Category Archives: eBooks

A Quick Contest.

So, most of you are already aware that Bowlful of Bunnies is out and about, hopping onto a Kindle near you. Now, I’m going very soft on this…I have a few guest posts planned in a little while and I promote the book whenever I get a chance, but, for the most part, I’m not expecting huge numbers to skyrocket up or anything like that.

I have found myself a little obsessed with checking the numbers, though. So far, as I’m writing this, there have been 18 sales, which is awesome (she says, to people who may be selling hundreds…ahem). And I was thinking, well, let’s see if we can kick that up a bit! I’ve decided I want to run a little bit of a contest. It isn’t much of one, and I’m not even sure if anyone would be terribly interested, but I’ve decided that, if sales reach a whole whopping 25, I’ll release a preview of Battarack Girls, which I’m pretty sure if going to be my next book.

So, want a preview? Want to just see me get all giggly and giddy and bouncy? Spread the word about Bowlful of Bunnies and help me get those seven more copies!

Like I said, just a short little contest without much of a prize, but I had a few minutes before I had to flee for work and I thought “Why not?”

Upward and Onward!

So, now that Bowlful of Bunnies is out and hopping around (and wow! What a great response! I felt on top of the world yesterday! And I just looked out of curiosity and BoB made it to #94 on the Top 100 Paid Short Stories category, ohmygod!), it’s back to the drawing board and back to work on the next big project. I told myself I wanted to publish two books this year. The collection of short stories was the easy part, since a good deal of the material was stuff I had already written, reinforced with whatever new gems surfaced on the way. But now it’s time to take the journey I’ve just been through and add the detour of getting a novel finished, edited, and formatted up for a new book. A journey which I am very, very excited to take.

(This publishing thing is kind of a rush; I can see how this can get addictive! Already, I can’t wait to get another one done and out and promoted.)

The only problem is that I don’t know what to write! It’s not writer’s block, though. I’m working on several different projects right now, so it’s just a matter of whittling it down to choosing on and focusing on getting that one finished first and foremost. But, since I can sometimes be quite terrible at deciding on what I want to do, I thought I’d open it up to a poll and see what the lovely reader of my blog would like to see from me. So please, take a few seconds and let me know what you’d like to see as the next L.S. Engler publication:

I know the poll is a little hard to read, but I just loved the writing chick graphic too much to change it. Now, this poll is definitely not an end-all, be-all on my decision. The Muses are fickle, and whatever they feel should be written is probably going to be the winner. I know also what’s working best for me now. However, the fact that it will be what’s working best for me in a month or so is not guaranteed. So I figured it would be good to know what my potential readers want, and good to know where I should focus my attentions if I can.

Another thing that crossed my mind yesterday was that I really should have thought about doing some blog touring to promote Bowlful of Bunnies. It’s one of those things that you don’t really think of when you’re this new to the game, even if you read about everyone else doing it. So, I’d like to put out the request for anyone who would like to have me do a guest post on their blog. The main objective, obviously, is to promote BoB, but I’d be willing to do a post on any topic at all, whether it’s talking about BoB or talking about the price of tea in China. Interviews, shooting the shit, whatever you want, just let me know if you’re interested in having an L.S. Engler grace your blog, and we’ll figure something out, and I’d really, really appreciate the opportunity.

Last but certainly not least, we have three new faces here at the blog, and so, naturally, I want to thank them for subscribing! Hey, there, Adopting James, Bern Baby Bern, and I am Zion! I’m glad to have you all here and look forward to following your blogs, too! Any day when I peek at blog and see a picture about how bad ass Teddy Roosevelt was, it’s a very good day.

Happy writing, everyone!

The Bunnies Have Arrived!

I know the big “cover reveal” was only yesterday, but I’m happy to announce that my very first independent ebook publication is now available That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, the bunnies have finally arrived, marching from my doorstep to an ereader near you!


Bowful of Bunnies: Short Stories by L.S. Engler, available now on Amazon.

I owe a hefty round of thanks to so many people who helped make this book possible. Shannon Perry provided the fabulous artwork, and my awesome crew of beta readers (C. Michael Hubbard, Mike Young, Angela Misri, and Sharon Howard) saved me from making a lot of silly mistakes. Without them, this book could not be nearly as good as it is, and, with them, I’m sure it could be even better, too.

