HARD ROCK: Sedrick Lionheart Interview

TWO COPIES OF ROCK HARD WILL BE GIVEN AWAY BY THE PUBLISHER TO  TWO READERS. US AND CANADA ONLY. Deadline to enter is Sunday at mid-night.

It’s my pleasure to have Olivia Cunning and lead sinner himself, Sed Lionheart, as guests. For those of you who have been on another planet the past few years, Sed is the lead vocalist for Sinners and has been nice enough to stop in to chat with us.

My impression of Sed: Tough, Charismatic and definitely sexy. His eyes are gorgeous as is his smile. Not a man to go unnoticed in a crowd. I can see where he could irritate people because he has a take-charge personality, strong opinions, and not particularly tactful. Sed is very intense, focused, and has little patience with stupid and foolish. For such a large man, 6’4, he moves with the grace of a lion and you have no doubt he’s used to being in charge. When he speaks of his love, Sinners, he’s very professional and proud of the band and it’s members. He’s a very protective person with those he cares about which implies a loving heart under his swagger. Myrna once said of him, “I know he pretends to be tough and all Don Juan Casanova, but he has the most delicate heart I’ve ever seen in a man.”

Sed, welcome to Over Coffee. Sinners are an awesome group and I can tell you’re very proud of both the success of Sinners and it’s members. Sort of like having a family, isn’t it?

Thanks, Sia. Glad to be here. The guys are like brothers to me. Which means most days they’re a pain in my ass.

You were not part of the band originally. How did you meet up with Brian, Trey and Eric?

Everyone always asks me this question. I went to a bar with a fake ID. It was the kind of bar that didn’t really care if you had the ID or not, they just wanted to be able to take the blame off themselves if the cops ever showed up. Anyway, some punk kids, and I do mean punk, Trey’s hair was vivid orange (not his color) and Brian had this three foot high mohawk, I kid you not, were playing. The two of them were amazing together. You’ve heard them play guitar together?


Yes and I agree, they are incredible musicians. They play off each other’s music and revamp it to a better piece.

It’s like they’re two parts of a whole. It’s always been that way between them. Anyway, I just stood there in awe and knew I had to become of part of what they had. I didn’t have anything to offer them but my voice, which at that point in time wasn’t that great.

But didn’t they already have a lead vocalist?

If you want to call him that. Eric Anderson, who now goes by Eric Sticks, was their singer at the time. The guy is still tall and lanky, but as a teenager he was a twig with giant feet. He could sing okay and is a decent bass player, but he had the stage presence of a comatose DMV employee.

A comatose DMV employee? Oh my God, I hope you didn’t tell him that.

Nah, I’m not that crass. I just told him he needed a new goal in life. The guy wasn’t meant to be a front man. He was meant to be a drummer. He has this incredible talent with percussion... He doesn’t just play rhythm. He makes music and melody by banging on stuff. There aren’t many drummers who do that. I know he thinks he got “stuck” playing drums, but he has a gift with them. It would be a tragedy if he gave them up.

Wow. You’re very proud of him. I hope he realizes that.

I digress. Anyway, by a stroke of luck (or temporary good sense), the guys agreed that I could become their singer. Eric switched to the drums permanently and we picked up a new bassist.

Brian mentioned you pretty much took over the band? Pretty highhanded of you, even though the band is quite famous now.

Hey, they could have refused. Or walked away. No one threatened to break their fingers.

Any hard feelings over that move? If so, how did you handle it?

Eric mopes about it sometimes, but it’s Eric. A few shots of tequila and he’s over it.

Lol! If you had to pick a band on today’s scene you respect for their songwriting or music ability, who would it be and why?

Any band that can make a living doing this has my complete respect. Hell, even if they can’t make a living at it, they deserve respect. Connecting with enough fans to turn a profit is a total crapshoot. We all do this out of love for music. That’s what’s important.

You had to cancel some of your tour due to Trey’s injury. He’s a real favorite of mine. How’s he doing these days? When will we see him back on stage?

