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If you are following many authors on Twitter you’ll know there is a thread going on called #, which is basically a challenge for authors to post a first -unedited- draft of a work in progress and this is mine called “Deadly Desire��. It’s a Russian Mafia Romance.

“Today I will escape,�� I thought to myself. “Today I will be
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I have been carefully planning this day for the last
eighteen months. It’s the first thing I think of when I wake up each morning
and the last thing on my mind when I fall asleep each night. It’s the thought
of my freedom that helps me make it through each day. It’s what gives me the
strength to continue on.

The day started like any other. I woke up and started my
chores. I gathered up all the dirty clothes and began a load of laundry before
going to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. After breakfast, I cleaned the
kitchen, then off to do the same to the bathroom.

My father was in his office.��
He’s always either in his office or in the living room. He never leaves
the house, not even for groceries. That’s my job, too �� something I do every
Monday.

It was on one of those trips to the grocery store that I
first hatched my plan to run away. Then again, I’m nineteen years old, can one
really ��run away�� as an adult?

I pulled my long blonde hair into a ponytail then splashed
water on my face to cleanse it. ��I didn’t
get to put on makeup like other girls my age. My father would never allow such
a thing. A made-up face would draw far too much attention, and that wasn’t
allowed.

I walked from the bathroom to the living room. The room was
like a dark cave, without a single bit of natural light. It’s dark and
oppressive, just like every room in the house. I knew I had to escape, that
house was sucking the life out of me.

With a sigh of resignation, I gently tapped on the office
door.

��“Father,�� I said in
greeting with my hands clasped behind my back, the picture of a dutiful
daughter.

He eyed my clothing. “And where do you think you are going,
young lady?��

“It’s Monday, father. I’m going to the grocery store.�� I
hesitated for just a moment before adding, “If that’s alright with you.��

He groaned and then took a crisp $100 bill out of his
wallet.

“I want the receipt,�� he growls as I took the money and put
it in the back pocket of my jeans.

“I know father.�� Of course, I knew. It was the same thing he
said every week.

As I walked out the front door my father called out to me.
“I expect you home in two hours Amelia.��

I didn’t respond. I just kept walking as fast as I could
down the driveway, and to the bushes where I had previously hidden my suitcase.

I wanted to hate my father for making me live like a
prisoner for the last ten years.�� But I
couldn’t. I understood that he was sick. He had watched his wife, my mother, be
murdered and he never recovered from the trauma.

Right after my mother died, my father packed up our
belongings and moved us them to a house in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas.

At least that’s what I came to call it. The town’s real name
was Oswego.�� The population was around
1,800 people, but it wasn’t like I knew any of my neighbors. My father wouldn’t
even let me go to school, let alone go out and make new friends. I was
homeschooled.

I was only nine at the time my mother died, so I could
barely even remember our old house in New Jersey or my mother. I did have a few
photos of her; those were the first thing I put in my suitcase.

I hated how my father tried to lock me away like a prisoner.
“It wasn’t safe,�� he would always say.

Luckily one day, when I was about fourteen, the grocer’s son
who had always delivered our food each week, had gone off to college and as a
result they couldn’t offer delivery service anymore. That’s when, for the first
time in many years my father let me leave the house.

He would send me to the grocery store every Monday with a
hundred dollars and a list of things I was to buy. I had to be careful to make
sure to bring home the receipt and the change, so that he knew I spent the
exact amount it said.

I loved Monday’s because it was the only time in my life I
was free to get out of the house and at least for a little while, pretend like
I was a normal person. It would only take me about twenty minutes to buy all
the things I needed, but I would take my time, and stretch each trip out as
long as I could, savoring every minute of freedom that I could.

About eighteen months ago, I was just about to leave the
store when I realized the checker didn’t give me credit for a sale item.�� I took the receipt to the customer service
counter where they quickly corrected the error and gave me back the four
dollars in change.

I kept that four dollars hidden and added to it each week. I
would buy named brand items or something that wasn’t on sale. Then once I had
checked out and had my receipt in hand proving I spent the money my father had
given to me, I would go to the customer service counter, return some of the
higher priced items in exchange for sale items or off brands.

I know that the people at the store thought I was weird
because I did the same thing every week, but I didn’t care what they thought.
It was the only way I could get my hands on any amount of money.

