Amazon's Big News!

If any of you have been on the fence about whether to buy an ereader or a new tablet, now is the best time ever to jump into the ebook revolution. Amazon announced a while back that they were going to do a press conference this morning and everyone was anticipating their unveiling of a new tablet, but Amazon actually announced 3 new offerings today.

1. An ad-supported Kindle at only $79. What?! Yes, I'm serious about this. For less than eighty bucks, you can have a Kindle. And don't worry, the ads aren't scrolling while you read your books or anything. The ads are just the screensavers when your Kindle goes to sleep. Trust me when I say the cheesy pictures of dead authors they use for the regular Kindle screensavers aren't all that exciting, haha. I might actually prefer the ads! 
2. New Kindle Touch! This touch-screen ereader is only going to be $99, with a 3G version at just $149. (Just to compare, the Barnes & Noble touch is $139 just for the wi-fi version, so that's a huge $40 price difference.) The Kindle Touch is going to be much slimmer and will have no external controls - only touch screen controls.
3. Kindle Fire Tablet - Cnet calls it a "color ereader on steroids". Lol. It looks similar to the Nook Color and will retail at only $199! (Again the nook color is currently $249, which is showing how much Amazon wants to be on top of the ereader market.) You can play games on it, watch movies, read books, nearly everything you can do on an ipad. The tablet also comes with a 30 day Amazon Prime membership, and with Prime adding tons of streaming video this fall, I think this will be a huge advantage to the Fire Tablet. Exciting news! Now I want one!

So if you've been thinking of asking for an ereader or a tablet for Christmas, or thinking of getting one for yourself or someone special, the time has never been better. I think it's going to be a very exciting time for those of us who love to read and love to buy ebooks. I'm thinking the Fire Tablet just jumped to my new #1 must-have for Christmas!

Pick Your Purse!

Sorry for the delay in blogging. I've been taking some time off to focus on my family and getting ready for IVF. First off, I want to just say thank you to everyone who read my previous post and has supported me. I got such an outpouring of love and hugs from comments, email, twitter, facebook, everywhere. Thank you so much everyone, you have no idea how much that means to me!

I have been taking the time I need to just relax and de-stress, so I've been staying away from my blog and from my novel for a bit. However, I just couldn't resist talking about the G105 Pick Your Purse! I feel like I have been waiting for them to do this again forever! This is definitely something that makes me very happy, so it's awesome that they are doing it starting October 3rd. I've blogged about this before, but the way the contest works is that they have 20 designer purses up for grabs. Every day at 7:50 am and 5:40 pm, they will announce that it's time to call. The 105th caller gets to pick any purse from the list that hasn't already been taken. The contest lasts M-F for 2 weeks.

I have lived here in the Raleigh area for four years now, and every single time G105 does Pick Your Purse, I am like a calling-in maniac. I want one of those purses so bad! We're talking Prada, Gucci, Chloe, Jimmy Choo, Valentino, all the most beautiful bags. And I'm such a purse person. I have never had a designer purse, but I love them. I love to look at them and drool over them. When we were Vegas earlier this summer, I think I spent more than three or four hours perusing the designer stores looking for the perfect bag. Unfortunately, most of the ones I fell in love with cost over $1000, lol. So no bag for Sarra.

Anyway, it feels like forever since the radio station did this contest, so I couldn't be happier that they are running this during one of these very tough times in my life when I'm super stressed and emotional. It would be AMAZING if I got to pick a purse!

Here's the grid of 20 purses from the G105 website:

If you follow the link above, they have a printable PDF version if you live in the Raleigh area and want to call in. My top 5 choices, in order, are:

• #2 - Chloe - I love this bag! It's big and beautiful and very me. I like to carry bigger bags because I've always got a ton of stuff with me. This is definitely my first choice.
• #8 - Valentino - Their patent bags with the bows are so beautiful. Valentino has this same bag in red, but I actually like the black even better. I looked at this bag when we were in Vegas and it's to die for!
• #6 - Jimmy Choo - Even though I love big bags, this small Jimmy Choo clutch would be perfect for a night out. 
• #12 - Rebecca Minkoff - I'm actually not familiar with this designer, but I love this blue leather bag. I like the tassle and the chain and the zippers. It's modern and perfect for fall.
• #11 - Diane Von Furstenberg - This bag is called the Harper. How could it not be on my list?

Truthfully, I would gladly choose ANY of the bags on their list. I always get so excited when they do Pick Your Purse, but so sad as the bags disappear. Maybe this time will be different! 

Thanks for letting me indulge by talking a bit about G105's Pick Your Purse. I think this is by far the single best radio station giveaway in the history of radio. :P. Now, if I could just figure out a way to get past the busy signals...

Pouring My Heart Out

Ah, faithful blog readers, I have been keeping things from you. I have been trying to act like things are normal and that I am one hundred percent focused on writing. I have been trying to pretend that even though I'm going through some tough personal things, I can still be superwoman when it comes to churning books out. Unfortunately, it all caught up with me this week at the beach.

The week I thought would be a huge breakthrough week for me, one where I would write 40,000 words and get ahead on my book deadline, actually turned out to be one of the most emotional weeks I've had in a very long time. (and trust me when I say, that's really saying something). Since technically this is my 'writing' blog, I haven't spent much time lately talking about my personal life. I used to do that more here before I had self-published. You know, back when no one was really reading, hehe. But I have been feeling like maybe it's not right to dump my personal issues on my readers and fans. After all, you come here to learn about my books, right? Not to hear about my problems...

On the other hand, I feel like my fans are my friends. You guys are always there to support me and hear me out. You celebrate with me and you understand when I'm upset about something. So why would this be any different? So, I have decided to share something with you. I promise I won't be talking about it a lot or whining about it on here on a regular basis. I just feel that since I went out there saying I would have a huge writing week - and have so obviously failed - maybe you deserved an explanation.

So, with all that being said, here is where I pour my heart out. For a long while now, my husband and I have been trying to have a baby. There aren't even words to express how very much I would love to be a mother. Unfortunately, I have a condition called PCOS that has caused infertility and made it a very difficult journey. For the past year, I have been going through various fertility treatments, doctor appointments, medications, acupuncture, you name it. After many failed cycles, we are now preparing to start IVF (in vitro fertilization). I won't go into all the fun details there, but I'll just say that if you aren't already familiar with what this entails, it isn't the most glamorous and fun thing a woman can go through. There have been a lot of tests and appointments leading up to this and now we are just 3 short weeks away from starting injections.

For me, this will mean 3 shots a day in my upper arms, which my nurse is saying may make it difficult to type for long periods of time. Almost daily appointments. Lots of hormones and other fun stuff. I'm ready for all of this, but if you know me at all, you know I'm an extremely emotional person. I wear my heart on my sleeve pretty much all the time. For me, infertility has been one of the most devastating and emotionally draining experiences of my life. And my writing is, of course, very closely tied to my emotions. Lately, because I'm having so much anxiety and worry and spending so much emotional energy on IVF, I haven't had as much to dedicate to my writing.

This is where the beach trip was supposed to come in. I had planned to leave my worries at home and come to a beautiful place to just write, write, write! I've used beach trips before with great success, so I expected this to be the same. Unfortunately, this emotional rollercoaster I'm on just wasn't something I could turn off and leave behind. I would love to say that I'm superwoman and can write through anything, but it's just not the case. This is a time where I really need to be nice to myself and do my best to take my time and write when I can. I hope you, dearest readers, will understand this.

So where does this leave Rival Demons? Hopefully, nothing will change as far as my schedule. I hope to still have the book out by the end of October if I can. The rough draft is really solid and I'm truly loving this story. And believe me, I can't WAIT for you to learn some big things about Harper in this next book. I promise that I will do my best to stay on schedule and to keep writing. At the same time, though, I'm going to ask for your prayers and your support as I go through this very difficult and emotional time in my life. I wish I could keep my writing and my personal life separate, but I honestly think that if I could do that, it wouldn't make me a very good writer. I have to feel whatever it is I feel. I have to live through it and deal with it in order to come out on the other side. This isn't something everyone understands, but I'm sharing it with you, hoping that you will.

