Weekend Writing Sat-Sun (June 15 - 16th) Tag #wwab to join in.

Current State: Zombie.

I want to thank everyone who helped me with promoting the free download of my book, Always Consequences yesterday. I really and truly appreciate it. I also want to thank my Street Team and those who downloaded it. You're all amazing and wonderful. So thank you.

The next date to download for free is at the bottom of this page. Which is July 18-19th. Those are the final days to download for free before Always Consequences will be released from the KDP Select program on August 1st.

This weekend, the only two books I even have to work on. Normally I would do the furthest behind, but I am doing Hope of the Future today and then Dragon's Dawn 2 tomorrow.

If you would like to join in, and have others check you out, tag your posts #wwab and include link in area below. As long as you tag your post and share with #wwab, I don't care if it has to do with book writing, or just blogs.

Saturday Updates: 

HOPE OF THE FUTURE

• Starting the book at: 82,759
• 391
• 1,761 words
• 3068, doing pretty good for massive headache that doesn't want to go away, and severe exhaustion. 
• 4245 words. Time to make pizza dough for tonight's homemade pizza.
• 5008 and ending the night there. Book total: 87,754 words.

Sunday Updates:

• Taking the day off. 

And don't forget Always Consequences is officially in Kindle's KDP Select awesome program for 90 days (until Aug 1st). If you're interested in keeping up with the free download days, you can click the link above in the navigation bar, or:  http://www.ahbrowne.com/2013/03/always-consequences-official-page.html

The next free download is July 18-19th.

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♥

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A.H. Browne Interviews, Media, and more Goodies!

Author Interviews:

Victoria Ley, author of Darkseed Awakening interviewed me here:
http://victorialey.com/?p=232

Ariele Sieling interviewed me here: http://www.inlovewiththeuniverse.com/2013/05/the-art-of-telling-stories-ah-browne_9.html

Where books of mine have been featured:

The lovely Crystal Martin, wrote a great post about Always Consequences: http://randommusesomy.blogspot.com/2013/06/so-many-new-books-baseball-all-timeand.html

♥

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Weekend Writing Sat-Sun (June 8th - 9th) Tag #wwab to join in.

Time to get started! If you missed the cover reveal for the new Dragon's Dawn cover, I'll post it below. This weekend I will be trying to start Dragon's Dawn 2, but for now, I will work today on Hope of the Future. Left it last week at 80,235 words. 

If you would like to join in, and have others check you out, tag your posts #wwab and include link in area below. As long as you tag your post and share with #wwab, I don't care if it has to do with book writing, or just blogs.

Saturday Updates: 

HOPE OF THE FUTURE

• Starting the book at: 80,235 words.
• Just not getting time to write today. May be quitting soon and only gotten around 2,551 words now. Aggravating, but we have a few dogs who don't want to be nice cooperative people today. Up and down, up and down. Oy. 
• 82,759 and I'm going to end tonight with this. I can't concentrate with everything going on. It's making me an angry person trying to. Off to research for Dragon's Dawn 2. I was hoping to do it all week last week, but I couldn't get around to it. I do have the beginning scene in my head though. :) I have all your wonderful thoughts on where you'd like to see the next one head, but if you have more, feel free to comment below!

Sunday Updates:

DRAGON'S DAWN 2

• Check that out. We are officially starting. Getting my footer all ready to go! Dragon's Dawn 2 beginning.
• 208 words into the whole book. Partay!
• 2361 so far. I pretty much have no plan for this Dragon's Dawn 2. lol We shall see how that goes. I have about 8 lines I wrote down for ideas from you guys and a couple of those are mine from my research. Other than that? Winging it. This will be interesting. I usually don't work that way. But so far, quite the word count so that's a good thing!
• 3,068 words.
• 4,368 words. Doing fairly well.
• 5,240 and I think I'll stop the night at that. Also since it's 7:30 and I don't work too late or I can't sleep. I get physical issues with lack of sleep so I won't work late unless it's necessary. Gotta take care of health first. :) Book total is the same 5,240 words. Yay! 

See you next weekend!

And don't forget Always Consequences is officially in Kindle's KDP Select awesome program for 90 days (until Aug 1st). If you're interested in keeping up with the free download days, you can click the link above in the navigation bar, or:  http://www.ahbrowne.com/2013/03/always-consequences-official-page.html

The next free download is June 14th. Next Friday!

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Cover Reveal Dragon's Dawn's new cover

Here is your new cover for Dragon's Dawn! And this cover I can freely distribute and print. :D

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Formatting your book for CreateSpace or other Print-On-Demand

Since I'm going to have to screenshot this (easier than typing it out) for a friend who's asked about this, I'm going to make a post. I am asked this question a lot by friends who are building their book for print, so I may as well help everyone. Otherwise I'll have to retype this a thousand times more.