Finally, after eighteen long months, I was able to stash
away nearly fifteen hundred dollars, $102 of which I was going to have to spend
on a bus ticket to my new home Houston, Texas.

I had picked Houston for a few reasons, but mostly because
it was the fourth largest city in the nation and yet still despite its size, it
has a reasonable cost of living.

I needed to find a place that I could find a job. Without a
college degree, I knew my job opportunities would be limited. Moving to a big
city like Houston though, I had a better chance at finding something than I
might living in a small town like Nowhere, Kansas.

Then again, anywhere had to be better than where I was now,
a prisoner in my father’s home.

After two long days on a bus, I was happy to finally arrive
in Houston.�� It was loud, and there were
people everywhere, and I loved every minute of it.

At one of the many stops the bus made from Kansas to Texas, I
purchased my first ever mobile phone. It was a cheap throwaway phone, but I
knew I was going to need one if I was going to make it on my own in the real
world.

One of the first things I did with my new phone was make a reservation
at an Airbnb. ��It was a lot cheaper to
rent a room from someone on Airbnb than it was to stay in a hotel. Still, at $200
a week, I wouldn’t be able to stay there long without finding a job.

“I’m Amelia Brady,�� I said to the lady who answered the
door.

��“Hello, Miss Brady.
We’ve been expecting you. My name is Phoebe, anything you need please don’t
hesitate to let me know.��

“Thank you,�� I said shyly.

“Your room is just up the stairs, first door on the right.
There are two other long term guests like yourself, Jenny and Madison. You all
three share the upstairs bathroom, so please respect each other’s personal
���貹����.��

I walked up the stairs slowly taking in my surroundings. It
was a beautiful two-story, four-bedroom house in the heart of Houston. The
location was perfect for me because it was right in the center of everything
with easy access to public transportation.

My father had taught me to drive when I turned sixteen, and
I had a license, but not a car. It would probably be a while before I could
afford one of those.

I know that I should be tired from the long bus ride to
Houston, but I wasn’t. I felt invigorated instead. I was finally free, and I
didn’t want to waste a minute of my new found freedom. So after unpacking my
bags, taking a long, hot shower, I changed clothes and headed out to check out
the town.

The city was buzzing with life. There were people hanging
out, chatting with others on the street. I smiled at everyone. I couldn’t stop
smiling. I was so excited to be out living life, a normal life, just like
everyone else my age.

I’m happy to announce that my latest book, Mr. Washington is now available at Amazon in both e-book and paperback format!

All Braden wanted was a date for his family reunion. He didn’t want a girlfriend. He didn’t want a relationship.�� He just wanted a girl with no strings attached, and no drama �� not even sex. But then he met her and that’s when everything changed.����

Can a relationship between an Instagram model and a man from a politically powerful family make it work? Or is their relationship doomed to fail under the harsh glare of the Washington family spotlight?

Mr. Washington is the story of Braden Washington, a direct descendant of George Washington.�� He grew up in a politically powerful family and his mother wants nothing more than for him, and his siblings to make the right marriage.

Afterall, she dreams that one of her children or grandchildren will be the next president of the United States.

Only Braden isn’t having any of it, Don’t get me wrong, Braden loves his family but he isn’t ready to agree to an arranged marriage for them so rather than attend the yearly family reunion alone, he hires himself a date to keep his mother off his back.��Only things don’t go quite as planned and now Braden has found himself in a pickle.

If you’re like me and have spent any amount of time watching late night cable TV, you have no doubt run across an advertisement like the one from Page Publishing or similar companies, where they claim they will publish your book.

For a share of your profits plus some cash up front payable in only ten easy monthly payments, Page Publishing offers you an ISBN, book cover design, and editing. But is it really worth giving up all that money plus a percentage your earnings for this deal?

First and foremost, this automatically means that you will only earn 35% from Amazon for every book sold instead of 70% for offering your book exclusively on Amazon because Page Publishing puts your book in other stores, even if those stores don’t really earn you many (or any) sales.

So now you are earning less per sale of every book, and you still have to share some of that money with them, and they are still charging you thousands of dollars up front, even if they do accept payments.