I also want to thank everyone in the A Round of Words in 80 Days community; this might not have ever happened if it weren’t for the encouragement and community built up with this fantastic group. I haven’t been around much this RoWnd, due to getting this thing ready, but it has opened so many doors for me.

A special acknowledgment also goes out to Lauralynn Elliott, Kait Nolan and Catherine Ryan Howard, simply for being three amazing women that really helped show me the ropes on how to do self-publishing thing and really inspire me to take this big step forward into a fascinating new world filled with opportunities.

Formatting the book for publication was made delightfully easy thanks to Cameron Chapman’s excellent guide. Assuming the formatting did turn out as all the gazillion previews I looked at suggested it would, I was actually incredibly impressed and pleased by how simple it was. I took all day to do it, because I was working on other stuff at the same time, but to think that it only takes about an hour to get a book formatted (assuming you’ve done most of the heavy-duty editing and what not already) kind of blows my mind. I wasn’t expecting to have this done until Saturday, but I just went all out yesterday.

As mentioned above, the book is available through Amazon, priced at just 99 cents. I wanted to do a special free day for all my bloggers, but it turns out that independent publishers can’t do free unless they’re a part of the KDP Select thing, which I don’t want to mess with (not yet). I know Smashwords offers a free pricing, but Smashwords and I continue to be unable to get along despite my best efforts. I’m working on it, though, so there might be a day in the future when you can snag Bowlful of Bunnies for free. I’m also working on getting it onto Barnes & Noble, but I have a weird address and they’re having some issues validating it.

So, there you have it! There’s a book. I’d be absolutely tickled if anyone would feel so inclined to mention it, reblog it, tweet about it, do whatever you will. Since it’s my first book and I’m testing the waters a little, I’m not doing a promotion contest or anything like that. I’m keeping it simple, but it’s always nice to have a little bit of a boost in audience. I also know I’d be eternally grateful towards anyone who might like to read it over and provide reviews.

It’s not the end-of-May release I was hoping for, but middle-of-June’s not too shabby, either, giving me right around half a year to get to that second book I wanted to publish by the end of 2012. So now it’s onto that one, as I release the bunnies out into the wilderness, where they’ll hopefully hop their way into someone’s heart.

Awwwww. Enjoy!

The time has come!

“‘The time has come,’ the walrus said…’ The time has come, indeed. I’ve not had much luck thinking of a post these last few days, because my eyes have been on the prize, as they say. I’ve been blessed with a Saturday off from work again, and (now this is dedication, folks…) I have decided that that day will be for finishing up the edits on Bowlful of Bunnies and getting it formatted and ready to publish. I know my cover artist is plugging away at my cover, too, so that shouldn’t be too long and then (and I know I’ve said this before) Bowlful of Bunnies will be ready for publication! I hope to have a release date confirmed tomorrow, after I play around with formatting and start really digging at getting it available for purchase. Hoooraaaaay!


Since the Bowlful isn’t ready quite yet, have some Mugsful of Bunnies in the meantime…

Because of this anticipation, I haven’t been able to focus on previous posts and I definitely can’t focus on a Flash Fiction Friday. So instead, you get to read about me bouncing in excitement. I’ve had to adjust the plans a little bit. I originally wanted this published by the end of May, but by the end of June is not too bad, either. I’m busy trying to think of where I want my roommate to take me to celebrate (the terrible part of me wants to find a place that serves rabbit!), and wondering if any particular day of the week works best for a launch. Wednesdays are usually good days for me, so I’ll be aiming for June 20th or June 27th, most likely.

So today, I’d like to open it up to any of my readers that have self-published their ebooks, to share with me (as well as any others looking to go this route) any advice you might have. Did you run into any surprises when you first started publishing? Are there any little things you wished you knew then, or any advice you were given that really helped you out? It’s so strange, because I know I’ve put a lot of hard work into this, but, on the precipice of publishing, it almost seems…well…a little easy. That always makes me wary that I’m missing something, but perhaps that’s the brilliance of this whole process. This is what I’ve wanted to do since I was ten years old. It doesn’t seem like as much work as everything else because it is what I truly love.

