sale coupons, and Backlist eBooks has made a list of all the Merry May Sale books with coupon codes and direct links to the book’s Smashwords page.
To see the entire HUGE list of books for sale go to the Backlist eBook Sale Page. You’ll have to scroll down to Historical Romances and then to Laurin Wittig for my listings but it’s totally worth it.
Now that’ll make for a Merry May!
So, whether you enjoy romances, mysteries, suspense, scifi, fantasy, mainstream, young adult, womens’ fiction, or non-fiction, have a little book buying extravaganza at can’t beat prices from established authors to get you started on your summer reading!
Backlist eBooks Merry May Sale: May 16 – May 23
Please share and/or like this post so all your friends can get in on these ebook deals, too!
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