And as you tour remember that one lucky tourist will win a Kindle, Wi-Fi, Graphite, 6″ Display with New E Ink Pearl Technology.  All you have to do enter is comment on the blogs. The more you comment, the more chances you have to win. Along the way you might get lucky and win some other goodies. Some blogs have contests of their own so make sure you read the blog entry before commenting.

If you stop mid-tour, lose your place or need to find a specific blog you can always come back here by clicking the banner:

found on every one of the blogs on the tour. It will bring you right back here.

When you have come full circle and return to this blog, your tour is done.

We will be having a big birthday celebration on our community Yahoo loop. Make sure you stop by on August 7, 2011, from 6:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. (EST), for games and prizes and a chance to chat with the authors. At 11:00 p.m. (EST) we will announce the winner of the Kindle.

Blog Tour Stops

1. AMP WEBSITE - http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/blog/
2. Cynthia Vespia - http://www.CynthiaVespia.com
3. Dominique Eastwick - http://dominiqueeastwick.blogspot.com/2011/07/happy-birthday-aspen-mountain-press.html
4. Wendy Soliman - http://www.wendysolimanblogspot.com/
5. Gloria Burland - http://www.gloriaburland.com/blogsite/
6. Mark Covington - http://vmarkcovington-author.blogspot.com/
7. Cassandra Pierce - http://www.cassandrapierce.com/Blog.php
8. Aurora Regency Blog - http://www.auroraregency.blogspot.com/
9. Nya Rayne - http://discoveringnyarayne.blogspot.com/?zx=ba850263be7adaa4
10. Arabella Sheraton
11. Viki Lyn - http://www.vikilynromance.blogspot.com/?zx=fc0a2bfdbcb6076a
12. Grace Wen - http://grace-wen.blogspot.com/
13. Andy Dunn - http://andy-onthefrizz.blogspot.com/
14. Amp Authors Webs site - http://aspenmountainpress.webs.com/apps/blog/show/7737503-amp-s-5th-anniversay-blog-tour
15. A.E.H. Veenman - http://www.aehveenman.wordpress.com
16. Berengaria Brown - http://berengariasblog.blogspot.com/
17. Cindi Myers - http://www.cindimyersmarketnews.wordpress.com
18. Jess Dee - http://jessdee.wordpress.com
19. MT Albright - http://blog.theguysaloser.com/
20. Maura Anderson -http://www.realmsoftheraven.com
21. Marie Roy - http://www.newsletterofmarieroy.blogspot.com
22. Aubrey Leatherwood - http://amusedauthors.wordpress.com
23. Melisse Aires -http://melisseaires.blogspot.com/
24. Aura Blog - http://auraspecfic.blogspot.com/

For 2 extra chances to win, sign up for our Newsletter! Go to our webpage at http://www.aspenmountainpress.com.

Register with the site and click the box to receive the Newsletter.

Other helpful links

AMP - http://www.aspenmountainpress.com

Aurora Regency - http://www.auroraregency.com/

Facebook - http://facebook.com/Aspen.Mountain.Press

Twitter - http://twitter.com/AspenMtnPress

Facebook Fan page - http://www.facebook.com/index.php?lh=517427d9edc9c30cdb9fb111966ee7e2&#!/pages/Aspen-Mountain-Press-Fan-Page/132855360081991

Tour Rules:
1) Tour Starts: Monday, August 1, 2011 at Midnight (EST)
Tour Ends: August 7, 2011 at Midnight (EST)

Final Celebration is August 7th from 6pm-11pm (EST) at the AMP Community Loop.

Grand Prize: a Kindle (Wi-Fi, Graphite, 6″ Display with New E-Ink Pearl Technology) is the Grand Prize. Drawing will take place and be announced on August 7, 2011 on the AMP Community Loop at 11pm (EST). Only comments posted before 10pm (EST) on August 7, 2011 are eligible to win the Kindle. Winner will be notified by email on August 8, 2011 if they are not present on the Loop for the announcement.

