Valley of the Bees – Page 3 – Write on the World

The With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1 book blog tour has officially begun! My first stop is taking place today (right now!) over at author T. S. Dickerson’s blog, where she has posted a book review of my latest novel, which will release on September 1, 2016.

Go check out this book review now, and then check back here later to find out where the With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1 book blog tour will be stopping next.

Do you want to be a part of this blog tour? Contact Me for details!

Buy The Book

iTunes
Kindle
Nook
Kobo
Smashwords
Blio (eBook or Adobe ePub) Search for “Amanda L Webster”

For a limited time, With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1 is available for only 99 cents. Pre-order your copy today before the book returns to its regular price of $3.99!

Continue reading “Valley of the Bees Book Blog Tour: Stop #1” →

Digital Marketing, eBooks, Novel Writing, Valley of the Bees

Book description, Book 2 of Valley of the Bees #VotB

July 31, 2016 Mandy Webster

I am currently working my way through the process of finalizing my manuscript for With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1 so I can upload the file to my retailers. It is an arduous process. My latest task was to convert my manuscript to an ePub file so I could read through it on my phone. You wouldn’t believe the errors I caught just by looking at the book in a different file format on a different device!

Valley of the Bees Logo by Jendy at https://jendy.threadless.com/.

Anyway, this afternoon I am working on a description of Book 2 so I can add some marketing copy to the end of Book 1. This is the description I am working on for marketing book two in my Valley of the Bees series:

Would you read this book?

Continue reading “Book description, Book 2 of Valley of the Bees #VotB” →

Digital Marketing, eBooks

How to buy and read eBooks from Smashwords

July 21, 2016July 21, 2016 Mandy Webster

A few of my readers have been confused about how to purchase and read eBooks from Smashwords, and I can understand why. How can you know which book format to choose if you don’t know that your Kindle reads .mobi files? One aspect of eBook marketing that I believe Smashwords has failed to recognize is that not all readers are as familiar with our publishing jargon as we publishers are. So, I’ve decided to provide my readers with a quick Smashwords buying guide to help you download and read mine and other indie books with as little frustration as possible.

Formats

The first thing you need to know when downloading eBooks from Smashwords is what format your particular device uses. Of course, you can choose to read online, but a dedicated eReader often offers a more seamless reading experience. The following are a few eBook formats that are available for most Smashwords books. I have listed each of them with their corresponding device/app. Continue reading “How to buy and read eBooks from Smashwords” →

eBooks, Novel Writing, Valley of the Bees

New cover design & website reveal

July 17, 2016July 21, 2016 Mandy Webster

Today, I am excited to reveal the official, professional cover design of With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1 and also announce that Valley of the Bees has its very own website!

Cover Design by Jennifer DeWeese at jendy.threadless.com.

Early this month, I learned that Smashwords was having a giant, sitewide sale that sounded like the perfect opportunity to market my new novel. If only I had my book set up for pre-order, I would be able to add links to the end of all of my other books and offer those books for free for the entire month. But I didn’t yet have my pre-order set up.

What to do? Get my pre-order set up already and get to work, of course! Continue reading “New cover design & website reveal” →

Book Reviews, Novel Writing, Uncategorized, Valley of the Bees

Now available for pre-order: With Envy Stung | Valley of the Bees #1

July 5, 2016July 17, 2016 Mandy Webster

It’s official! I just set up my novel, With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1 for pre-order on Smashwords! I completed the first draft of the third and final book of this trilogy, and I finally feel confident that Book One will be ready for publication by its September 1^st release date!

With Envy Stung cover with white border — With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1 is now available for download on iTunes and Kobo. It will soon be available on your Nook as well! See the links within this blog post for more info.

This is such a huge milestone for me. I have been working on this trilogy for about three years now. With Envy Stung has been critiqued and revised until I can’t imagine what else I might possibly do to make it shine any brighter. That is, until I sit down to read through it again and find a few more lines that I could write *just a little bit better.*

Update: I now have direct links where you can pre-order your copy of With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1 from the retailer of your choice:

Order from iTunes.

Order from Kobo.

Order from Barnes & Noble.

Order from Kindle.

As with any work in progress, I will probably always be able to find something else that I could tweak a bit more. But, as with any other work in progress, the time always comes when it’s time for the author to let it go as it is. I feel confident that With Envy Stung has reached that stage in the writing process. The time has finally come to complete my final line edits and format the book for publishing! Continue reading “Now available for pre-order: With Envy Stung | Valley of the Bees #1” →

Novel Writing, Valley of the Bees

Planning the final book in a series

April 20, 2016April 20, 2016 Mandy Webster

A friend of mine is sketching out some ideas for the cover of With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1. What do you think?

I don’t remember having this much trouble writing the outlines for books one and two. I’ve made a list of all of the loose ends that need tied up, and now I am trying to figure out how to tie them together. It’s getting very complicated!

I thought I was ready to publish book one, but as I play with all of these loose ends, I think maybe I’m not ready after all. What if I need something to happen in book three that won’t work due to something I wrote in book one? I won’t be able to go back and revise it once it’s published!

Maybe I need to at least have a first draft of book three before I publish book one. I want to start my pre-launch of book one, but what if I don’t have it ready in time? What if I think it’s done, but it’s not? I have thought it was done many times throughout the process, only to find that it still needed more work.

What if, what if, what if? Sometimes – a lot of times – writing is just a whole lot of “what ifs!” Continue reading “Planning the final book in a series” →

Memes, Novel Writing, Valley of the Bees

Is your novel stuck? How to write your way past the flashing cursor

February 19, 2016February 19, 2016 Mandy Webster

One of the most important lessons I have learned about novel writing is that the worst thing you can do when you’re stuck is to sit and stare at a flashing cursor on a blank page. In my experience, when I have done this in the past, the longer I stared at that cursor, the more stuck I became. Instead, I have learned that the only way to get unstuck is to write through it.

writing meme

This may sound like a crazy idea.

“I’m stuck,” you’re thinking. “How do I write through it when I can’t think of anything to write?” Continue reading “Is your novel stuck? How to write your way past the flashing cursor” →

Novel Writing, Writers on Writing

Setting goals and reaching them late… one way or another

February 3, 2016February 3, 2016 Mandy Webster

I always plan to write over winter break, but somehow it never happens. I work at a University that closes for almost two whole weeks the end of December. Perfect time to get some writing done, right? Apparently not!

So then January came along, and I buckled in and started writing regularly. I have been scheduling it into my day, but not giving myself too much grief if I occasionally get off track. And I must say, it has been going pretty well for me. I am writing at least three days a week (while working a full-time job and single-momming two rowdy boys in the process) and hacking out the first draft of book two of my Valley of the Bees series a few pages (and sometimes a few sentences) at a time.

My goal was 20,000 words by the end of January. Of course, that didn’t happen, but I did get close. And today – three days into February – I ALMOST made it finally. Of course, I typed the final word of the chapter I was working on, looked down at my word count, and saw this: