Happy Easter! Happy Update!
I’m currently watching my chinchilla, Zidane literally eat his Easter basket. It’s a cute sight! He started on some of the bundles of sticks, then tried two of the different flavored cookies and is now chomping on the basket itself. It’s actually his first Easter with us. I’ve been trying to celebrate holidays with him the best I can which usually consists of chin-friendly chews like organic dried baby rose petals and a vine heart for Valentine’s Day and green colored chews like loofah and bamboo finger traps for St. Patrick’s Day. He’ll probably get a bunch of finger traps for Independence Day since when he chews on them it resembles confetti. Needless to say he’s having a good day despite his poor behavior yesterday (he knocked his food bowl upside down). I teased him about the Easter bunny not bringing anything because he was a bad chinny. Of course he didn’t take me seriously. I’ll be in an Easter parade in Saint Augustine, FL later this day before spending time with family for the holidays. Happily enough I got TWO Lindt bunnies this year; the only type of milk chocolate I like. It’s so smooth and creamy.
New Today!
Chapter twelve is now available for A Tail to Remember. Kallie is still reeling over the day’s events and ends up with an unexpected surprise. I think Mittens reminds me a bit of Zidane. Especially in this chapter. Next week will be a new chapter of Spark of Vengeance.
E-Book!
Just a reminder, Frozen Reflection, book 1 of my young adult fantasy series, The Crystal Garden Saga is available as an e-book on the Kindle, through Smashwords,on Drivethrufiction, and from Lulu. It’s still currently pending for the Nook and at the iBookstore although there are several formats available through Smashwords. If you want to experience a different twist to a fairytale favorite, be sure to check out Frozen Reflections. It’s available for $4.99 at the previously mentioned vendors. Click on the names for the links.
Hello April!
It’s a new month, Doris is playing a creepy hidden object game entitled Shiver: The Vanishing Hitchhiker Collector’s Edition from Big Fish Games. She just got a call in game where a raspy voice said “I’m watching you.” That plus the creepy soundtrack, weird children’s drawing of dead people and other “surprises,” makes this posting rather challenging. If you like spooky games, then add this to your list. The second game Shiver: Poltergeist is also good she says.
Updates
As listed on your updated schedule for posting new content, LJ has posted chapter 4 to Spark of Vengeance. She has her first young adult novel, Frozen Reflections epublished on Smashwords, Amazon, and Lulu so if you are interested in a copy please purchase it from one of those three distributors. It should be available for the Nook and iBookstore in the relative future. Here is what one reader has to say about the book. “Just finished your book. I truly enjoyed it, great twists! Congrats Lisa, well done!!” See LJ’s page for more info on the book itself.
Also, next month Doris will have the third book of Descent into Darkness: His Beast ready for epublishing. She’ll share more info on that in the future.
Insert Something Witty Here
The rainy weather has sapped my mind of the ability to come up with an interesting title to this post today. Normally I don’t mind the rain, except when it results in me suffering from a migraine. I’m currently at Doris’s place typing this as she plays a creepy hidden object game from Big Fish Games entitled Shiver: The Vanishing Hitchhiker Collector’s Edition. It has freaky children’s drawings of dead people all of the place as well as other spooky stuff, especially the music. If you like spooky hidden object games this one is recommended.
On To The Real Reason for This Post
Chapter 4 has just been posted for Spark of Vengeance. The mystery over the strange fire looms over the heads of the Keepers as the townsfolk point fingers. Next week will be a new chapter for A Tail to Remember.
In Case You Missed the Previous Announcements…
Frozen Reflection, the first novel of my Young Adult Fantasy series The Crystal Garden Saga has been published on Smashwords (available on different formats), Kindle, and Lulu. It’s unfortunately still pending for the Nook and iBookstore (there was a problem with the formatting which has been fixed.) Frozen Reflection is a story of a teenaged girl who on her sixteenth birthday discovers that there may be more to dreams and reality than she first though. It’s my first full novel that was originally used for NaNoWriMo last year. Unfortunately I hit a wall and was not able to pick the story back up until over a month later. Interestingly, the story wouldn’t have worked even if I had finished on time; it ended short of 50,000 words, the minimum requirement for NaNoWriMo. Now that’s it done however I will be working to have print copies available for Ancient City Con in July. I have also started on book two which I hope to have finished before the end of the year. I’ll share more on this in the future. This by the way is not a April Fool’s Day Prank.
