Dalya Moon & 3 Wacky Questions For Indie YA Authors With Ebooks Online

Dalya Moon

Check back every Friday for Indie YA Authors with Ebooks Online answering Wacky Questions and find your weekend read! 

Dalya Moon, Indie YA Author of  Charlie Woodchuck is a Minor Niner answers 3 WACKY QUESTIONS for Indie YA Authors with Ebooks Online:
(Find her books for sale on: Smashwords and Amazon)

1.  If you could trade places with any other person for a week, famous or not famous, living or dead, real or fictional with whom would it be?

DALYA MOON: I'd love to be Anna Scott, the character played by Julia Roberts in the movie Notting Hill, the week after the film's climactic scene, when she's reunited with the guy Hugh Grant plays.   I guess that's a bit specific, huh? I saw that movie after a breakup and it's cheesy to admit to loving romantic comedies, but it made me believe in love again.

2.  How are M&M's made?

DALYA MOON: I think I've actually seen them being made at their factory, in one of those "How Stuff Works" documentaries I'm a sucker for.  The shocking part is the sheer quantity!  I love M&Ms, especially at the movie theatre, but you must never smell the air that comes out of the bag when you first wrestle it open.  It smells like those bins they have at Starbucks now for recycling your paper cups.

3.  If you were a cat what would you want your name to be?

DALYA MOON: Not Poo-poo Kitty, which is what some friends of mine named their cat.  Poo-poo Kitty is now about a hundred years old and still angry about the name, or so it would seem.  If I were a cat, I wouldn't mind being called Boots, especially if I were orange with little white boots.

Hahaha - Thanks, Dalya! 

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ABOUT CHARLIE WOODCHUCK IS A MINOR NINER:

Charlie Woodchuck Is a Minor Niner

Charlie Woodchuck is a Minor Niner
FREE Ebooks Alert!!!!  (As of this post, so check: Smashwords and Amazon) 

SYNOPSIS: Charlie Woodchuck is the most minor of niners. She's the youngest girl at Snowy Cove High School, and so clueless, she wore leg warmers and acid-wash jeans on her first day. Big mistake! Almost as big a mistake as signing up for a boys-only shop class.

Just when she thinks the first week of high school can't get any more weird, Charlie discovers she may be adopted. According to the genetics section in her Science textbook, her eyes should be blue, not brown.

Before she graduates from the ninth grade, the girl with the boy's name and the wrong eye color will employ her detective skills to discover her true identity. She'll use power tools to build fantastical wood creations, and before the year ends, she'll face down the biggest bullies of all: the all-powerful members of Snowy Cove's School Board.

What inspired your novel or series? Discuss writing it.

DALYA MOON: I was inspired by my own lacklustre performance in a school play, and the regret I've always felt about not shining a little brighter.  I wondered what a character who felt she was in a similar shadow might do to step out on her own.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

DALYA MOON: I write Middle-Grade and Young Adult fiction. My first published novel, Charlie Woodchuck is a Minor Niner, was released in August 2011. A follow-up book is scheduled for late Fall 2011. While my books are fictional, some of the issues and incidents are based on things that have happened to me in real life, like, for example, getting run over by a toboggan. These days, I am very careful around the base of snowy hills.I currently live outside of the U.S., but my books are set in fictional Snowy Cove, Maine.

For more, visit Dalya Moon's website.

And... PAY IT FORWARD! Best Indie Author You've Read! 

DALYA MOON: I only just got an e-reader, so I'm only now getting into Indie Authors.  I admire Amanda Hocking for her honesty and transparency with her fans.  Currently on my Kobo reader is Piercing Through the Darkness, by Emerald Barnes.

Are you an Indie Author with ebooks online? Would you like to be interviewed? Check out the details for the 3 Wacky Questions Interviews for Indie YA Authors with Ebooks Online!

Christina Daley & 3 Wacky Questions For YA Indie Authors With Ebooks Online

Christina Daley - Seranfyll

Check back every Friday for Indie Authors with Ebooks Online answering Wacky Questions and find your weekend read.dd!

