I fancy myself a writer.
I’m giving away a free copy of With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1 over on GoodReads. Check it out now!
I got more than 500 entries on my last giveaway, and I’m hoping to hit 1,000 this time. Visit GoodReads now to enter! Continue reading “Enter to win a copy of Valley of the Bees #1! #giveaway”
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been busy. So busy, in fact, I never got around to doing an official announcement on here when Valley of the Bees released in print on March 1. Now, that’s busy!
Today I also launched a book giveaway on GoodReads, so I hope you’ll run over there and put your name in for a free signed copy of my book! A lot of people are already entering, so don’t miss out!
Continue reading “Valley of the Bees is now available in print!”
Yesterday, I wrote a blog post discussing how to set up a Rafflecopter to administer a book giveaway. Well, today the giveaway is live, and I discovered that I did not add a link to the section where entrants can comment on a blog post to enter the giveaway. (OOPS!) So, this blog post right here will be the official post to comment on to enter to win a copy of With Envy Stung: Valley of the Bees #1. Once you have posted your comment below, be sure to click through to the Rafflecopter to check off the box for commenting on the blog post.
You can also click on the Rafflecopter image below for more ways to enter.
As long as I’m updating you on what didn’t work when I set up my Rafflecopter, I might as well also tell you what I came up with as a work-around for the fact that you can’t embed the widget in the free version of WordPress. It was really simple, really. All I did was take a screenshot of the widget on my Facebook page and add the image to the blog post. Then, I hyperlinked the image to the mobile-friendly link that I got from the Facebook app, y voila! A somewhat functional Rafflecopter giveaway on my blog post. Continue reading “Book #Giveaway! Enter to win one of ten free copies of Valley of the Bees #1! #VotB”
Yesterday, I blogged about how I have used outlines to help me write the first two books in my upcoming Valley of the Bees trilogy. Today, I would like to talk a bit about what I am doing different while writing book II.
As I mentioned yesterday, I wrote book I, With Envy Stung, in a rush. I pushed myself to write a chapter each and every day over a 16-day period. This left me with some extremely light chapters. There was no set-up or transitions for any of these chapters. Instead, I just jumped right into the action and/or dialog and got right to it. Continue reading “Learning a bit more and getting a bit better each day”
I am giving myself a sweet birthday present today and announcing that my new short story, Her Name was Amber, is now available on Kindle for only 99 cents!
It feels great to get back on the fiction-writing horse. I wrote this 4,000 word story in one day! (Don’t worry, I edited it before I published it! Although, if you do find any errors, please let me know so I can fix them!)
Amber is finally forced to deal with her dysfunctional marriage while mourning the death of her teenage daughter. Meanwhile, an even bigger disaster looms near as the outside world struggles with its own uncertain fate. In this prequel to her upcoming novel, Valley of the Bees, author Amanda L. Webster introduces you to the matriarch of what is destined to become a powerful – yet still dysfunctional – family in a not-so-distant dystopian future.
Buy your copy of Her Name was Amber on Kindle today! Continue reading “Now available on Kindle: Her Name was Amber”
It’s been a while since I posted in my Places to Write series. I guess I just haven’t had much time for writing in new and interesting places since I got a “real job.” I finally have a new place to add.
I’ve been helping my sister put together a website for her small business. She has also started a new beauty blog as part of her website. Samantha had no previous website or blogging experience, so there has been a bit of a learning curve for her. We’ve been talking about the project for months without getting much work done, so we finally got the idea to get together at a coffee shop once a week (kids not invited!!) to work.
Continue reading “Places to Write | Eli’s Coffee Shop; Tremont, Illinois”
One of my assignments for this week was to use one of the “Ways In” exercises from chapter 2 of Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction. I ended up taking the lazy route and just did a freewrite, but I was kind of pleased with what I ended up with:
I was going to write a Springboard line, but I couldn’t find a line that appealed to me, so I’m just going to freewrite. Except, it’s hard to freewrite when you know there is a good chance that you might have to read it aloud to your classmates. The filter is automatically switched to “on,” so it almost defeats the purpose of freewriting. To me, freewriting is all about giving that inner censor a break and getting to your creative side. It’s hard to be creative with the little voice inside your head criticizing your every word.
When you freewrite, the inner censor says, “Oh, you’re sitting down to write garbage on purpose? Well, I’ll just go take a nap and rest up for next time when you sit down to write your “Great American Novel.” And of course, she laughs at you as she walks away. Continue reading “Freewriting on freewriting: A writing exercise”
It’s finally here! My new book, Papers: A Master Collection on the Art of Writing is now available for purchase on Kindle for only 99 cents!
There is so much content packed into this one book! In addition to all of the academic papers that I wrote while pursuing my master of arts in English with a concentration in professional writing, you also get several original short stories, poems, and a behind-the-scenes peek into my as-yet-unnamed fantasy novel in progress.
Challenge: Upon reading my creative thesis, which is contained in the pages of this text, help me come up with a title for my novel! If I decide to use your suggested title, I will send you a free signed copy of the print edition of Papers: A Master Collection on the Art of Writing as soon as it becomes available!
I am currently in the process of formatting this book for print and should have it available within the next few weeks. In the meantime, get your Kindle copy today! Thank you for supporting my writing journey! Continue reading “Now available on Kindle! Papers: A Master Collection on the Art of Writing”
This gave me a chuckle. I recently saw this comment on a promotional post on the HarperCollins Facebook page.
Do people really believe that getting a novel published is as easy as commenting on a publisher’s Facebook post and asking how much they charge? Continue reading “Publishing 101: Honey, that’s not how it works”
In a recent blog post, I mentioned that my 8-year-old son was writing a book for a school competition. Since I have dabbled in publishing a bit, he had gotten the idea that I could publish his book for him with a few simple clicks, and then he could sell it and make millions. My kids have great imaginations!
Well, I don’t know about the “making millions” part, but it turns out that publishing a children’s book using the new Kindle Kids’ Book Creator really is as simple as a few clicks (once you have your PDF’ed book written, illustrated, and ready to go, that is!) Additionally, I am pleased to announce that my son’s new book, Avery Moves, is now available to download on Kindle!
There are a few different ways that you can go about publishing a book using the Kindle Kids’ Book Creator. In this case, I already had a PDF copy of my son’s book ready to go at the time that I went to publish it. So, all I had to do was convert the PDF to a .mobi file using the app that I downloaded to my PC from the KDP website, add the book to my KDP bookshelf, and voila! Book published! Continue reading “Kindle Direct Publishing for children’s books is amazingly simple!”
Write on the World 