WRITE A REVIEW, SAVE A WRITER

I may be preaching to the choir here, but allow me to deliver my brief sermon anyhow. I won’t be passing the tithing basket around at the end of it; in fact, I’ll be offering you, dear readers, an incentive if you stick with me until the end.

If you follow this blog, it’s because you enjoy reading my books and those of my co-bloggers, Laurie, Pippa and Greta. You love reading SFR. Maybe you even write SFR yourself. I’m presuming you want us to do well, and you want more books to read—not only more books from us, but more books from our fellow SFR authors. More adventures in space, more aliens and cyborgs and starship captains and brave scientists saving the galaxy. More wild ideas and hot romance. More sexy covers and titles climbing the best seller lists. More awards and recognition for SFR.

Well, you know, we’re doing our best to make that happen. But we need your help. Not just your purchasing power. But your reviewing power.

Yes, I’m talking REVIEWS!

Okay, I can hear the groans from here—like I just assigned you summer book reports. But for those of you who are not writers, let me explain why reviews are important.

--Readers look at reviews to decide what books to buy. Sorting out which of hundreds of titles are the good reads is not an easy task. But if a book has earned five stars on Amazon or Goodreads, from dozens of readers, then it’s surely worth your money.

--Amazon, in particular, uses the number of reviews to determine whether to recommend a book to its customers. At each ascending level of reviews—20, 30, 50, 100—the Amazon computer algorithm will kick in, triggering an automatic response to recommend the book to more readers. That encourages more sales, and more reviews, and so on.

--Some writers don’t read their reviews, but most do. I, for one, don’t write for myself; I write to communicate with my readers. Reviews are one way I get feedback. Sometimes that feedback isn’t easy to swallow, but for the most part it’s wonderful. Without reviews, I feel like I’m sending a message out into a cold and lonely universe. Is anybody out there? 

So, we need those reviews. Of course, we need sales, too. But one feeds the other, and without that engine of encouragement, many writers are deciding to just give up. No more stories from them, their voices going silent.

I can hear you right now, saying, I don’t know how to write a review! I’m not a writer! But that’s the easy part. Amazon only requires 20 words for a review—or about three sentences. You don’t have to describe the plot or the characters. You don’t have to be a critic. You just have to say, in three sentences or so, what you liked about the book and why you think someone else would like it. If you think some things could be improved, you can say that, too (just be nice about it, please).

Need a kick in the pants to do it? Okay. I’m offering a chance at a $25 Amazon gift card to anyone who will review any one of my Interstellar Rescue books (Unchained Memory, Trouble in Mind or Fools Rush In) on Amazon or Goodreads before Monday, August 14. Just post the link to your review either here or on my Facebook page and you’ll be entered to win. I’ll announce the winner on my page Monday, August 14 and again here next Friday, August 18. 

Cheers, Donna

#StarWars Identities Exhibition London: Episode Two #scifi

After focusing on the characters and costumes for last week's Star Wars Identities Exhibition, I thought I'd move onto another big favourite of mine - spaceships!

The exhibition featured a case several foot long with one of each of the main spacecraft from the films, with light rods along the length of it that would change from light blue to red. Viewed face on, it almost looks like the ships are jumping to hyperspace...

I had trouble identifying the lead ship - a Mon Calamari Cruiser?

To give you a rough idea of scale, the B-wing featured on the right hand side is about the same size as my original Kenner toy version.

Rear end of an Imperial Star Destroyer

This was the one point of the exhibition where my 12yo impatiently demanded 'are you going to take pictures of every single ship in there?' to which I replied 'Yes. Yes I am.' :P

Side view Imperial Star Destroyer, plus Imperial Shuttle and
TIE fighter

Close up on the TIE

TIE Interceptor, my favourite of that specification

AT-AT

B-wing

A-wing

Imperial Shuttle

Imperial ships

SLAVE 1

Not sure about that one...

My old favourite, the X-wing, with a Snowspeeder below

Relative speed/manoeuvrability chart

 But one particular ship got a bit more wall and cabinet space than the others...

