Let Me Re-Introduce You to Restless Spirits; Going Silent for NaNoWriMo (Halloween Eve Update)

It’s hard to know how to categorize my first traditionally published novel (which is why I think my publisher still doesn’t really know what to do with it). It’s one part clean romance and one part legit horror. It’s a ghost story with heart. It’s also about the everlasting bond between sisters and the power of forgiveness. It’s got all the fun, flirtatious banter and kissing of a romantic comedy and all the chills and thrills of a haunted house.

Basically, it’s like if Dean Koontz wrote a rom-com.

If you enjoy a walk on the spooky side but like your horror like you like your romance — clean, comedic and with a happy ending — then check out Restless Spirits for your next great Halloween read. Click here to learn more, or click here to see where it’s sold.

---

In other news…

This week was a freelance writing week, so not a lot of progress happened on either of my WIPs. I’m using today to tie up some loose ends, and tomorrow my husband and I will be having our entirely grownup Halloween celebration that entails eating junk and watching scary movies all day until we can’t keep our eyes open.

Nanowrimo (that’s short for National Novel Writing Month, for the uninitiated) begins Sunday. And while I’m not participating in an official capacity, I am going to be taking a break from blogging and pulling way back on social media so I can hunker down and try to finish both of my novels-in-progress in November. Can I actually do it? That remains to be seen. But I’m going to give it my best shot.

I’ll still probably pop in from time to time on Instagram (although I’m really going to do my best to curtail the time I spend in that app), but here and everywhere else, expect me to be scarce until these novels are finished.

I hope you have a fabulous Halloween and may all of your candy be free of sharp objects and viruses. And since you probably won’t hear from me again before then, I also hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

See you on the other side!

♥ Jean

 

Writing, Publishing and Life Update – October 23, 2020

There’s not a ton to report this week. I added about 5,000 words to the romance novel, and edited a couple of chapters of Revolution Part Two. I also (re)launched The Pixie and the Professor, a 99 cent short formerly known as Shiny: A Clockwork Fairytale.

And then yesterday several freelance writing assignments came in, so those are going to dominate my schedule for the next week. I’m squeezing in novel writing sprints where I can, though.

But I produced a lot of words this week, and my brain is very tired, and I’m very glad it’s Friday. And it’s only eight more days till Halloween! I’m so excited!

Last Saturday, my husband and I had a lovely date in our own back yard, where we day camped at the back of the property and cooked hot dogs and sausages over our new camping stove and then got in a few rounds of target practice. We capped off the day with more pre-Halloween festivities, which included popcorn, candy and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Tomorrow will be our last Halloween preview before the main event. I’m not sure what we’ll be watching but I think hot dog mummies are on the menu.

I’ll leave you with this reminder that I wrote a whole series of books featuring a ghostly protagonist that is a perfect Halloween read. If you’re not familiar with Restless Spirits, now’s a great time to check it out.

 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jean Marie Bauhaus (@jean_of_the_hills)

Here’s the picture that’s not showing up:

Have a great weekend!

Revolution Part one is Now Available, and Other Writing & Publishing Updates – October 16, 2020

It’s been a busy week, y’all.

First up, Revolution Part One: Survival of the Fittest is finally available on Amazon! And to celebrate, Book One in the series, Desolation, is FREE from now until Tuesday. And in case I forget to mention it when it happens, Book Two, Evolution, will be free for five days starting next Wednesday.

With that out of the way, it’s time to spill the beans. I’m actually pretty trustworthy about keeping other people secrets. But when it’s my own, especially when it’s something I’m excited about, I’m terrible at it. I’ve been blabbing all over Instagram about my new pen name, and I just told all my mailing list subscribers, so I might as well open up about it here, too, because that chicken has flown the coop.

And I happen to have experience chasing chickens and getting them back in the coop. It’s not an experience I wish to repeat.

So that thing I’ve been being all secretive and cagey about the last couple of weeks here on the blog? I’ve started writing a clean Christian romance novel, and I’ve launched a new pen name for it. That new pen name is Jeanie Nicholson.

As I’ve alluded to, the reason I (badly) attempted secrecy is because I need to keep these brands separate so Amazon’s algorithms don’t get confused if my horror fans start buying my sweet Christian romance novels, or vice versa. That sort of thing can really mess up their recommendation ‘bot. Which is why, if Christian romance isn’t your usual thing, I’m asking you NOT to sign up for any of my lists or pages or buy this new book, just to be supportive. This will also help me more accurately track and identify my target demographic.