This is for the margins. I use the 5x8 template in CreateSpace (preformatted) to do my paperbacks. So below is what I use in those templates for my margins.

I've made a tutorial for the CS template to add more chapters into the preformatted template here: http://www.ahbrowne.com/2012/02/how-do-i-add-more-chapters-in.html

Feel free to enlarge the photo by clicking on it, if you can't see it properly. I can't remember if I altered this in any way, or not. I may have because I spent time comparing and measuring all my paperbacks from people like Dean Koontz, and Stephen King, Keri Arthur, and all the others I have, so I'm pretty sure I may have altered the top and outside, then just set the others to match. So if you download the preformatted template from CS, you can double-check that.

This is the spacing that I have for my 5 x 8 size. If you're wondering why I chose that one, it's because it is the closest to trade paperback that I have found for CS. When I do my dust jacket hard covers through LuLu, I will be going with 6 x 9 because again, it's the closest to trade hard cover.

And then below I will place the 6 x 9 template (downloaded it from CS so that I could be sure. This isn't the template I will use for LuLu hard cover, but it's the CreateSpace for paperback 6 x 9 preformatted template).

Margins: 

And the 6 x 9 line spacing. Same as the above, as you can see. 

Now, indentation and more. Always the text in a paperback is Justified as it shows up better. This is personal preference, but I have found size 11 font is best for the particular one I use. The most used for paperbacks are: Georgia, Times New Roman, Garamond, and Baskerville Old Face. Or similar. People believe Times is boring since it's overused, but the eye is used to it, so don't worry over that too much. Been there, done that and I researched so much I got nauseous. I couldn't even stand looking at any font for a few days. 

Indentation should be .2" to .5", but no more (unless you want to be really special) and the first paragraph in trade paperbacks is never indented. Not sure why that is, but if you want to look like a professional, I say follow what they do so I do that. That first line you can fancy up to your pleasure.

Few examples: 

THIS IS THE first paragraph of your novel and you can capitalize a certain amount of words to distinguish it from the rest of the paragraphs, or the entire first sentence. 

This is the first paragraph of your novel and you can bold the first letter of the first sentence to distinguish it from the rest of the paragraphs. 

 This is the first paragraph of your novel and you can bold and enlarge the first letter of the first sentence to distinguish it from the rest of the paragraphs. 

 This is the first paragraph of your novel and you can bold (or not) and enlarge the first letter of the first sentence to distinguish it from the rest of the paragraphs as well as changing the font. 

Just an example to show you the differences. From all the research I've done. 

• Always first page on the right and the odd page numbers too.
• No page numbers on Title Page, Contents, or anything but the first readable page. As in, page 1 is page 1, nothing else.
• Don't use more than 3 different fonts in the book or subconsciously it will annoy the reader. Even better is sticking with 2. One for headings of titles, chapters, etc., the other for the main font. 

Anything I've left out, just ask. 

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Weekend Writing Sat-Sun (June 1st - 2nd) Tag #wwab to join in.

Well, since finishing the Dark Illusions series, I don't have a choice, but to work on the other two. I was going to start Dragon's Dawn 2 this weekend, but after I scheduled my newsletter, I forgot that I have to research the book and see what all I want to do with it. I've got all your feedback in my messages still and then I have a scene where Kora is telling Bradon off in my head. Apparently she is through with his shit, despite him thinking he's the one on top. Oh no, no, no, she says. Not anymore. Not when she has the boy to take care of. Since I've had no time this week, I will try to research next week and then start next weekend. Crossing fingers.

I've been working on the updated Dragon's Dawn cover and the Dark Illusions: The Next Chapter cover too. The DD cover has to be updated because I used licensed pictures and will have to re-license this year, but I am still limited as to what I can use the cover for and I don't like that, so I'm making my own with free images, and adding my own personal touches.

So this weekend we will be working on Sorceress Book Five (71,333 words) and Hope of the Future (79,079 words).

If you would like to join in, and have others check you out, tag your posts #wwab and include link in area below. As long as you tag your post and share with #wwab, I don't care if it has to do with book writing, or just blogs.

Saturday Updates: 

SORCERESS BOOK FIVE

• Starting the book at: 71,333 words.
• 1,311 words so far.
• 2,737 words so far.
• 4,039 words so far.

Teaser: 

The clear threat pissed me off. I was remaining calm for Blaise’s sake, but that was too far. The shop began to shake so fiercely that the windows rattled and some of the spices and jars slammed to the ground. Glass broke through the main room while I stared Riagan down.  The floor began to shake so hard it made Blaise stumble behind me and mutter, ‘woah.’ 

Beneath the roar of the shaking, I spoke clearly for him to hear me. “Do not threaten me, Riagan. That bit about the friendship works both ways. Blaise is like a father to me. You will not touch him. You want to fight someone? [... teaser removed ...]” I ground out the threat, “That has nothing to do with Blaise.”