Thanks for listening to me today. I'm actually leaving the beach early. My husband is currently on his way to come get me so we can be together. He is my rock and my heart and he just gets it and grounds me and makes me better. So, the beach trip ended with just under 8,000 words. A far cry from my goal of 40,000 words, but I'm going to pat myself on the back anyway and just keep chugging along over the next few weeks until the book is finished. In a way, my books and my characters are almost like my children, hehe, and during this time, I'm so grateful to know that no matter what, I'll always have them.

Wednesday Update from the Beach

I spent the day today reading back through Book 4 and living in Harper's head for a while, trying desperately to get out of my own. I finally sat down this evening to start some word sprints with my friends and quickly got to just under 3,000 words, which is definitely an improvement. At this point, however, with only 3 days left in the trip (one of them being only a half-day), I'm pretty much certain I won't be able to reach my initial goal of 40,000 words. Still, I am hoping the rest of the week is all about words, words, words. I'm going to leave my word meter goal at 40,000, but in my mind, I'm now shooting for more like 25,000. That's the crazy thing about writing - you can plan all you want, but the book seems to take as much time as it's going to take. All I can do is try my best to be available when the muse is ready for me.

It's definitely beautiful here. I've never been to the beach in September, but I think I'm in love. There are no huge crowds or screaming children on the beach. It's quiet and serene. It isn't cold yet, but it's not nearly as hot as it would have been a month ago. The water is still warm and nice to swim in and there are lots of shells here on this beach, which I always love. It's supposed to rain some tomorrow and Friday, so my beach time might be coming to an end, but I love the sound of the ocean, so I might sit on the porch and write even if the rain comes. 

To be honest, it's been a struggle to get into the groove so far this week, but I feel a change coming from deep inside. I have a feeling the next few days are going to be exactly what I was looking for.

Beach Update

Anyone who has been checking back to view my progress has probably been sorely disappointed by the lack of movement on my word meter, ha! I promise, I am working! Just right now, I'm still in the whole looking-over-my-rough-draft-and-trying-to-decide-what-sucks-most stage. I'm working through the plot, doing some soul searching - both mine and Harper's - and organizing my thoughts so I can write the best possible book I can write. There are some pretty huge answers coming in this book (at least I think they're huge), so I want to make sure I write them into the story in the most organic, natural way. And, of course, I always want to make sure to stay true to Harper's character, even if she is in another world at the moment. She's still the same Harper.

So, that's my update. No words yet in the 40,000 goal, which is scaring me just a tad, but I'm working hard! Words WILL be updated tonight. I feel like I'm close to finishing this first stage of the revision process and am hopefully about to move on to the next part.

And, on another note, here's the view from my front porch.

Beach Week Progress

I thought it would be fun to keep everyone updated on my progress at the beach this upcoming week! I created a word meter where I can update how many words I've written on the revised version of Rival Demons. I've set a humongous goal for myself this next week! 40,000 words! It's not going to be easy, but I know I can do it if I work really hard. Please check back throughout the week to see my progress. I'll be updating it a few times per day. Feel free to leave encouraging messages for me, as I know this is going to be a tough week of writing. My hope is to get so much done that I can push up the release of RIVAL DEMONS to early October!

(Oh, and just as a side note, I created this free word meter on my own website at www.sarracannon.com/wordmeter. My amazing husband designed this word meter for me so that I could keep my fans up to date on my progress. The word meter is free for anyone to use. You can go to my website, create and design your own word meter, then stick the image onto your blog or website. Then, instead of having to re-create the word meter each time, you can simply visit the website and update your word count. The word meter will automatically update on any websites where you have it posted.)

Rival Demons News and The Beach

Woohoo! I'm doing a dance over here, because I just finished my rough draft for RIVAL DEMONS! Yay!!! I can't believe it's finished! It feels so amazing to have the rough draft of my fifth book completed just shy of one year since I started the first book in the series! Wow, it's amazing how much things have changed for me in this past year.

