Today’s guest post is by Clean Teen Publishing author Sherry D. Ficklin.

Perks of Being a Published Author

When I started writing, it wasn’t with the intent of publishing. I know it sounds odd, but publishing my work was something I always considered out of the realm of possibility for some reason. So when I made the decision to give it a try, I honestly never expected to be picked up. Now, 7 years and 10 novels later, I still find myself humbled and in awe at the fact that I am a published author. For realsies.

So today I want to share with you my five favorite perks of having that prestigious mantle. A few of them might surprise you.

FREE BOOKS. I can’t tell you how many free books I get, usually from other publishers/authors looking for my review. If I’d known writing came with free books, I’d have started much sooner!

FAN MAIL. Strangers actually email me and tell me how much they love my stories and characters. Holy crap! I can’t possibly describe the feeling I get when I open one of these letters or when I meet a fan IRL, but it’s kinda like this:

PUBLIC EVENTS. I have gotten to travel all over the country doing book signings and events. Just next month I have trips EVERY weekend to work/play at various events—everything from ALA to Denver Comic con. And I’m a big enough nerd that getting invited to present at places like Comic Con makes me want to squee myself.

MEETING OTHER AUTHORS. I almost ran over Julie Kagawa at BEA. True story. I’ve hugged V.E. Schwab and gone to movies with J. Scott Savage. It’s like being invited to sit at the cool kids table and I still feel totally unworthy. (I even groped John Barrowman once. It’s cool. He liked it)

SEEING YOUR BOOKS ON A SHELF. It’s like no other feeling in the world. I know that e-books are real books too, but there’s just some weird sense of victory when you see your book on a shelf next to other awesome books.

Sure, there are lots of other cool perks too, but these are my absolute faves. Of course, I don’t write just for the perks, I write because the idea of doing anything else makes me want to spork myself in the eyeball. I think that’s how you know if you’re a writer. If you can imagine yourself being happy doing something else, then do that. But if you can’t then, congrats, you’re a writer. Either way, may you always follow your bliss. (And may you catch it, hit it with a stick, shove it in a sack, and carry it with you always!)

Losing Logan by Sherry D. Ficklin

Genre:  YA Paranormal Romance

Content Warning:  Non-explicit murder

Recommended Age:  15+

Synopsis:

“What if the one thing you never meant to hold on to, is the one thing you can’t let go of?”

Normally finding a hot guy in her bedroom wouldn’t irritate Zoe so badly, but finding her childhood friend Logan there is a big problem. Mostly because he’s dead.

As the only person he can make contact with, he convinces Zoe to help him put together the pieces surrounding his mysterious death so he can move on. Thrust into his world of ultra popular rich kids, Zoe is out of her element and caught in the cross-hairs of Logan’s suspicious ex-girlfriend and the friends he left behind, each of whom had a reason to want him dead. The deeper they dig to find the truth, the closer Zoe gets to a killer who would do anything to protect his secrets. And that’s just the start of her problems because Zoe is falling for a dead guy.

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodReads

About the Author

Sherry D. Ficklin is a full time writer from Colorado where she lives with her husband, four kids, two dogs, and a fluctuating number of chickens and house guests. A former military brat, she loves to travel and meet new people. She can often be found browsing her local bookstore with a large white hot chocolate in one hand and a towering stack of books in the other. That is, unless she’s on deadline at which time she, like the Loch Ness monster, is only seen in blurry photographs.

She is the author of The Gods of Fate Trilogy now available from Dragonfly Publishing. Her previously self-published novel After Burn: Military Brats has been acquired by Harlequin and will be released in 2014 with a second book in that series to follow. Her newest YA steampunk novel, Extracted: The Lost Imperials book 1, co-written with Tyler H. Jolley is now available everywhere books are sold and her newest YA novel, Losing Logan, is due for release in 2014 from Clean Teen Publishing.

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