Showing posts with label K J Waters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label K J Waters. Show all posts

Sunday, May 19, 2019

Outlandish Dreams Come True! How I Made the Best Seller List With #Outlander

#Outlandish Dreams Come True!


When I first read the Outlander series from Diana Gabaldon in the early 2000's, I fell in love with the characters, the richness of the storytelling and the details of how people lived back in the seventeen hundreds before the Scottish uprising. 

I never imagined that I would write a book, much less that if I did, it would end up on the best seller list with her novels, but that happened this week! Squeee!!

Check it out here!

Eventually, I read her book, the Outlandish Companion where Diana discussed her somewhat haphazard way of writing chapters and later connecting them to each other and it really inspired me to consider writing a novel. I always thought you had to be super structured, which I definitely am not. 

I took a while deciding on what to write about but after experiencing 4 major hurricanes in six-weeks in central Florida in the summer of 2004 I felt I had the perfect backdrop for an exciting series. 

It wasn't until a decade later that I finished fiddling around with Stealing Time and took the plunge publishing it. Later published Shattering Time. I'm currently working on the third book in the series, Killing Time. You can hear me talking a bit about Killing Time in my latest video chat on my website here.


Watch the video here!

Living History

What fascinates me the most about Outlander was the concept of living as a modern woman in the past, and the living conditions and social norms of the times. I had a lot of fun researching all of those historical details and in a way living there vicariously through my characters, albeit it in the comfort of my writing cave, and not subject to the horrors my characters are put through. 

One of the shocking things I learned about 1752 London was that as a wedding gift in a lower class society, the woman's family would have all her teeth pulled and give her dentures. This way the husband wouldn't have to pay to have her teeth removed as they rotted in their mouths over time. Can you imagine that? So glad I'm living now and not then!

Time Travel Romance Best Seller Category on Amazon

I placed a BookBub ad, and if you know what that is you know it's really hard to get a spot. I finally did and the results were incredible! All three of my books ranked on the Best Seller List on Amazon. 

In the top ten best sellers in Time Travel Romance, 
9 of them were from the Outlander Series, 
and at #2 was my book, Shattering Time!


Time Travel Fiction Best Seller

Also, last week I outranked Stephen King's Time Travel Fiction book, 11/23/1963, one of my recent favorite time travel novels!



Best Rankings Ever!

I set Stealing Time (book 1) for free and it spent 3 days at the #1 spot in both categories (Time Travel Romance and Historical Fantasy) and ranked as high as #16 in the entire Free Kindle Store.



Shattering Time (Book 2)

I put my second book on sale for 99cents and it ranked the highest it ever has reached --  Time Travel Romance #2 under Outlander. 

Three Books in the Best Seller Categories!

Now that my books are back to regular price my books are still ranking really well with all three in the bestseller category!

Here is the breakdown Saturday afternoon, Shattering Time (book 2) ranks at #7 in Time Travel Romance, Stealing Time (book 1) is ranked at #29 in the same category and Blow is ranked #6 in One Hour Teen and Young Adult Short Reads!







 Blow's Ranking the same day!




Thank you for all of your support! 

If you're curious about my books you can read the first five chapters of Stealing Time and Shattering Time by signing up for my newsletter here! 

I also have a Free Non-Fiction story for free exclusive to my newsletter followers for signing up. Sign up here!


Sign up here!


Review for Stealing Time:


Review for Shattering Time

Buy it here!




For a limited time, I'm offering a free copy of my best seller short-story Blow to the first ten people who comment on this blog post. 

Review for Blow!



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Sunday, October 5, 2014

Blondie in the Stream of Consciousness

Blondie in the Stream of Consciousness

Stealing Time

I wanted to post a quick blog to let you know what's going on with me and why I've not been on here much lately. First of all I've been working feverishly on my novel. After nine years I'm finally inches away from releasing Stealing Time. At the moment it is at the editors. So far the feedback from my beta readers has been spectacular, way beyond what I had hoped. Here are a few of the comments:
For more on my book listen to my Interview here!


 "Gripping! I can't wait for it to be released so I can have a autographed copy."

 "I stayed up almost the entire night because I couldn't put it down." 

