Tag Archives: ipublish

New for Kindle! MEGAN, a real-world fantasy adventure with a big imagination!

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MeganI’m proud to announce that my novel MEGAN was just released for the Kindle! It can be found on amazon via this link (http://amzn.com/B00MUEAW48).

I love the format of this book.  I’m sure most of us—as children or even now as adults—have made up worlds within our imaginations and spent hours daydreaming or play acting what occurs in our imaginary worlds.  Our protagonist, Megan, is stuck in a boring job, with coworkers she barely coexists with, with a boss she hates, and nothing interesting or exciting happening in her life.  She escapes this monotony and the dreary reality of her life by imagining the world of Prosperity. -Definitely Not For the Birds

Published by iPublish Press, MEGAN is the story of Megan Wane. To me and you, she is just a normal worker in a drab office, but in her imagination there exists an entire world, one she has escaped into ever since she was a child. It is the land of Prosperity and it is filled with dragons, castles, trolls, moon people, and wizards, And in Prosperity, Megan is a princess and a super hero. MEGAN is the story of her worst day and how Prosperity saved the real her.

If you will like to learn more about this novel you can do so on this site. There is an excerpt as well as a post about the writing of it (here). And, as AN EXCLUSIVE for the Kindle version, it contains a brand-new preface to the book written by… well… me.

I am very impressed with how Mr. Southard has interwoven the two world’s of Megan. It is very artfully crafted with vivid descriptions. I enjoyed it! -S. M. Nystoriak, Writer’s Block

Grab a copy today, tell a friend, tell a dozen! You can get your copy on amazon here. I hope you like the book!

“Gladiators and Lions!” Discover MY PROBLEM WITH DOORS

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My Problem With Doors“This is a most compelling book. It pulls you in to a fascinating concept from the beginning…. I give this book 5 stars.” -The Voracious Reader

Just finished A Jane Austen Daydream? Do you enjoy my blog? Curious to learn what else I have written?

Time travel! Thrills! Adventure! Romance!

After winning a writing competition, My Problem With Doors was  published by the new press IPublish. It is the story of Jacob who is lost in time. When he steps through a door he has no idea where he will turn up. It is an unpredictable book filled with twists and turns and excitement, and the occasional surprise cameo like Jack the Ripper. Below is one of my favorite moments in the novel. I hope you will check it out.

My Problem With Doors is available in print from Amazon via this link. The eBook is exclusively available via Google Play but it can work on any eBook reader, you can find it here (you can also read a sample). It is even available as an audiobook via the publisher’s website.

In this exclusive excerpt below, Jacob finds himself… well… in a very, very, very bad situation with swords and sharp lion claws. (Did I mention this chapter is all in second person?) Enjoy! Continue reading →

This Writer’s New Year Resolutions

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1. To be more up-front about my writing and experiences in my blog, but not to come off as whiney or as if I deserve anything from anyone.  The market is far too-congested with writers and luck and “who you know” plays a greater role than anything else on finding success as a writer.

2. To accept being a number three and hope someday to be a number 2… OK, I need to explain this one.

-BREAK FOR EXPLANATION-

In my opinion there are four levels of being a writer in today’s world:

  • Number 1 are those that have a relationship with a big publisher and can actually survive as a writer without needing an additional job.
  • Number 2 are those that have been published once or twice by a big house, but still need to have a day job
  • Number 3 are the small, artistic, indie writers who get published by small, artistic, indie presses, find some small critical success but don’t make much money (if any).
  • Number 4 are the clique of the self-published writers’ world. And yes, it is a clique. Some find success, most don’t… a large majority don’t.

3. Not to look down on the world of the Number 4 anymore. I do it, and even though my first book is out there via iuniverse, I still scorn the idea of being self-published. Sometimes all a writer wants is for their book to be published and at least this is an avenue for that. I need to be more understanding of that, but it can be hard for me to take a work like that as seriously as something from Putnam, for example. I know a lot of educated writers have the same mountain as me to climb about this; so this is me acknowledging the mountain. “Yes, I see the mountain, damn it!”

4. Find some inspiration this year, but not enough to take me away from being a good parent (I have two little ones and I don’t want them to come in second behind a project). I wrote an editorial on Green Spot Blue about this a while ago called “Mush.” Here is the link- http://www.greenspotblue.com/lifenestbabytoy/2010/12/21/mush.html

Hmmm…. It seems a lot of these deal with just be accepting of who I am and not getting down on myself about things.

So what are my hopes for the new year?

Well, I hope to find a publisher for A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM. The reaction for it appearing online was very good, and some publishers were initially interested, but everything has been silent since then. I did have one publisher replied and said that it needed to sound more “contemporary” if you can believe it. So a book that was mirroring Jane’s voice sounded too much like Jane, I’m not sure whether to be insulted or happy by that. While I would love a big house, I would be happy with a small press and the capability of it be in ebook format.

Ipublish Press which published MY PROBLEM WITH DOORS and MEGAN said they are trying to get the ebooks out on Google Ebooks this year. I really want that to happen… Which is funny since I have no desire to own a kindle or read an ebook. I actually had a friend since me a copy of her book as an ebook a while ag0 and I have guiltly yet to look at it ( I’m really sorry, Emlyn Chand. I will read FARSIGHTED soon, I swear).  Is it an anti Kindle/ebook thing? I don’t know.  It’s just reading a book on a screen takes something away for me.

And then there are the screenplays… I still dream of them being made, but the days of wanting to be the next Woody Allen are long gone. I have three scripts I really want to see made- CHRISTMAS DREAMING, THE SISTER MOON, and my adaptation of HAMLET (Which is always a debate for me whether it is the best thing I will ever do, or just one of them). But I do have others (4 others to be honest)… And there is a part of me that would like to write a new screenplay, but like with my books it is hard to be inspired when you think a work might join the pile of material sitting in my chest at the end of my bed. I need to feel like it will breath later. I have quite a few works already to feel guilty about just sitting around…. But seeing one of them that I wrote on the screen would be a dream…

Finally, I hope to survive the Mayan Death Day…

… Ok, that last one was a joke.

Hopefully.

Definitely, I mean nothing bad is going to happen.

Of course, if it does and I don’t plan, I’m going to regret it.

Argh.