I can’t speak for him. Last I checked he was getting some rest and relaxation by his parents’ pool.

You have quite a reputation for the ladies, Sed, and more fangirls than Las Vegas has lights. How do you handle that? And what’s this about your shirt. I’ll admit, one the guys mentioned I should ask you that.

Fangirls are easy to deal with. You tell them what to do. They do it. Unfortunately, they think my shirt is fair game. I lose about a shirt a week. Saves on laundry, I guess. I used to wear chains, but it frickin’ hurts when someone gets a hand wrapped around one of them. I’d rather them rip off my shirt if they insist on a souvenir.

You’ve been seen a lot in the company of Jessica Chase, especially in Las Vegas. Are you two back together?


Yes. She’s mine.

Well. That certainly sounds possessive of a known ladies man. Kind of risky considering it’s reported she broke your heart when she left you before. In fact Brian Sinclair doesn’t think you’re over her and he doesn’t understand what you see in her given she walked out on you. Seems like your fan girls agree.

Do I care what Brian or anyone else thinks about any of my relationships? No.

Is it true Jessica is working with Myrna Sinclair and touring with you guys too? How are you and the guys dealing with that?

Jessica needed a job. Myrna hired her. Without consulting anyone. Myrna will be finishing up her study this summer, so all the estrogen on the bus is just a temporary situation. We’re off tour right now, but when we get on the road, the bus is sure to be crowded. The partying will probably all but come to a standstill. I’m okay with that, but I’m sure that will make Trey cranky.


Moving on. Sed, I understand you have two younger sisters. I‘ve seen pictures of your sisters. They’re beautiful women. I’m sure they know all the guys in the band; I’m surprised they haven’t dated one of them, like Eric.


If any member of my band went anywhere near my baby sisters, they’d pay. The guys are not allowed to look at them, or talk to them, and especially not touch them. That goes double for Eric.


Lol! Sounds like a typical big brother.
I know you’ve always had an interest in music and I understand you played the violin in school. You have my curiosity piqued; did you play it as a fiddle as well as in a more traditional mode?



I played violin in a strictly classical sense. Mary Had A Little Lamb is classical, right? I’m no Charlie Daniels, that’s for sure. There’s no chance of me ever winning a golden fiddle from Satan... or even a third grader.


Are you planning on using the violin in any Sinners songs? Like Korn does with bagpipes and Skillet does with violins? Yellowcard does a fabulous job of incorporating violin in Breathing.


Uh, no. Why would I ever use a violin? Not Sinners style. Plus, my playing is a little rusty, to say the least.


Hmmm. Just curious, Sed. I want to thank you for stopping by. Before you go, I happen to have a T shirt with me. Has your Sinner’s logo on it which I got off the website.  Would you mind signing it for me?

No problem, babe. Anything for a fan.

Sed and Olivia will be checking back in around 3:30 this afternoon with a few of the other Sinners checking in too. Since they're not on tour presently, they'll also be around Saturday. If you have a question post it and one of them will get back to you.

~*~*~

Rock Hard blurb:
 
Sinner’s lead singer, Sed, had his heart shredded when Jessica left him to pursue her dreams, so when she dances her way back into his life, he's not sure he's ready for her brand of pain, or pleasure, again.  When she convinces Sed to engage in a benefits with benefits relationship, things seem to be going his way, until one of his fans catches their explicit public display of affection on film and posts it all over the internet.  Will Jessica ever trust Sed again?  And has Sed become the man of Jessica’s dreams or is he just posing to get what he wants? Excerpt

Sed and Jessica are reunited with a bang! Readers will love the characters and enjoy their scorching love scenes and passionate fights. 4 Stars RT Book Review.

Buy: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books A Million, Chapters Indigo

My 5 Star Review of Rock Hard

Living With Imaginary Friends

My guest is the delightful Linda Wisdom. She writes paranormal romance, among other things, and I find her witches irresistible. I’ve read quite a few of Linda’s books and have enjoyed her realistic characters and her sense of humor in writing those characters.