Happy rest of the weekend!
Coffee Is An Author’s Best Friend
I have been in dire need of caffeine this morning! For those of you who haven’t read any of my posts since before midnight eastern time last night, I have epublished my Young Adult Novel, Frozen Reflection through Lulu and Kindle. It ‘s also currently pending for the Nook and iBookstore. I will post another update once it’s been accepted through them. I am so excited to finally have the first book of my YA fantasy series available for readers. This excitement unfortunately led to a partially sleepless night due to an adrenaline rush. Coffee has been a blessing this morning, even though it’s no Coffee Roasters of Florida coffee, the most awesome coffee ever!
Below is what the cover looks like made by the talented artist, Steven Young.
In Other Story News
Chapter 11 of A Tail to Remember has been posted so be sure to check out Tucker’s encounter with his evil ex Kayla. Next week will be a new chapter to Spark of Vengeance.
My YA Novel Frozen Reflections has ePublished!
As of right now the first book of The Crystal Garden Saga has been published through Lulu.com. It is also currently pending distribution through iBookstore and the Nook .It’s going for $4.99 since it’s a full novel. I’m currently working on getting it set up through Amazon for the Kindle as well. I am so excited! I absolutely love this story! If you decide to check it out, please let me know what you think. I’d love to hear some feedback. Thank you everyone who has believed in my ability to write. This is just a part of my dream come true. As a reminder, I’ll be having the story published in paperback for Ancient City Convention in July. I’ll provide more details on that later in possibly May.
Brief Update
Hope everyone is having a good weekend. LJ has posted chapter 3 to Spark of Vengeance. There will also be another quick update once her e-book, Frozen Reflection has been published so keep an eye out.
Be sure to visit us again next week for even more new chapters!
Short But Sweet
Happy Belated Saint Patrick’s Day! Today marks the first day of my new update schedule. Chapter 3 for Spark of Vengeance has been posted. Next week’s update will be A Tail to Remember.
Also sometime next week I will be e-publishing my Young Adult novel, Frozen Reflection. Keep an eye out for an announcement between now and next weekend!
The Shifting of the Lines: Paypal’s Revised Stance on Censorship
Today, the troublesome Censorship Wars have come to a partial end. Paypal has clarified that their ban is focused only on images pertaining rape, bestiality, and incest not ebooks limited to just text. This is what they state in their blog (you can read the full article HERE):
First and foremost, we are going to focus this policy only on e-books that contain potentially illegal images, not e-books that are limited to just text. The policy will prohibit use of PayPal for the sale of e-books that contain child pornography, or e-books with text and obscene images of rape, bestiality or incest (as defined by the U.S. legal standard for obscenity: material that appeals to the prurient interest, depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value).
In addition, the policy will be focused on individual books, not on entire “classes” of books. Instead of demanding that e-book publishers remove all books in a category, we will provide notice to the seller of the specific e-books, if any, that we believe violate our policy. We are working with e-book publishers on a process that will provide any affected site operator or author the opportunity to respond to and challenge a notice that an e-book violates the policy.
To be clear, we have not shut down the PayPal account of any of the e-book publishers involved in this matter. PayPal is committed to working with publishers on a mutually acceptable process to address potentially offending books on their sites so that material with images that violate this policy cannot be purchased using our service.
What this means is as long as the ebooks contain no graphics depicting rape, bestiality, and incest that it is exempt from PayPal’s censorship policy. While this may not satisfy all writers and readers, it is at least a start. For those of us at Trinity Gateways who only focus on the written word, this is wonderful news. Now we will be able to share the stories in the form that is true to us with all our readers. To leave out such details as was mentioned in our March 3rd post, The Censorship Bomb, would have destroyed the stories completely. Those of us whose stories contained any of the three situations would have had to make a very difficult decision; either edit/rewrite the story, find someplace else to publish it, or shelf it forever. That choice thankfully, won’t have to be made. Now we can move forward without fear of being banned and our stories can be read in the way they were intended. Thank you everyone who took a stand.
To a degree we have won a single battle, but the war still continues. For other people who produce art, comics, and games they still have a fight to engage in. Until the war is completely over, we will continue to lend our support. After all, the arts no matter what form, should stick together.
Big Announcement!