Falcon gun seat design

Falcon cockpit sketch

Possibly the most iconic of the Star Wars ships - the Millenium Falcon

In case you can't read it - essentially the original model
of the Falcon was too big for the manoeuvres required
in Empire so they had to build a second half the
size (about the size of the original Kenner toy version)

More of the costume photos will go up at my Tumblr blog for the cosplay fans (probably over the summer) but that concludes my photos from the exhibition. Hope you enjoyed them!

Status Update
At the recent parent-teacher meetings for 12yo, one subject that came up was his non-doing of the 'voluntary' tasks that have replaced homework (the only school in the UK to abolish compulsory homework). Figures. But it turns out that a task for one subject is making a mask, so this weekend I recruited him into making the Witch-king mask for his cosplay, thereby easing my workload and satisfying at least one of his teachers. The whingeing levels were unreal (mums of teens will probably sympathize) but progress was made. Hubs also helped me cut out the 50+ card segments for the gauntlets, and I cut out the pattern and leather for the sword belt while watching Return of the King for some visual references. The Witch-king cosplay is truly underway! Below you can see the 50+ pieces laid out in full and the cardboard base for the flail (because Blogger won't let me caption them without moving the images out of place. Grr).

I've fallen behind with the remaining edits and the deadline is looming. So it may be that only Reunion goes to my editor in June, and hopefully Unexpected, while Revived lags behind. Keir's Shadow is still undergoing revision, but as I just keep on adding to it I still haven't moved past 32%. Sigh.
This weekend we paid a visit to one of our local beaches as the sun was out. After several years of searching, we'd found a grand total of three fossilized sharks teeth at Walton, a place famous for such finds.

The longest is just 3cms in total length

But as we sat to eat our sandwiches on the sea wall, hubs found this one just lying on the surface.

4.5 cms

Some light digging went on to reveal a total of 30 prehistoric sharks teeth, making our former efforts look completely pathetic! We also found a piece of rock that's suspiciously scaly-looking. It might just be an odd rock formation, but it could be turtle fossil...

90 minutes digging and we have these!

Fossil or just funny looking rock?

Further research suggests the teeth without that kind of knobbly bit on the bottom might actually be prehistoric crocodile teeth rather than shark, but either way we're quite pleased with our drastically expanded collection. And it was a nice day too.

View from the cliff top

Happenings
There's lots going on!

While one SFR event ends (though you can still get Quickshot via Instafreebie HERE, you might have to double check links for the other books featured HERE to see if they're still available), another is due to start on the 18th.

Another Instafreebie SFR special: 26 titles of Alien Romance and Adventure! Find your next sexy SciFi hero HERE.

Plus, don't forget my special giveaway for a pair of custom-made crocheted dragonscale gloves in Keir blue, created by Hoot and Luna. This is open internationally but PLEASE BE AWARE - any import/shipping taxes will be the responsibility of the recipient as these cannot be paid in advance by the sender.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And finally, if you still have some space left, you can still top up your ereader with sizzling summer reads at the new romance eBook store Inside Romance with a 20% discount site-wide for the whole of May. Click the banner to visit. Enjoy!

Chook Update 
And lastly, the thing I know you've all really been waiting for - chook pics! Have a great week.

Left to right: Effie, Fizzgig, and the now misnamed Pitch

The gang's all here! Left to right: Kyru, Scoop, Pitch, Fizzgig & Effie

Fizzgig

Effie

#StarWars Identities Exhibition London: Episode One #scifi

This weekend we made a family trip up to the O2 in London to visit the Star Wars Identities Exhibition, a 'Get to know the characters of STAR WARS™ on a whole new level. 200 original costumes, props, models, and pieces of artwork are yours to discover up close' event. And it was awesome!

I wasn't too sure what to expect after hubs read out mixed reviews to me, but myself and the three monsters (aged 9-14 and with varying degrees of devotion to the fandom) spent an hour and a half inside without realizing, and certainly weren't bored. As well as following and focusing on the similar upbringing of Anakin and Luke and yet how they made different choices, there's a big interactive element. You wear a bracelet and visit ten different stations to build your own unique Star Wars character profile, listen to various talks that delve into nature vs nurture in the SW universe as well as exploring the range of genetics, culture and physiology of various races, and surviving props, artwork, and costumes from the first six films, as well as a handful from the newest ones.