***Individual winners from author contests will be drawn and posted August 8, 2011 on their individual sites.***

2) Participation at every blog on the tour is not required but the more blogs a person comments on, the more chances they have to win. If a person comments on one blog, they are entered into the Grand Prize Drawing once. If they comment on ten different blogs, they will be entered into the Grand Prize drawing ten times. Only one comment per blog per person will be entered to win the Grand Prize.

3) The winner of the Grand Prize must be a resident of the United States with a US mailing address. Non-US winners will be eligible for $50 US in Aspen Mountain Press books from the AMP Website.

4) Prizes at individual author blogs are completely at the discretion of the individual authors and are not in association with Aspen Mountain Press and its prize system. To enter the contest on any given blog, you must follow their contest rules and objectives.

5) By commenting on any blog in the tour, the participant is agreeing to these rules and policies.

6) All prize winners will be chosen randomly by using Random Line Picker.

Thank you for coming by. Don’t forget to leave a comment and tell us your favorite AMP book or which AMP book is on your TBR pile.

Happy touring from all of us at Aspen Mountain Press.

NEXT STOP on the tour is the Ever Talented and always wonderful Cynthia Vespia

Click here to travel to her Blog  http://www.cynsights.blogspot.com/

Come back August 1st for rules and more information on our fabulous 5th Anniversary Blog tour and learn how to enter to win prizes (including our grand prize - a Graphite Kindle 3!)

1)  Denial

2)  Anger

3)  Bargaining

4) Depression

5) Acceptance

These stages can also be used to move a character through a story so that by the end the main character has experienced growth.

Additional substages of grief might also include feelings of guilt, fear and shock which could show up in any of the first four stages.

Try applying these stages to the growth arc  of your character and see what unique insights you are able to include for your readers.  You’ll be surprised at the new depth of your work.

1. Jacob
2. Ethan
3. Michael
4. Alexander
5. William
6. Joshua
7. Daniel
8. Jayden
9. Noah
10. Anthony

(more…)

are here again and badder than ever.

Book four in the series is Now Available for your reading pleasure. 

Here’s a short blurb to entice you.

Straight-laced children’s author, Rachel Conklin, awakens on a deserted island wrapped in the arms of a sexy pirate. Convinced she’s in a dream conjured from the pages of her breakout novel, Rachel casts her inhibitions to the wind. Guilt-free, she seduces the handsome sailor and rides the waves of passion.

Pediatrician Henri Bernier wasn’t quite sure what to do with the sexy mermaid he’d pulled from the sea. Then she started kissing him and sent his libido soaring. Now the good doctor is ready to practice anything.

You can read excerpts at Aspen Mountain Press or on Sloane Taylor’s blog.

Author Steve Barber’s unique take on relationships, life, death, and human nature are explored in this collection of  short stories. He looks into our memories, our fears, even our deepest secrets. Reflected in a cracked mirror, you may see the woman down the street, whose son seems just a little off, the literary writer who let his rejections get to him a bit too much, the young man whose turn it is to take over a terrible family obligation, or the celebrated chef whose gambling gets him in way more trouble than he thought possible. Or you just may find your own secret self hiding among the pages.

Aspen Mountain Press is proud to present the works of horror authors such as Steve Barber, Jefferson Dane, Melissa Glisan and Chris Morrow.

We can take this concept and apply it to our writing using the acronym SMART.

S-is the goal specific? Is it designed to stretch your abilities? I will be able to write 500 words a day five days a week is specific.

M-is the goal meaningful to you as a writer? Will the above goal get you to your over arching goal-that of completing a story or novel?

A- is the goal achievable?  Can you measure your progress? Is the goal too easy, or too difficult?  A goal should stretch you but not discourage you. It may take a bit of trial and error to refine an achievable goal.

R-Is it realistic?  If your goal is achievable, do you have a plan for getting there?  If you set a goal of 5,000 words a day, have you exercised your writing muscles enough to get there or do you have to work up to it?    if you’ve never written a word before 5,000 words is not going to be realistic.

