The Post So Exciting, You Might Want To Read Sitting Down

Ok, so it might not be as exciting for you all as it is for me, but still... it's pretty freaking exciting.


If you're a follower of my facebook page you might have picked up on the fact that, besides writing, I also work full-time at Target.  I wrote both Never Close Enough and Never Far Away while working 40 hours a week, with two small children, and a husband so supportive and understanding that he needs to have his head examined.

I would work a full-day, go home and take care of my kids and house, then when my husband came home (from his own 11 hour workday) I would leave to write at Starbucks until they closed and then go to bed just to get up and do it all again the next day.  If I had the day off from work it was likely that I left my kids at daycare or with family for a few hours to get in some writing.  My 2-year-old's first sentence he could put together was "Mommy write book?"  He would ask me that when I put my laptop case on my shoulder to head out to write.  I was absent a lot for a good year.

A few weeks ago my husband and I made the decision that I would step down from my management position at Target to part-time so I could get in one full day of writing.  32 hours at Target and hopefully 15-20ish hours writing.  Luckily for me, sales of my books were making it possible for me to take a loss at my full-time job.  The very day Never Far Away was released was my first day in my new role at work and I felt like everything was as it should be.

Then March happened.

I could never have imagined the response I got from the release of Never Far Away, and how many people read and loved it.  Not only that, but the sales for Never Close Enough were up as well.  I was so excited and felt like I had made a great decision.

Then April happened, and holy cow, is it still happening.

We (as in me, myself, I, my husband, my family, anyone who knows me) are so thrilled/thankful/excited/grateful/flabbergasted/blown-the-heck-away by how well the books are doing, and all the support I am getting.  I could NEVER have imagined any of this would happen.

So, I wanted to write an official THANK YOU to everyone who has read the books, told someone you know about the books, left a review, left me a message, or in any way supported me in this crazy and wild ride.  Thanks to all of you, I was able to officially resign from my job at Target in its entirety.  As of Tuesday the 29th of April I will officially be a full-time writer.  That will be my job.  People will ask me what I do for a living and I will be able to answer "I write," or "I'm a novelist," or "I make stuff up and write it down,"  and I have no words to tell you all what that means to me.  None.

What does this mean for you?  More books!  I can't wait to get all these books out of my head and out to you readers!  I hope you're ready for me, cause you got me!

Honestly and sincerely,
Thank you - so much.
~Anie

Sneak Peek at my WIP

   So, as promised, here is the very first look at my latest WIP.  There are a lot of authors out there who can work on more than one project at a time, I like to call them crazy.  I am a one book at a time person, for both reading AND writing.  So, this book has been my focus for the last six or so weeks.  I am in love with these characters and I am so excited to be along on this ride with them.

   Please keep in mind the following things:  My editor hasn't gotten to look at this, so there could be (read: probably are) errors that will embarrass me.  Deal with it. :)  Also, even though this is just a little old blog post, it is still protected under copyright laws, ok?  Also, it is 100% subject to change.  In fact, I could take it out of the book all together. I have a title in mind, but I'm not cemented in it yet so I will keep it to myself for now.

   Enjoy! Meet Charlie and Asher.....

Prologue

The familiarity of his arms was like a drug. No matter what I was feeling – happy, sad, panicked, flustered, agitated, angry – when his arms wrapped around me, so did peace. I moved my chin up to look at his face. Dark, thick, painfully long lashes dusted across his cheekbones as he slept. Lashes that many women would kill for. And although the lashes were feminine to an extent, when his eyes were open there was no mistaking his masculinity. Eyes the color of slate gray hid behind those lashes, and when he used them to look me over, when he perused my body with them, I could feel the smoothness of the granite they resembled silking over my skin.

His face was beautiful. His strong square jaw left room for one dimple that sat on this left cheek. His unmarred skin was smooth and creamy besides just the few dark freckles that gave him a distinct look. We were both still young, just eighteen, but he was already so manly I shivered to think what he would look like in five or ten years.

I leaned up to press a gentle kiss just at the bottom of his chin and as he roused I pretended to look apologetic, but really I wanted him awake. I wanted him, period.

“Awake already?” His voice rasped, still groggy from sleep. “What time is it?”

“I don't know,” I replied honestly as I trailed kisses along his jaw, following the line of his jaw down the slope of his neck. He pulled away to look at me.

“Charlie,” he said softly to me. “Are you sure? I don't want to hurt you,” he said all too sweetly as he placed his hand on the side of my face.

“I feel fine,” I whispered, trying to convince him I was indeed ok.

“Aren't you, uh, sore?” He asked sheepishly. I grinned at him and shrugged my shoulders.