I’ve been publishing books since 2012, and I’ve tried about every sales channel out there �� Smash Words, iBook’s, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Google Play and so on. Love them or hate them, you can’t argue that the majority of every sale you’ll probably ever make will come from Amazon.

So, if you know almost every sale Is going to come from Amazon, doesn’t it make far more sense to go exclusive with Amazon e-books and earn 70% per eBook sold than the 35% they offer everyone else? You can still offer your print books everywhere, but if you go exclusively with your e-books, they’ll pay you 70% instead of 35%. Not an option if you go with Page Publishing.

But maybe it will be worth it. Maybe Page Publishing has some secret marketing formula that can skyrocket your sales and make it worth doing business with them and giving up all that extra money on your sales, plus all the extra cash they want you to pay them up front.

I decided to check them out, based on actual books they have published on Amazon. Because what better way to know how well a company works than to see it for yourself and not just from their sales pitch?

Page Publishing released ‘�� which was written by Patti Nicolette Critchfield. They are offering the Kindle for $9.99, well over the average e-book price of $2.99 to $3.99. So automatically the book is at a disadvantage because it’s overpriced.

In the three weeks the book has been out it has received zero reviews. It’s also not getting many sales. We know this because it’s ranked at around 725k on Amazon’s Best Sellers Rank. That means in the last few weeks, since its release it has probably sold less than ten copies, maybe even as few as five. Think of the thousands of dollars this poor author spent to get Page Publishing to “publish�� their book. All for a measly 5 to 10 sales. Really?

But that’s just one book. Let’s look at a few more and see if there are other books from Page Publishing that are doing better. I mean in all fairness it’s not like memoirs really sell all that well in the first place. So what about a fictional fantasy about vampires?

This one is called ‘�� by Cynthia Wooten. This is a 388-page full-length novel released on April 19, 2018, with the paperback being released the month before on March 19th.

Sadly, at the time of this posting the book doesn’t seem to have made a single sale, so there is no registered sales rank. Something else that caught my attention is that they didn’t place the book in the proper category. Page Publishing listed the book as a Science Fiction and Fantasy novel instead of the proper category of Paranormal Romance > Vampires.

As you might imagine, because of the popularity of books like Twilight and Vampire Academy, this is a very popular genre. Pricing your e-book at $9.99 when everyone else is offering theirs for $1.99 to $3.99 puts you at a huge disadvantage.

Moving forward, I thought. Next, we might look at a Historical Romance novel. These are very popular books in general so about ‘�� from author Beverly Ferebee Heyde? I’m sorry to say this is yet another Page Publishing failure.

In the two months, the book has been for sale, it doesn’t seem to have sold a single copy, giving it no sales rank whatsoever. They’ve also misclassified the book, listing it as a >Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction book, while obviously, it’s a Historical Romance.

So really what are you getting for your money? What I’ve been able to figure out from reading their website is they offer an ISBN, which you can get for free from CreateSpace or Amazon’s KDP program. So that’s not anything special.

They offer you a design for your book cover, but you can just head on over to Fiverr.com and get on yourself there for next to nothing. If you don’t know how to format your book, you can get that at Fiverr.com as well for $5. There are a ton who will offer you formatting services for this price. However, I should mention that Amazon’s KDP program now offers an all-new e-book formatting tool that you can use for free, so there’s that.

The only thing they seem to offer of remote value Is editing services, but you too can get that at Fiverr.com or through sites like upwork.com. If your book is a full-length novel you’ll probably get a better deal for an editor at a site like upwork.com but for a few chapters here and there, Fiverr.com works too. Yes, editing will be your most expensive investment, and it’s absolutely necessary but is it really worth giving up money you make forever on your book plus thousands of dollars in cash up front, just for a few hundred dollars��worth of editing services? NO WAY!!

From what I understand Page Publishing wants about $300 up front and then monthly payments over the next ten months totaling $3,200 in cash.

Why in the world would you pay $3,200 to publish a book with them? What dot hey offer you that you can’t do for yourself for way less?

They are not a legit publishing company as real publishers don’t ask you for money up front. So please if you have a book you want published, just do it yourself at kdp.amazon.com.

I originally posted this story on .

My next book is called Mr. Washington. It’s currently with the editor and I hope to have it ready for release by the 4th of July!

