Authors Helping Authors #Holiday Romance and #Recipe Exchange Featuring Jeanne St. James

Authors Helping Authors #Holiday Exchange

 #Holiday Romance, and #Recipe Exchange

Today's Featured Book and Author:

JEANNE ST. JAMES

Pennsylvania Dutch Sand Tarts

A Pennsylvania Dutch cookie, thin and crisp and traditionally served only at Christmas.

Ingredients

• ½ pound butter, softened (no substitutes)
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 eggs, separated
• 3 cups all-purpose flour

Topping

• ¼ cup sugar mixed with ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 egg beaten
• 4 cups whole pecans (although I didn't use that many)

Instructions

1. If using a kitchen aid, beat the egg whites stiff first and transfer to another bowl.
2. In the mixing bowl, beat butter until very softened. Add sugar and beat until fluffy. Add salt, and vanilla. Beat egg yolks and add.
3. Fold in the egg whites, but not totally. You should still be able to see some of the white patches.
4. Add in flour 1½ cups at a time.
5. Chill overnight.
6. Bake the next day at 350 degrees.
7. Roll out a quarter at a time, keeping dough in refrigerator.
8. Roll very thin and use a 2 inch scalloped cookie cutter to form or use any Christmas cutter you desire.
9. Brush with beaten egg, top, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and top with pecan.
10. Bake 9-10 minutes, not allowing cookie to get too brown.
11. Cool thoroughly on wire racks.
12. Pack in tins.

Brother in Blue: Max by Jeanne St. James

Genre: Contemporary Erotic Romance

 Blurb:

Big city party-girl Amanda Barber has been spoiled most of her life. But life for Amanda suddenly becomes a major challenge: adapting to small town life, dealing with her handicapped brother and constantly butting heads with a frustrating local cop.

As a police officer and former Marine, “responsibility” is Max Bryson’s middle name. Never having been in a serious relationship, he has no plans for being in one in the near future. He likes being his own man. And even if he were interested in a serious relationship, he certainly wouldn’t choose it to be with someone so immature and irresponsible as Amanda. But no matter how hard he tries, he can’t get sexy Amanda out of his head or his heart. Watching her mature in front of his eyes, his protectiveness towards her only strengthens.

Bossy and possessive aren’t the only words Amanda uses to describe this frustrating cop. She can’t deny just looking at the man makes her tremble. But she’s done with having anyone control her and this man isn’t going to be any different. Or is he?

Excerpt:

AMANDA LOOKED UP, surprised at his outburst. Before she could close the door on him, he was hauling her out of the car by her arms, kicking her car door shut.

She opened her mouth to protest but gasped as he lifted her into his arms and started striding with a determined pace to the nearest barn.

She struggled, pushing against his chest. “What the hell are you doing?”

“What I should do every time you’re a pain in my ass.”

He nudged the barn door with his shoulder and dumped her unceremoniously on a nearby stack of broken straw bales. He went back to slide the door closed and latched it.

Amanda pushed herself up to a seated position, struggling as her hands sank into the loose straw.

“Don’t even move from there.”

A shiver ran up her back. Fear? Maybe a little at the unknown, but it wasn’t all fear. No matter how many times they’d butted heads, she still wanted him.

“You really deserve to be thrown over my lap and spanked.”

She frowned, shaking her head. “You’re not going to do that.”

“Don’t bet on it.”

He dropped to his knees beside her, and she quickly started to scramble away.

He grabbed her hair, and the tug on her scalp made her still immediately.

She couldn’t tell if he was mad or frustrated or what.

She licked her dry lips. “What do you want from me?” she whispered.

“Nothing.” He scrubbed a palm over his short hair. “Everything. Jesus.” He reached for her.

Buy Links:

Loose Id: http://www.loose-id.com/brothers-in-blue-max.html

aRe: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-brothersinbluemax-2127550-149.html

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Blue-St-James-Jeanne-ebook/dp/B01LX0SZ3P/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1475187489&sr=8-1&keywords=brothers+in+blue+max

Google Books: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Jeanne_St_James_Brothers_in_Blue_Max?id=lAwnDQAAQBAJ

Barnes & Noble (Nook): http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/brothers-in-blue-jeanne-st-james/1124708976?ean=9781682522219

Author Bio:

JEANNE ST. JAMES is an erotic romance author who loves an Alpha male (or two). She was only thirteen when she started writing since it gave her an escape from teenage angst! Her first paid published piece was an erotic story in Playgirl magazine. Her first erotic romance novel, Banged Up, was published in 2009. She is happily owned by farting French bulldogs. She writes M/F, M/M, and M/M/F ménages.

