Tag Archives: Darkness Haunts

Memorial Day Charity Drive 2015

Some of you may remember me participating in a charity drive on Veterans Day last year.  I donated all the royalties earned on Darkness Haunts that day to the Wounded Warrior Project.  In remembrance of Memorial Day, I’m donating all the royalties earned (for ebook and paperback) on Darkness Haunts for a whole week beginning today, May 22nd.  My hope is to raise at least $500 to give to the Wounded Warrior Project to help veterans in need.  After the drive is over on May 29th I will come back to announce the total and show the receipt for my donation.

Of course, I realize most of you following this blog already own a copy of the novel, but if you could spread the word to others who might be interested in purchasing Darkness Haunts that would be great.  Tweeting or sharing the event on Facebook would also be very helpful.  Here’s a link to the project Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/vetsgiveback

As another alternative you could check out books by other participating authors to help in their fundraising campaign.  All of them are veterans donating to various veteran-related charities.  A list of their books, according to genre, can be found here.

For more information about the drive and how you can help see the official announcement below:

 

Memorial Day 2015 Veteran’s Charity Challenge: Gone, but Not Forgotten!

During Memorial Day week, from the 22nd to 29th of May, more than 70 veteran authors will pledge 100% of their print, ebook and audio book royalties to their favorite charity supporting veterans or a large flat-rate donation. In most cases, these are organizations that assisted the authors personally and they are trying their best to give back.

Veterans from each service branch and every conflict period, from Vietnam to even active duty authors, are pledging. This diverse collection of works includes New York Times and USA Today Bestsellers and covers most genres. From romance to action-adventure and everything in between, there’s something for every taste here!

The ultimate goal of this event is to raise at least $10,000 for the 20+ charities they’re supporting. If you aren’t interested in purchasing any of the pledged books, you can always make a direct and public donation. We track the money raised for each charity and spotlight bonus donations here. Whether you contribute to the best performing or the least performing, either way your donation will be put to good use!

The complete collection of participating books and charities can be found here:
http://bit.ly/vetsgiveback

If you are interested in helping support or promote this event without having to donate, please share this charity drive on Facebook, Twitter or your website. Every little bit of help makes a difference! #vetsgiveback

https://www.facebook.com/vetsgiveback

April updates and sale on Darkness Haunts

For those who don’t subscribe to my newsletter and missed it this morning I wanted to give a few updates.  The first is that Darkness Haunts is currently on sale for only 99 cents through to tomorrow night (April 2nd) on all the major retailers.  If you know anyone who might be interested in trying the series out, this is a great time to get the first book at a discount since I’m not sure if/when I’ll drop the price again.  You can find the purchase links for it here.

In other news…

One of the questions I’ve been asked a lot lately is when the Darkness Shatters paperback will be out.  I’m waiting on the hard copy proof to look over, but I expect to approve it and have it ready for sale within the next two weeks.  Some of you are also waiting on the audio version of Darkness Shatters.  My publisher has set the release date for June 3rd of this year and the CD version is already up for pre-order.  They usually don’t have the digital version on pre-order until 2-3 weeks before the release, but I’ll put out another reminder close to then for those who need it.

As far as my publishing schedule on upcoming books go, I’m writing a novel now for an all-new series with the first book releasing in late June.  It’s an idea that hit me about a year ago and has been bugging me ever since.  I’ve worked on it in bits and pieces over the past months, but forced myself to wait until after publishing Darkness Shatters before putting my full attention on it.  This one falls within the dark fantasy genre, but has totally different races/creatures than the Sensor Series.  Most of my current readers should find it appealing.  Yes, I’m leaving the details vague but I’ll reveal the cover and summary in about a month so you can find out more then.

For Darkness Wanes, book six of the Sensor Series, I expect to have it out in October of this year.  That will wrap up the story arc for the main series, but I’ll go on to write spin-offs for some of the side characters and explore more on how *spoiler alert* the world has changed with supernaturals coming out in the open.  There will be at least two of those novels (one featuring Cori as the main character and another featuring Micah) and possibly a third if the demand for Kerbasi to get his own novel keeps up.  After that, I may do a book seven with Melena and Lucas where I actually keep them together for the plot (try not to be too shocked).  Yes, I hear the complaints but keep in mind this is an urban fantasy series, not a paranormal romance so the focus has been different.  Book seven would be to please the PNR lovers.

That’s it for now, but feel free to ask questions below if you have any.

Audiobook release and paperbacks

For those of you who have been waiting for Darkness Divides and Darkness Clashes to be out in paperback, they are both available now.  Amazon gave me the kick in the pants I needed to get it done by offering to help out.  I think they got tired of waiting for me to do it myself (in my defense, I’ve been busy).  Big thanks to the Createspace team for their design work.  Here’s the links for those who’d like to pick them up:

Darkness Divideshttp://www.amazon.com/Darkness-Divides-Sensor-Volume-3/dp/1502932008/

Darkness Clasheshttp://www.amazon.com/Darkness-Clashes-Sensor-Volume-4/dp/1502932180/

You can also find them on Barnes & Noble as well as some other online retailers.

