Category Archives: personal

Just a (not so) humble brag

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being-loved-by-somebody-is-the-best-feeling-in-the-worldSo, today was an unexpectedly good day. Well, to be honest, most of it was pretty ho-hum—school run, feeding the home-bound child, let the dog in, out, in, out, in, feed the home-bound child again, school run, three hair cuts, grocery run, piano lesson for one, guitar lesson for another, more tea than can possibly be healthy, etc. Then my husband got home. Nothing special so far, but with him came a surprise.

Out of completely nowhere he sent the girls over to me with a small package. The seven-year-old was bouncing about, all excited. The four-year-old was in a sulk because the box wasn’t for her. She handed it over begrudgingly though and inside was a brand new Kindle Voyage! “Surprise,” he said.

Kindle Voyage

My birthday is not until August. It’s to late for Christmas, too early for Valentines. Our anniversary is in June. He really just bought me a random present. *Swoon*

His comment when I asked why? (Because I can’t just graciously accept a gift, can I? It’s a failing of mine.) “Well, it’s not like you didn’t get enough use out of the last one. I mean the pence-per-page cost of your old Kindle Touch has to be next to nothing.” All of which is absolutely true. (He’s English, BTW, thus the pence instead of cents.)

I’m sitting her with a big, sappy grin on my face. I’m very happy. So, all future review books will be read on my new Voyage. I look forward to it.

If I’m honest though, it’s going to take a little getting used to. I kind of feel like I’m betraying my steadfast and dependable Kindle Touch by moving on. Her name is Audrey, by the way, in honour of the skin she wears. (It’s by artist Audrey Kawasaki, one of my favorites.)

Aubrey

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure I’ll adjust. And the surprise gift makes me feel very loved. Not so much because I got stuff, stuff I wouldn’t have spent the money on if left to my own devices, but because it’s a sign he pays attention to what would make me happy (as I do him).

We don’t often do gifts, surprise or otherwise. For one, we don’t have the disposable income for it. For another, it’s not necessary between us. If we fight, flowers would only feel contrived. If it’s a holiday or birthday, a gift feels obligatory, not symbolic. If it was a regular occurrence it wouldn’t be special anymore.

So, on the rare occasions, like now, when one of us whips out a present, it’s because we’ve seen an opening to provide something more than a material item, but an addition to our life together. He didn’t just buy me an e-reader, he upgraded the single item that provides me the most joy outside of my family. Reading is my hobby, my passion and he’s facilitating that. *Swoon*

Some men are just worth keeping. You hear a lot in the modern media about jocks being popular in high school and such, but shy quiet men being the ones you want when they grow to men. My husband is the perfect example of this. And while it’s completely, disgustingly saccharine to say, I’m reminded why I love him. He gets me. He understands what makes me tick. I’m an incredibly lucky woman and I know it.

…Now all y’all bitches stay back now, y’hear?

Reblog: Authors Supporting Our Troops #ASOT2015

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Posted by Armand Rosamilia on December 15, 2014

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We had such a huge success with Authors Supporting Our Troops 2014 (#ASOT2014) that we’re doing it again in 2015 (#ASOT2015) with bigger goals! And you can help!

Let me explain the program again so I don’t have to spend so much time this year telling helpful people what we do and do not need to make this another successful year.

First off, we never really stopped collecting author-signed books, we just haven’t posted too much about it once the official end date of May 15th 2014 came and went. We collected 2,500 books from authors and publishers in the four months we promoted it. I think that is awesome.

Since then we’ve managed about 400 more books and sent out three more shipment overseas to soldiers. The goal for 2015 is to break 3,500 books collected and shipped. We can only do that with your help.

So, what are we looking for?

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Author-signed books.

YOUR books. If you’re in an anthology and want to sign your story, we’ll take it. If you put out a release, sign it and we’ll take it. We don’t want you sending us your dog-eared copies of Stephen King. We don’t want books you weren’t involved in unless you’re the publisher or collecting other author’s books to ship to us at once.

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Books only. 