At any rate, if Christian romance IS your thing, you can learn more about it at these links:

• Just Jeanie – my new personal blog
• Jeanie Nicholson on Facebook
• Jeanie Nicholson’s inspiration boards on Pinterest
• Sign up to JN’s mailing list and I’ll send you the first six chapters of my new romance novel, Gone to the Dogs.

And with THAT out of the way, now I can also tell you that Jeanie Nicholson is participating in a multi-author, multi-genre giveaway at StoryOrigin. Head here to load up on e-book freebies from now through November 12th!

This week has mostly been focused on building and launching a platform for my new pen name so I can start building hype for this new novel. That, and launching my new Dominion book. So I haven’t done any writing or editing this week. But now that that’s all pretty much done and things are set on autopilot, after a break this weekend (which will surely involve more pre-Halloween movie watching and candy snacking), I’ll get back to business as usual.

But for now, I’m kind of wiped and ready for the weekend. I hope you have a good one.

 

October Surprise

I have to admit, I had some doubts we’d get this far into the year, but we made it to October, y’all. And there was much rejoicing.

And much pumpkin-flavored confection consuming. This morning, to celebrate, I had Dunkin’ Donuts Pumpkin Spice coffee in my Boo mug, and my husband broke into the Halloween candy and we both enjoyed a Reese’s pumpkin.

The “surprise” is that I’m bringing back the blog. I said in the final issue of my weekly newsletter that I probably would eventually, so it’s not really that much of a surprise. But here we are. We’re going to keep it casual, not sticking to a schedule, posting when I’m inspired and/or have time. History has borne out that this won’t work any other way. So be sure to subscribe if you actually enjoy my occasional ramblings.

So what’s up? For starters, yesterday I put the finishing touches on Revolution Part One: Survival of the Fittest and uploaded it to KDP, so it’s all set to release on October 11 as promised. There’s still time to pre-order it for 99 cents — and if you already pre-ordered it at a higher price, don’t worry. You’ll be charged the lower price when the book ships to your Kindle.

The onset of fall has brought with it two developments that are highly conducive to getting writing done: one, the end of my better half and I having to mow and weed-eat this property like it’s our part-time job (which, it kind of is), and two, the return of my creative energy. So now I’m back in WRITE ALL THE THINGS! mode and the challenge is to not take on too many projects at once and spread myself too thin.

I’ve started another blog to promote my freelance pet writing (and also to hopefully serve as a source of passive affiliate income), but I have no plans of treating that like a job. It’s primary goal is to GET me jobs, not BE my job.

I’ve also started another secret side project that I’m having a lot of fun with and that is restoring the joy of writing. My main priority now that Rev. Part 1 is off my plate is to finish and publish Rev. Part 2 as soon as possible, but here’s the thing: I’ve realized that, in our current national and global predicament, the last thing I want to do is spend my time mucking about in a post-apocalyptic landscape. This side project is turning out to be just the antidote for that. It’s lighthearted and wholesome and fun, and my plan is to reward myself by spending time on that after I’ve put in my word quota on Rev 2 for the day.

I’m sorry, I know I’m kind of a jerk for being cagey about this other project, but I have good reasons. All I’ll say is that if sweet romance is your jam, leave a comment or drop me a line and I’ll add you to a list of people I’ll reveal this project to once it’s further along in development. But ONLY if you actually read sweet romance. The reason I’m being secretive is because I plan to keep a HARD line of separation between these brands so as not to confuse the Amazon algorithms.

Relatedly, watch this space for a future post about how rushing in to support the authors in your life by buying their books even if you don’t normally read those genres can actually do more harm than good (and don’t feel bad if this is you — this is something I’ve only recently discovered myself). And I’m not even sure if this is true about all booksellers, but it definitely applies to Amazon.

In other news, our Chihuahua, Pete, is hanging in there. We started him on a new drug that’s keeping him stable, for the most part. He’s definitely slowing down, but he’s still got some pep and plenty of zest for life. Hopefully he’ll stay that way for a good long while yet.

Now that you’ve been sufficiently updated on my writing life, I’m going to sign off and get to work on those novel projects. Hopefully it’s as beautiful outside today wherever you are as it is here, and hopefully, both you and I will get some time to get out and enjoy it.

Happy October!!!

It’s Splitsville for Revolution

Okay, guys, it’s time to face reality. There is simply no way I’m going to finish drafting Revolution early enough to have time to do editing justice before the October 11 release date, which I can’t reschedule again. After a lot of agonizing over what I’m going to do, a solution finally occurred to me, one I wish I’d thought of two months ago:

I’m going to pull a George R.R. Martin on this thing. In other words, I’m splitting it in two.