“Asher, I know I lost my virginity a few hours ago, but I was far from chaste before that. I'm not sore at all.” He gave me a concerned look.

“You'd tell me if you were hurt, right?” I nodded at him. “You'll tell me to stop if it gets to be too much?” I nodded again and then leaned up to press my mouth to his.

“You're already too much,” I said against his lips. “But I get what you mean.” And with that he took me under him and made love to me for the second time in our lives. Loving him was easy and beautiful, and I wish I taken more time to cement the memories in my mind. There was no way to know that in such a short time everything would be taken from me. Everything.

Want to win Ella's ring?

Oh hey everybody!!

So here's my exciting news for the day!  I have Ella's ring that I would LOVE to give away to one special reader.

I do quite a bit of giveaways, I feel.  And I know that a lot of people enter giveaways like there's no tomorrow.  And that's cool, and I am happy to supply good books for giveaway if it's going to help other authors.  However, this giveaway is a little different.

I am looking for fans of The Never Series to enter this giveaway.

This ring means A LOT to me, and I want it to go to someone who will love it as much as I do.

So, that being said, here are the requirements for the giveaway!

There are two major scenes where the ring is featured in Never Far Away.  Use the text from one of those two scenes to create a teaser for the book.  I use picmonkey.com to create teasers.  It's free and pretty fun.  You can create as many as you like, there is no limit on how many times you can enter.

I do not want any spoilers on my facebook page, so please email your submissions to anie.michaels@gmail.com with the subject line "Ring Giveaway".  You have one week to email me teasers.  After I have all the submissions I will choose winners with the help of my street team.  This giveaway is open internationally, and will be open until 11:59pm on 3/30/2014.

Have fun and thank you!!!!

Street Team

Hi everybody!

So, the time has come to organize a street team.  This has been something I've been thinking about for a while, but I never thought I was "big" enough to have my very own street team.  Well, screw that, lol.  I think it would be awesome to have a group of women as passionate about Porter and Ella as I am spreading the word about them!  I may not be the biggest and baddest indie author, but I still need a little help!  So, if you think you're interested in being on my street team (!!!!), continue reading!

This is what I think I will need from my Street Team:
 - Needs to be very active on Facebook and book blogs.
 - Comfortable posting on blog statuses about my books, posting links when necessary.
 - Needs to be willing to be silly and have fun with me (because I'm pretty silly most of the time).
 - Needs to be ok with receiving benefits (i.e., advanced copies of future books, swag, and anything else I deem appropriate to send to you).
 - Needs to understand that I mostly have no idea what I'm doing with a Street Team, but willing to figure it out with me along the way :)

IF you can fulfill all the required criteria, please PM me on my author page.  I am not sure how many people I will need, but I will consider everyone.

Thanks Everyone!!
~Anie

Chapter One - Never Far Away

Chapter One

Ella

   Ella looked out the window of her boutique clothing store, Poppy, and was excited by the sunshine filtering through the glass.  June in Portland usually brought the long awaited sun.  It rained nine out of the twelve months in a year.  And although Portlanders were magnificent rain contenders, they really cherished the sunlight.  When the good weather rolled through the city it seemed as if everyone came out of hiding.  You could see a million different kinds of people walking down the sidewalk in front of her store and people watching was always a good way to pass the time.

   She found that since she had so easily lost six weeks of her life, it was also easy to lose herself for a few minutes during the day.  She was constantly zoning out and drifting away, only to be pulled back to reality by someone talking to her or asking her a question, interrupting her intense gaze at nothing in particular. 

   She was still completely baffled that she couldn't remember six whole weeks of her life.  Why six weeks?  Why those six weeks?  What if something really important had happened during those weeks and she had no idea?  What if she had won the lottery?  Or maxed out a credit card? Or booked a really expensive, yet fabulous, trip around the world?  Was she missing her own vacation right now because she couldn't remember planning it?

   The thoughts of why, or what, were all-consuming sometimes and she always felt a nagging in the back of her mind constantly berating herself for not being able to recall those six weeks.  Although, it seemed there was always a silver lining.  Along with any good things she couldn't remember, she also couldn't remember the bad.  Her family had a hard time telling her about Kyle and, to be honest, she had a hard time believing what they told her.  How surreal it had been to have her family tell her something so totally unbelievable about the man she loved.  But then she had no choice but to believe them because he had mysteriously disappeared.  A small wave of sadness swept over her, but she brushed it off, reminding herself that it had been two months and it was time to stop being sad over something she couldn't control, least of all remember.

   She turned as a man and woman came into the shop.  She smiled brightly at them as they made their way into the middle of the store.