While we know troops overseas could use new toothbrushes and soap and Dorito’s, we aren’t collecting them. Neither are we collecting eBooks and e-readers. Print books only. There are many other organizations who collect necessities for the troops, but we aren’t one of them. Our modest goal is to put 3,500+ print books into the hands of soldiers in remote areas of the world like Kuwait and Afghanistan. If a soldier is stationed in Germany or San Diego, they can easily buy a book or have access to TV, games, e-readers, etc. This event is for the men and women of the military who don’t have easy access to read. It’s something for their downtime between hostile situations.

A fraction of this year's book donations.

What genre(s) do you accept?

Everything but blatant porn. Nothing taboo or racist, nothing pushing the envelope. Anti-military books might not be so popular. Last year many authors didn’t think their romance books would fit, but they did. Soldiers will read anything if its the only book around. There are also many women in the military. They like to read a good paranormal romance, you know.

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We ship through USPS.

We have a nice and easy system setup for us through Craig and Suzanne at Change Jar Books in Flagler Beach Florida. It gives them some business and they do all of the hard work by setting the boxes with tags and mailing stickers, etc. Last year so many people tried to be helpful and let us know about alternate ways to send books. None of them were as cheap or easy as the USPS. No carrier ships boxes for free. No carrier can get close to the cost we send them through the mail for and the ease we can ship them.  For a box of books (about 50 books per box) it costs us about $25.00 to ship. Add in the ease to ship for me and there is no alternative that makes sense.

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Donations are accepted and welcome.

I am not a non-profit and we are not a business. We are a couple of people who want to help soldiers. We don’t go through the USO or have contact with military groups. I’ve never served in the military but Special Gal (the other half of the team) has a Godson, James, who is serving. it started because she wanted to send him books. This all comes out of our pocket less donations and sales of t-shirts (more on that below). As an example: 3,000 books shipped means about 60 boxes. At $25.00 each to ship. So about $1,500.00 is needed. That doesn’t include buying the shipping boxes and the stickers to place on the boxes. Any monetary donation is accepted and welcomed. We really do appreciate it.

James graduation from boot camp

ASOT2015 T-shirts.

Yes, we will be doing the shirts again in 2015. The first one or two will kick off on January 1st 2015 when the event officially begins. We’ll have several colors this year. We try to keep the price as low as we can so more people will buy them and represent. The small profit from the shirt sales goes towards the shipping cost. Last year over half of the shipping was paid for thanks to the shirt sales. We’ll also do like we did last year and post your picture in the shirt and probably do some prizes and whatnot for those helping us out like give away our brand new bumper sticker we made.

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Can you send books and/or donations now?

Of course. But the real fun will begin on January 1st 2015 when the event is officially open. Just send me an e-mail with ASOT2015 or something similar in the subject line asking about the information. I will not be putting my home address on this post or on Facebook. But I will respond as quickly as I can to any queries. if you have questions, contact me at  armandrosamilia@gmail.com

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How else can you help?

By helping spread the word about the event. Even though we hit so many authors the last time around (about 325 or so) that is such a small blip of the writers and publishers out there. If you belong to an organization, let them know about it. I belong to the Horror Writers Association and the late great President Rocky Wood (R.I.P.) stopped me at a convention and wanted to make sure the HWA was involved with getting me books. You can’t ask for a better comment than that. And the HWA will be a large part of the event this coming year.  Ask your publisher to get in touch. Many of them sent us boxes of books last year, which was great.

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What branch of the military do you send to?

We’ve shipped to all of them. If a soldier is in a remote area, we want to reach out and hand him/her a book. We find one contact soldier in the unit and ask them to hand out the books when two boxes arrive. We also hope they can take time to send us pictures of the troops holding some books. That is one of the best parts to me. The smiles on their faces holding an author-signed book.

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How do you get the soldier’s addresses?

From you. Like we said, we don’t work with a company or the military. We rely on family and friends of soldiers overseas to get in touch with them to make sure they’re interested in handing out the books. Then we need their COMPLETE address (including their name and APO/FPO) to ship to them. That’s it. The goal is 35 soldiers in 2015 or more.

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What’s the Facebook address to stay in touch and see all the pictures?

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ASOT2014/ and also friend me on Facebook so I can tag you in any pictures we post anywhere on Facebook, too!

