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  • LJ Evans
    • Dec 2, 2018
    • 7 min read

SEASON'S GREETINGS


I can’t believe that it’s December. This year has been a crazy, exciting, strange book journey for me. While 2017 saw me publishing my first book ever, MY LIFE AS A COUNTRY ALBUM, and winning book of the year for YA in The Independent Author Network book awards, 2018 has seen me publish THREE books, an audiobook, and be nominated for and a finalist in multiple book awards including:

  • The BookLife Prize by Publisher’s Weekly – Quarterfinalist – POP ALBUM

  • The National Indie Excellence Awards – Finalist – COUNTRY ALBUM

  • The UTOPiA Awards – POP ALBUM

  • And The Independent Author Network awards for the second year – ROCK ALBUM

It’s been an honor to have my books not only well received and loved by each of YOU—the readers, but also the bookish community as a whole. I am completely flabbergasted every time I think about it.

In November, I also had the privilege of being interviewed for USA Today’s Happily Ever After website. That made ticked an item off my bucket list that I didn’t think would ever happen.

Sorry for the brag fest…I didn’t mean it to sound that way. I’m just truly floored by where this book journey has taken me. And the best thing? YOU! That you’ve been on it with me, and that I’ve had the chance to interact with so many of you from around the world including great conversations with Ruby, Estelle, Deborah, Lori, Darlene, Jenny, Sue, Barbara, Kurt, Becca, Heather, Rachel, Amanda, Linda, Jami, Lynn, Madge, Celina, Angela, Kathleen, Elaine, Robin, Kerstin, Sam, Dee, and Megan. I feel like the Romper Room lady with the call out of all those names. Do any of you even remember Romper Room? Or did I just age myself beyond belief?

TELL ME! WHAT’S HAPPENED IN 2018 THAT WAS IMPORTANT TO YOU? Please shoot me an email or contact me on social media to let me know. I want to know what’s happening for all of you too!

Any-who, in this post you’ll find a couple more things that are happening that you might be interested in:

  • Love & Lace InKorporated Romance Magazine

  • Upcoming Events

  • Current Work In Progress

  • Secret Reader Group

  • My Latest Releases

  • Holiday Reads

  • Good-bye

LOVE AND LACE INKORPORATED ROMANCE MAGAZINE

In December, I have several stories running in the Love & Lace InKorporated’s Holiday Edition. This literary magazine was created by the amazing International Best-Selling independent author, Dakota Willink, with the avid romance reader in mind. It’s a beautiful magazine, and I love how each edition you get to know something personal about several authors and maybe find a new author to follow and adore.

You can get your copy on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2PUP3Ta

You can follow Dakota at her team on Facebook too.

UPCOMING EVENTS

In December, I’ll be participating in several Facebook events. Facebook events are a great opportunity to meet, interact with, and get giveaways from other authors and myself. It’s fun, low key, and a great way to discover authors you didn’t know about. I hope you’ll join me.

CURRENT WORK IN PROGRESS (WIP)

I can’t believe that MY LIFE AS A MIXTAPE is finally out in the world. I love that the reviews have been so strong for Lonnie & Wynn’s story and that little Edie is stealing the show. Plus, the EPIC series epilogue is getting some nice comments too.

All of that should have inspired me to get back at it, dig in, write more words, right? Well, it did and it didn’t. Some of you who follow me on social media, might have noticed some posts about my health. Thankfully, it isn’t anything serious like cancer (at least not that the doctor’s have been able to find), which is a relief, but I’m still struggling three months later to figure out why my body has gone Coocoo for Cocoa Puffs.

I’d been wanting to work on my Urban Fantasy / Magical Realism book that I shared with you last newsletter or even my Women’s Fiction book called Sunshine and Elm that I know exactly how I want it to look like, but my health had just been draining me of creative energy.