Granted, this novel is nowhere near the epic length of an ASOIAF volume. But I’ve got fifteen chapters edited and ready to go, minus a bit of tweaking on the last bit so it feels more like the end of a book and not just the end of a chapter. And of course since you’ll be getting what amounts to half a novel in October instead of the whole thing, I’ll also be dropping the price to 99 cents. If you pre-ordered, don’t worry — you’ll get the new low price when you get charged on launch day.

 

Hey, and this way Celine gets a cover, too!

I’m still hoping to have the second half ready to go in November, so you won’t have to wait long for the final conclusion. And full disclosure — not long after it’s done I’ll merge it into one volume and probably take down the two separate parts. But at 99 cents each, grabbing them separately will ultimately save you a dollar or two over what I’ll end up pricing the complete volume.

I’m really sorry if anybody’s disappointed by this. I’ve been doing my best, but between the effort it takes each day to manage the cognitive dissonance that is Life in 2020 and managing my dog’s illness, not to mention other responsibilities I can’t put off until the book is done, I’m going as fast as I can, and it’s simply not fast enough. Hopefully, this will give you guys who’ve been waiting patiently something to tide you over while allowing me to finish this baby at a pace I can actually handle.

Once again, thanks for hanging in there with me.

Revolution Release Pushed Back to October 11

I’m sorry to announce yet another delay to the release of Revolution, the third and final book in the Dominion of the Damned trilogy.

What can I say, folks? I don’t have a good excuse, other than the same excuse everyone else has — this dadgum never-ending poop-storm of a year is just making it difficult to focus and get things done. I can’t stop goggling at all of the sheer madness going on and wondering if I should don a tinfoil hat to protect myself from 5G or chem trails or ‘shrooms in the water or whatever the Qanon-crowd are blaming for people’s total abandonment of reason and sanity long enough to sit down and write in anything other than the occasional short burst.

Also, I’m dealing with a very sick dog and losing a lot of sleep and tears over it.

Again, I’m sorry. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

But I won’t be able to reschedule this launch again — if I don’t meet this new deadline, Amazon will cancel publication, all of the pre-orders will be canceled, and I’ll have to set it up as an entirely new book. As it is, I’m now banned from offering any more pre-orders for a year. So, I have a lot of incentive to finally buckle down and finish this thing. And I’m getting close.

So. October 11. I’m pushing hard to get it out there. Watch this space for updates.

Get Desolation FREE and Evolution for 99 CENTS!

 

This week, get great deals on the first two books of the soon-to-be-completed Dominion of the Damned trilogy!

From now through this Friday, May 1, book one, Desolation, is FREE on Amazon!

And starting today and lasting through next Tuesday, May 5, book two, Evolution, is only 99 cents in the U.S. and 99 p. on Amazon UK!

No Kindle? No problem! Simply head here to download the free Kindle reading app for your smart phone, tablet or personal computer.

The Dominion Trilogy got a new look — and you can pre-order Book Three!

Don’t you love a cover reveal? If so, you’re in luck — today I bring you THREE new covers!

For a long time, I’ve struggled with how to classify and market Dominion of the Damned, my post-apocalyptic thriller detailing a power struggle between humans and vampires in the wake of a zombie apocalypse. I’ve made several attempts over the years, but I think I missed the mark every time.

But I finally landed on a set of covers that I think communicates the right genre to the right audience. I’ll show them to you in a sec’, but first you should know that this rebranding also involved a title change. Dominion of the Damned is now the series title, and book one is now titled Desolation. Similarly, the second book, formerly titled Deliverance of the Damned, is now titled, simply, Evolution.

Here are the new covers for both those books:

 

And that brings us to Book Three. The title is Revolution, and it’s scheduled for release on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited on August 14th. And it’s available to pre-order.

Here’s the cover:

Hopefully, this fourth cover rendition (number four for Book One, at any rate) is the charm.

Click here to pre-order Revolution!

Click here for all the books in the series!

Let’s try this again – corrected link to Echoes in the Dark

I borked the link to Echoes in the Dark, my monthly newsletter that has more or less morphed into my new blog, in my last post. Here’s the correct link.

And in case that doesn’t work, you can find it here: jeanmariebauhaus.substack.com

Echoes in the Dark is basically my blog now.

 

Update: Now with correct links!

If you’re subscribed to this here blog that is no longer a blog but is now a news page, you might consider subscribing to Echoes in the Dark, which began as my monthly author newsletter but has basically morphed into my new author blog since I switched it from Mailchimp to Substack.

I’ve got short weekly posts talking about my writing process and the progress of my current WIP, and longer monthly posts in which I share a weird story from my life and give a quick recap of the previous month. And this week, I’ve begun experimenting with adding a podcast format.

You can get all of that delivered straight to your inbox if you subscribe, but even if you don’t, you can still read it all here.