Nine days from now I will be publishing the first novel of the Cursed Heart Series. After that I am set to return to work on the next Pyte/Sentinel novel. The next Neighbor from Hell Novel was set to come out after that, but…….

I want to request a change up.

As some of you know, I’ve been toying with the Anger Management series for a while now. The first book was set to come out after the next NFH book, because I promised everyone the next Pyte/Sentinel and NFH book and I like to keep my promises.

Here’s my problem, the first Anger Management book will not stop playing out in my head. I am not kidding. I can see the characters clearly, they’re in my head but they are well developed. The storyline is pretty much set and the lead male is easily a hundred times more arrogant than a Bradford and hotter (my opinion, lol).

In case you haven’t guessed, I really want to write this story after the Pyte/Sentinel novel. I love this book, the characters, etc, but I made a promise and I am fully prepared to see it through and deliver the next NFH novel on time.

The choice is yours. I am going to do a poll on my FB page for this. Your vote will decide which book I work on next.

Thank you,

R.L.

As some of you might know, Black Heart, the first of the Cursed Heart series books will be released in a couple of weeks on June 22nd. to be exact. Right now we’re adding the finishing touches, double checking edits and pretty much working around the clock to make sure that this book gets the Cursed Hearts series off to the right start. 

I thought that it might be fun to have a little contest to give away 10 copies of this book and really, what better way to do that than with some s’mores? There really isn’t a better way. Not really.

So………….

If you’d like to get your hands on a free copy of Black Heart: A Cursed Hearts novel, please send me a picture and brief description of your delicious s’mores. Feel free to go traditional, two graham crackers, a marshmallow and milk chocolate or make it interesting. Have fun with this, get the kids involved if you want to get really creative

The top ten s’mores will win an e-book copy of Black Heart. All pictures must be original. No internet pictures will be accepted. Open to anyone with a sweet tooth and is 18 years or older. 

To submit your copy, simply take a picture of your s’mores creation and post it on my FB page by Friday, 11:59 PM, eastern time. 

Black Heart: A Cursed Heart Series novel is now at iBookstore as a pre-sale item for $2.99. The tentative  publishing date for this novel is June 22, 2013.

I would like to thank iBookstore for all their support and help doing this. I really appreciate it and all the great support I’ve gotten over the years. Thank you to Smashwords.com for excellent support and quality service.

Black Heart is the first in a new paranormal series that I’ve actually been working on for a few years now. During my medical leave I started toying with it once again and decided that it was time to finish the novel.

I will be returning to the Pyte/Sentinel series and the Neighbor From Hell series as soon as this book is published. Thank you everyone for all your support during this time. My family and I are very grateful, thank you.

-R.L.

Black Heart: A Cursed Heart Novel

(The first of eight novels)

Coming to an online bookstore near you on June 22, 2013

 $2.99

There was something seriously wrong with Marty. That was the only explanation that she could come up with. Why else would she feel this way for the biggest SOB in town? Granted, he was also the hottest man in town, but he was also arrogant, callous, and determined to drive her away even as he drove her crazy with his touch. She should just walk away from him and probably would if it wasn’t for this connection that she’d always had with him that kept making her want more with the one man that couldn’t give her anything more than heartache.

He should have left and never looked back when he’d decided to finally do the right thing and push Marty out of his life, but instead he stuck around to torture himself by staying close to the one woman that he could never allow himself to have. She deserved better than him, better than the tortured existence that he led and better than the horrifying future that waited for him.

An excerpt from Black Heart:

Tristan gripped the edge of the desk until he feared that his fingers would snap off when he felt her warm soft lips press against his shoulder. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his raging hormones. The last thing either one of them needed was him jumping her. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He could really go for it, but he was pretty sure that she might get upset.

“What was that for?” he somehow managed to ask. Although truth be told he had no idea if it came out coherent since his mind was still focused on the things that he wanted to do with her mouth.

He felt her warm breath tickle his ear. Oh…shit……

“For all those times you used to kiss me better. Remember?”

He chuckled softly as his body turned to putty beneath her touch. “How could I ever forget? You were my own personal stalker.”

She playfully slapped him on his good shoulder. “I was not a stalker!”

“Yes, you were!” He chuckled harder as he remembered how diligent she was about following him everywhere. If his father hadn’t attached locks on the bathroom doors she would have followed him in there as well.

“Hey, I was not half as bad as the girls who used to follow you around when we were in school,” she said defensively as she continued to rub his back. She felt him further relax as they reminisced about the good old days, the days where she got to spend every waking moment with him and felt whole.

He groaned loudly. “Don’t remind me. I still have nightmares of giggling girls with acne and braces chasing me down and trying to steal a kiss.” He gave her a mock shudder that earned a soft chuckle.

