Fellow Bloggers Publish Book

What do you get when you mix a handsome virile sailor with the seductively beautiful wife of an admiral? You get an intense barroom brawl that ends in murder, and that’s only the first chapter! What happens in the second chapter? I can’t say. Well, not yet.

That’s because the book, Amber Wake-Gabriel Falling, just came out yesterday. The interesting thing about the book, well outside of the sex, lies and murder, is that it was written by fellow bloggers, P.S. Bartlett and Ronovan Hester.

One of my blog ideas for this year was to expand into doing interviews. And with the publishing of a new book, I knew I needed to start with Ronovan. As a fairly new blogger, I stumbled upon Ronovan’s blog in late 2014. For over 82 weeks now, he has been hosting a weekly Haiku Challenge. I can’t say I had really written many haikus before, and if I had, I certainly didn’t remember them. So, I gave it a try and got hooked and tend to write them every week (my Monday posts typically).

Over time, I started to notice Ronovan did so much more than poems though. He graciously puts out writing and blogging tips. He regularly interviews other bloggers and authors. He started another challenge that is more a movement for positivity and encouragement called BeWow. He even recently kicked off a weekly fiction challenge, Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes. Needless to say, his blog has a plethera of options to entertain you. But incase you need more, Ronovan co-authored a book in his spare time that promises definite page-turning suspense.

To find out more about this blogging powerhouse and exciting new book, I’ll let you hear it directly from the source. Below, Ronovan explains it all by answering my questions. Trust me, you’ll enjoy the read…

What is your book about?

Amber Wake-Gabriel Falling is a historical adventure set in 1705-06 and is about a man named Gabriel Wallace, a Royal Navy Captain, court-martialed for being in the wrong place at the right time. He then sets out on a mission to correct a great many wrongs that takes him to the Boston and the Caribbean. It’s not your typical sea adventure/pirate book. Wallace has one set of ships he’s after and a good reason why. You have to read to the end to find out all the reasons behind that why.

What made you start writing it? 

PS Bartlett and I talked a lot after first getting to know each other through her novel The Blue Diamond-The Razor’s Edge. The main topic on this particular day of discussion happened to be her book and how there needed to be a sequel. Our problem was Blue Diamond needed more exposure first.

Blue Diamond is a great book. Being Bartlett’s first venture into this genre, it had not received the love from the book buyers it should have. Not that she was complaining about it. She understands how it all works. She is a multiple award-winning author.

Two things came out of our conversation that day: I suggested Bartlett write prequels about how a woman in very beginning of the 1700s became an accepted pirate captain, and I would write the story of the man that helped her.

Bartlett decided, after encouraging her to do a sequel and tossing ideas around, she wanted another pirate to show up to shake things up for Ivory Shepard and Maddox Carbonale, the main two characters from Blue Diamond. He had to be tall, have red hair, and blue eyes, she has a thing for Vikings.

I thought I might be able to identify with that description. I set off, did my research of pirates of all kinds, took historical facts about various ones, put them together, added my own imaginations to the man, and admittedly put some of myself into him.

I love history, having been a history teacher, and research has always been a lot of fun for me. I combined all my likes and jumped in the deep end, and about five weeks or so later I had the book written and ready for Bartlett to go through to add her style and voice to it, and any plot changes she had in mind that would server her in the future books.

Have you worked with P.S. Bartlett before? If so, on what and when? If not, what made you decide to work with them now?

We worked together when I reviewed and interviewed her for The Blue Diamond. I’d never been interested in pirate novels before, let alone romances. The Blue Diamond was different and I felt at the time it was a series I wouldn’t mind being a part of and with Amber Wake-Gabriel Falling not being a romance, but a pure historical adventure, I couldn’t wait to get the fingers working.

How did you start blogging?

Just over two years ago, I had an accident in my home. I was walking down the hall one moment, and the next thing I remember I’m in the hospital. I don’t remember the walking down the hall part, but that’s where they found me. Migraines have always been a problem of mine and I had a bad one that morning. I fainted or passed out, got dizzy, something happened; hit my head on about three surfaces before hitting the floor. I was somehow able to hit the speed dial on my cell phone that I always carried in my hand and help was on the way.

From that accident, I was no longer able to work, and in my need for an intellectual outlet I ended up blogging. Sometimes it hasn’t been so intelligent, but it’s been fun for the most part.

I see that some authors have blogs and others don’t? As a blogger and author, what advantage does blogging give you?

Any writer these days needs to do his or her own promotion. That is, unless they are already established authors. Even signed to a publishing deal must do promoting to some degree. The biggest promotion one has in selling their book is word of mouth. One friend tells another about your book. That friend enjoys the book and tells another.

Although I never started out blogging to promote anything, I had nothing to promote at the time, I have a small picture of my book cover at the bottom of each of my posts/articles. I haven’t been over the top about promoting the book. I’m excited but I don’t want to use my friendships and trusts I’ve developed like that. Yes, I want my friends to buy the book and maybe make it a bestseller wherever possible, but my main goal is to make my 11-year-old boy proud and he can say his daddy is a bestselling author. If not, then he can say his daddy is a published author.

What is the most interesting thing about blogging?

For me it changes. One week it may be a style of poetry. I hold a weekly Haiku Poetry Challenge, now in existence for over 82 weeks with as many as 70 poets participating, and this past year ,181 poets joined in at one point. I see poetry as being short stories. One saying I have is, I don’t write poetry, I write micro chapters of my autobiography.

At other times, I love helping people with tips and tutorials, giving the teacher in me an outlet. Of course, meeting people from around the world and learning about so many cultures and places. That may be the most interesting. It appeals to the historian, writer, teacher, the eternal student, and the need for human interaction.

What is the most annoying thing about blogging?

After a long time I’ve figured out the only annoying thing about blogging is allowing myself to turn blogging into something I never meant it to be. As soon as I see that happening, and it begins to take up all my time, give me pain, and make me irritable, I take a deep breath, a step back, and chill. Blogging should be fun, no matter what reason you blog, it should be fun.

How do you hope a blog tour will help the promotion of your book?

It’s all about word of mouth. As I mentioned earlier, word of mouth is the way a book sells. You know people I don’t. I’m not James Patterson so I don’t have a TV commercial, not that he needs one. I’m not JK Rowling who, if you think about it, got a huge amount of sells from friends raving to friends, but she also had a publisher and team behind her because they bought her story at auction. They had to make their money back. I’m enjoying the process of doing the interviews and guest articles for the different sites.

Do you see a possibility of a sequel to your book? 

As far as I know, there will be a sequel. Whether I am involved or not is up in the air. I have several projects I am working on, one a Southern Romance, several Historical Adventures spanning the various age groups, and even my own Historical Pirate trilogy. I am heavy on the history and light on the pirate though. I love to put nods to historical people and events in a book, which Amber Wake-Gabriel Falling has. The nods may be obscure and only caught by history buffs, but they make me happy.

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Click here for a peek at Chapter One.

To buy the book, click the icon below.

You may connect with Ronovan through:

Personal Blog: RonovanWrites.WordPress.com

Author Site: RonovanHester.com

Twitter: @RonovanWrites

Goodreads: Ronovan Hester

Facebook: Ronovan Writes

You may connect with P.S. Bartlett though:

Blog: http://psbartlett.wordpress.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PSBartlett

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PSBartlett

Trailer: http://youtu.be/TlsIZ2vSpDw