So what's next? Ah, the rewrites begin! For me, a rough draft is more of an exploration of where the story wants to go. I rarely use very much of it in the final book, which I know sounds weird, but it's true. Now begins the true version of the book now that I've (hopefully) gotten most of the kinks out and am ready to write. For now, I'm heading to the gym with my plot cards and I'm going to jump on the treadmill for about an hour listening to music and thinking about what I want to change in the next draft. I love this part! It's where the story really starts to come together for me!

Then, on Monday, I am lucky enough to have the entire week at Kure Beach with two of my good friends. We are all three writers and are planning to get so much done! We'll be there until Saturday with nothing to do but walk on the beach and WRITE!!! I have set some huge goals for myself, so in order to keep myself motivated, I am going to keep posting my progress here on the blog. I hope to lose myself in Harper's world - or actually more like Jackson's world, come to think of it!

My goal for the beach week: 40,000 words. That would mean about 8,000 words a day on average, so a very lofty goal. It might not be possible, but I'm going to give it 100%. I always feel so inspired by the ocean, so when I feel burned out, I can just go for a long walk on the beach and get rejuvenated! I'm excited about the trip and excited to be done with the rough draft for Book 5. It's definitely looking more and more like an October release date for RIVAL DEMONS!

August Sales Numbers

Wow, so they weren't kidding about a summer slump. My sales definitely slowed down in the month of August, and it was scary! Overall, I had a good monthly total simply because I now have four books out instead of 3. On the other hand, each book's individual sales were the lowest they've been since February, which is disappointing. That's one of the hardest parts about self-publishing. It's a lot of ups and downs and you never truly know what to expect from month to month. The only true way to guarantee growth is to keep writing books.

August Sales Numbers:

BEAUTIFUL DEMONS (Book 1 of the PHD series. 10/31/10)

• Amazon Kindle Store: 855 US + 234 UK + 2 DE = 1091
• Barnes & Noble: 296
• Smashwords: 2
• Total: 1389

INNER DEMONS (Book 2 of the PHD series. 12/22/10)

• Amazon Kindle Store: 702 US + 157 UK + 1 DE = 860
• Barnes & Noble: 244
• Smashwords: 2
• Total: 1106

BITTER DEMONS (Book 3 of the PHD series. 2/24/11)

• Amazon Kindle Store: 671 US + 118 UK + 1 DE = 790
• Barnes & Noble: 219
• Smashwords: 1
• Total: 1010

SHADOW DEMONS (Book 4 of the PHD series. 7/3/11)

• Amazon Kindle Store: 1146 US + 111 UK + 1 DE = 1258
• Barnes & Noble: 284
• Smashwords: 3
• Total: 1545

Total August Sales: 5050

Overall Sales To Date: 40698


There are two very exciting things about my August sales, despite the slowing numbers. 1. My UK sales got a huge boost this month. It's the first time I've sold over 600 books in the UK, so that was super exciting. 2. I passed the 40,000 books sold mark! I never dreamed I would be able to sell that many books in less than a year! And I still have until the last day of October to try my best to hit 50K in a year. Of course, with the huge slow down, that's definitely not a guarantee. Already in September, the numbers have continued to seriously drop. For example, Beautiful Demons hovered between 1000 and 1500 sales rank for months, but lately has been seen closer to 4000 and 5000 in the kindle store. I ended last month with an average of 162 books sold per day. Yesterday, I only sold 84 books. To be honest, it's scaring me. And since I started this sales number report in order to be honest and give a true picture of what an Indie author's sales look like, I have to tell you how I feel.

I have thoughts that go through my head about what if I've reached the maximum numbers for this series? What if it's all downhill from here? There are a million scary thoughts in my head. Still, I do understand logically that if I continue to put out new books, there will be spikes and then things will begin to drop again. It's a pattern. It's natural. It happens to everyone. I think it's scary because it makes me feel a little bit out of control. I'm not sure what to do to boost my sales back up - other than writing more books. I plan to release the 5th book in my series, RIVAL DEMONS, in October. Then, if all goes well, the 6th book, DEMONS FOREVER, will come out just before Christmas. Perfect timing to end the series just before the biggest boost of ebook sales, right? I hope so. For me, that's the only marketing strategy I can come up with, and I think it's a good one. I'm a writer. So I'll write. As for sales, we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Have you seen a lag in your summer sales? What have you done to boost them? How do you get over the fear of seeing sales drop? If you're an Indie author, please let me know how you handle these lags if you've seen them.