Sketches of characters suggested for the Cantina scene in New Hope.
Not all of them made it from this 'audition' to manufacture.

One of the few surviving character props from New Hope -
one of the 'ugly twins' who assault Luke in the Cantina

Character profiles that didn't make the films

Building their SW character profile was the favourite bit for my monsters, and what won the edge on this exhibition compared to Star Wars Celebration Europe for my older two. It also meant they were occupied while I took 115 photos - and that wasn't even of everything there, just the things that most took my interest - but particularly of some of the costumes. For example, they had Luke's black Jedi outfit from RotJ which I've always wanted to do, so I took particular interest in that. There was also Leia's bronze slave bikini (slightly blurred, and looking incredibly uncomfortable to wear), three of Padme's outfits, Anakin's Jedi outfit (which I've done a version of so have a soft spot for it), and one of Han's outfits (my next planned cosplay). One thing that really stuck out to me was how shoddy some of them are in real life! Or maybe that's because some of them are now thirty years old or more...

Mace Windu beside RotJ Luke

The notorious bronze bikini

Han's Empire costume

Jedi Anakin

The exhibits were also accompanied by interesting facts and figures from the films. Like Lucas debating changing his hero to a heroine halfway through, and ending up using both - Luke and Leia. That Yoda's eyes were meant to belong to the wisest being in the universe - Albert Einstein. That all that remains of the original Jabba the Hutt puppet is its eyes. Or that the face and hands for the carbonite Han belong to Harrison Ford but the rest come from an unknown donor!

Concept art for the final scene in Empire

What could have been - 'Luke' reimagined as 'Leia'

Scary happenings - my camera informed me the subject blinked
after taking this shot!

So who donated the rest of Han's 'body'?!

While we did experience some of the reported issues with the audio - an earphone is provided that only activates when you're within range of the signal for the relevant video accompaniment - I think that was mostly down to a low battery on my youngest's set, so I swapped with him and remembered to keep an eye on my 'on' status. Otherwise, I would say this is a must see exhibition for any Star Wars fan, particularly the serious geeks and the cosplay enthusiasts. At the end you get the full character profile that you've gathered throughout with a fantastic large than life screen display and the option to have it emailed to you to keep forever. So I'll introduce you to my Star Wars Identities family (pssst, I'm Jaya), and a promise to post more photos next week. Extra photos of the costumes will eventually go up at my Tumblr blog - several are blurry but might provide useful details for fellow cosplayers at a future date.

FYI, you can visit the Exhibition store without going into the exhibit itself, and they have store-wide discounts for the whole of the month due to May the Fourth. I treated myself and eldest to something. I'm not a huge fan of big fashion perfumes, but this one smells rather nice. *reads it back* that sounds sooooo weird...

Status Update
I'm so close to done on the edits for Reunion I feel like I might explode! That, at least, should be off to my editor in June even if I still feel like Revived will never make it, and Unexpected is still in need of some work to complete it. Keir's Shadow is still growing so it doesn't seem like I'm getting anywhere (I'm at 32% on revisions) but that tends to happen when you're adding pages. It's now standing at 88K words after being a completed draft originally at 75K. I haven't yet started the Witch-king cosplay.

Happenings

Right now you can stock up your e-readers with some stellar free scifi romances by going HERE.

And if you're not superstitious, you can pick up a thirteenth bonus freebie HERE.

For my fifth anniversary as a published author, as of the 7th, I'm running a special giveaway for a pair of custom-made crocheted dragonscale gloves in Keir blue, created by Hoot and Luna. This is open internationally but PLEASE BE AWARE - any import/shipping taxes will be the responsibility of the recipient as these cannot be paid in advance by the sender.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

There will be two more SFR events later this month so stay tuned!

No chook pics again, I'm afraid, as I'm out celebrating my wedding anniversary, but I promise to have some next week.