I hope that’s the case. I hope that this is what it feels like to finally be passionate and driven and doing the thing that makes you whole. That’s what it feels like. It’s just a little strange and mysterious and wonderful to think that “work” doesn’t have to be hard, and that achieving your dreams doesn’t have to always be a struggle.

Wish me luck tomorrow! Until then, happy writing!

RoW80 Update: April 29th!

“‘Where is it?’ the man growled, hissing through clenched teeth. He brought Locke’s face roughly up to his own. ‘What have you done with it?’”

Man, it’s hard to believe it’s Sunday already, time for another Round of Words in 80 Days check-in. My schedule for this week was altered from its usual course, which has me feeling out of alignment with how I usually do things. Thankfully, this hasn’t lead to a cease in productivity, but rather a shifting around of it. I’m still getting the usual stuff done, but it’s passing by in a little bit of a mechanical, almost mindless blur as I juggle work and writing. This coming week will be about the same, schedule wise, so maybe it’ll smooth out and clarify a little, but, I’ll bet that, as soon as it starts to get in a rhythm, it’ll change again.

Ah, well. Such is life. We change, we adapt, we grow. Lather, rinse, repeat. Still, it’s been a pretty productive week on both accounts. I’ve had probably my best week at work in a while, and it’s been a milestone writing week for me, too. Perhaps the little shake-up in the system was just what I needed to nudge me closer to the edge. Let’s have a look and break down the specifics:

Serpent in a Cage: Trudging through the tricksy part of the current scene, I’ve finally managed to break through and get a better flow going. Also, my attention on what I’m writing in my notebooks was on a short story I was trying to get done for Bowlful of Bunnies, but I decided not to include it, and so I’m able to spend that energy on SiaC once again. It’s slow getting back into it again, but I’m sure with all the BoB stuff trudging along, things will pick up again this next week. Page Count: 66/118.

Bowlful of Bunnies: I’ve moved BoB down to the second priority spot right now because this is, mostly, a waiting game. I’ve got my cover artist working on the cover, I’ve got a few betas working on looking it over (and a few more betas I’ll be sending stuff to soon). I suppose I could go through it again, edit some more, edit, edit, edit, but I’m going to give myself a breather from it before bothering to look at it again. Freshen up the eyes, get a few other projects started. Once I hear back from the artist and the betas, then it’s going to be onto formatting, and, lastly, getting it out there. So this week…we wait.

The 100 Books Project: I’ve just finished a book yesterday and I have about ten pages to go in another, so that one should be finished by the end of the day, if not tomorrow. Which is good, because I haven’t finished any in a while, and my numbers are looking pretty sad. But I continue reading, and I’ll continue knocking them out. Books read: 14/100. (3/38 for this round).

Novel No. 0002: With BoB sort of waiting in the wings at the moment, I’ve gone ahead and started up on a potential for the second book I’d like to publish this year. I’m going to start with The Reaping and see where that gets me, and I’ve decided that I’m going to treat these rough drafts much like I was participating in NaNoWriMo: I’m going to try to spew out 1,667 words a day, going back and working on the previous day’s words if I have the time, and see where that gets me. Knowing me, I can see myself potentially trying to juggle more than one rough draft for this, until I know for sure which one I want to stick with. I’m slowly working on outlining The Reaping right now, so I’ll stick with that until I have some other outlines started. I am not going to let myself get too eager about writing that I forget rough outlines. That is always my failing, because I get to a certain point without a plan and it just fades away. Even just this morning, though, I’ve got 647 words on The Reaping, and plan to do the other 1000 when I get home from work. Off to a good start!

Other Novels: The first chapter of To Cross a River of Blood is opening beautifully; it makes me want to go back and revisit the book that falls in between TCaRoB and SiaC so that I can pick at the trilogy all together! It’s a slow picking, but I’ve been having fun with it, too, and I think it helps me to keep the inspiration for SiaC as well.