T-is your goal timely?  Do you have an end date you are aiming for?  Will the goal you’ve set be something you can accomplish by the end date? Do you need to rethink either the goal or the date you’d like it to be finished by?  Do a little math.  If you have a goal to write a 60,000 word novel by the end of the year, how many words do you need to write in a week?  How many days of a week are you willing to write?

If you are SMART you can set stretchable, achievable goals and look forward to a bevy of accomplishments.

A lot of it is pacing. Your scenes should develop in a way that builds towards an event or a question of what’s to follow. The way you deliver that most effectively is with action. I’m sure you’ve heard it before, show- don’t tell. Describe for the reader exactly how you see the scene play out in your head. Follow the little movie running in your mind and be aware of all 5 of the senses, then incorporate them into your scene. You know you’ve done your job well when a reader describes back to you the emotion that you were trying to portray. That again is pacing. Drawing the reader in so they feel like they’re part of the story. In a way they become that character on the page.
Here is an example of building suspense and tension taken from my novel Demon Hunter: The Chosen One

His heavy boots made a sick-wet sound as they slapped the soft earth. Debris and chunks of dirt blew into our faces taunting us with the desire to cough aloud but we remained as still as statues. Our eyes kept trained on the man’s every move.

The knife was outstretched in his hands. Almost all of the blood had dried, giving its color a dark crimson masking rather than the brighter sheen of a fresh kill. The remaining liquid congealed at the tip pulling one solitary, fat droplet down off the knife. It plummeted fast and found its landing direct upon the back of my hand. Warmth and cold both blanketed me in the same sensation as the blood sat soaking upon my skin. Both Tuck and I sat staring at the droplet in stark terror, daring not to move one single inch. That one small drop of blood marked what true danger we were exposed to.

Finally I managed to pull my gaze away and regard the stranger before us. My blood ran cold as the man’s eyes rained down upon me, locked against my own. They were dark orbs, almost as dark as night, and they held within them just a touch of madness staring out from under his full brimmed hat.

Notice how the emotions intertwine with description to move the story forward. Depending on what genre you’re writing in there are certain ways of delivering the story fans of that genre expect. Again, learn those techniques and then add what is essentially your own style to create your own definitive writing “voice.”

Control the pace, control the story. The bulk of any scene is built with some sort of conflict, an exterior struggle the audience can visualize, follow, and relate to in some way. Build your suspense with the scene and sequel method where the scene is built upon a certain goal, conflict, or disaster and is almost immediately followed by its sequel with emotion, decision, and action.

Play out your scenes moment to moment just like in real life. Read it back over to yourself and adjust until you feel your own heart quicken with anticipation. But my most important tip for you is this: have fun! Writing, like life, is meant for you to enjoy the journey. Don’t get bogged down with a lot of rules. The tips I’ve presented here are a starting point to help you on that journey. No go forth and discover some techniques of your own and join us back here where you will deliver your own set of tips. Write your story…and make sure you enjoy it.

Shifters, shifters everywhere

I love shifter books. The raw, primal feeling these guys and gals have amid the pages really has me glued to the book, flipping the pages so fast it looks like I am a NASCAR race. My favorite shifter book has to be by Deborah Cooke. Her Dragonfire novels are one spellbinding story from start to finish. When I sit down with one of her books, I am blown away by the way she created this world and populated with shape-shifting dragons. Now who doesn’t like a good dragon story? I love them. In my Devon Falls book, Fiery Magic, I got the idea to make one of the characters a dragon and the heroine called him “pretty”. Now tell me, are dragons “Pretty”? To me they are wild, primal and pure fun as in the case of Smokey from Yasmine Galenorn’s Otherworld series. Each author makes the shifter, be it dragon, wolves, tigers or, heck, even ferrets, their own and they each incorporate something that will have the reader clamoring for more.