   “Hi, welcome to Poppy.  Enjoying the sunshine?” She asked.  Her eyes darted back and forth between the woman and the man.  The woman smiled back at her.

   “It is so pretty out; I hope the sun sticks around this time.”

   “Me too,” Ella responded.  She let her eyes linger on the man, hoping to catch his eye so she could engage him in conversation.  It had become her new obsession.  Every man over the age of twenty she came into contact with, she tried to make him speak.  She was on a seemingly never-ending quest to find the voice.  He had only said a few words to her right as she was waking up, but she would never forget the voice that had spoken to her or the lips that belonged to that voice.

   Ella took a few steps towards the couple and spoke directly to the man who was wrapped up in his phone at the moment. 

   “Is there anything in particular you are looking for?”  Her eyes bore into him and she hoped he could feel her eyes burning into his forehead.  It must have worked because he looked up at her and mumbled a disinterested remark at her.

   “Uh, no.  We're just looking.”  He went back to looking at his cell phone while the woman continued browsing.

   Disappointment washed over Ella and her shoulders slumped slightly when his too high-pitched voice immediately answered the question she asked herself hundreds of times a day: was this him?

   The voice she heard that day had been deep, raw, and full of love.  She had wondered about the love in his voice for two whole months now.  How could someone besides Kyle love her or speak to her in such a way that made her feel like he loved her?  After weeks and weeks of arguing with what she heard, she finally gave in and just accepted that what she heard was most definitely love.  Aside from actually uttering the words at her, everything else she could remember about those few moments she had with him ached with love; the way he touched her, the way his words caressed her, and the way he kissed her.

   Her family insisted that no one else had been at the hospital but them, but Ella knew better.  What she didn't know was why they lied to her about it.  Her mind mostly tried to convince her that if they kept something from her it was for her own good, but there were times when she was so angry and frustrated with them.  She deserved to know everything about what had happened to her, the good and the bad.

   “Ok, well, if you need anything let me know,” Ella said to the woman, flashing a forced but hopefully convincing smile at her.  She walked over to a table that displayed soft blouses of bright colors for summer and began folding the shirts into neater piles, trying to pass the time while her mind kept wandering back to the mystery voice.  Eventually, she knew she would go crazy thinking about it, but there was nothing she could do to stop herself.  It was a result of reverse psychology.  Her family basically told her she could never know who he was, so it was all she thought about, obviously.

   She heard the door open again and a very genuine smile played across her face as her little sister came walking into the store.  Ella could tell ever since she woke up missing six weeks of her life that Megan struggled with keeping information from her.  Megan did what their parents thought was best and they had developed a “Don't ask, don't tell” motto around the whole debacle.  It would be really easy to be mad at Megan, but she couldn't bring herself to hold it against her.

   “Hey, Megs.  How are you this morning?”

   “Loving the sunshine, Fella.  We should close up shop and hit the Saturday Market.  It's a perfect day for strolling along and browsing,” she said with a lazy voice.

   “Right.  Which is exactly why we need to be here, making sure people have the opportunity to browse in my store.”  Ella gave her sister a big grin.

   “Fine.  Slave driver,” she said with a laugh and continued into the backroom.  Ever since Ella had been in the hospital her sister started taking shifts at her store when she could to help out.  Megan majored in business and graduated from the University of Portland just the week before.  Megan's fiancé`, Patrick, landed a job at a reputable company in the city.  Ella was thinking about asking her sister if she wanted to help her expand her business, but hadn't found the right opportunity yet.  Megan seemed content working for her at the moment and Ella was enjoying spending all the time with her sister.

   When she returned from the back, Megan started looking through some of the new merchandise Ella put out that morning.  There were perks to owning a clothing boutique, but sometimes it was more of a hindrance to the wallet.  Even though she spent more money on clothes than she would ever admit, Ella loved being able to bring in unique and unknown designers that she liked and felt sometimes like she was helping out designers who were trying to get their name out there.  It was thrilling for her when a designer she supported became well-known in the fashion world.  It was validating for her and cemented for her what she had already known: that she had an eye for fashion and was doing what she was meant to do.

   “This dress is amazing, El.  You should save one for Kalli.”

   “Already did.  She's coming by later.”  Kalli was the wardrobe manager for a movie being filmed in town.  She came by the store before her accident, but before Ella could get better, the movie wrapped and Kalli left.  A couple weeks later she came back for another film and came by the store to see if they could work together.  Everything worked out well and Ella's store supplied many pieces for the female lead in a new romantic comedy that would be out the next year.  The most rewarding part of the whole situation was the friendship she'd developed with Kalli.