She has a few new releases coming up in 2017. So keep an eye on her website at www.jeannestjames.com or sign up for her newsletter: https://www.MyAuthorBiz.com/ENewsletter.php?acct=JJ4625816541890

Author Links:

Website: http://www.jeannestjames.com

Blog: http://jeannestjames.blogspot.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JeanneStJamesAuthor/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeanneStJames

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/jeannestjames

Authors Helping Authors #Holiday Romance and #Recipe Exchange Featuring Kris Bock

Authors Helping Authors #Holiday Exchange

 #Holiday Romance, and #Recipe Exchange

Today's Featured Book and Author:

A #Holiday #Recipe from romantic suspense author @Kris_Bock

Crock Pot Cheese Fondue Dip

This is a wonderful treat for a holiday party!

1 (10.75 oz) can cheddar cheese soup
2 cups grated cheddar cheese

1 cup milk
1/4 cup or more green chiles (these can often be found canned in the Mexican section of the grocery store)
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 Tbsp. chives
1 Tbsp. garlic

Serve with corn chips, celery sticks, cauliflower, etc.

1. Combine all ingredients in a fondue pot or small crock pot.
2. Heat on medium, stirring frequently, until smooth and well blended.
3. Adjust heat to warm and serve in the pot, with chips or veggies on the side. If it starts to get too thick, stir in a little more milk.

See “the dead man’s treasure bonus material” in the left-hand column of Kris Bock’s website for more New Mexico recipes.

Photo credit: New Mexico green chile, by Littlemisslibrarian, Creative Commons License

The Mad Monk’s Treasure

 The lost Victorio Peak treasure is the stuff of legends—a heretic Spanish priest’s gold mine, made richer by the spoils of bandits and an Apache raider. When Erin, a quiet history professor, uncovers a clue that may pinpoint the lost treasure cave, she prepares for adventure. But when a hit and run driver nearly kills her, she realizes she’s not the only one after the treasure. And is Drew, the handsome helicopter pilot who found her bleeding in a ditch, really a hero, or one of the enemy?

Erin isn’t sure she can trust Drew with her heart, but she’ll need his help to track down the treasure. She heads into the New Mexico wilderness with her brainy best friend Camie and a feisty orange cat. The wilderness holds its own dangers, from wild animals to sudden storms. Plus, the sinister men hunting Erin are determined to follow her all the way to the treasure, no matter where the twisted trail leads. Erin won’t give up an important historical find without a fight, but is she ready to risk her life—and her heart?

“The story has it all - action, romance, danger, intrigue, lost treasure, not to mention a sizzling relationship....”

“Great balance of history, romance, and adventure. Smart romance with an “Indiana Jones” feel.”

 Well-written with an attention to detail that allowed me to picture exactly in my head how a scene looked and played out.”

Excerpt:

Among all the legends, all the fact and fiction, one story stood out. The Victorio Peak legend had it all. A Franciscan priest and a swindler. Torture, murder, a government cover-up. Where was the truth, among all the stories? Erin wanted to find out. Over time, and with Camie’s encouragement, she’d started to take the treasure hunt more seriously. It wasn’t so much for the treasure itself—that would most likely belong to the government or the landowners. But it would make her reputation, open up new job opportunities—change her life in ways she hardly dared dream.

She touched the book gently. The pages were falling out; she didn’t want to risk carrying it around. Instead, Erin snapped a picture of the petroglyphs with her phone. That would be enough to show Camie for now.

The timing was perfect; she just had to turn in grades and field a few tearful last-minute requests for extensions, and she’d be done for the semester. What better way to spend the summer, than hunting for buried treasure?

Erin shook her head. Who would’ve thought that she, the quiet, studious girl who’d spent her entire adult life in academia in one way or another, would be planning such an adventure?

 Erin wheeled the bike around the front of her house and mounted. At the corner, she paused and looked both ways. The long frontage road was dangerously narrow, with a cement wall on one side and a ditch on the other. Fortunately, traffic was normally light, and at this time of day the road lay empty. Erin pushed off, still grinning from her find. She rode on the right side, by the ditch, instead of facing traffic, because it was just too frightening to ride alongside the wall when a car passed.

She’d gone a block when she heard the hum of a car engine as it pulled out from a side street behind her. She rode along the very edge of the pavement, even though the car would have plenty of room to pass her without oncoming traffic.

Erin glanced over her shoulder. The black SUV 20 feet behind her hadn’t bothered to pull out into the road at all. Jerk. When would drivers learn to share the road with bicyclists? Erin pulled onto the two-foot wide gravel strip between the pavement and the ditch. She couldn’t stop without risking a skid, but she slowed so the SUV could pass.

The engine roared. Erin glanced back again.

Black metal bore down on her. Her heart lurched and the bike wobbled. This guy was crazy! She whipped her gaze forward, rose up in the seat, and pumped the pedals with all her power, skimming along inches from the ditch. He was just trying to scare her. She’d get his license plate and—

She felt the bumper hit her back tire. The bike seemed to leap into the air, and she went flying. The dried mud and weeds of the ditch seemed to rise up to meet her.