Featured Story: Last, but not least, a new Featured Story is up! “Dragon Rising” was the first of a handful of stories I submitted to a contest run by Morgan Dragonwillow a little bit ago and, as I sorted through those stories to see which ones I wanted to include in Bowlful of Bunnies, I realized that it’s probably my favorite. Thoughts on it would be greatly appreciated! I wouldn’t be surprised if this develops into a book at some point, too.

There you have it! Things are going well, I’m excited about one project being nearly finished and getting to expend some energy on other projects as well. I have to flee off to work now, but why don’t you check out some of my fellow RoWers here while you’re at it? And, of course, as always, happy writing!

Calling All Beta Readers!

The time has come (the walrus said…) to send up the call for beta readers! By the end of the day today, I should have the complete rough draft of Bowlful of Bunnies, my short story collection, ready for review. It should be just under 100 single-spaced typed pages on Microsoft Word, and I’ve lost track of how many stories will be in there, but I believe it’s about fifteen. If you’re interested in beta reading it, please let me know! The more the merrier, and here’s what I had beta readers in mind to help with:

1. Proofreading from grammatical and typographical errors
2. Suggestions on tightening prose and/or picking out wonky language
3. Perspective on the choice of stories in the collection
4. Thoughts on the order of the stories
5. Recommendations on what’s working, what’s not, and what there could be more or less of

If you’re already a frequent follower of the blog (and, to be honest, those are the people I’d feel most comfortable beta-reading), you’re probably already familiar with a lot of the stories, as they’ve appeared as featured stories, but I’m also curious as to how the stories flow into each other, if the variety is good, if I should lump similarly themed stories together or switch out between types of stories regularly, all those technical little things that take a collection of stories to being a complete, cohesive work rather than just a hodge-podge of this or that.

Interested? Leave me a message here or hit me up on email (ellis.engler@gmail.com), and we’ll get things started. I want to give ALL the thank yous (the first of many, to be sure) in advance, as well as just thank everyone for their general support and encouragement. I’m thisclose to getting this thing published, and I have everyone here to thank for it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you times a gazillion.

A Round of Words in 80 Days: Round 2 Goals!

Those of you who may follow me a bit more closely than others might have noticed I took a little three-day break these last few days. I don’t know what it was, but I was mostly stuck in a rut, and just couldn’t get the motivation to post anything. And that’s okay. Part of me wonders if the regularity of RoW80 check-ins keeps me on course, so I usually kind of fade out a bit during a break. Plus, we’ve been having some major pipe problems and I’m a total priss. If I can’t have a shower, I feel gross, irritable, and useless. I was also thinking, since I was originally going to post this yesterday, on April 1st, of just putting up a post calling it quits entirely as an April Fool’s joke, but I’ve never been very good at those. So we’re still up and running, we just took a little period to allow my brain to be dead. The start of the latest RoW80 Round seems a good time to kickstart things back into gear!

So let’s take a moment to see what my goals will be for this round, running April 2nd to June 21st:

Bowlful of Bunnies: I’ve been doing a little bit of editing on the stories I have already during the interim period between RoWnds, and the pace has been incredibly encouraging. BoB will be my main focus for the first part of this Round. I want to get a rough draft finished and ready to send to beta readers at the end of April. I’ll be contacting some potential cover artists soon, and, actually, if things go as they have been, I should be ready to fish around for readers well before the end of April. And who knows how long before I get it ready for publication, but my biggest goal this round is to have Bowlful of Bunnies published by June 21st at the latest. Pretty damn exciting right there.

Serpent in a Cage: I plan to continue on scribbling out at least a page a day on this project, which shouldn’t be too difficult if I keep at it as I have been on these last few days, pulling at least an extra page a day. I’m really striving to get to the end by the conclusion of this year, so I’ll just keep plodding along and, before you know it, I’ll have it completed…or I’ll stop again and try to rewrite it entirely. Again. Ahem. By the end of this round, I should have 173 pages written.

The 100 Books Project: Will continue as planned, also. I’m off to a slow start this year, so I’m really hoping to buff up my numbers with some filler books…quick reads that’ll just buffer up the numbers a little. To be on track for the year, I’ll need to read 38 more books by June 21st.

