Aspen Mountain Press is excited to announce three releases this week:

Phlogiston by Jefferson Dane; Storykeeper by Jade Buchanan; and Julian’s Second Chance by Claire Thompson.

In Jefferson Dane’s debut fantasy, Phlogiston, someone wants to break the truce humans have had with the dragons by murdering a noblewoman.  Can an apprentice scholar and a merchant savant hiding a dark secret uncover the mystery in time to prevent a war?

While this is Jefferson Dane’s first fantasy with Aspen Mountain Press, it isn’t his first work.  If you enjoy horror you may also enjoy Dane’s Flyover.  What happens in the night in Afghanistan where there is more to worry about than the Taliban?

Storykeeper by Jade Buchanan features an immortal falling for a human.  The Storykeeper provides inspiration, gives dreams and acts as a muse to those who put words to paper whether they are singers or writers or storytellers.  Never before, has this storykeeper allowed himself to dream.  But that is about to change when Enitan meets Jason after hearing him read one of the stories Enitan had inspired.   Enitan has never dared to hope there could be something in the world such as love for him.  Never before has he known if the possibility existed to find happiness with a human.  Will Enitan be able to claim Jason’s heart and give his in return?  And if so, what will be the cost?  Pick up a copy of Storykeeper and find out what the future holds for Enitan and Jason.  

Our next story is a tale of self-denial and perhaps, love deferred.  In Julian’s Second Chance by Claire Thompson, one man, Julian denies the attraction he feels for a friend he’s met on a trip to Sri Lanka. 

Julian fears the cost of his attraction to Alex, including the repercussions from his family will be more than he can bear.  Yet, he can’t forget the time the two men spent together. 

When a meeting brings them together once more, six years later, Julian is older and wiser.  But Alex is no longer the same man he spurned and has moved on with his life, relegating Julian to the past.  Delve into the denial and self-deception two men use to protect themselves from emotional pain in this re-release by talented author, Claire Thompson.

Now that Bittersweet is out, I’ve had some questions about it and wanted to share what happened during the writing of Brand and David’s story. It taught me a few things, trust me.

When I signed up to write two stories for the Hot Comforts anthology from Manlove Romance Press, I pitched the ideas for Giving Thanks and Bittersweet. Several other authors also joined the anthology and it was scheduled for around Thanksgiving 2008. Aspen Mountain Press had agreed to release the stories as standalone ebooks as well.

Because these stories are part of an anthology, it means they really can’t be too long. 20,000 words is a LONG story to have in an anthology. So there’s a maximum reasonable size the editor and publisher expect.

Giving Thanks went pretty well and relatively quickly. I’m happy with it and it really told the whole story I wanted it to.

Bittersweet is a whole other case. I knew a bit about the conflict and the fact it’s very much based on not judging someone by their appearance or what you think they might be like. When I started writing the story, though, I really got into these characters. I sent the first chapter to my test readers and one of them immediately replied that this was NOT a short story.

But it had to be. It needed to be. I literally spent months fighting with this story and trying to force it into an appropriate size and structure. But it fought back. Every time I tried to force Brand and David to get in bed, it came out horribly. Every time I tried to gloss over their personalities and foibles, they seemed like plastic characters. I rewrote it so many times I delayed the whole damned anthology. My deadline was blown and I was so frustrated and in despair it was awful. There’s just no way these characters would behave that way.

Finally I had to step back for a bit from my attempts to force my will on the story and I wrote another chapter, letting myself write what was demanding to be written. There’s a lot of background. There’s a lot of detail and some scenes that don’t have to do with sex but let the readers learn more about who these two people are.

I liked it. It flowed again.

So I finally accepted I could not shoehorn a Happily Ever After into this story. I took it to the point of a Happily For Now but there’s a lot more of this story to come. I’m going to write the rest of their story and see if I can sell it because I want to tell it. There’s pain, misunderstanding, assumptions, sex and love to go.

I know I’ve seen one opinion so far that there wasn’t enough sex and I spent time on things that didn’t matter. I hope that’s not the majority opinion because I love these two characters and the have a compelling and beautiful story to finish. But I did want to share what happened to me while I wrote this story

Bittersweet can be purchased from Aspen Mountain Press!
Giving Thanks can be purchased as a standalone ebook from Aspen Mountain Press as well.

Twitter Marketing: 6 Steps to Creating a Viral Marketing Campaign with Twitter Hashtags

by Donna Gunter, The Online Biz Resource Queen (TM)

Twitter, as a popular social networking platform, is a viral marketing strategy all on its own, especially if your followers like your tweets and retweet them to their followers. However, I’ve recently noticed another trend in Twitter usage that increases its viral marketing capabilities through the use of hashtags.