I love the comfortable office she has inhabited with all her imaginary friends. She explains a bit of how she gets the friends to migrate from their 3D form in her mind (I’m sure it gets quite crowded in there) to the pages of her books.


I’m so glad she could visit with us Over Coffee!




First off, thank you so much, Sia, for having me here today!






A kickass witch walks into a bar one night.


Yes, it sounds like the beginning of the typical joke, but what can I say? That’s how Demons Are a Girl’s Best Friend begins with Hellion Guard Maggie O’Malley walking into the underground club, Damnation Alley, looking for a Bloater that’s been a bad creature and needs to be taken in. If she knew that would begin a crazy path in her life, she might have stayed in and let her team take care of the Bloater.


Writing is a challenge. Every day I sit down at my computer with the intention of coming up with ideas that I hope my fans will love or at the very least, not hate.


I’m what you call a pantser writer. Namely, I write by the seat of my pants. For me, it’s all about the characters. They make the story work, so no surprise they’re pretty much formed in 3D inside my head and tend to hang out with me while I write. I like it like that. I want my readers to believe the unbelievable. That there’s nothing unusual about a witch sporting a black widow spider tat that speaks in a French accent and can put a perp down with barely a hiss. Where the local messenger service is made up of over-caffeinated ferrets and the librarian is a stiff-necked wizard who believes in rules with a capital R.


And who wouldn’t want to hang out with a witch who shares your mocha latte addiction and be a shopping buddy? She might even make sure that dress you want so badly is there in your size or at least fits you perfectly. And if your ex-boyfriend is giving you trouble, she just might have the perfect solution to get him to back off or end turned into a warthog.


No wonder I believe my characters live in the house. I was the shy little girl who lived in her own little world populated with imaginary friends. I wrote about them back then and now I have a whole new cast of characters and creatures that I like to think are as quirky as I am.


All you’d have to do is see my office to see just how offbeat I am. You’d see a variety of dragon figurines, witch and faeries, my collection of Halloween Barbie dolls that increase every October, and wonderful magick candles to inspire creativity. I have a plush panda bear my dad gave me when I was three years old, a few plush wolves in sheep’s clothing. Hm, isn’t that how we see some men? And other plush critters that I’ve added over the years. Not to mention my own hellhound, Barney, my white mini-Schnauzer who’s waiting for his turn in one of my books. Between all of that, my DVDs, and a variety of reference books I feel at home in my very own imagination space.


That’s the kind of place I like to play with my ‘what if’ scenarios. I have two large windows where I see trees, rabbits, and birds. Sometimes I’ll even catch a cat on the prowl. Don’t worry, thanks to Barney doing his part to warn the cats off, the birds and rabbits always get away.


The way I see it, my space is perfect for a pantser writer. Nothing is super organized, my favorite figurines that offer inspiration are at hand when I need it, and coffee is always within reach. It’s cluttered and comfortable and I’d say very me. And I’m sure that a tidy minded person would have a heart attack if they walked in. If there’s dust I’m sure it’s faery created. My bunny slippers sneak around looking for licorice root and chocolate and there’s a gargoyle I have to make sure stays away from Pay Per View TV.


Just like my childhood, my characters and creatures don’t just live inside my imagination. They’re as real to me as the animals living outside. The witches tag along to Starbucks or if I window shop at the mall. There’s a vampire who’s with me when I drive at night. Could I have a better bodyguard? A wizard attorney who whispers “are you sure you should write that?” in my ear and now a very sexy half fire demon who just inspires all these sexy thoughts.


What can I say? This shy kid found a way to give life to the people inside her head. I just hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

• Now let me ask you something. Were you a shy kid with imaginary friends? And did they help you? Or did you wish you had a pair of fangy bunny slippers?