Christina Daley, Indie YA Author of Seranfyll answers 3 WACKY QUESTIONS for YA Indie Authors with Ebooks Online:
(Find her books for sale on: Smashwords and Amazon )

1.  What's the most important part of a sandwich?

CHRISTINA DALEY: The hygienic status of the person making it. I'm a bit of a germaphobe.

2. What mythical creature would you want to have as a pet?

CHRISTINA DALEY: A flying horse (I know; real original).
 

3. How do you weigh an elephant without using a scale or any sort of weigh machine?

CHRISTINA DALEY: In a pool of water, by water displacement.

Hahaha - Thanks, Christina!



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ABOUT SERANFYLL:   

Seranfyll

Seranfyll

Cheap Ebooks alert!!! Only $0.99 cents! At Smashwords and Amazon.

SYNOPSIS:  A thirteen-year-old slave girl lives in the country of Yoan, where slaves aren't allowed proper names, let alone anything else. After being sold by a gambler and bought by a thief, she's freed by an eccentric young noble, about whom many rumors abound. Some say his manor is haunted, his horse can fly, and that he's actually a devil. Now that she's free, Rain must decide what she will do with that new freedom. Her choices will lead her to new friends and many adventures, none of which she could have possibly expected.



What inspired your novel or series? Discuss writing it.

I don't really remember where I got the idea for Seranfyll. I just started with a slave girl who was bought and freed by a handsome nobleman...while he was really drunk. These two intrigued me, so I started writing about them in early 2009. After about 20 pages, I put it aside to work on another book. But I returned in 2010 and finished it off in about three months. After a lot of editing, I released the ebook in May of this year and the paperback in July.

I didn't actually plan on making a series. I've been writing for a while, and I was getting discouraged with the rejections on the traditional front. I figured I would just try putting one of my books out there to see how it would do, and if I got bad reviews straight off the top, I would know that I'm not a good writer and I need to learn how to be better or find something else to do. But I was surprised at how Seranfyll was well-received, and one book blogger said she's looking forward to the coming books in the series. I was like, "Really? You are? I guess I better work on them then." I mean, I had ideas for other books, I just didn't think I was going to write them. I guess I was wrong.

Find her ebooks online for sale at: Amazon and Smashwords.



ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Christina Daley made her first book with neighborhood friends when she was four years old. They "wrote" out some semblance of lettering with crayons, cut up a cardboard box for the cover, and bound it all together with clear adhesive tape. It was brilliant. Quite a few years later, Christina tried her hand at writing a "real" book. SERANFYLL is her first released fiction work. She lives in Dallas, Texas, with a pet plant named Herb. Visit Christina Daley's website/blog, follow her on Twitter, and fan her on Facebook. 

And... PAY IT FORWARD! Best Indie Author You've Read, Christina Daley!  
 
CHRISTINA DALEY: You! :) I picked up Adventures in Funeral Crashing during the Smashwords summer sale and liked it a lot. It was really fun to read. Another indie author whose work I like is Michelle Isenhoff. I don't make a habit of swapping reviews, but she and I sorta just did, and I liked her book The Candle Star. I thought it was something I would've enjoyed reading in school.

Are you an author? Would you like to be interviewed? Check out the details for the 3 Wacky Questions for Indie YA Author with Ebooks Online Interviews. 

Fan Made Book Trailers And The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

A FAN MADE Hunger Games Book Trailer (Book by Suzanne Collins) 

I am fascinated by book trailers, especially fan made ones. I suppose that's because I'm looking into making book trailers for my cheap ebooks (okay a plug for my ebooks, but really, they're only $0.99): Adventures in Funeral Crashing and The New Girl Who Found A Dead Body. Looking into shooting a real trailer, though, you realize that it's a lot of work and money to actually shoot a legitimate trailer that looks like a REAL movie trailer and I feel like fan made book trailers are a real inspiration. Anybody can do this! And, they're fun!

For example, here is The Hunger Games OFFICIAL MOVIE TRAILER (And, I really can't wait to see the movie!