Exciting News!

There are several things I wanted to announce today.First of all, I am almost finished with the rough draft of Book 5! This is, actually, why I've come to a very big decision about the series that I sincerely hope you will be excited about.

When I first started writing the Peachville High Demons series, I thought it would be a trilogy. Possibly four books at most. Then, in the middle of writing the rough draft for Book 3, I realized the story was much bigger than I ever imagined. The series grew to 5 books. Now that I'm almost finished with the rough draft of Book 5, however, I have realized that Harper's story isn't over just yet. There's still more to tell.

Book 5 is NOT going to be the final book in the Peachville High Demons series. In fact, most of the book takes place in the shadow world and there is still at least one more book needed to finish Harper and Jackson's story.  Book 5 is also getting a new name. I really feel that the LAST book in the series needs to be DEMONS FOREVER, so I'm saving that title for when I'm completely sure the book I'm writing really is the last book. I know everyone has been waiting for DEMONS FOREVER and thinking that was the next book, but as a self-published author, my main goal is to be true to the story and let it unfold that way it needs to. If that means another book, I'm going to go with it. That's one of the biggest advantages to being an Indie author, actually. I don't have an editor telling me the series has to end with Book 5 or telling me what the title of the book has to be. I can let my imagination take over. And I have the power to let the story go where it wants to go.

About halfway through this rough draft, I realized there was so much more story to tell. There is a HUGE surprise in this new book and it sent the story in a direction even I wasn't expecting. Because of that, I started to realize I would need for this to either be a very long book (ha!) or it would have to be broken into two separate books. In the interest of getting the book published quickly and not making fans of the series wait several more months to get the story, I decided on the second option. I'm going to just write more books!

Book 5's new name is RIVAL DEMONS and it is going to be the story of Harper and Jackson's time in the shadow world. What they learn there will change them both forever.

I'm still not ready to give an exact release date for the book yet, but I can tell you that I plan to have it published before the end of October at the latest. I will post an official release date as soon as I have one for you! And for fans of the series, I'm going to need your help in spreading the word about the new title and the new direction of the series! As far as I see it now, DEMONS FOREVER will now become Book 6 and will be the end of the story, but I'm somewhat at the mercy of the story, to be honest. I'm willing to write what I feel is true to the story and let it go where it wants to go. Still, I'm sure there will be some confusion because people will be looking for DEMONS FOREVER to come out in October, not a book called RIVAL DEMONS, so help spread the word about the new title and the extra book now in the series!

I sincerely hope you are as excited as I am about the addition of another book to the series. I have to admit, I've been a little nervous about announcing it! I'm hoping fans of the series will be happy there is another book in the works and they won't have to say goodbye to Harper and Jackson just yet.

Back of the Book Reviews September Extravaganza

Today starts the month-long read-a-thon and September Extravaganza over at Back of the Book Reviews!! This month will be full of exciting author interviews and amazing giveaways! They are having daily giveaways as well as one big grand prize giveaway at the end of the month that will include one of the very first free signed print copies of my book, BEAUTIFUL DEMONS. They also have put together an amazing September Extravaganza Programme that has all kinds of awesome discounts, coupons and free book download codes. The programme is 49 pages long and includes exclusive interviews, featured authors, a full list of featured books, lots of discount coupons, and an exclusive offer from Dorchester Books. Go to the Back of the Book Reviews website and look for the programme 'buy now' button on the right side.

Inside the program, there is a coupon for a FREE smashwords download of the first book in my Peachville High Demons series, BEAUTIFUL DEMONS. If you've been wanting to check out my writing or the Peachville series, this is a great way to try it while also getting lots of other great information and discounts!! The programme is only $2.99 so I highly encourage you to check it out!

I'm excited to be a part of the September Extravaganza and I hope everyone will stop by their website and participate this month! It should be lots of fun!