          In Fiery Magic, we met the Dracon twins; one is a dragon shifter, the other a wolf shifter; one family-many generations- who are shifters of some kind. I made my shifters a bit different, where each person in this large family, is something different. They didn’t get bit by the animal; case in point a werewolf, but were born as a shifter of some kind. It is the magic in their blood that defines what they become. Eventually we will meet a cousin of Rod and Damien Dracon- a woman who, in this large family of shifters, has no shifter powers what so ever. What do you do if you have no powers but what god/goddess gave you? That is the question I will ask her and her hero………eventually. 

          My next Devon Falls book introduces a new character in Michael Barnes, who is a rare white tiger shifter who is all alone with no pride. He roams from place to place and is friends with Damien Dracon, who tries to get him to Devon Falls to no avail in years before. He was an interesting character to write about. Here you have a lonely, quiet man who has no place to call “Home”. He longs for mate, hearth and kits of his own but knows that with no pride; he is limited in his choices…….or so he thinks. We meet the woman who will knock him flat on his back and show him that home is where the heart is in Moonlight & Magic.

          Shifters are a world where readers and authors can explore with pure enjoyment. I love reading them and hope to eventually expand on shifters as an author to include Kitsunes and others that fire the imagination. In the meantime, I am going to sit with my dragons and explore their world because Ms. Cooke and Ms.Galenorn are calling me from the bookcases. So what are your favorite shifters to enjoy?

Raine Delight is the author of Devon Falls series at Aspen Mountain Press and the next two books, Moonlight & Magic and Yuletide Magic, are coming respectively October and December 2010. More information on Raine’s books, check out her website and blog for more information, book news and more.

Welcome to the Aspen Mountain Press blog (stop#2) via the 1RomanceEbooks.com Happy Anniversary contest and the last blog you visited at Cherie De Sues.

When my husband, Jeff, started 1RomanceEbooks a little more than a year ago, he worked hard, trying to make a re-seller site as user friendly as possible for both publishers and readers. 

He would know. 

He helped build the Aspen Mountain Press web site and saw first hand the successes and frustrations that I experienced as a publisher.  He took all the lessons I could give him from Aspen Mountain Press and applied it to 1RomanceEbooks persevering against the road blocks and hurdles set before him. When giving up would have been easier, he stayed the course.  When sales were low in the beginning, he created plans to encourage readers to find 1Romance and buy stories from to fill the need for romance in our lives.

Now on the eve of our 24^th wedding anniversary, the 4^th anniversary of Aspen Mountain Press and the 1^st anniversary of 1RomanceEbooks Jeff’s hard work is paying off.  I’ve never been more proud to be associated with a man of integrity, honesty and honor.  A man who understands good customer service, a man who works tirelessly to provide a good experience for all those who visit the site and one who supports a future and a vision for eBooks.

To celebrate the myriad events occurring this summer Aspen Mountain Press is proud to give one lucky winner a signed print copy of DEAD Done Right, a contemporary vampire romance by Lizzie T. Leaf.   The book includes two great stories available NOW as eBooks at Aspen Mountain Press. 

In Waking Up DEAD Deb Stein wakes up to the scent of pine and the discovery that her life has changed forever.  Now instead of the glare of paparazzi flashbulbs, she’s in the spotlight as Lovey Divine who takes it off for a room full of lusting strangers, her one goal to seek revenge on the man who turned her into one of the undead.

And, as a vampire what could possibly be worse than fainting at the sight of blood?  Yet that is precisely what happens in the novella DEAD Faint when Billie Joyce comes to New York City only to be turned into a vampire .

The Aspen Mountain Press blog also has information regarding the upcoming Aspen Mountain Press anniversary bash in which we will be giving away an eReader, gold aspen leaf jewelry, beautiful picture frames, keepsake boxes and more.  In order to win a prize, you must be a member of our newsletter where you will receive more information about how you can win these fabulous gifts.

To win a copy of DEAD Done Right, be sure to leave a valid comment about this post or any others here, along with your participant number and an answer to the following: name one other Lizzie T. Leaf title now available at Aspen Mountain Press other than the ones mentioned in this post.

The next stop of this blog tour will be #3 with Teresa D’Amario.

Congratulations to the man I love and the wonderful company he is building.   May there be many, many more anniversary celebrations.