Yeah. Pretty cool. I know it doesn't show a lot yet, but the next one will. Still, I know I can't afford, as an indie author (at least not yet!), to make something that looks that professional, although I do, working in Hollywood, actually know people with cameras and editing and musical talent and acting ability. But, I also work in film production and seriously, a professional AWESOME trailer...is a ton of work all by itself and right now, my focus is to write, write, write and get more novels out there for anyone who wants to read them! So, I'll probably have to go the fan/silly/fun route for now. Who knows - maybe it will be more clever and more cool than the professional trailer I'd love to have. I think some of these look pretty great and I know I enjoy people's fan made book trailers - they totally work and people are just splicing together movies or doing something creative! Well, we'll see what I come up with for my own ebooks, I hope, in the near future!

Still, in the meantime, I'm finding myself watching fan trailers on youtube and people are clever with mixing videos to fit the story. It's great! And of course, now I'm on a Hunger Games kick. So, if you're a fan (because you totally should be!) here are a few more fan made trailers. I can't wait until I have fans wanting to make book trailers for my books (hint, hint, hint).

Another FAN TRAILER for The Hunger Games:

Another one, although it's a little on the long side. I think about 1-2 minutes (max) is perfect without being too long:

Yes, this is the last one...but I just keep clicking next on the YouTube feed and finding more!

Book Trailers are pretty great - they get your imagination going. You start to "see" the book coming alive, even if it's not a movie yet. Now, I need to start looking for trailers for Catching Fire and Mokingjay!

Until then - May the odds ever be in your favor...

Dale Cusack & 3 Wacky Questions for Indie YA Authors with Ebooks Online

Dale Cusack - Grace Trilogy

Check back every Friday for Indie YA Authors with Ebooks Online answering Wacky Questions and find your weekend read!

Dale Cusack, Indie YA Author of The Grace Trilogy answers 3 WACKY QUESTIONS for Indie YA Authors with Ebooks Online:
(Find his books for sale on: Smashwords and Barnes And Noble)

1.  When Cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say?

DALE CUSACK: Give it back or I’ll call the police!

2. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? Why?  

DALE CUSACK: Running as fast as the flash or flying like superman are all cool and worthy choices. I used to think that having the ability to transmute metals into gold would be useful, until I read ‘The King with the Midas Touch’ and went off that power.  My favourite hero is Batman and he is exceptional in that he hasn’t got any superpowers, but if I had to have one…reanimation and healing would be awesome!   

3. If I put you in a sealed room with a phone that had no dial tone, how would you fix it?
  
DALE CUSACK: Damn I should have picked ‘One touch repair’ as my superpower, or ‘go back in time’ although you don’t say what needs fixing? the room or the dial tone? And fixing could mean fixing dry wall. But the room is sealed, so I’m running out of oxygen, headaches, blurry vision. Now I need ‘holding my breath forever’ superpowers…

Hahaha - Thanks, Dale! 

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ABOUT THE GRACE TRILOGY: 

Grace and the Drawl

Grace #1: Grace And The Drawl 
FREE Ebooks Alert!!!! At: Smashwords & Barnes And Noble.

SYNOPSIS:  Have you ever wondered what animals can see that we can't? Fourteen-year-old Grace knows. The Drawl, terrifying creatures from a higher dimension. Protecting us from these nightmarish creatures are our cats. Grace is drawn into their world and soon discovers there is more than meets the eye to her family cat. Will she find the courage to fight alongside her new friends or will she be lost forever?

What inspired your novel or series? Discuss writing it.

DALE CUSACK: The Grace books started as a premise. What is it that cats see that we can’t? I was watching my large black moggy one day. He was enraptured with something in front of him that I couldn’t for the life

Grace And The Revenge of the Drawl

of me see. From that idea I had a setting, then for characters I wanted a female lead that would start out weak and gullible and grow over the series into a strong and powerful woman.

Even though this is a trilogy I wanted each book to be a different reading experience. I like to write action and there is plenty of action in these books. Book two percolates on an upward climax to a massive confrontation at the end. On the way the characters change as their environments reshape them. There is a lot of tension between Boot, the masculine feline character and Grace, the feminine human character. Ancillary characters also go through dramatic changes as events unfold. It’s a different style to the first book which had more mystery and a great twist to it. Book three wraps all the threads together and reveals the mysteries uncovered in the first two 

Grace And The Drawl Invasion of Earth

books but in a more familiar ‘Die Hard’ style action story pace. I am fascinated by the concepts of sacrifice and destiny and wanted to entwine these themes throughout the story.  I think it all came together quite well.   