DEMONS ARE A GIRL’S BEST FRIEND

A Bewitching Woman on a Mission…


Feisty witch Maggie enjoys her work as a paranormal law enforcement officer—that is, until she’s assigned to protect a teenager with major attitude and plenty of Mayan enemies. Maggie’s never going to survive this assignment without the help of a half-fire demon who makes her smolder…


A Hotter-Than-Sin Hero with an Agenda…


Declan is a proprietor of an underground club and busy demon portal. No way he’ll allow his demon race to be blamed for the malicious acts of some crazy evil Mayans. But he’s already got his hands full when the sexy witch offers him a challenge he can’t refuse…5 star review

I apologize. I don't have a direct link to an excerpt, but both Amazon and Barnes and Noble will give you a preview.

Buy: Books a Million, IndieBound, ChaptersIndigo

~*~*~*~

 

Linda Wisdom has published more than 70 novels with 13 million copies sold worldwide. Her bestselling books have been nominated for RT Book Reviews awards and the RWA RITA Award. She recently won the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award for Hex in High Heels. Linda lives with her husband in Murrieta, California, where she is working on her next book, A Demon Does it Better, set to release in January 2012. For more information, please visit http://www.lindawisdom.com/.

Monday Musings: Winds Of Change, Then And Now

Sorry, I'm late folks. Life seems to get in the way sometimes.

I was such a newbie in 2006 when I started writing fiction again and in 2007 when I began querying. I had no contact with writers or industry rags other than the guides to agents and the buying market.


You can imagine the shock to my system when I became part of the online writing community and came face to face with all I DIDN’T know. But I was willing to learn and I had some great industry teachers take me under their wing. I came to realize how little I knew and if I wanted to succeed on this playing field I needed to learn everything I could. So I started to use my training in marketing and promotion to do research.

THEN publishing was on the cusp of change. The industry giants were seeing major losses in profits. My research showed me trends and possibilities. If you followed the dangling threads you could see some sure paths that the future would take. Digital printing was one of those paths and wasn’t going to go away and e-books were an offshoot of that technology. Using techie gadgets and e-readers was on the rise. Not that printed books were going to disappear but the format in which they would be made available would have to change.

The cost effectiveness of Print On/to Demand would have to be utilized by major publishers if they were to stay in business. Even using the new technology they couldn’t be profitable if they used it to produce books in the “old” way they had for the past hundred years or so. They had to change. Reality was and IS (Then and Now, traditional publishers were in the best position (a better one than the small independent publishers springing up everywhere at the time) to make the most of this technology because they had the editing, art departments, connections, and publicity/promotion staff already in place. If they could leave the old business model behind and adapt to the new and make it work for them.

Traditional anything has a hard time with the concept of change.

I remember writing a series of articles on e-publishing and digital formats about, oh, three years ago and before I had a blog (although those articles were published online). I had done a lot of research on digital technology and print to demand. My research showed me that digital was the way of the future. A digital file was the book and then went to print runs and to brick and mortar stores via mass market. I felt that books via print on demand were the future.

In one article I wrote, E-publishing, Print on Demand, and Kindle Markets–Are They The Wave Of The Future? (October 6, 2008) I said,

“How many of you have really considered publishing with print on demand publishers or places like Kindle? It’s the wave of the future, I’m sure. One good indication of that is the hoopla with Amazon and e-books. Most major publishing houses have an e-publishing section because of reading the trends are leaning heavily in that direction. Big publishers, like Harlequin, have had downloadable stories, for a small price, for some time. I rather think they saw the handwriting on the wall and were testing out the market for e-publishing. They now offer some of their author’s print books through e-publishing and other authors are strictly e-published”

A benefit of e-publishing, is a bigger share of royalties for the author, than with a traditional publisher–but not advances–as a rule. Your work is out there, but not necessarily on the local bookstore shelves like you pictured in your mind. You have to be willing to promote yourself and your writing...via blogs, websites, and social networks. Authors have to do that regardless of the medium, but the marketing is pretty much on you rather than assistance from a publisher.”