  

She didn’t even have time to scream.

Kris Bock writes novels of suspense and romance with outdoor adventures and Southwestern landscapes. The Mad Monk’s Treasure follows the hunt for a long-lost treasure in the New Mexico desert. In The Dead Man’s Treasure, estranged relatives compete to reach a buried treasure by following a series of complex clues. In The Skeleton Canyon Treasure, sparks fly when reader favorites Camie and Tiger help a mysterious man track down his missing uncle. Whispers in the Dark features archaeology and intrigue among ancient Southwest ruins. What We Found is a mystery with strong romantic elements about a young woman who finds a murder victim in the woods. In Counterfeits, stolen Rembrandt paintings bring danger to a small New Mexico town.

Read excerpts at www.krisbock.com or visit her Amazon page. Sign up for Kris Bock newsletter for announcements of new books, sales, and more.

Get The Mad Monk’s Treasure for FREE!

Instafreebie is quick and convenient for people to grab their favorite file type, and you can even set it up so it knows your preference. Feel free to grab a copy! Honest reviews are always appreciated.

The Book Video Trailer

Does a video trailer for a book make you want to buy it? I'm curious to know what others think. Of course, I'm going to plug my own straight away, you can view it at http://youtu.be/y7vPOD43I7c

The first time I saw a movie-style trailer for a book was for Carrie Ryan's Forest of Hands and Teeth. I thought hey, this would be a great way to promote a book! Here was a way to bring part of that book to life and make it a little more real for the reader. Cool! So I started looking at other people's trailers, both professional and non-professional.

Yikes!

Let me preface my next comments with this--I'm not a professional by any means. As I mentioned in my first post, I dabble in video editing with Final Cut and some 3D animation...I guess you could call it a hobby. I can understand the not everyone can afford to go out and rent the latest Red 4K digital movie camera or get enough people in costume together to act out a scene. But there are some common sense things that I have noticed about the amateur book trailers that stand out at me and I wanted to pass along a few things that I learned with the making of my trailer. These are my thoughts and opinions only, please take them for what they're worth, and I'll try break them down succinctly.

Content

A lot of amateur trailers I've seen are basically wholesale copyright infringement. I'm not going to name names, but one trailer I saw was a  John Mayer music video with what sounded like a Christina Perri song  playing over it. Another was made up of clips from the movie Underworld, again with what sounded like a professionally recorded song playing on top. In my mind, this goes way beyond what could be described as fair use and there is the potential here for the publishers of these videos to be sued by the RIAA or MPAA. Again, I understand that not everyone can afford equipment or actors or to pay licensing fees, but you have to think of it this way--if someone was flashing up excerpts from your book without crediting you, would you be happy? Probably not. I know if someone took the cover from The Spring of Seduction, cropped out the book title and my name, I'd be none too happy. 

So where can you get content without going broke? Here's a few sites that I've found that offer content for free, cheap, or reasonable prices. One special note--PLEASE read the licensing agreements on these sites. Some are very liberal and other than reselling their content, they allow you to use whatever you download from their site however you please. Others, especially the pay sites, are more restrictive on how, where, and how many times their content can be used. 

• CGTextures.com - This site offers pictures for download that are primarily intended for using in CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) for movies or games to add texture to 3D models. Their license agreement allows use of their content in movies, on websites, in games, just as long as you're not reselling them outside of your project. There are plenty of pictures here, from animals, landscapes, or cityscapes, to closeups of fabrics, steel, concrete, and other materials. You do have to create an account with them, but unless you're going to be downloading over 15 MB a day in pictures, the site is free. I used a few of their pictures to texture the lighthouse in my video.
• StockFuel.com - StockFuel offers stock music, photos, video, vector art, as well Adobe Flash and After Effects content. The site uses the credits system where you have to buy blocks of credits before you download anything. Prices are reasonable, though you will have to use more credits for higher resolution photos or the ability to use their content for TV or movies. 
• PremiumBeat.com - Excellent site for stock music and sound effects. There's no credit system here, everything is paid a la carte. You can get professional sounding pieces of music for very reasonable prices, again you'll pay more depending on usage. The music I used for my own trailer came from Premium Beats.
• Freesound.org - The mother lode for free sound effects! Do you need the sound of birds chirping, cows mooing, screams, jackhammers, or even jelly wobbling on a plate? This is the place to come. Yes, you have to register, but it's free. Most of the content is under a Creative Commons license, free to use how you see fit, but check the individual sound's license just to be sure. 
• Flickr.com - A great place to go through photos uploaded by other users. To the right of each photo is how the photo is licensed - most are copyright the original uploader and may not be used (some allow you to request a license to use the photo) but others are generous enough to release their pictures under the creative commons license for free use. Please be sure to credit the owner of the photo as a courtesy to them.