The 2015 event from January 1st through May 1st will be held at https://www.facebook.com/events/1534524343483468/?ref_notif_type=like&source=1 as well!

We’re hoping the Authors Supporting Our Troops 2015 blows away all estimates. Last year the original goal was to break 500 books. We did that easily. Here’s hoping 3,500 books gets passed by thanks to the generosity of authors.

Armand Rosamilia

Looking forward to 2015 and reading challenges

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2015 treeOk, so it’s apparently 2015…and where’s my hover-board, McFly?  2015! This is mind-blowing to me, but hover-board or no, I do have a whole new year ahead of me…we, we have a whole new year ahead of us. It’s a blank slate, just waiting with unlimited potential to be… well, something, anything.

For me, it will undoubtedly be full of books, books and more books. Then of course, these pages will be full of me pontificating about said books, because that’s what the space is dedicated to—me, books and my opinion about books. Makes me sound a little megalomaniacal, but it is my blog.

So, 365 days and probably several hundred books are in my immediate future. I need a plan. I need to share that plan with you, so you know what to expect and I’m held to some manner of accountability…and, frankly, so I can pretend to have accomplished something.

I’Screen Shot 2015-01-01 at 18.06.30m breaking it down like this. On the broadest, most general level, I have committed to read 200 books, with no limiting factors, as my Goodreads challenge. Honestly, I’ve committed to 200 books the past two years and upped it partway through both times—to 225 the first year and 250 the second—and still surpassed it both times. So, 200 is probably on the low side. However, like the past two years, I hope to stop reading so damned much and concentrate more on my own writing. I always seem to fail at this.Screen Shot 2015-01-01 at 16.55.12

Anyone who claimed reading can’t be an addiction is full of horse caca. I need the emotional fix as badly as my caffeine and considering I practically need to be surgically removed from my tea or coffee cup (depending on when and where), that’s saying something.

I’ll also be participating for a third year in book r3vi3ws‘, Indie Fever IndieFever15challenge. I consider this an easy challenge, really, since the vast majority of the books I read these days are Indie/SP. But I’ve signed up at the Fanatic level. This requires I read 75 or more Indie/SP books in the coming year. I don’t anticipate a problem on this front.

Unexpectedly, I’ll also being doing book r3vi3ws’ First Reads FirstReads15challenge. I say unexpectedly because I accidentally signed up for it, meaning to register for Indie Fever. But in the end, I figured I might as well stick with it. I read plenty of new-to-me authors and I really like letting fate have it’s way on occasion. I’ve committed to the Expert level, or 51-75 books written by authors I’ve never read before.

Next, I’ve also signed up for Samantha Lin‘s Author A-Z challenge. Last year, I made a point to read a book by an author for each letter2015-authors-banner of the alphabet, but I never officially signed up for a challenge. This year, I’m getting credit for my effort. I think this challenge is fairly self-explanatory. No levels or anything like that, just trying to make sure each letter of the alphabet is represented by the last name of an author.

I’m also signed up for Evie-Booksish’s TBR pile reading challenge. xSWiAe6Lord knows I need this. I buy books so much faster than I read them. As the name would suggest, the goal here is to read books that have been sitting on your To Be Read pile for a while. It isn’t specified, but I’m setting my limit at two years or more. I’ve signed up for the ‘First Kiss’ level, which requires I read 21-30 such books.

the-mad-reviewer-reading-challenge-2015

I’ll also be participating in The Mad Reviewer‘s Reading and Reviewing challenge. I signed up for the Mad Reviewer level, which means reading and reviewing 104 books. They can be Indie, SP or Traditionally published. Again, I anticipate no difficulties in achieving this goal.

Lastly, though not really a challenge per se, I’m committing to read at least 36 review request books. By this, I mean books I’ve received from authors requesting reviews. That’s three a month.

I’ll be starting the year with Liberty and Other Stories, followed by There Will Be Phlogiston, which is an Amazon freebie, BTW. They’re both by Alexis Hall and constitute Prosperity, #2-5. I’ve had these books for a while, but saved them to read in the new year. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve read by Hall and wanted to ensure I gave myself a good chance at starting 2015 on the right foot. Here’s hoping!