   Kalli was fun, witty, gorgeous, and thirty as well.  She lived in Seattle, but was in Portland for the duration of the shoot of the movie.  One of the things Ella liked most about Kalli was that she had no idea what happened to Ella in those six weeks she lost.  Hanging out with her was easy and free of the tension she sometimes felt around her family.  They talked about what had happened to Ella, but it wasn't something they dwelled on.  Ella loved that they could spend time together and that she felt normal around her.  Plus, they were able to visit the set and met some pretty famous people.  That wasn't bad either.

   “Good.  Kalli will love it.  How's it been today?”

   “Pretty steady.  It's early yet.  Once everyone has had their coffee they'll be out and we'll get busy.  Hope you're ready.”

   “Born ready, Sis.”  Megan's phone pinged and she pulled it out of her pocket.  A worried look came over her face as she looked at the screen.  She glanced over at Ella.  “I'll be right back,” she said as she walked into the back.

   These were the moments that Ella hated.  Knowing something was being kept from her and also knowing Megan had no choice in the matter.  She tried to push back the dark cloud that had just stolen her sunshine.

 

 

2000 Likes Giveaway

Well hello all you lovely people!  I am so excited about this giveaway and let me tell you why.  It is 100% designed, funded, and created by me, as a thank you to the readers, the likers, the bloggers and the authors who inspire me.  You have all had an impact on me since this whole journey began, so this is my very small way of saying "Thank you".

I hope you'll take a minute to read the "why" behind the giveaway, but I don't require that.  The link to the rafflecopter is at the bottom of the post ;)

Here are the prizes:
$5 Amazon Giftcard
$5 Starbucks Giftcard
2 ARCs of Never Far Away
1 kindle copy of Angela Graham's Inevitable
1 kindle copy of Nina Lane's Arouse
1 kindle copy of Nicole Williams' Lost and Found
1 kindle copy of Rebecca Donovan's Reason to Breathe
Autographed copy of Never Close Enough
5 signed Never Close Enough bookmarks
2 kindle copies of Never Close Enough

To enter the giveaway there are a few hoops to jump through and I would like to explain my choices.

There are a few blogs that I included in my giveaway and the blogs knew nothing of this, so keep that in mind.  Once Upon a Crush Book Blog, A Literary Perusal, Read and Share Book Reviews, and Books, Coffee and Wine - they have all been, in my opinion, extraordinary to work with.  They have taken their time to support me and my book(s) and I will always be grateful to them.  They run such awesome blogs and I hope they know how much I appreciate their support and hard work.

The authors whose books I am giving away have all had an impact on me in some way.  Rebecca Donovan was one of the first authors who left me breathless.  Angela Graham has shown me how to be graceful, friendly, and professional.  Nicole William's books let me escape and remember why reading is something I will always love.  Nina Lane's books have completely ruined me for any other books...almost.  All of these ladies are extraordinary authors and I can only look up to them. 

I also included a link to like the fan page made about Never Close Enough, administered by a reader.  This page, although it has nothing to do with me personally, really signifies the fact that people love Ella and Porter, and it makes me so happy to know that I could give that to the readers. I love my readers, and I love that one of them was compelled to create a page out of their love for the book.  Give it a like, she will always have the up-to-date info, pics, and announcements from me.

Then there is a bunch of junk given away by me. Starbucks because they fueled both books.  Amazon because who doesn't want a giftcard?  Bookmarks because they are pretty.  ARCs because I know there are some of you who are dying to read Never Far Away. 

I am truly thankful for each and every 'liker'... you guys make me smile on a daily basis and I don't have enough words to express how grateful I am for all of you. 

Here's the link to this EPIC giveaway, lol --------> http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/share-code/OWNmNjMzOTYxMTVkNDg2NmZiYTVjM2Y0ZjE3NTBmOjI=/

Calling All Beta Readers!!!

Hello all my lovely readers!

I am so excited to be in the final stages of productions for Never Far Away (although, now the work is not less, just different).  I am looking for a few AWESOME beta readers for Never Far Away.  I need people who enjoyed the first book, and are eager to read the second book, but also people who can offer me feedback and direction.  I want this book to be amazing, and offering it up to readers is so exciting for me!

There are a few stipulations that I have outlined on the actual entry page. 

I thought rafflecopter was the easiest and fairest way to pick my betas, so please participate :)  I am not sure how many I will pick, but please enter if you are interested :)

Thanks everyone!!!
~Anie

Link -->  http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/share-code/OWNmNjMzOTYxMTVkNDg2NmZiYTVjM2Y0ZjE3NTBmOjE=/