Find his books and ebooks online at : Smashwords and Barnes And Noble.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
 Dale Cusack was born in Australia in 1970 and moved to New Zealand before his first birthday. He has written many short stories and four novels for children. Dale mainly writes for the tween and teen readers although adults still enjoy his stories. He is fluent in Japanese and Mandarin and holds an Asian languages degree. Dale is married with one son and is currently living in Christchurch, New Zealand. He enjoys discussing his stories with his readers and invites their feedback at every opportunity.


Visit Dale Cusack's website, check out his blog Chilli Tween Reads, fan his books on Facebook, and follow him on Twitter at drcusack.


And... PAY IT FORWARD! Best Indie Author You've Read, Dale Cusack!  
DALE CUSACK: It’s a hard choice, over on my blog I have reviewed quite a few authors and I really admire their writing. Standouts for me include Leah by J. M. Reap for his fantastic characterisations and writing style.  “The Demon Queen and the Locksmith” by Spencer Baum for writing such interesting and compelling stories. “The Realm of the Red Rabbit” by Laura Eno is another outstanding piece of writing. I usually start a review reading by listing the errors a writer makes but she shattered my preconceptions with a stellar piece of writing. Nick Travers new story ‘Nina Swift’ is shaping up to be something awesome as well another story I wish I’d thought of first. But if I had to pick a personal favourite it might be Jamie Sedgewick and his book “The Darkling Wind” it had a real Stephen King or Dean Koontzstyle to it and an outstanding story.

Are you an Indie Author with ebooks online? Would you like to be interviewed? Check out the details for the 3 Wacky Questions Interviews for Indie YA Authors with Ebooks Online!

3 Day Novel 2011, Day 3, 9:27 pm

 3 Day Novel 2011 - I AM DONE!!!!!

That's right! I rocked it! I'm awesome! Wait...what? I have to work tomorrow? What happened to my three day Labor Day Weekend? :) What? I have to work a twelve hour day? Uh-oh. Oh, wait - I have a 23,000+ start on another book!!!! Or, I could just leave it a novella... COOLNESS!!!!!

Hahahaha - I'm a little loopy from the vats of coffee, the Monster, the soda, and some weird coffee concoction with guarana or something that I've been drinking today in an attempt to push on past the exhaustion I was feeling. It worked! 

It was a loooong day. Here's the rundown (I was afraid to post sooner because of how far behind I was in the word count this three day novel, but I kept notes!)

11:00 AM at 15,016 words

12:00 PM at 16,057 words

1:00 PM at 16,480 words

----at this point pages started to matter...I wanted to get close to the 100 page average---

3:00 PM at 18,046 words (72 pages)

4:00 PM at 18,612 words (74 pages)

5:30 PM at 19,503 words (78 pages)

6:00 PM at 20,094 words (80 pages)

7:00 PM at 21,298 words (86 pages)

8:00 PM at 22,535 words (93 pages)

9:30 PM at 23,658 words (95 pages)....DONE. 

I'm close enough to the 100 pages to be happy. Although, I would have preferred 30,000 words. NEXT YEAR. And, note to self...I need to go more wacky. That's one tip for anybody considering doing this. Don't do anything near realistic. My next novel is going to have aliens, time travel, multiple dimensions, and zombies. Seriously.

Yeah, it's the caffeine talking right now. Hahaha... I've just been told I'm a little loopy. Yup, that's true enough.

Wow, I'm really done. I can go relax and watch...television. Mad Men is cued up on Netflix. Oh wait...do I have a Breaking Bad to download on itunes?

I'm scatterbrained. It's been a long weekend. I'm done! That's the important thing! Hooray!!!!!!! And, that was despite....a little procrastination. 

Like, taking cute pics with my super cute dog, Licorice, and her new hair cut! Hey, she was super supportive this weekend! And, only tried to tempt me with playing...well, all weekend, but I know she loves me and is totally excited about my novel. :)

And, of course, I must thank Kermit...who provided some musical accompaniment in the form of The Green Album. I still have Manamana in my head. And, yes, that made it into the novel.