 "A real page turner."

 "Such an original concept!"
If all goes as planned (and Lord knows that's not been the case so far) I plan to have it on preorder on Amazon mid-November and available on ebook and print by the holiday season.

Here is a quick synopsis:

Three days ago Ronnie Andrews moved to Florida just in time for her birthday. With Hurricane Charlie barreling up the coast towards Central Florida, Ronnie takes shelter in her boyfriend's weather lab where they ride out the storm and celebrate her special day. During the peak of the storm Ronnie inexplicably leaps through time landing her in 1752 London. With no clue how she arrived there, she has to find her way back to 2004 before time catches up with her.

I'm also working hard on a website redesign, a book trailer, and of course my social media presence. I just found out I'm ranked in the top 5% for social media users. Can you believe it? At least I have something to show for all my time wasted...I mean spent (wisely) on social media.

Already I have an amazing track for my book trailer composed especially for me by the ridiculously talented BrotheRabbit. He is available for your custom track needs and has a huge array of really unusual and funky music. Check him out on youtube here. I will be working on putting the trailer together in the next few weeks.

Blondie's Custom Book Covers

 Secondly, In January I started a business called Blondie's Custom Book Covers where I help authors create high quality covers for their books. Please check out our website at www.blondiebooks.com on twitter at @BlondiesBookCov and on facebook https://www.facebook.com/BlondiesCustomBookCovers. I'd be honored if you'd follow us.

Blondie's Custom Book Covers

I'm working with a professional photographer, Jody Smyers, who is extremely talented in photography, lighting, night shots, time lapse, and of course photoshop. You can see his work here http://jodysmyersphotography.com

We have several covers in process now that I cannot wait to show you, but for now here are a few we created for three authors who have recently released their books.  Please show them some love and check out their work on amazon.

The first four are from author Roger Grubbs. They were shot on location with Roger working closely with us to chose the setting, models, wardrobe and all other details of the shoot, and then the photoshop elements to create a stunning cover. What do you think? I couldn't be happier with the results. Let me know if there is anything we can do for you.

Buy it here!


Buy it here!


 Buy it here!

Buy it here!


We recently completed a travel series for author and editor Jeri Walker-Bickett. Check out one of the covers we did for her here:
Buy it here!

The latest release that Blondie's Custom Book Covers created is a very funny and touching book called The Rejected Writer's Book Club by Suzanne Kelman. This was by far the most complicated cover we've done so far. We found five models that fit the characters, created their look, and found a location and props to suit the storyline. The photoshoot was a blast with this fun group of ladies and Suzanne joined us via Facetime to help direct the shoot. We made a cake inspired by one of the chapters and shot that as well with the letters and teacup. After all of that we then took to photoshop and put all of the elements together creating the light playful mood of the book with the colors and layout.

Buy it here!
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you stay tuned for my upcoming novel release! I would love for you to follow my blog and answer the questions below in the comment section.

1. What covers do you like the most? I would love for you to let me know if you were interested enough to purchase one of these books.

2. Do you think you might pre order my novel? If so what would you be more interested in, paperback or ebook?

3. I will send the first two chapters to anyone who preorders the book in early November, just to get you started on the story. Just let me know how to send them to you.


KJ WATERS

Please check out my social media links below. 

I would love to hear from you! Please take a minute and leave a message for me in the comments section below. 

Contact Me
  • Check out my website:       www.kjwaters.com and stay tuned for a complete redesign coming soon. 

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Thursday, January 17, 2013

The Next Big Thing... Stealing Time


The Next Big Thing . . .

Welcome to the next big thing blog hop! Join the fun blog hopping our way through some new reads, including works in progress and new and upcoming releases. For those who haven't been part of a blog hop before, you read my blog and hop on over to the next blog link for more entertainment. Bloggers hand picked by yours truly!


Thank you to Richard Weatherly for tagging me in this blog hop. Richard is a successful writer and social media icon, at least in my little world on twitter and facebook. Check out his site here.

Part of the Blog Hop is to introduce you to my work in progress by answering ten interview questions. This was originally posted in October of 2012.