Book No. 02: With the pending completion of Bowlful of Bunnies, I will then be turning my attention over to the second book I will publish this year. I know I want this one to be a novel, though I have no idea what novel I want it to be. So, but goal is to have the second book planned and outlined, if not started, by June 21st. I plan to field a few ideas to myself and stick with which is stronger. If I get everything for BoB done by May, I might want to plan to have a good quarter of a rough draft written by that date, too.

Prompt Days: So far, I’ve been working with two days of writing prompts on the blog: Closing Lines Tuesday (more on that tomorrow) and Flash Fiction Friday. This will hopefully encourage a lot of new material, both for myself and those who wish to participate. Keeping up with these prompt days will also be among my goals.

Featured Story: I also intend to keep up with updating my featured story every week. Bibliophile went up today; this is a previously published piece from the lit journal I started with my Fiction Collective in college, 10;29. Every Sunday, I will continue to switch out the stories, hope for critique to improve, and otherwise keep a new flush of material going through my interested readers. It’s been a great success in helping me judge where I am on my pieces so far, so thank you to everyone who has been offering their thoughts on the stories when they catch them.

Other Novels: As of right now, I’m not sure where my stance on incorporating other novels into my goals will be. Between having to start a new novel to focus on, my work on BoB and SiaC, and the various other stories I will be trying to write, I don’t imagine much coming out of any other projects right now, but never say never.

There you have it! It should be an interesting RoWnd for me, and I’m definitely excited to see what the next 80 days have in store for me and my fellow RoWers! You can check out their goals here. And, as always, happy writing!

Kindle Fire, Burning Bright!

I return from the eventfulness of the holiday season with a great deal of excitement for a very good reason. I have been blessed with an extremely generous family, both in love and in things more material. The case in point is my combination birthday/Christmas gift of a brand-new, sparkling Kindle Fire. I am so thrilled not only by the incredible features on this piece of machinery (oh, Words with Friends, how addictive you are!), but also because I now feel equipped to finally venture out into that strange world of self-publishing in the digital world.

I have been reading a lot about ebooks and epublishing in these last few months, and I know I have a lot more to read and a lot more investigating and looking around, but I’m definitely eager to embark on this new journey. I intend to use these next few weeks to gather up a bunch of my short stories, edit them up, and put them together in a collection to send out as my first digital offering. A grouping of some of my favorite tales to put up for sale at a low price to hopefully get people interested and to maybe line my pockets with a few extra bucks if I’m lucky. And just as exciting as trying to get my own work out there and ready to download for an ereader is the fact that I can now download some of these things for myself. I have been following many authors who have inspired me to make this step, and I can’t wait to get the chance to download their books and start reading. Thank you so much to everyone blogging about this topic and opening the doors up for a reluctant technophobic such as myself.

I know I have a lot to learn and a lot to do, and I plan to buckle down as soon as I get back into the post-holiday grove of things to figure things out. So let me open up the platform to everyone else with a few requests:

1. I know there are a few authors and blogs I’ve been following that explore this topic, but the Internet is certainly a vast machine full of knowledge. Do you have any links or blogs to share that you have found particularly helpful regarding epublishing? I’d love to read them! Also, if you have any thoughts on preferences for uploads, the technicalities of creating a document for upload, etc, etc, etc, that you’d like to share, please do!

2. As far as reading goes, I know I’ve been itching to get at a few of the books my fellow bloggers have put out there (Kait Nolan’s Red, Lauralynn Elliot’s Haunted Lake, and Catherine Ryan Howard’s Results Not Typical are at the top of my list right now!), but I know I’ve missed an awful lot, too. Who has some suggestions for some of their favorite ereader downloads? Who has books that they’ve got available that I definitely want to check out? There’s so much to choose from that I’d love some guidance on where to start!

3. As these next few weeks wind down, would anyone be interested in taking a look at the collection of short stories for a beta read? I’m not sure how many stories I’ll have collected, but I do know I’d like some second opinions before I send anything out. The help would definitely be appreciated!

With that done, I’m off to try to catch up on a few more books before the end of the year for the 100 books project and to go back to editing, editing, editing! I hope you all had an incredibly grand holiday and that the New Year arrives with as much excitement and promise as it has in store for me!