What’s a hashtag, anyway? Also called the pound sign, the hashtag (#) is added to a tweet as a way of creating trackable categories, groups, or topics that others can use to search for info using the Twitter Search feature. One of the most common uses of the hashtag is to tweet what’s happening at an event or conference. The event organizer will request all attendees use a specific hashtag, i.e. #yourevent, when tweeting about the event to your followers. So, then, someone who isn’t present at the event but wants to follow what’s happening there can simply search for #yourevent and see what’s going on and what participants are saying and sharing about the event. Read the rest of this entry »

July 21st, 2009 was the 3rd anniversary of the opening of Aspen Mountain Press and The Romance Studio helped us celebrate with a drawing.

RoxAnn won five downloads of her choice, downloads that will go far in alleviating the dog days of summer.  What did RoxAnn select from over 220 stories?  She chose the following: Read the rest of this entry »

You know you love it, the extra crispy fried chicken not unlike what you might get at KFC (what do they do to that chicken that it makes your mouth water?) or if you are in Denver, The White Fence Farm…

Here is a recipe for a fried chicken  that will have you salivating.  Poke around the site.  There are tons of recipes for all sorts of tastes.

For those of you interested in marketing, you might want to take a look at this article:

10 Rules for Advertising on Facebook that is available at www.BusinessInsider.com 

…and I got no privacy…ooo uuu ooo

I used to think that song was a touch on the creepy side, but these days, you don’t know just who is watching you.  Read the rest of this entry »

The Asphodel Cycle 4: Apostle of Asphodel

Author: Celina Summers

Artist: Renee George

BUY LINK: http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/apostle-of-asphodel/prod_263.html

Tamsen Ka’antira has grown into a woman of incredible power as the Virgin Huntress’ player in the game of the gods. After discovering the Hippolytes, a fabled race of women devoted to the arts of combat, she must lead them back to the plains of Ilia to fight the greatest war of antiquity again. The pantheon of gods awaits her in their Hall of Judgment, where the ultimate fate of the Elven Realm will be determined. Read the rest of this entry »

The shaman “Lizard” is one of the two-souled-ones, a Berdache. Lizard must convince his proud and stubborn childhood friend, Red Wolf, one of the finest warriors of his village, that he too is a Berdache and must take the shaman training, before he loses his mind.

A call for aid comes, so the Berdache, his friend Red Wolf, and the beautiful Chickasaw slave, Born In Moonlight, take the journey to hopefully avoid a war. Will these three give in to the closeness they feel or will they be forever separated by the dangers they face from both the Spirit World, and the world that surrounds them.

Excerpt:

With the swiftness of a badger, Red Wolf’s hands clamped down on Lizard’s arms. The dream-crazed warrior yanked the Berdache to his chest with total disregard for dignity. All Lizard managed was a gasp of surprise before Red Wolf’s lips clamped down on his.

Lizard’s mouth was open from his gasp, and Red Wolf forced it open further with his tongue. The violent kiss, full of an unspoken need, aroused in Lizard a burning heat. Tongues tangled and fought, each vying for supremacy. Some force in Lizard demanded he not submit, until he was sure it was truly a choice on Red Wolf’s part, and not the dream that made him act thus.

With a moan, Red Wolf broke the kiss. “You with your maiden’s hair and shaman’s skills. You call to me like no other. I don’t understand you or the battles you fight, but I know now that you make war with an unseen enemy. It is enough.” Read the rest of this entry »

Before I get distracted (again) by emails, promo, and my latest book, I thought I’d tell you about my new office away from home.
 
Ever since my DH lost his job, I lost my peace and quiet, not to mention time in my home office. He follows me everywhere out of boredom when he’s not actively looking for work. Needless to say, my writing has slowed to a crawl despite my ever-increasing “talks” with him about leaving me alone for a few hours.
 
Desperation began to seep into my brain. Crazy schemes like drugging him into somnolence, killing him and burying him under the vegetable garden, and booting him out of the house were hatched and discarded.
 
More viable plans like getting up early (my best bio-rhythm is for morning hours and working late at night is hopeless, trust me) failed. He’d awaken, feel the empty place next to him, and come find me!
 
I don’t know about anyone else, but my income has been affected by the sluggish economy. I have to work to pay some of the bills. I can’t just take time off. I have deadlines to make, but can’t afford a leased office space, not even a shared one. Read the rest of this entry »