Veterans Day promo for charity

I wanted to give everyone a heads-up that I will be donating all the royalties I earn through sales tomorrow (November 11th) for DARKNESS HAUNTS to the Wounded Warrior Project.  This is for both ebook and paperback with each of the retailers where it’s available (Amazon, B&N, iTunes, and Kobo).  After I’ve gotten the totals (which should be by late Wednesday) I will report the full amount earned and for every $100 raised I’ll kick in another $50.  I’ll also post a receipt for my donation.  Please help me out in making it as much as possible!

If you’re following my blog you’ve probably already purchased Darkness Haunts, but if you know friends or family who might enjoy the novel please let them know.  Any help spreading the word through social media would also be appreciated.  The hashtag for Twitter to use is #vetsgiveback if you choose to tweet about it.

This is in conjunction with other veteran authors who are also donating to their favorite veteran charities.  Even if you can’t purchase Darkness Haunts, you can help by purchasing any of the other books listed at this link, contributing to one of the charities yourself, or offering a contribution to whatever sales I get.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

We’ve got a live Google Hangout set up where I’ll be tomorrow afternoon (EST in America) where you can come chat with myself and other veteran authors.  This is your chance to ask questions about the Sensor Series if you’ve got any and get them answered right away.  You can also feel free to join in whichever other topics we may choose to discuss.  This is the link:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/cksct3gkph5a9ovoqa3t8hs71t8

And these are the full details about the charity event below:

 

Veteran’s Day 2014 Charity Challenge: Gone, but Not Forgotten!

On Veteran’s Day 2014, 50 veteran authors will pledge 100% of their print, ebook and audio book royalties to their favorite veteran’s charity. In most cases, these are organizations that assisted the authors personally and they are trying their best to give back.
 
Veterans from each service branch and every conflict period, from Vietnam to even one author deployed to Afghanistan at this moment, are pledging. This diverse collection of works includes New York Times and USA Today Bestsellers and covers most genres. From romance to action-adventure and everything in between, there’s something for every taste here!
 
The ultimate goal of this event is to raise at least $10,000 for the 15+ veterans charities they’re supporting. If you aren’t interested in any of the books available, they have a page set up ranking the money raised for each charity and spotlighting bonus donations. Whether you contribute to the best performing or the least performing, either way your donation will be put to good use!
 
The complete collection of participating books and charities can be found here:
 
Note: For the sake of transparency, each author will post their donation receipts within 90 days. If you are a veteran author, they are accepting submissions until noon (EST) on 11 November. Please visit the Writer’s Cafe at Kboards for submission details:
google hangout banner
 

Photo shoot for the Sensor Series with a trip to Boston

I apologize ahead of time that this is a long post, but I promise it’s worth reading and there are lots of pics!

This past month has been super busy.  As most of you know I negotiated a contract for my audio rights.  Right after that I had to begin furious planning for a book cover/promo photo shoot I’d scheduled months ago.  With the help of four wonderful fans who make up my design helper team (thanks Heather, Sarah, Rachel, and Kristy) we had to come up with concepts for the covers, choose wardrobes & props, decide on poses, hair styles & make-up, and the list goes on.  We also had to make sure everything was ordered and shipped before the photo shoot.  Because of pushing back the release on Darkness Clashes we had less than two weeks to pull all this off.  We’re also in three different countries/continents, which made correspondence times between us a bit wonky.

Let’s just say it was hectic and I’m so thankful to my team for pulling through to help me get things ready.

Despite our best efforts, though, not everything could go the way we hoped.  For instance Continue reading

Audio books for the Sensor Series

Some of you have asked about this in the past and now I can give you an answer!  Recently, Tantor Media approached me with an offer to buy the English language audio rights to the Sensor Series books (up to Darkness Clashes).  As much as I love handling ebooks and paperbacks myself, it was actually a relief to sell the rights for the audio and let professionals take care of it all.  I simply don’t have the time or the know-how to do it myself (though I respect the authors who do!).  This is a company who has handled many well-known authors so I trust them to do a great job.

The details of the deal included me getting final say on the narrator.  Last week they provided several wonderful choices.  One stood out in particular as being just the right voice for Melena.  I’m happy to say Cris Dukehart will be narrating all the Sensor Series books.  She has already started recording.

Update– There is now a sample of Cris reading the beginning of Darkness Haunts on the Tantor site here if you’d like to listen.

I’ve also got the release schedule for all the novels.  I’m including that below, along with links where they’re available for pre-order (CD versions only).  Once I have links to the digital download versions and any other retailers I’ll add those as well.

Darkness Haunts : 11/25/14  (Tantor/Amazon/B&N)
Darkness Taunts : 12/16/14  (Tantor/Amazon/B&N)
Chained by Darkness : 1/6/15  (Tantor/Amazon/B&N)
Darkness Divides : 1/27/15  (Tantor/Amazon/B&N)
Darkness Clashes : 2/17/15  (Tantor/Amazon/B&N)

For Playing with Darkness, it will be included at the end of Darkness Divides since its too short to stand on its own.  I’m glad Tantor recognized its significance to the series and offered to include it without me having to ask.  Plus it’s a bonus to readers so you won’t have to buy it separately.  They’ve also been great at working fast to get the books out and I hope those of you who enjoy the audio formats will be happy with the quality of their work!

Vlog for last week’s Q&A session

For those of you who are interested in watching the video with me answering fan questions about the Sensor Series (there are spoilers if you haven’t read Darkness Clashes yet), I’m posting the link below where you can watch it.  Tomorrow I’ll contact winners from among those who participated in the original Q&A post so I can work out getting their prizes to them.  If you enjoy the video style Q&A please let me know in the comments section and I’ll consider doing more of them in the future!

http://sheerak.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/susan-illene-video-blog-for-the-sensor-series/

Q&A session this week!

For those of you who’d like to ask questions about the Sensor Series, this is your chance.  I’m over at Ch’kara SilverWolf’s blog today where you can leave questions in the comments section that I will answer via video blog next Sunday.  You have until Thursday night to get them in before the post is closed.  I’ll put up another link here when we post the video.  Commenters will also be entered into a giveaway to win a free signed paperback for one of the Sensor Series books and a tote bag.  Be sure to stop by!

http://sheerak.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/sensor-series-by-susan-illene/