Jade Varden Official Blog

Synopsis Alex had everything when he was with Madison. But the darkness within him wouldn't go away. After two years apart, he returns to Pelican Bluffs and to the girl he never wanted to leave. Madison wants to give their love another chance, but Alex can't fight fate. He is what he is. Ruined. Crazy like his mother. And Madison deserves so much more. When his secrets spill out into their small town, Alex has a choice to make. Hide away in the darkness forever, or let love in. Author Q&A Tell us 3 fun facts about yourself. 1. I'm half Chinese; my father's family immigrated from Shanghai in the 1940's 2. My father's a glider pilot, so when I was a kid I spent a lot of weekends hanging around the airport and flying planes. 3. I've got more names than you can shake a stick at. I was born Emily Mary Mah and my Chinese family gave me the name Shi Yue. Then when I married my husband I got the last name, Tippetts, so I can ...

What's the very best word you could ever find in any of your reviews? Stop trying to think of the most fantastic superlatives you can muster, because the best word you can find isn't a synonym for "fantastic." It's believable ...and you can write books that are even if the pages are filled with unicorns and dragons. Let me tell you how.  Being Believable Believable writing isn't about creating a book that takes place in Dayton, Ohio. It's not even about writing stuff that's actually true (or even stuff that seems like it could be). Your book can still have believability even if it takes place on the planet of Jupiter (however, since Jupiter is a gas giant this would take some real creativity). Believable writing isn't the setting, and it's not about whether or not unicorns and dragons factor into the story. The Harry Potter books, at first blush, are ludicrously unbelievable. But read them, and you're going to catch yourself wishi...

You use social media to promote your books. You maintain a blog. You engage fans, you post on forums, you comment on blogs. You could still be doing more to boost your image as a writer...because you could be writing other things. Why stop at being an indie author, when you can be a freelancer, too? An Author By Any Other Name... Working as a freelancer is a great way to get your name out there. Even when you're not promoting your books directly, you're still promoting yourself as a writer if you're publishing content for others to read. The articles you create don't have to be related to your books, writing or even your genre in any way, but it's much easier to cross-promote your freelance articles if they are.  Self-published authors have a lot of information to contribute about book writing, formatting for ebooks, self-promotion, social media -- well, you know all the stuff you've learned in your journey as an indie author. Look for topics th...

I used to think all authors were tortured, anti-social artists who locked themselves in dank attics in order to create their amazing words. This is how I would probably behave, if I could. But I'm an indie author. That means my main job description is availability. As an indie, you have to be accessible. Not just to readers, or other writers. You have to be available to the entire world. Being Available The idea that authors are untouchable and aloof is an old one, and untrue. Today's tech makes it possible for just about any two people to connect, and no author is an island anymore. That is especially true for indie authors. Being accessible is about more than having social media profiles , or maintaining a blog. True accessibility means answering and responding . What I mean is this: having a blog isn't helping you if you never respond to comments. Writing all those tweets is less meaningful if you aren't checking your mentions throughout the...

Oracle of Delphi Giveaway  Prizes are listed a Rafflecopter giveaway Prophecy of the Author's Genius Contest   Solve the prophecy, win a $25 Amazon Giftcard  (must guess the classic book title and author)   a Rafflecopter giveaway   About the Author Diantha Jones was born the day thousands of turkeys sacrificed their lives to fill millions of American bellies on November 22 which also happened to be Thanksgiving Day (Her mother says she owes her a turkey). She is a Journalism graduate who wants to be a career novelist (of books, not Facebook posts). When not writing or working, she is reading on her Nook, being hypnotized by Netflix or on a mission to procure french fries.   The  Oracle of Delphi  fantasy series is her first series. She is also the author of  Mythos: Stories from Olympus , a companion series, and there is another fantasy series in the works. She also writes...

If you aren't checking Google every day, you're missing a ton of marketing opportunities for you and all your books. Find out why you should go Google yourself at least once in every 24-hour period, and find all those missed promotions that are falling through the cracks.  Powering the Indie Engine You should already be doing periodic searches of your pen name to avoid plagiarism (or at the very least, catch it when it's happening). But an occasional content check just isn't enough, not if you're going to catch all those potential marketing opportunities that are just out there waiting for you. To do that, you're going to have to perform a search every day. Narrow down your results by time frame, an option you'll usually find above or below the search bar (depending on the search engine you're using), to look at results from the past 24 hours. Do this every day, and you're going to catch all those marketing opportunities you'd be mi...

