American Express gift cards : Guest Post by Hank Quense

Want an American Express gift card?  My friend Hank Quense is giving two away, and you won't need an Amex account to use them. This guest post tells you all about it.

Hank Quense

Strange Worlds Online
My Amazon page
My blog site
Self-publishing Guides

I’ve written a series of four books to demystify the self-publishing and book marketing processes.  I’ve spent a year on these Self-publishing Guides and now it’s time to get some book reviews for all four books.  I have a plan to encourage folks to write and post positive reviews for my books.  I’m calling it a Review Blitz and it will involve giveaways.  I’ll be giving away American Express Gift Cards to be awarded via a random drawing.

Here’s the deal.

Step 1) Select one of these books to read and review:

Self-publishing a Book

Marketing Plans for Self-publishing Authors

Manage Your Self-publishing Project

Business Basics for Authors

You can find out more about these books on my Amazon page or on my Strange Worlds Online website.  You can also download a brochure.

Step 2) Send me an email at hankquense@icloud.com telling me which book you chose and I’ll send a 100% discount coupon to download the book from Smashwords in the format you wish. (Note: this is a different email address than my usual email address)

Step 3) post your review during the week of 3/1 thru 3/7/14

Step 4) For extra credit (and rewards), write a blog and post it during the week of 3/1 thru 3/7/14.

Step 5) Send me an email at hankquense@icloud.com when the review is posted.  If you wrote a blog post, send me a link to the site in addition to the review posting.

Here’s how the drawing will work.

If you write a review and post it on Amazon, you’ll get entered into a contest for a $50 gift card.

If you post the review on Amazon AND Goodreads, you’ll have two entires in the $50 gift card drawing.

If you post a review on Amazon AND write a blog post about the book, you’ll get an entry into a drawing for a $100 gift card.

If you post a review on Amazon AND Goodreads AND write a blog post, you’ll get two entires in the $100 drawing.

CAUTION: posting stuff outside the week of 3/1 thru 3/7/14 will be appreciated but will not qualify you for the drawings.

An hono(u)rable mention

I've just won an hono(u)rable mention in On The Premises' Mini-Contest #22 for micro-fiction.
I have to admit that the winning entry is much better than mine! But it's a nice start to the year.

Merry Christmas

A very Merry Christmas to both my readers

A very Merry Christmas to you all.
(The William Herschel Telescope has a laser to measure atmospheric turbulence, in order to correct for it. But really, it’s very low powered and no danger to flying reindeer. Santa is quite safe.)

Chain Blog Post

 Patsy Collins talked me into joining the Writing Process Blog Tour. She's a novelist and short story writer. Her short story collection is currently available to download FREE from Amazon HERE

I'm supposed to answer four questions, so here goes.

1. What am I working on? 
   I'm putting the finishing touches to an anthology of short stories for children. Technically, it's what Ursula Le Guin called a story suite. Rather than a bunch of random stories, the twelve stories in the book are interconnected: they all take place on the island of La Palma where I live, at specific places and specific dates in history, and they're all connected one way or another with the sky.
2. How does my work differ from others of its genre? 
   There's the focus on La Palma, which is unusual, and a lot of my stories have a thread of science running through them. And of course every writer inevitably produces different work. Your values tend to leak all over the page like a nose-bleed - particularly the ones that go so deep that you didn't even know you had them.
3. Why do I write what I do?  Like most writers, I write things I'd like to read. And in my case, I have a passion for the beautiful island I live on and the night sky (and La Palma has the best night sky in Europe).
4. How does my writing process work? 
   It varies. Normally  I like to have the story pretty well planned before I start. For this last book, I was chasing a deadline in order to qualify for funding, so I often wrote whatever bit I had clear, and hoped that my subconscious would supply the next bit tomorrow. I was surprised how well it worked.

And next week the same questions will be answered by:
Roxanne Snopek writes feel-good redemption stories with quirky characters and happily-ever-afters. Her popular Three River Ranch e-book series, published by Entangled Bliss, is set in Montana, and contains swoon-worthy heroes, strong heroines and various four-footed characters. Learn more at www.roxannesnopek.ca/blog


Tony Thorne MBE is a slightly eccentric author of quirky, speculative fiction, best known for Tenerife Tall Tales. The .pdf of his Best Selling Author Plan is available for free for a limited time.

Monica J. O’Rourke has published more than one hundred short stories in magazines such as Postscripts, Nasty Piece of Work, Fangoria, Flesh & Blood, Nemonymous, and Brutarian and anthologies such as Horror for Good (for charity), The Mammoth Book of the Kama Sutra, and The Best of Horrorfind. She is the author of Poisoning Eros I and II, written with Wrath James White, Suffer the Flesh, and the collection, In the End, Only Darkness. Her latest novel, What Happens in the Darkness, is available from Sinister Grin Press. She works as a freelance editor, proofreader, and book coach. Find her on www.facebook.com/MonicaJORourke

Early morning photography.

The Big Dipper over Santa Cruz de La Palma

I got up early to try to see comet ISON (which is low in the east just before dawn).

There was only one cloud in the starry sky.

Yup. Right in front of the comet.

Since I was up anyway, I decided that I may as well practise a bit of astro-photography. I need the practice after all. So here is the Big Dipper /Ursa Major and a big ferry arriving in Santa Cruz de La Palma. I think the main reason that the ferry is blurred is that it moved during the 30 second exposure.

And I took some photos of Mercury and Saturn. To be honest, I was hoping that to comet would pop out when I tweaked the exposure a little with Photoshop, but no such luck.

Mercury (top) and Saturn (bottom left) this morning. The faint star at the bottom right is about where I expected comet ISON to be, but it's a star in the constellation Libra.