“See,” she teased, “I wasn’t that bad. I only demanded kisses when I had a boo boo.”

“That’s true. Even then sometimes you demanded extra kisses for all of your invisible injuries.”

She sighed dramatically. “I was a sneaky one.”

“Yes, you were,” he chuckled in agreement. She loved the sound of his laughter, absolutely adored it.

“I still remember the last time you gave me a kiss,” she said, smiling at the memory of her first kiss.

“Really?” he asked, stunned that she did. He remembered the last time, but for completely different reasons.

“Uh huh,” she said, stopping her massage to squeeze a little more lotion in her hands. Tristan’s eyes closed as he enjoyed her ministrations.

“How could I ever forget the kiss that made my life a living hell?”

Copyright 2013, All Rights Reserved R.L. Mathewson

Part of my plan to return to work is to handle my health issues on the side, but with a little fun A few of my author friends (L.D. Davis & Lisa M. Harley) want to lose weight, get healthy, raise money for some great charities and screw each other over for fun

My charities are The Ronald McDonald House and The Make A Wish Foundation. I’m hoping raise an obscene amount of money for these great causes and I could really use your help and support.

Below you’ll find our release for this challenge that starts on May 1st.

Author Drop is a diet challenge that we created to raise money and awareness for some great causes, keep us inspired to reach our goals and to give us a reason to completely screw each other over all for a good cause.

This challenge will start on May 1, 2013 and end on May 1, 2014. Our goal is to lose weight and inches by eating healthy,  exercising, while raising money for a good cause and having a little fun.  Each author has their own charity as well as set amount to donate per pound and activity. Once the challenge is over we will make our donations to our charity(ies) of our choice.

Every week we will weigh in  and share our results on the Author Drop Facebook page (www.facebook.com/authordrop) and website (http://authordrop.com). You can also follow our progress at Sparkpeople.com and Buddy us if you would like Our Sparkpeople.com names will be added shorty to our profiles.

Of course there will be trash talking, attempts to sabotage each other and pranks to keep us entertained and focused on our goals

The winner will be the author who has lost the largest percentage of body weight and that winner will get a prize and bragging rights for life.

Thank you in advance for your support

Things have been pretty hectic lately, but I wanted to give you a few updates while I had the chance.

Let’s see, first things first. As some of you know I took a medical leave a few months ago to take care of some of medical issues that were causing me problems and to focus on my family. Well, I got some things taken care of like a few dental problems thanks to an awesome dentist, but the other stuff like my ruptured disc is taking forever to fix because of the long wait to be seen. Kind of crazy, which left me with some down time.

When I took my leave I promised to write some short stories to keep everyone entertained. There was one minor problem with that…..I can’t do short stories. I tried. I really did, but every time I made an attempt to write a short story I came to realize that I would absolutely hate it because I would have to limit the storyline and squash the details and I can’t do that. So all of those short story ideas will be published one day, but as full length novels.

Moving right along, having down time does not work for me so I finally said the hell with it and decided that I would go back to focusing on writing and work my medical stuff out around it. So expect something this summer

A lot of you have been wondering about what’s coming next and if I would be continuing with the series that I have out. Yes, there will be many more Pyte/Sentinel Novels, NFH Novels, EMS Novels, Hollywood Heart Novels and the first Anger Management Novel will hopefully be out by the end of the year.

I fully planned on the next Pyte novel to be the next book that I published, but during my down time I started to play with a book that I started years ago. It was actually the first book that I ever wrote. It was Tristan and Marty’s story. I wrote the book which ended up being something like three hundred pages, swore up and down to myself that it was the best book on earth and then I read it to make sure that everything worked.

Halfway through the book I realized two things:

I loved the characters.

The book absolutely sucked.

So, I deleted the book, which was hard, and kept the characters. Every once in a while over the past couple of years I would play around with the book. A few months ago when I started to play around with it and this time I decided to keep going. Now the book is very close to being done and will be the first in the new paranormal series, Cursed Hearts. That will be out in a few months.

After Black Heart (The first of the Cursed Heart novels) is finished I will be returning to the next Pyte/Sentinel novel and then working on the next NFH novel and the first Anger Management novel, both of which are already started.

I hope this clears up any questions, but if it doesn’t please let me know at rlmathewson25@gmail.com

Today has been crazy. This morning I took a chance and decided to share something negative that has been going on in the self-publishing world for the past couple of months. It’s a practice that is creating a lot of problems for readers, bloggers and authors.

Since that post I have received a lot of feedback which I used to edit my suggestions to tell whether or not a review is fake.  A lot of people made some very good points which I tried to stress. A lot of my suggestions can help spot fake reviews, but as a lot of you pointed out, a lot of readers will post their reviews at multiple sites especially if they like the book. That’s fine and as an author I more than appreciate the effort you put in.