Tired of your ereader? Stick of straining your eyes to look at a screen? Now, you can enjoy the thrilling conclusion to the Deck of Lies series on good old paper. Judgment (Deck of Lies, #4) is now available in paperback . Get every exciting moment, inside the courtroom and out, and never worry about your battery power. Here's what other readers are saying about Judgment:  "It is everything I could have asked for (had I known what to ask for) in an ending!!"        -Theresa Jones "All I hoped it would be... I couldn't and didn't put it down."        -Leslie Chadwick "A must read!"        -Sienna, Lost to Books Cashing Out  Do I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? How can I, when the truth will destroy us all? Now that I've started telling lies, I can't stop. Not until all this is over, and I'm free of the family tha...

Reports are circulating that Microsoft may put indie software developers on equal footing with the big-name giants. If the rumors are correct, a whole world of indie gaming may open up to you on Microsoft's ultra-popular platform XBox Live.  Indies, Not Equals But, don't run right out and buy that year-long subscription to the online service just yet. Microsoft hasn't confirmed that it's involved in any game-changing talks, and the whispers are saying that the platform won't be open to all indies. Small single-man and two-man operations still won't find a foothold for publishing their games with Microsoft, but small indie development firms will find themselves on more equal footing with the big boys. The news is important to indies of all types, including authors, because it represents a growing trend that even the little guys and the smallest operations could have the chance to put their products "out there." If even Microsoft is co...

If you want to sell more books and get more visitors on your blog, don't underestimate the power of video. There are a lot of reasons why you should be using YouTube's powers to enhance your own reach. The biggest? Google gives YouTube a little extra search engine bump. Video Killed the Book Star It's because Google owns YouTube (and I believe they will one day own everything on the Internet). So naturally Google gives websites that have a lot of YouTube higher rankings, and you'll see links to YouTube videos all the time during normal web searches. So it behooves you to create your own YouTube channel, and add those links to your blog.  If you're going to create content to promote yourself and your books, create good content. And if you're going to use that content to drive more traffic to your blog, create it regularly . There are lots of reasons why an indie author might make a YouTube video. Start with my ideas, and let me know if you come up w...

Tweets too long? Are you forced to squeeze those glowing review quotes down to fewer and fewer words? Are you struggling to add your own little comments every time you tweet about your newest blog post? You need shorter URLs. The right URL shortener can help you keep track of your stats, so you can tailor your tweets to get more mileage out of every single one.  This is the Tweet That Doesn't End Amazon may be a convenient place to buy books, but it's not at all made for easy linking. Amazon's URLs are huge, and they'll take up a whole bunch of space in a tweet if you let them.  Lots of URLs are very long, in fact, too long to allow for inventive, interesting tweets.  So start using a URL shortener. If you use the right one, you can keep track of how many clicks your tweets are getting. This way, you'll know what's working and what isn't when you're sending out those little bits of promotion. According to my research, currently there are tw...

As a freelance writer, I have to deal with SEO all the time. But even when I'm moonlighting as an indie author, it's an issue. I found out why SEO matters to self-published authors. Have you? Why SEO? SEO is search engine optimization. This basically refers to keyword usage in any given piece of text that's put on the Internet. When an optimal number of keywords are used in any article or blog post, that piece of content will be much easier for search engines to find.  When search engines can find you, readers can find you. This is why SEO matters to indies.  As an indie author, you should already have a blog . You want people to buy your writing, right? Well don't rely on your clever promotions and the reviews you can scrape together. Start blogging to get readers. If they like your blog, they will be tempted to buy your book. But once you start blogging, you've got to start thinking about SEO-ing (no...that's not a real word). So here...

The Internet makes everyone anonymous. It reduces personalities into a one-sentence bio, a single small photo, maybe a link or two. The indie author has to turn that anonymity into brand recognition. The best way to do it? Have a great author headshot. Who Are You? Notice the adjective. I said great. I didn't say sexy, or even spectacular. So what makes your author photo really great...and what makes it awful?   Color vs. Black and White Don't agonize over this decision, because it really doesn't matter much. One thing to keep in mind is your paperback editions. Full-color printing is more costly, so you may end up with a black and white photo anyway. As a rule of thumb, get yourself a photo that looks good both ways. Your Body Okay, this gets tricky. Readers don't want to see your body, they want to see your face. So your author photo should be of your face. You don't need a lot of shoulder, and no chest. The more of your face readers can s...