All Braden wanted was a date for his family reunion. He didn’t want a girlfriend. He didn’t want a relationship.�� He just wanted a girl with no strings attached, and no drama �� not even sex. But then he met her and that’s when everything changed.����

Can a relationship between an Instagram model and a man from a politically powerful family make it work? Or is their relationship doomed to fail under the harsh glare of the Washington family spotlight?

Mr. Washington is the story of Braden Washington, a direct descendant of George Washington.�� He grew up in a politically powerful family and his mother wants nothing more than for him, and his siblings to make the right marriage.

Afterall, she dreams that one of her children or grandchildren will be the next president of the United States.

Only Braden isn’t having any of it, Don’t get me wrong, Braden loves his family but he isn’t ready to agree to an arranged marriage for them so rather than attend the yearly family reunion alone, he hires himself a date to keep his mother off his back.��Only things don’t go quite as planned and now Braden has found himself in a pickle.

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It’s been a great year and I thought I would take some time to answer some of your most commonly asked questions �� 2017 edition!

Are any of your books available as audiobooks?

Absolutely! I currently have 6 books available from audible.com (and as audiobooks from Amazon) and I’m currently working on getting The Bitch released as an audiobook. .

The Bitch is a project currently in the works but it should be available at Audible sometime in early 2018.

What are you working on right now, any new books coming soon?

I wished I could easily answer that question. Truth is, I have about 20 projects in the works. I’ve found that I get really into a story then put it aside, work on another and then go back to the other after some time has passed. I’ll make some edits and then repeat.

The good news is, I currently have probably 3 books that will be ready for a 2018 release. Two are contemporary romance, and one is a Young Adult Romance. The YA book will be my first foray into that genre so I’m really excited but also very nervous. It’s something I wanted to do for a long time. In fact, the first book I ever wrote (back in 2012) is a YA romance, although I have yet to release it.

Whatever happened to the next book in the Absolutely Unforgivable series?

I wished I could tell you an answer you wanted to hear but to be honest, after getting down about 60k words in the next story, I’m just unsure on a few parts so I thought I would put it aside for awhile and see how I feel early in the new year when I go back to it.

Are you on Twitter?

Yes, you can find me on both Twitter and Facebook. On twitter you’ll find me @ and on Facebook I’m .

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Are you looking for beta readers?

Absolutely. I’m always looking for some fabulous volunteer to read rough drafts of my work and tell me what they think. Just click the ��link and let me know if you are interested. Tell me a little about you and why I should pick you.

I want to write a book, what do you suggest I do?

Sit down at your computer and write and just when you think you can’t do it anymore, write another 500 words. Keep doing this every single day until you have finished your first rough draft. Anyone can say they want to write a book but only a few people actually see it through. It takes a lot of time and dedicated to put pen to paper and pull the story you have in your mind out of your head and actually write it up. Long story short, the only way to make it happen is to sit down and start doing it and keep doing it a little, every single day. Eventually one day, you’ll have your rough draft and can start the horribly annoying but all to important editing process and before you know it, you’ll be publishing your first book!

Ever wished you could get a cool looking 3D graphic of your book like other authors have?

I’ll create one for you for free, all you have to do in return is promise to help promote my latest book �� (now available at Amazon). ie: Tweet or post about my book on Facebook.

It really is that simple �� email me��at [email protected] and let’s talk.

You help me (by promoting my latest romance novel) and I’ll help you by making you a cool 3d book cover for your book!

Some more samples that you can pick from

The Bitch is .

Declan was Hannah’s first and only lover, and while she knew he truly cared for her, she couldn’t return his affections because she was secretly in love with her boss, Sawyer Trent.

But that was a hopeless cause because Sawyer had a fiancé who was not only beautiful but was also the daughter of a world-famous Formula 1 racer. How’s a girl to compete with that?

If all of that wasn’t enough for Hannah to deal with, her diabolically innocent cousin Ella comes for a town and that’s when her whole world falls apart.

It seems the last year the buy-in scam has become far more common. Here’s how it works �� you are invited to contribute a story or an essay to a��compilation book. In return you will be given a percentage of all the sales. The catch? They want cash up front. The amount they ask for can be anything from $100 to as much as $5,000.