I guess what it comes down to is go with your gut. If you feel as though the reviews might be too good to be true then it probably is. I think the best way to handle this situation that is going on right now and still enjoy good books without being taking advantage of is to download the free sample of the book and use that to help make your decision to invest your time and money into the book. There are a lot of great books out there and I would never want to discourage someone from reading, but I would rather have people aware of a problem before they get manipulated out of their hard earned money.

Today I received a lot messages and emails. The majority of it was extremely positive with a lot of people, authors, bloggers, etc. confirming what I already knew and letting me in on a lot of stuff that I didn’t. It was interesting and a bit frightening, but I’m glad that they shared the information.

Just to clarify a few things:

There is absolutely nothing wrong with marketing or promoting a book. Authors have to do that otherwise their books would never get out there.The problem is when people are arranging for guaranteed 5 star reviews.

Street Teams are a group of readers that love the author’s work and want to spread the word, which again, is great as long as they do this freely and are not being pushed to give 5 star reviews or go attack another author’s work.

Thank you for your time and your support

When I first started writing back in 2009 I never even heard of self-publishing. I was all set and terrified to take my chances with  a traditional publishing house, leaving my fate to someone that I had never met who would decide whether or not my books were “In” at the moment.

By the time that I was ready to start making inquiries into getting published I got scared, really scared. I found a hundred and one reasons not to even try so I didn’t. Instead I put my finished manuscript aside and started working on another book all while researching ways to get my books published without the added stress. 

It was during one of my searches that I started to find articles about self-publishing. The more I read, the more I was intrigued. The idea of not only keeping control over my work, but not having to deal with rejection was worth the risk of never having a single person read my book, which back then was a real possibility. I know it was only a few years ago, but at the time self-publishing was looked down upon.

I ignored all the warnings about going the self-publishing route and took a chance and I’m glad I did. I honestly couldn’t imagine doing what I do any other way. I love being my own boss, setting my own deadlines and deciding what I write. Self-publishing has come a long way in the last few years and it’s because readers were willing to take a huge chance on us an for that they were forever have my heart and gratitude. They gave me an opportunity that I probably would  never of had otherwise. 

The other reason that self-publishing has become an acceptable and respected form of publishing is because of the authors. They work hard, put in the time to write great books and have them edited as well as took the time to earn the respect of their readers. Whether they have a huge following or only a few dedicated readers, they still earned it, honestly. 

The unfortunate side of self-publishing is that not everyone is as honest. These people are the ones that give self-published authors a bad reputation and cause some readers to avoid self-published authors like the plague and for good reason and I honestly can’t say that I blame them. 

I have absolutely no doubt that I am going to get hit with the backlash after writing this, but hey, that’s life. I’ll deal with it, keep writing and publishing and take that chance. I love what I do and take my job very seriously. I also worked very hard to get where I am and so have a lot of other authors who are now getting tainted by the new trends that are unfortunately going on. I am also  posting this today, because I receive about three to four emails daily from aspiring writers seeking advice and I don’t want to see them do something that they are going to regret one day.

There are new trends in self-publishing, some good, but a lot of it is bad. Instead of relying on their work, we have new authors coming into the scene depending on gimmicks, deals and trickery. Quite a few of them are making deals with male models, who push their books in return for the author to push their merchandise, magazines, photos, posters, etc. They also are working together in groups and with some blogs to push fake reviews, five star reviews to get their ratings on Amazon.com, Apple, B&N up high enough to convince readers who normally wouldn’t have given their book a second look to buy it. 

They have street teams whose sole purpose is to go around the web, open fake accounts and post over the top five star reviews. If the author gets an honest, one or two star review they will go and post five or six more five star reviews to push the honest review to the bottom and off the page so that the reader is less likely to see it. 

Any authors that say anything against this practice receive a hit as I’m absolutely positive that I will after posting this and that’s fine. They are also going after other authors that they see as competition and I have to ask why? Seriously, I love the fact that readers who take a chance on me love to read. It’s good for all of us for so many reasons. One of the benefits is that a well read reader can give you their opinion based on reading experience and that is absolutely wonderful for authors like me who love to write a fun story. 

Some of you are probably reading this post and wondering why all the drama. Well, I’m wondering the very same thing. Just like when I did my research when I first started out, I’m still researching. I follow about twenty different authors at any given time to see how they’re doing, learn from their mistakes and learn new trends in this business. I came across the deceptive practices a few months ago and since then I’ve made it a point to pay attention. 

Another reason why I’m writing this is because this new trend is spreading over and some authors think this is the norm. It’s not, but that isn’t stopping them from sending me e-mails, offering me up deals to get my books five star reviews on book sites and blogger sites that I have no earned. I’m also getting e-mails from male models offering me up deals to have their followers buy my books if I push their stuff. So not interested. It’s getting old real damn fast. 