Until next year.....

3 Day Novel 2011, Day 3, 8:45 am

I'm a coffee head - 3 Day Novel Contest

Only 15 hours left in this year's 3 Day Novel! So behind! I need 15,000 words! And, weird things to do across the country from Roswell, NM to Texas to Minneapolis, MN to Chicago! And, well, I need to wrap this thing up and write - THE END!

word count - 13,828 (57 pages)

I must type on....

I'd try to think of an inspiring quote, but um, I'm too busy trying to think of weird things to do in Texas.

3 Day Novel 2011, Day 2, 11:45 pm

 

 This is my - Please let me finish the 3 Day Novel Photo

I have been working 10-14 hour days every day in the last week, so I decided to do the 3 Day Novel last minute this year. I was trying to gauge if I'd have enough energy to make it. The last time I had done it in 2009...it exhausted me. Completely. It was worth it, though. I got my first ebook out of it - Adventures in Funeral Crashing and it's a pretty awesome fun read, if I say so myself!  

Now, the 2nd day is almost done. I've been tweeting about it, but this is the first blog this year. It's been a rough one. I started out tired from a long work week... Not a good beginning...

DAY 1: I only made it to about 4000 words because I decided about a 1000 words in - bright and early - that I hated my whole novel. It was boring. It was stupid. Nothing interesting was hapenning. I practically gave up. Nothing could cheer me up. I took lots of naps. I started at the screen. The words dragged despite #2k1hr wordsprints with fellow 3 Day Novelists on Twitter (Follow me on Twitter!). About 10 pm I gave up and then spent the evening watching Mad Men. At least my life was way more optimistic than theirs...

DAY 2: I woke up refreshed! I was going to write 15,000 words today! I had an idea how to make my novel more interesting...add a Facebook fan page into it. After all I had just liked one about a cat who is lost in AA baggage claim at JFK - maybe that could make my novel more interesting - if the WORLD was watching my main character go on her journey! Twitter and my newfound friends doing the #2k1hr wordsprints definitely helped me throughout the day, despite my tendency toward procrastination - Starbucks, grocery shopping for Labor Day food because I was too busy to make a BBQ on Monday, playing with my dog, napping, blogging at 11:39 pm...

And, here's how the day broke out, word count-wise:

(started around 4,000 words - TERRIBLE - most people were over 10,000 at the start of the day...)

1:30 pm - 7024 words

5:00 pm - 8508 words

7:00 pm - 9315 words

8:00 pm - 10288 words

9:00 pm - 11257 words (I decided to clean at this point)

10:15 pm - 11771 words

11:00 pm - 12978 words (approx. 53 pages, 12 pt, double spaced)

It's now 11:45 pm and I am getting tired, despite the Rockstar I'm drinking. Still, I think I have at least another 1,000 words in me. That would put me shy of my 15,000 word goal and the 20,000 mark I was hoping for by the end of today, BUT I would have written a WHOPPING 10,000 words today. That's a lot of words, people.

And, besides, it gives me the lofty 15,000 word goal for tomorrow. I'd like to hit 30,000 words (a little over 100 pages) by the end...and, well, actually finish the novel (by getting to the end).

Wish me luck! Or, well, perseverence!

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For more about my 3 Day Novel experiences: 

Here's the start of the few blogs about my 2009 3 Day Novel experience (feel free to read them all by searching "3 Day Novel" on my blog). I went back and added about twenty thousand words to that one and you can now purchase it wherever ebooks are sold.

Check it out - Adventures in Funeral Crashing. I think it's a pretty fun read and so far even people I don't know seem to think so too! It's a YA murder mystery chick lit with the brief synopsis: Sixteen year old Kait Lenox has a reputation as the weird girl in her high school, mostly because of her ex-best friend turned mean popular girl, Ariel, but maybe it has a little to do with the fact that Kait has a hobby crashing funerals. At one of these, Kait is outted by the most popular guy in school, Ethan Ripley. Yet, instead of humiliating her for all the world to see, he asks for her help, and Kait finds herself entangled in a murder mystery. Not only is the thrill of the mystery exciting, but more importantly Ethan knows her name! A little sleuthing is well worth that!