Guest Post + Giveaway: JL Bryan and The Paranormals Series

Today is the last day of the promotional tour for JL Bryan's beautifully dark Paranormals series and I'm honored to be the very last stop! If you haven't been following the tour, you can find all the details and previous tour stops listed on the tour page at Kismet Book Touring. JL is offering up some pretty unbelievably fabulous giveaways for this tour, so be sure and check the bottom of the post for all the specifics on how to enter! Without further ado though, I'd like to welcome JL back to the blog to share with you some thoughts that have reminded me exactly why I love being a book blogger so much.

A LONG, STRANGE, PARANORMAL TRIP

So, this is the last day of the Paranormals tour. This has been a fantastic celebration of the release of the third book in the trilogy, and I want to thank all of the tour hosts for their generosity in sharing their blogs. I also want to thank Danny and Heather from Kismet for making things easy, and for putting together all the great prizes and trick-or-treater characters!

It's fitting that the tour began on Bewitched Bookworms and ends here on Supernatural Snark. I first released Jenny Pox in July 2010. I queried lots of bloggers to review it, but as an unknown indie author, I initially got few responses.

The few bloggers who featured the book back then included the Bewitched Bookworms, Darkeva, the Caffeinated Diva, and Supernatural Snark. The response from these bloggers gave me the sense that the book might be something valuable that would eventually find lots of readers. The Bookworms actually featured me several times in 2010, back when nobody had heard of Jenny Pox and nobody was reading it.

Over a year later, the book has grown into a trilogy, and they often show up on the Horror and Contemporary Fantasy bestseller lists on Amazon. It's always stunning to me how many book bloggers are eager to help spread the word about the books! Countless bloggers have helped make this happen (including The Bookish Brunette, who even made Team Seth and Team Alexander buttons).

The first two books enabled me to take a couple months of leave from work when my son was born on June 2. I can't begin to describe what it meant to me that I was able to spend so much time with him. Now, I'm leaving my day job altogether to focus on writing and baby care, so expect a lot more books from me!

As a writer, you spend huge numbers of hours alone, creating and refining your stories. The biggest surprise about going indie is that I'm not doing this alone at all – I've met so many amazing, intelligent, funny, and generous book bloggers who are so helpful. This doesn't even begin to mention the great community of indie authors I've met, which would take a whole other post!

This journey has been fun, exciting, mysterious, and full of surprises. Sometimes everything just comes together at once, spontaneously, in a way you never could have planned. Sometimes, it's kismet.

So this post is just a big “thank you” to all the bloggers and readers who have made this amazing process unfold over the past fourteen months. I appreciate every one of you, and I look forward to years of adventures to come! Thanks for being there.

You're so very welcome JL! Finding authors like you has been one of my favorite parts of running the blog, and I'm thrilled to be able to promote the Paranormals series to any and all who will listen:)

GIVEAWAY #1

I've got two very special giveaways on the blog today! The first is my tour stop "treat" which includes a signed set of all three books in the Paranormals series: Jenny Pox, Tommy Nightmare and Alexander Death. To enter please just leave a comment on this post with a valid email address so I can contact you if you win. This giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents only and will run through midnight EST on Friday, November 11th after which time a winner will be chosen and announced on the blog.

*please note that the Paranormals series is recommended for older young adult readers as it contains more graphic sexual content and some drug use*

GIVEAWAY #2

Your eyes are not deceiving you my friends, this giveaway is for a Kindle Fire! YAY! The winner will receive a Kindle Fire skinned in the their choice of Paranormals artwork and loaded with an AMAZING indie library. Simply fill out the form below (just once during the course of the tour, so if you've already filled it out at a different stop, you don't need to enter again) and you're entered to win the latest and greatest from the biggest name in eReaders. Open to US and Canadian residents only, see full contest rules HERE.



A huge thank you to JL for offering up such amazing giveaways and to the wonderful girls of Kismet Book Touring for putting together a fantastic tour:)



Alexander Death week:
Monday, October 31st - The Slowest Bookworm
Tuesday, November 1st - Buried In Books
Wednesday, November 2nd- Paranormal Opinion
Thursday, November 3rd - Belle Books
Friday, November 4th - Supernatural Snark