Most recently one person was doing a complication of 100 chic-lit stories. All I had to do was give them $500 and they would not only publish my story but also guarantee me a percentage of sales.

A few months before that a publisher was asking only $3,600 from 10 different people. They claimed the money was for the marketing budget, and we would all be given a percentage of sales.

Before that was the 100 Halloween horror story compilation. All I had to do was give them $250 and they’ll publish by Halloween horror story and pay me a percentage of every book sold. The publisher gets $25,000 before the book is even out the door!

Is this a scam? ABSOLUTELY. You don’t need to pay to have your book published and anyone who tries to get you to pay is a scammer.

If you actually start looking into the books they’ve previously released (if they even have any) you’ll see their sales rank at amazon is horrible and that means nobody is buying the book. So you just paid money for a book that will never sale.

Why?

What does that do for you?

Don’t fall victim in the buy-in or co-publishing scam.

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Piracy may not seem like a subject that has much to do with��book��promotion,��but you might be surprised.

Usually,��when people think of digital piracy,��they think of illegal movie��or music��downloads. But it applies to photos as well and can be just as problematic for you, if you are caught doing it.

I didn’t realize how rampant piracy was in the author community until last year,��when I decided to join some Facebook groups designated for authors to promote their��books.

There are hundreds of these groups on Facebook and some of them��even��have huge followings with tens of thousands of members. Sounds like a great way to promote��your��book, right? Well it can be. Some authors say that using these��types��of groups can more than double their��download rates.

But something else I noticed about these groups, was��the increasing number of authors illegally using images they didn’t own.

It may��sound harmless to some people, but if you get caught, it could cost the author $150,000 per offense.

That means if you do it just seven times, which is once a day, every day for a week, you’ve��risked��a potential default judgment��against you��for��over a million dollars. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t have an extra million bucks lying around to��pay��out to the owner of the photos I was illegally using to promote my��book.

And that’s just the default judgement, the company that owns the rights to that image you used, could very well go in and ask the judge for additional damages.

I��decided to do a little research into the subject matter,��and contacted several of the authors that were doing this. Every single one of the authors I spoke��with claimed to honestly have no idea what they were doing was illegal, nor did they realize that the copyright law protected the owners of the photographs with such a large default��judgment, per offense.

Unfortunately for them,��ignorance of��the law isn’t an excuse for breaking it. And��a��new software is being developed every single day,��that can go out on the internet to��search for certain photos and when they find them illegally being used, they will go after you for��a��very simple reason. It’s��easy for them to do and��they are��guaranteed��a win; because��you have no defense. You can’t say you didn’t know, because��not knowing isn’t a valid defense.

There are��many��companies dedicated to doing nothing but going after people who do this very thing and they are making an insane amount of money in what is known as ‘copyright��settlements��.

I happen to know a guy who makes an incredible living doing nothing but going after people who are illegally using photos and video clips on social media sites, that they don’t own the rights to.

They will file against hundreds or even thousands of people all at once,��and��then settle with those people for a smaller amount. In some cases,��the companies will agree to settle the case with you for a few thousand or work out a��payment��plan with you where you agree to��pay��them $1,000 a month, every month over the next year.

Do you really have an extra $1,000 a month lying around to pay out every month for the next year or two? Even if you talked them into a smaller settlement, that’s still money you have to spend.

And just think, you could have avoided all of this if you would have just used an image you legally licensed in the first place to promote��your��book.

Think you can’t afford to license images? Then how are you going to be able to afford the money it’s going to cost you if you get caught stealing them?��Think twice before throwing up an image of��your��favorite celebrity to promote��your��book.

Here are some sites where you can legally license images.

Mr. Hollywood is .

Allison Crawford is a nose-to-the-grindstone college student committed to getting her degree and staying out of trouble. Grayson Chase is a Hollywood bad boy committed to his career.

Their worlds collide when Allison’s roommate talks her into signing on as an extra in a movie being filmed on campus.

When he meets the lovely college student, Grayson is immediately intrigued, but Allison has no interest in a life of celebrity. Sure, Chase is hot—okay, incredibly sexy—but he’s so not for her. So why can’t she get him out of her head?

Grayson will do whatever it takes to make their relationship work, but the glare of the spotlight doesn’t make it easy. Will love be enough to glue their two worlds together?

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