Oh my god, I was preaching heresy, then. Or so you would have thought, based on some comments and a few diatribes from writers I received. Some were very receptive to the idea and had a far seeing eye and agreed. To add extra feathers to the tar applied, I mentioned that there was a big difference between self-publishing/vanity press and e-books. Vanity press was “where the author paid someone to print their book and not always a good quality of book either in writing style or subject matter.”

I mentioned in another article, Print On Demand Technology vs. Traditional, 2/21/09,

“…Traditional publishing comes with a certain amount of respect for you as an author. You’ve made it through the filters—agents or publishers—and been given a contract. This says your writing quality and story has passed the test to be accepted. You will have at your disposal an editing staff and copy editors to read through and tighten up the quality of writing and story content. You may have several revisions to get the manuscript at its best. Editing staff will also catch errors, insure the book looks professional as far as format. Traditional publishers also provide professional cover designers to put out a cover that will draw readers… Then there is the publicity team to help you promote the book and yourself as an author…

You may choose to go this route (e-books) because you want to write certain style of book that isn’t considered sellable by agents or [traditional] publishers—NOT because your writing quality is poor, or you haven’t good story telling abilities. You might want to have more control over your books and any profits generated.

Whatever your reason is, there are things to consider. [As a new writer] one option might be choosing an [established] e-book publisher with filters in place–submission guide lines, editors, designers, and promotion/marketing departments with the capability of providing readers with a print book (trade paperbacks) if they so choose.”

These are still valid points today.

Then authors used e-publishing to hone their skills as a writer and build a reader base and got traditional publishing contracts later. A couple of authors who come to mind are Donna Grant and Cheyenne McCray. They brought an established track record with them when they got published with traditional publishers.

Now I’m seeing a trend of successful established, traditionally published authors going the opposite way. Self-publishing e-books, but these are authors with years of writing experience and a knowledge of the publishing field along with a solid reader base. Some are publishing their stories as e-books with trade paperbacks for print but will still have the use of a professional editor and or cover designer (some like Connie Brockway, was a graphic designer) to make their books looks professional and be competitive.

As you read the loops and blogs you see that some of these authors are choosing this route because, as Connie Brockway puts it, they are “completely free to write the stories I most want to read. And, I sincerely believe, that my readers most want to read.”

A debut author isn’t going to have the same success as some of these established authors, even with an internet presence, but will have time to slowly build a following. The good thing about e-books, as Joe Konrath says, “…[the] virtual shelf life is forever…ebooks are forever. Once they're live, they will sell for decades.”

Another reason established authors are looking to self-publishing their e-books is purely business. As Connie Brockway puts it, “It doesn’t take too much business acumen to look at recent eBook sales history and project that eBook readers aren’t going to pony up the same amount for an eBook, that exists only as a virtual entity, as a paper book which costs substantially more to produce (printing, shipping, warehousing, distribution, covers etc.) Or if they do, they aren’t going to do it often. And if the publishers set the price too high, it’s the authors that lose the most. I hate losing. ”

Joe Konrath says it even better, “with digital you have the option to put an ebook on sale. I originally self-published The List in April of 2009. It went on to sell 25,000 ebooks at $2.99. Now, two years later, I lowered the price, and it's selling 1500 copies a day. Things like that don't happen in paper. But in self-publishing, I'm seeing more and more books take their sweet time finding an audience, then take off.”

Again, these are established authors with a following but the points they make with their decision to self-pub e-books is a compelling one. New or debut authors won’t have the advantage these two have with a dedicated following but at least the show you can develop one. I concur with both with regard to price. I’m not going to spend the price of a paper book on an e-book or if I do, it’s going to be few and far between. I’ll choose those e-books that are reasonably priced and most I purchase are under five dollars. I don’t see the sense of paying full boat for a kindle book. Hopefully the traditional publishers will get the message.

I have to laugh when I see this turn about. Then and Now. What a difference a few years makes, eh?

• What do you think of these developments?