Then Friday (yes just two days ago), the Luke Bryan song, “Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset” came on my random shuffle, and every time that song had come on before, I’d been like–I need to write a story about this. Well, this time, I had a whole scene pop into my head. And new characters were born. Mila Kunis was in my head for Ava and then I read this Pinterest post supposedly from her old Twitter feed, and I was like - Mila and Ashton are perfect for these two characters! Yesterday I wrote almost 10K words. I’m completely enjoying Ava and Eli, and I’m just so happy to have some of my creative mojo back. I don’t know how long it will last, but hopefully long enough to finish their story.

Seriously, #musicisinspiration. It will always be that way for me, I think.

QUESTION: DO YOU HAVE A SONG THAT’S TALKING TO YOU LATELY? Shoot me a note, and let me know what it is.

SECRET READER GROUP

So that whole last topic, my health, my new WIP, and music inspiring me brings me to another topic. I’m finally get up the nerve to start a Group on Facebook. It’ll be coming shortly, and I’ll shoot you an email, with just that information when it gets closer, but I think it’s going to be a New Year’s kind of thing.

The group will be called LJ’S MUSIC AND STORIES and the point of the group will be to chat about all the things I love and that I know many of you love as well. We’ll be able to talk about how music and books get us through the tough times in our life. How they are there to help us celebrate. How we get inspiration from other people and their true stories. How we’ve all had the courage to live life resiliently, to get on and past the challenges we face, just like the characters in my book.

And the best thing, I’m going to be revamping my Friday Night Love Stories to be true stories that feature YOU and the loves in your life. That wasn’t a typo by the way—I did mean loves.

I can’t wait to share it with you and to have you be apart of this next step in my author world journey. Sign up for my newsletter to make sure you don't miss it!

MY LATEST RELEASES

Did you miss out on anything about my latest book release, MY LIFE AS A MIXTAPE? You can read about it on my website, see the teasers, and check in on the reviews.

How about the fact that the audiobook for MY LIFE AS A COUNTRY ALBUM finally dropped? It’s available on Amazon and Audible and will shortly be able to be downloaded on iTunes also.

LJ EVANS NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER WINNER

My monthly newsletter winner is getting a signed paperback ARC of MY LIFE AS A MIXTAPE. The lucky winner was Persefphanie from the US. So if that’s you, please check your email that you signed up with to make sure you provide me your snail mail address. I will only accept responses to the email that I sent…

Thank you to Heather the bookstagrammer at Book and A Blanket for the love pic!

UPCOMING RELEASES AND HOLIDAY READS

I’m slightly embarrassed to say that I’ve never really been a “holiday specific” book reader. I mean picture books of the holidays have always been a joy for me from when my daughter was little to the 1st graders I get the honor of teaching each year, but in my personal book life, I never really looked for novels that had a holiday theme. That has certainly changed this year as I’ve been putting a bunch of holiday books on my TBR (to be read) Shelf. Here are some of the ones I’ve added:

YA Romance Authors

The Candy Cane Kiss by Maggie Dallen

Christmas Kiss by Tammy Andresen

The Mistletoe Mix-Up by Judy Corry

The Christmas Gift? by Jordan Ford

Jayda’s Christmas Wish by Amy Sparling

Hot Indie Authors

Sleighed by Annie Dryer

A Novel Christmas by Lynsey M. Stewart

The Christmas Fix by Lucy Score

A Crazy Christmas by Beth Cranford

Hoops Holiday by Kennedy Ryan (Dec. 17th)

Historical Romance

Harmony Williams has a FREE Christmas Historical Mystery coming soon

QUESTION: DO YOU HAVE A HOLIDAY NOVEL THAT YOU WOULD RECOMMEND TO BE ON MY TBR?

Shoot me a note and let me know what it is. I always love getting new book recommendations.

GOOD-BYE! SEASON’S GREETINGS

Phew! That’s it for me today. Thanks for sticking with me. And just in case you don’t hear from me, I want to take this opportunity to wish all you the very best this holiday season. Whatever holiday you celebrate, I hope that it finds you with ones you love and people who lift you up and not down. I hope that your new year brings you both mental and physical health and brave new steps toward the journey of making your biggest dreams come true. And if this time of year is a struggle for you, as the holidays often can be, I just wish you a sense of peace.

Happy Reading!

LJ

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