There are a lot of honest authors and bloggers who are disgusted by this. We don’t like to see readers being manipulated out of their hard earned money. It’s not right and it is something that I promise here and now never to do. I will never ask someone to give me a 5 star review or an over the top fantastic review. Have there been people that have done this for me? Probably, but I never asked and it would upset me to see them. If it happens I would rather the review be taking down immediately and replaced with an honest review even if that meant a one star review.

Do I have a street team? Yes, I do, but I have nothing to do with it other than offering up prizes as thank yous to the leader of the group to give away. Do my friends review my books? Yes, they do and they normally give me three and four stars because they are my toughest critics. They enjoy my work, but they expect certain things from me and if they think that I could have done better, I hear about it and I am very thankful for that. 

There are a lot of great books out there by self-publsihed authors that deserve an opportunity to share with you their wonderful stories and I am pleading with you to give them that chance. A lot of readers are sick of being played are taking a stand by not reading self-published authors and I completely understand. Nobody likes to get played or tricked out of their money and that’s exactly what a lot of new authors and a few established authors are doing. 

Unfortunately there is nothing that we can do to stop them. That’s one of the bad things about self-published authors, there’s no one setting rules or taking action when someone crosses the line. What we can do is to know what to look for. Feel free to comment and add your own warnings, stories, etc, but please don’t name names. I am honestly not trying to wreck someone’s career, but giving readers and aspiring writers a little bit of knowledge. I’m also hoping that these practices stop. 

Ways that MAY help to tell if a review is fake:

1. The purchase is not authenticated, especially at Amazon.com. (Sometimes bloggers and readers will post their reviews at multiple sites so you will see that is not authenticated.) What you want to look for is a large amount of reviews together that are not authenticated. 

2. The person who wrote the review opened up the account that very day just to post a review about the book. I got a lot of feedback on this one as well, look for several reviews in a row that accounts were just opened for that review.

3. The reviewer only has a few books reviewed and all those books are by one author.

4. The review title is the same as about a dozen other ones.

5. The same review can be found posted on several sites, word for word, but the reviewer’s name is different on each one. 

6. The review reads like a sales pitch.

7. For every bad review, four or more positive reviews always follow.

8. A fake negative review will come off as extremely personal.

9. Check the dates of the first reviews for the book, if they were posted mere minutes or hours after the book was published there is a very good chance that they are fake, especially if any of the previous warnings apply.

10. The reviewers’  review history all have something in common, reviewing the same exact books by different authors. This usually means that they are part of a group that trades positive reviews.

11. If the book is ranked very high and it’s brand new, check to see how the author categorized it. A lot of them are putting their books in categories that are not popular and don’t match the content of their book just so they can get the high ranking or reach the number one spot.

I hope this helps and again, if you have anything that you’d like to add please comment below. 

This is an unfortunate trend that I hope doesn’t continue for much longer. If you are an author, I think it’s about time that you reassure your readers that you respect and appreciate them by vowing not to deceive them. To those of you who are not happy with this post, well, too bad. I don’t really care. If you want to retaliate and post negative reviews or trash me, have at it. If you would like to bitch and complain about this post, comment below, post on my FB page or send me an email at rlmathewson25@gmail.com. I’m just gonna keep doing what I’m doing and hope that this horrible trend ends soon. 

******Added:

For blogs, reviewers, etc, yes, they will post their reviews word for word at different sites. That’s their job, that’s what they do. The problems are the ones that are posting 5 star reviews just to post them. If you pay attention you can tell the difference between a real review and a review that is used to push a book.

Authors do have to promote their books. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. The problem occurs when they promote for a guaranteed five start review.

********I think the safest way to find out if a book is worth reading is to download a free sample and judge for yourself. Fake reviewers get tricky and there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to figure out what’s fake and what’s not so I think the best way to handle this is to have a peek at the book in question.********

The Indie Romance Convention is allowing readers to cast votes for favorite Indie authors and books and Checkmate has been placed in the Best Indie Contemporary Romance category and I’ve been honored with a best Indie Author nomination.

It’s a great honor and I’m utterly shocked and psyched about this. If you have a chance, I’d really appreciate it if you could cast your vote. It would mean a great deal to me

I am running a contest that will end on May 1, 2013. It’s a book trailer creating contest. You can pick any of my books to use for the trailer. The length of the trailer must be one song length or three minutes. It had to be an original book trailer, no editing already existing book trailers. No full nudity, explicit sex scenes, etc.

The top three winners will receive a $100.00 gift card to your store of choice. This contest is open to residents outside of the US. Must be 18 years or older.

Once your submission is posted to Youtube, please post a link on my Facebook page as well as send a link to rlmathewson25@gmail.com

Thank you