The big release day for the Darkness Haunts audiobook is this Tuesday (Nov 25th).  Pre-order for the digital download is now available, but if you’d like to hear a sample of it first click here.   Prices for it vary according to how you purchase so for your convenience I’m going to tell you the cheapest ways to get it as of right now.  Keep in mind the cost could go up or down at the retailer’s discretion.

1) For those who shop at Amazon and already own the kindle version of Darkness Haunts, you can get the audio version on Amazon here for $3.49.  I’m not sure of the price outside the U.S. but feel free to comment and let me know what you’re seeing if you’re in the UK, Germany, Australia, etc and own the Kindle version.

2) If you’re a member of Audible and have downloads left you could get it for free or if you’re new to the site you could sign up for trial membership and get it for free.  Here’s the link- http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Darkness-Haunts-Audiobook/B00PKJ2MJ8/

3) For those who do not have Audible membership (or can’t/won’t get it), and also do not own the Kindle version of Darkness Haunts you have a few options.  Buy at full price from Amazon or Audible for $27.99, buy it on iTunes for $23.95, or you can buy it on my publisher website (Tantor) for $14.39 at this link- https://tantor.com/darkness-haunts-susan-illene.html

As I mentioned in a previous post, you can also order the CD versions of the audio book.  Here’s the links to those:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Tantor*

Books-A-Million

Waterstones (for the UK folks)

*Currently, Tantor offers CDs at the lowest cost.  You can get the regular audio CD that works in all CD players/computers for $14.99 or you can get the MP3 CD for $9.99 that works in computers and some CD players.

I hope those of you who pick it up enjoy the audio version of Darkness Haunts.  You can expect Darkness Taunts to be out on December 16th.  The CD version for it and the other books in the series are already up for pre-order, but the digital download versions don’t become available until closer to their release dates.  Feel free to ask any questions if you have any!

Veterans Day charity drive results

Thanks to everyone who helped out by either picking up a copy of Darkness Haunts or spreading the word.  I was very pleased with the results.  The total copies sold was 46 with the amount earned across retailers/formats $125.74.  Most of the sales came from Amazon US and Amazon UK plus a couple from B&N and Kobo.  As promised, I kicked in another $50 since earnings went over one hundred.  I’m posting the receipt for my donation below:

Receipt for Wounded Warrior Project donation

Veterans Day promo for charity

I wanted to give everyone a heads-up that I will be donating all the royalties I earn through sales tomorrow (November 11th) for DARKNESS HAUNTS to the Wounded Warrior Project.  This is for both ebook and paperback with each of the retailers where it’s available (Amazon, B&N, iTunes, and Kobo).  After I’ve gotten the totals (which should be by late Wednesday) I will report the full amount earned and for every $100 raised I’ll kick in another $50.  I’ll also post a receipt for my donation.  Please help me out in making it as much as possible!

If you’re following my blog you’ve probably already purchased Darkness Haunts, but if you know friends or family who might enjoy the novel please let them know.  Any help spreading the word through social media would also be appreciated.  The hashtag for Twitter to use is #vetsgiveback if you choose to tweet about it.

This is in conjunction with other veteran authors who are also donating to their favorite veteran charities.  Even if you can’t purchase Darkness Haunts, you can help by purchasing any of the other books listed at this link, contributing to one of the charities yourself, or offering a contribution to whatever sales I get.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

We’ve got a live Google Hangout set up where I’ll be tomorrow afternoon (EST in America) where you can come chat with myself and other veteran authors.  This is your chance to ask questions about the Sensor Series if you’ve got any and get them answered right away.  You can also feel free to join in whichever other topics we may choose to discuss.  This is the link:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/cksct3gkph5a9ovoqa3t8hs71t8

And these are the full details about the charity event below:

 

Veteran’s Day 2014 Charity Challenge: Gone, but Not Forgotten!

On Veteran’s Day 2014, 50 veteran authors will pledge 100% of their print, ebook and audio book royalties to their favorite veteran’s charity. In most cases, these are organizations that assisted the authors personally and they are trying their best to give back.
 
Veterans from each service branch and every conflict period, from Vietnam to even one author deployed to Afghanistan at this moment, are pledging. This diverse collection of works includes New York Times and USA Today Bestsellers and covers most genres. From romance to action-adventure and everything in between, there’s something for every taste here!
 
The ultimate goal of this event is to raise at least $10,000 for the 15+ veterans charities they’re supporting. If you aren’t interested in any of the books available, they have a page set up ranking the money raised for each charity and spotlighting bonus donations. Whether you contribute to the best performing or the least performing, either way your donation will be put to good use!
 
The complete collection of participating books and charities can be found here:
 
Note: For the sake of transparency, each author will post their donation receipts within 90 days. If you are a veteran author, they are accepting submissions until noon (EST) on 11 November. Please visit the Writer’s Cafe at Kboards for submission details:
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