“So be it. Knock it off, Maeve. Now.”

I shrugged and the rumbling ceased as fast as it came on. Blaise said a soft ‘wow’ behind me.

Riagan stepped away and I did too. I looked at Blaise. “You were saying?”

•  7430 Words and ending the book at 78,116 words. End of Series too! Another mourning session is in order. Every time I end a series I sort of feel all mourny for a wee bit, haha. It's different than a book, I think, because a series, I've worked on for years and years. This one I started 2009, so it's been a few years. 

Sunday Updates:

HOPE OF THE FUTURE

• Total to start: 79,079 words
• 649 words.
• 1025 words
• Had to quit yesterday and go lay down. Have a swollen lymph node in my throat and it was bothering me. Little things like that happen when I push too hard and need to take a break. My body's way of saying, hey dork (it's mean like that to me) you need to relax or I'll make it worse. Luckily brother bought pizza so I didn't have to cook either. So I took a half day off. Back to the grind today.
• Left the book at 80, 235 and far from done. Curious if I'm going to break this into more than one. Not quite sure. I may cut a lot earlier in the book if this one goes too long so that I can just keep it under 120K, otherwise, I'll leave it as is if word count remains under that. 

See you next weekend, and don't forget the below. Tomorrow! Free download day.

And don't forget Always Consequences is officially in Kindle's KDP Select awesome program for 90 days (until Aug 1st). If you're interested in keeping up with the free download days, you can click the link above in the navigation bar, or:  http://www.ahbrowne.com/2013/03/always-consequences-official-page.html

The next free download is June 4th. This Tuesday!

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♥

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Always Consequences Sample Chapter 5

5

“So you think the woman could prove to be a problem?” Umar inquired.

Coetzee’s face remained cold. “I do.”

Umar smiled. “More than she’s worth?”

“Yes.”

 “Smile my friend! She’s a prisoner like the rest. Nothing more, nothing less. Just a young woman.”

Vincent shifted his stance, a slight indication of his disagreement, keeping his thoughts on the matter to himself. “Are we done?”

Umar’s amusement faded. Seriousness set in once more. “How long until the building is complete?”

“Not long. I can persuade the men to work quicker. It would be sooner, than later.”

Umar nodded, “Good. Do it. We shall move them to the warehouse under the cover of night when it’s done. Leave the trailers there. The idiots will assume they are still inside.”

Vincent nodded and stood at attention, remaining as still as he always did. Umar grinned. The man he faced was a formidable opponent, a solid wall who made people think twice about crossing him. His hard exterior couldn’t be broken through, no matter how hard someone tried. Should they consider him the weaker opponent and attempt to take him on? They would learn how he’d achieved his position as general. The man could take down someone twice his size, and in less time than men half his age.

Umar narrowed his eyes. Vincent held his gaze. “There is more. Tell me what you think about that woman.”

For a brief moment, Vincent seemed to visibly relax. Before his partner could remark, he took his position once more and closed up. “It is of no concern to me, Umar. You are the one who wishes this, not me. I stand behind the decision you make.”

Umar shook his head, “Will not do. You are my friend and closest confidant. I take in everything you say and consider it. You know this. Tell me.”

Vincent watched Umar, considering his words before speaking. “If she gave my men the slip when we first picked up the group, that in itself is an accomplishment.” Umar nodded in agreement, motioning for Vincent to continue. “There is something about her I think needs addressing. She poses the potential to be a severe distraction to you during this entire process.”

“You believe so? How?” Umar asked, getting up from his desk. He moved around to the front. Perching against the edge, he leaned back and crossed his arms, preparing to listen.

“I’ve seen her.”

“This is it? You think me so easily distracted?” Umar raised an eyebrow. His jaw clenched.

Vincent shook his head. “No. More that I believe her to be more trouble than you need. That will prove distracting.”

“Ah. Is she ugly then?” he asked, grinning. He knew his friend never bothered with such trivial things. Vincent found women worth nothing more than a quick lay when he needed it. Umar couldn’t resist asking. The words sunk in and though it was barely noticeable, Vincent stiffened further. Entertaining.

“Not entirely.”

Umar gave him a curt nod. “Good. Perhaps her trouble can be tamed. I can work her into being more compliant.”

“If we’re done, I have things to get to.” Vincent knew better than to bother arguing. If Umar wanted to waste his time on a plaything, he’d do it. There was no stopping him. It wasn’t Vincent’s job to babysit. Nor was it of any interest to him what Umar did to any woman, as long as he focused on work at hand.

“Yes, yes. We are done here. Keep an eye on her. I will speak with her soon.”

Vincent nodded and left without another word. Umar watched him exit, already thinking about the girl. Indeed, he would have to see her … and soon. Far too much testosterone here, it wouldn’t be such a terrible idea to incorporate pleasure in as well.

(next free download day on June 4th, just click the cover below to be taken to Amazon)

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