I hope you'll take some time to follow the links to my author friends' blogs as well. They have some truly impressive books in print and a few in the works as well. See the end of the post to see who I've tagged.

Ten Interview Questions for The Next Big Thing


What is the working title of your book?

Stealing Time

Cover art for Stealing Time

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I've always been fascinated by time travel stories, especially ones that take you to the past. After a harrowing summer in Florida with four major hurricanes, the first striking only three days after I moved into the state, the idea to combine hurricanes and time travel into Stealing Time began brewing in my head. It wasn't until the following summer that I began working on it.

What genre does your book fall under?

Time Travel Thriller (Hey that's T cubed).


Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Gerard Butler as Mike Walsh

The only actor I've pictured in the movie version of Stealing Time is a character in book two, Mike Walsh, who would be played by Gerard Butler. Sigh. I'm not sure it's helpful to put anyone else in the reader's minds. I want them to imagine Ronnie, Jeffrey, Jack, Steph and Mathias on their own.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Wow, that's a toughie. Ronnie Andrews has a bad day or two? No, surely I can do better than that.  Let me try again: Ronnie Andrews finds herself inexplicably thrown back in time during the worst hurricane to hit Central Florida in more than forty years.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I will self publish this first one and maybe try for traditional publishing after I see how this one goes.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Ahem, you had to ask. OK, confession time. I've been working on this for 7 years. But . . . I will have 3 books completed by year 8ish. I've decided to split the story into 3 separate books and then I'll release them as a compilation at a later date. 

Why? I realized last spring that e-books were running a lot shorter than traditional pubs, at least in my genre. It occurred to me that people may not want a tome, even if it is amazing, er, really good. So Stealing Time will be a trilogy.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I like to compare my story to Michael Crichton's Timeline, in that it is science fiction that is more reality based than spaceships and weird creatures from the future. Timeline also has a healthy dose of historical fiction thrown in along with the sci-fi aspect, like Stealing Time. 

Other works that are similar, although I don't think anyone has tackled the material in the way that I have, are perhaps Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. This series is technically a fantasy set up as opposed to science fiction since the character is sent back in time via druid standing stones in the hills of Scotland instead of a time travel device. My series is less romance type and is not any where as long or detailed as Diana's works.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon 
http://www.amazon.com/Outlander-Diana-Gabaldon/dp/0440212561

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I first decided to write a novel after becoming enamored (some may say obsessed) with Outlander. Diana has a book called the Outlandish Companion that describes the characters and tapestries of her vast novels. She also talks about her writing process and one section in particular describes how she writes a scene without knowing how it fits in to the rest of the story and then makes the connections afterwards.

I was very inspired by that, being similarly challenged with structure while having an abundance of creative ideas. The thought of a successful author having a creative rather than structured approach to the novel seemed a heck of a lot more plausible strategy for me. I've used some very helpful tools to give me the structure, which you can read about on my guest blog here that involves a book called The Marshall Plan, by Evan Marshall. A thank you to Kirkus MacGowan for allowing me to guest blog on his site.

My son has been my biggest supporter on this journey and has contributed some great ideas to the book. I think I may have a budding writer in the family. 

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

I rather like extreme weather!

If you are fascinated with weather, as I am, I've included a healthy dose of bad scary weather, written from actual experience. I've been in about 15 hurricanes and tropical storms in my lifetime and can easily convey the power and awe I felt during those storms.

I've also tackled the time travel component in a very original way, without spoiling it, I can only say as the story develops the method of time travel and the intricacies of how one is placed back in time is revealed and it is very complex.

If that's not enough, I've got a sexy blonde heroine as the main character and a tall, dark, and handsome accomplice to throw another curve ball in her unsettled world. Oh, I forgot to mention there is a mad scientist and a sadistic captor. Interested? I hope so!

Watch for posts on January 24, 2013 from these authors:

Ron Chapman and his debut blog 

Elisha Chirchir

Charles Dougherty

Jessica Stank -- A Writer's Journey


Check them out now and learn about their current novels and works in progress.


Connect With Me

When I'm not working on Stealing Time you can find me on my social media at the links below. I hope to have my novel completed by late summer 2013 with book two close behind.

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