In real life, fireworks are reserved for special occasions. But authors add them to books all the time. In this particular instance, fireworks is a euphemism for the writing that makes a lot of authors uncomfortable: sex scenes.  You don't have to focus on romance writing or erotic novels for these to spring up. I once got a lot of feedback that I ought to add some sexual fireworks to one of my books -- a tragic, tear-filled historical. So they are definitely going to creep in no matter what the heck you're writing. You're a Firework It's a common saying that sex sells . If Fifty Shades taught us anything, it's that people like to read about sex. So if you've got some hot-and-heavy love interest in one of your books -- be it a screech-inducing horror novel or a sweet tale of love -- your characters might begin to drift toward this seemingly inevitable conclusion.  That puts you in a pickle. It's embarrassing to write about sex . It...

When you can't figure out what to write next and can't seem to put words on the page, you might have writer's block . When you know where you're going but can't seem to write it, you're just plain stuck.  Forward Motion When it comes to the little details, all those steps between "it was a dark and stormy night" and "they lived happily ever after" are rife with opportunity...for getting stuck.    Sometimes, you might not know how to advance the story. The journey from Point A to Point B isn't so straightforward after all. Sometimes you get stuck, and you've got to get unstuck to get to the end of the book. Try some tricks that might help: Check the outline. With an outline, at least you know what's supposed to happen. Keep it in mind so you can figure out how to make it happen.  Go backwards. Read back a little to see where you've been, and see if that help you start moving forward. Stop and think. ...

Every author should have some structure when they're writing. I'm a big fan of  plotting and planning and pre-researching, and I'll advocate writing an outline any time you give me a chance. But sometimes, writing the story takes us off the outline and outside the original plan. When that happens, there's only one thing to do: go with it.  On a Tangent Things don't always go the way we plan, and that's especially true for writers. When you sit down and outline a novel at the very beginning, it's still just a concept. But things might change as you begin to write.  Stories have a way of taking on a life of their own. As you write that book, you start to really get to know a character. You begin to think like them, see things the way they see them, and sometimes plot points that you planned no longer fit the person you've come to know on the page.  It's good to plan, but writers also have to know how to adjust to those changes. It'...

The vast majority of fiction books are written in the past tense. Almost every anecdote ever shared is told in the past tense. It's a tiny change from right now to just a moment ago, but writing in the past tense confuses many authors who might otherwise be wonderful. It's common, so writing in the past tense should be easy. It should be second nature. But there is a big problem with the past: the word had . All the Words We Had Inserting the word had into a sentence does not automatically mean you're writing in the past tense . In fact, in many cases that I've observed, it only makes those sentences grammatically incorrect. It's tricky, because often had looks and sounds right. See if you can spot the incorrect grammar in the examples: I had walked over there yesterday. You had saw that when? It had sound like thunder in my ears. She had said that last week, though. Which one is right? If you said none of them , you might ...

Want to be a writer? First, pretend you're an alien. You're on Earth, far from your home. And you have to study these strange creatures. Because if you want to write, you have to study humans. It's best if you do it objectively...as though you aren't one of them at all. Take Me to Your Leader It helps if you know some stuff about grammar, and it's a good idea to keep a thesaurus on standby. But if you're going to write, you have to be able to get inside someone else's head. To make a character real , you have to give them hopes and dreams. They're going to need motivations and explanations for why they're doing whatever it is they're doing. They have to feel like real people...so obviously it helps if you know a little something about how real people think, and react, and what drives them. Don't panic. You don't have to put on a wig and start following people around. I'm not advocating that you act like you're i...

"As she learns more and more about her past, everything she knows changes forever. Can she come out of the tornado unscathed?" The Bibliophilic Book Blog has reviewed Justice (Deck of Lies, #1). Read the review to find out why so many details are left unwritten!

In school, some smartypants always starts a paper with the definition of the word that encompasses the subject of said paper. Some teachers hate it so much, they tell their students not to write that way. So here's your warning: this is a post about the definition of motivation...at least, the one I've decided to use for the word when it's applied to authors. Because I've discovered the ugly truth about motivation, and I know the dark secret no dictionary is ever going to tell you. Synonyms and Staying Focused You've got to stay motivated . You've got to be motivated. As long as you're motivated, you'll be able to write! If this sort of advice has ever made you physically queasy, then you understand the dark pain that some writers are forced to face. Because the truth about motivation and writing is this: you can have it, and still not do anything about it. I'm motivated to write -- clearly, I am doing so right now (real time ...

"A few flawed characters, a dash (or more) of romance, some (or many) secrets, a bunch of character growth, and a few surprises spell out a pretty good recipe." "Through circumstances she couldn't control, she was taken from the world she was already comfortable in and shoved into a cold, superficial one." Read the latest review of Justice at Reading is My Treasure , and go to the end to find an interview with me where I talk about writing the Deck of Lies series!