I finally finished it! The first book of my Young Adult fantasy novel from the Crystal Garden Saga entitled Frozen Reflections will be e-published before the end of this month! You can check out the first three chapters HERE. I will post another announcement once it has been published. More details will be coming soon. Please feel free to leave feedback. I also plan on printing it in paperback before Ancient City Convention in July. The ebook version and the paperback version will both feature different covers made for me by two very talented artists. I plan on sharing them once I have finished the lettering so keep an eye out!
New Update Schedule
Starting next week I will be posting a chapter of either A Tail to Remember or Spark of Vengeance every weekend. This means that next week there will be a new chapter to Spark of Vengeance and the week after that will be A Tail to Remember. So rather than posting new chapters every other week, each week there will be something new to read instead.
A Day to Remember
A new chapter for A Tail to Remember has been posted. The issue with the broken link to the story has also been remedied. My apologies. If you haven’t seen the past several chapters, Tucker and Kallie find themselves in an interesting position. Find out more by visiting the story HERE.
Still Accepting Submissions for Short Horror Stories
If you like to write horror stories between 1,000 and 6,000 words and would like to see one of them published, please send it to us! You can find out more information on our SUBMISSIONS PAGE. We look forward to reading your stories.
The Censorship Wars
The Battle Continues
Last week, we received word from Smashwords.com regarding Paypal’s request to remove all titles that include bestiality, rape, or incest otherwise they threaten to deactivate Samashwords.com’s Paypal account. (For more information please see our March 3, 2012 post.) Now thanks to spreading the word, it seems more people are banning behind Smashwords.com to keep the rights of ebook authors.
Current Standings
Censorship update items. 1. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) posted an action letter at their web site. Multiple new organizations have signed on in support of EFF’s call on PayPal to prevent the censorship of ebooks, including the Association of American Publishers, the Authors Guild, Feminists for Free Expression, ACLU of Northern California, Internet Archive and several others. All that’s missing is your name. CLICK HERE to read the letter and send it to PayPal and encourage your friends to do the same. 2. Major media began picking up on the story today, starting with a story from Publishers Weekly and followed soon after by Reuters, Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal and CNET. 3. Smashwords author LC Cooper complied some interesting research that analyzes some of the “objectionable” content on eBay, PayPal’s parent. View it here
Paypal’s Parent Company Not Compliant?
Interestingly enough, the website, Publishing’s New Frontiers discovered that Paypal’s parent company, Ebay is not practicing what Paypal preaches. The website did a search for books containing words on Paypal’s banned list and discovered products ranging from 72 to 2,364 containing the words bestiality, rape, or incest. You can read their article for more info. http://publishingfrontiers.blogspot.com/2012/03/paypals-censorship-debacle.html?spref=tw
Still Fighting the Fight
Currently, Smashwords did have to adjust their Terms of Service in order to comply with Paypal for now. To better understand the position they are in here is a post they shared:
The censorship saga continues. TechCrunch picked up on the story today. I’ve spent all weekend doing my best to personally reply to those who are both attacking us and thanking us. There’s not much in between. The flood of emails has been overwhelming. One angry author wrote me on Facebook to inform me she is now a former Smashwords author now that we have “caved in to PayPal’s policies.” I’ll share my response here so you know where my head is at: “Hello, . We have of course given very serious thought. I’m sorry to learn of your decision. We are not happy with what is happening. As I mentioned in my letter, it marks a dark hour for free speech and the rights of writers and readers to explore their own imaginations. I did not make the decision lightly, and those who attack us for this decision have no idea how I have lobbied on their behalf over the last week. It’s not so simple to just unplug PayPal. Their policy originates with the banks and credit card companies that power them, and if we want to continue accepting credit cards either with PayPal or any other payment provider, we need to understand from where this originates. I’ll continue to work on behalf of all our authors to stand up against this, but I’m unwilling to martyr our business for the sake of one day’s battle. We live to continue the fight on another day.”
As you can see they are really between a rock and a hard place. The best thing we can do is lobby with those against the censorship. Hopefully things will change in our favor soon. Until then we are taking our stand. Be sure to visit the links above to take your place in the war against censorship of ebooks. If censorship isn’t stopped, who know what they might target next. Horror due to graphic violence, romance because of risque adult situations, or perhaps murder mysteries also due to violence and scenes of death?
Only time unless the censorship is stopped.
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