Putting It All Together

Okay, you have your video clips, pictures, music, sound effects, etc. all together. Now you have to put it together into a video. 

• Windows Movie Maker - If you're running Windows XP, you'll have this installed already. If you're running Windows Vista/7/8, head on over to http://windows.microsoft.com/is-is/windows/get-movie-maker-download and download Movie Maker from there. Movie Maker comes with a nice selection of title and transition effects and lets you add music and/or sound effects to your videos. Once you're done, it will allow you share directly to Facebook or Youtube. Alternatively, you can save your movie to your hard drive as a file and upload it to your webpage. Everything is drag-and-drop so it's very easy to use.
• iMovie - If you run a Mac, chances are you have iMovie installed. If not, it's available from the Mac App Store for a very reasonable price. It has the features of Windows Movie Maker and a whole lot more. iMovie is just as easy to use as its Window's counterpart, if not easier.  It's been a while since I used iMovie but I believe once you're done it gives you the option of uploading to Facebook and Youtube.
• Final Cut Pro X - Okay, this one is a little expensive. Available for the Mac only, it runs $299 from the Mac App Store - keep your receipts for tax time! However, for just under $400 you are getting a professional video/movie editor that contains a ton of features like pro-grade titles and transitions as well as a library of stock content. It's surprisingly easy to use though there will be a learning curve if you want to take advantage of some of its niftier features. But if you're really feeling adventurous and have a little money set aside, grab your green screen and have a little fun with all that you can do. Considering comparable packages from Adobe or Avid run in the thousands of dollars, this is the closest that many of us will get to professional-grade video editing. 
• Pinnacle Studio - This is a mid-level video editing program for Windows. I haven't used it in a few years since I discovered Final Cut, but it's a reasonably easy to use piece of software with plenty of title/transition effect and output options. The one thing that bugged me about the Pinnacle series was that they advertised all the cool things you could do and all the neat effects that you could use. Unfortunately, a lot of those effects are available for purchase separately so their a la carte approach to software grew tiresome after a while. But if you want more power than Windows Movie Maker but don't want to run out and buy a Mac, this is a good option. Visit http://www.pinnaclesys.com/publicsite/us/home/ for more details.

Things to Consider

• Length of the trailer - I've seen a few that run five minutes or more in length with text endlessly flashing up or scrolling across the screen. I think I've read whole books in some of these trailers...but I digress. Think about a movie trailer--what is its purpose? It's to show you snippets from the movie in a reasonable amount of time, to grab your attention and get you excited but not give too much away at the same time. Plus let's face it, you're dealing with the Internet here, the Land of Short Attention Spans. I like trailers that run about two minutes, give or take thirty seconds. This is a personal preference, I know, but I think any longer than two minutes thirty seconds and you run the risk of people looking at their watches or just quitting the video out of boredom. 
• Credit where credit is due - I said it before but it bears repeating. If you use someone's content, unless they don't require you to credit them, it's best to be courteous and do so.
• Is it really necessary? Ask yourself this question repeatedly. Putting together a trailer can be time consuming. In the time that it took me to model and render out the CGI alone, I probably could have finished the prequel series to Shelter from the Winter that I'm working on. To me it was a proof-that-I-could-do-it thing. It's not perfect, there's a few rough edges that if I could work on it full time rather than doing my day job, I could probably get ironed out.  But it was a labour of love, I like how it turned out, so I'm happy with it and I hope other people like it enough where it makes them want to buy my books. But some of you may want to forget about the trailer and focus more on your social network/blog presence, which is probably more valuable anyway.

Those are my tips and thoughts on the book trailer. I hope this is of some help to anyone out there considering doing the same thing. If you have a trailer or are working on one, feel free to post in the comments section, I'd love to hear about your experiences.

Whoa, a blog...now what?

Whoa, a blog...now what?

First of all, welcome and thanks for visiting. This will be my first attempt at a blog. Will it be exciting? Witty? Full of cool info about vampires or whatever I happen to be writing about at the moment? Possibly...stick around and find out.

I'll start with a little bit about myself. I'm DW (Don) Adler, I was born and raised in beautiful Nova Scotia, perched out on the east coast of Canada. I know live in Florida with my beautiful wife and children, dreaming of the day when we can all pack it in and move back to the Great White North.

I do IT support for a living and dabble in video editing with Final Cut Pro X and 3D modeling/animation. Like 99% of the people I follow on Twitter, I dream of hitting it big with a bestselling book and am giving it the best try I can with my Shelter from the Winter series, a vampire erotica adventure. The first book, The Spring of Seduction, was released February 1st; the second, The Autumn of Desire, was released March 1st; and last but certainly not least, The Winter of Passion is releasing on April 1st. 


Thanks for stopping by and be sure to watch this space for my thoughts and musings on...well, whatever comes to my busy little mind at any given time.