Essence Magazine Wants Your Book Pick

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Patrick Bass, Books Editor for Essence Magazine is taking wants to know, "What is your favorite inspirational storyteller?" Send him an email with your pick at patrikspicks at essence dot com

Tonight Me, You & Book Marketing Insider Tips on Blog Talk Radio

Please join me 6pm-10pm EST tonight on Ella Curry's Blog Talk Radio Show, BAN as we discuss the marketing and promotions of books. If you have a question about book promotion and you want me to answer those question on the show, leave me a comment or DM me on Twitter.

Pam Perry of Ministry Marketing Solutions, Rhonda Bogan of Mocha Readers, Kimberly Matthews of Kissed Publications and Marina Woods of GoodGirlBookClub Online will be joining us as well.

Christian Fiction News: Tyler Perry Template for LionsGate

Christian Fiction News for the Week Ending July 19, 2008

The Shack Reaches British shore

John Sutherland of the Guardian asks "Is The Shack the Blair Witch Project of the modern book world?" The book reaches the British shore this week and will be published under European rights Hodder and Stoughton.

Urban Christian Honored

ATLANTA, Ga., --: Today the American Christian Fiction Writers Association announced their finalists for the ACFW Book of the Year. Atlanta Author Sherri Lewis’s debut and controversial novel, My
Soul Cries Out(Urban Christian) made the list.

ICRS A Weeklong Review

Laura McCorkle of Crosswalk.com will be sharing her experiences at the 2008 ICRS Convention.






LIONSGATE to Copy Tyler Perry Formula

Joe Drake, president of LionsGate will begin making changes to the movie company. He plans to offer more family friendly movies with Tyler Perry's blockbuster movies as a thumbnail sketch. Nikki Finke reports.

Per Darren Rouse's Problogger Post Today:

Has Blogging Lost Its Relational Focus?

This morning I read and commented at Problogger about the question above. I thought I would post it here, and invite you to continue the conversation.

Dee's Response...

Yes. Blogging has lost it''s relational focus.

I have a book niche blog and belong to a blog team of published authors, editors and agents, and we rarely visit each other's blogs. I was guilty of it myself. But this summer I decided to change my mindset about who my blog belongs to. I am the owner but the blog belongs to my subscribers and the writing community.

So I use Darren's Speedlinking idea every other Friday to link other blogs who are having conversations about Christian Fiction or Christian Books. I still ask other bloggers to come on and guest blog. I belong to a book tour blog alliance of 150 bloggers, who blog about the same book on the same day. I comment on many of those blog sites during the blog tour. I have encouraged them to follow me on Twitter. now we are on twitter doing book chats and crazy things. Someone introduced me to ning, so i started a social network (The Christian Fiction Network) based on the blog. I have 40 published authors in this network we feed off each other post are favorite blogposts in the network. Last week I began using utterz to host author chats on their and link them to my blog and then share it with my blog buddies for cross promotion. Christian Fictgion is also on blogtalkradio. I don't have a show, but i hack other radio shows ;)) A great way to read podcast bloggers and find connect with them.

Since I've been playing around with other forms of social media that i can feed into my blog it has kept things interesting and i share these applications with the writing blogging community.

I agree. It's easy to go into your own bubble and create compelling blog posts to find noone is reading. Then you goto your blogfriends blogs to see no one is reading there either, because everyone has a blog now. But rolling back and remembering why blogging was fun back in the day gives you the juice to get creative and back in the game.

My stats have jumped up and so have pr and book opportunities for me as well. I've even been approached by three lit agents and a publisher. Thanks Daren for keeping rich content and opening up problogger for others to share and communicate.

"Hey you...talk to me!!!!!"Photo courtesy of Crafting with Love

Dee Stewart is a writing diva mother, News Editor for Hope for Women Magazine, inspirational book reviewer for Romantic Times Magazine, and owner of Christian Fiction Blog and The Christian Fiction Network. Her writings have appeared in: Spirit Led Woman, Gospel Today, Good Girl Book Club, The Dabbling Mum, Atlanta Christian Family, Mosaic Literary, Precious Times, Vertical Fix just a few. Visit her at Christian Fiction. Follow her on Twitter at DeeGospel

Robert Liparulo's Watcher in the Woods

It's May 21st, time for the Teen FIRST blog tour!(Join our alliance! Click the button!) Every 21st, we will feature an author and his/her latest Teen fiction book's FIRST chapter!

Robert Liparulo

and his book:

Watcher in the Woods: Dreamhouse Kings, Book #2

Thomas Nelson (May 6, 2008)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Robert Liparulo is an award-winning author of over a thousand published articles and short stories. He is currently a contributing editor for New Man magazine. His work has appeared in Reader's Digest, Travel & Leisure, Modern Bride, Consumers Digest, Chief Executive, and The Arizona Daily Star, among other publications. In addition, he previously worked as a celebrity journalist, interviewing Stephen King, Tom Clancy, Charlton Heston, and others for magazines such as Rocky Road, Preview, and L.A. Weekly. He has sold or optioned three screenplays.

Robert is an avid scuba diver, swimmer, reader, traveler, and a law enforcement and military enthusiast. He lives in Colorado with his wife and four children.

Here are some of his titles:

House of Dark Shadows (Dreamhouse Kings Book 1)

Comes a Horseman

Germ

Deadfall


Product Details

List Price: $14.99
Reading level: Young Adult
Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Thomas Nelson (May 6, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1595544968
ISBN-13: 978-1595544964


AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

1

At twelve years old, David King was too young to die. At least he thought so.

But try telling that to the people shooting at him.

He had no idea where he was. When he had stepped through the portal, smoke immediately blinded him. An explosion had thrown rocks and who-knew-what into his face. It shook the floor and knocked him off his feet. Now he was on his hands and knees on a hardwood floor. Glass and splinters dug into his palms. Somewhere, all kinds of guns were firing. Bullets zinged overhead, thunking into walls—bits of flying plaster stung his cheeks.

Okay, so he wasn’t sure the bullets were meant for him. The guns seemed both near and far. But in the end, if he were hit, did it matter whether the shooters meant to get him or he’d had the dumb luck to stumble into the middle of a firefight? He’d be just as dead.

The smoke cleared a bit. Sunlight poured in from a school-bus-sized hole in the ceiling. Not just the ceiling—David could see attic rafters and the jagged and burning edges of the roof. Way above was a blue sky, soft white clouds.

He was in a bedroom. A dresser lay on the floor. In front of him was a bed. He gripped the mattress and pushed himself up.

A wall exploded into a shower of plaster, rocks, and dust. He flew back. Air burst from his lungs, and he crumpled again to the floor. He gulped for breath, but nothing came. The stench of fire—burning wood and rock, something dank and putrid—swirled into his nostrils on the thick, gray smoke. The taste of cement coated his tongue. Finally, oxygen reached his lungs, and he pulled it in with loud gasps, like a swimmer saved from drowning. He coughed out the smoke and dust. He stood, finding his balance, clearing his head, wavering until he reached out to steady himself.

A hole in the floor appeared to be trying to eat the bed. It was listing like a sinking ship, the far corner up in the air, the corner nearest David canted down into the hole. Flames had found the blankets and were spreading fast.

Outside, machine-gun fire erupted.

David jumped.

He stumbled toward an outside wall. It had crumbled, forming a rough V-shaped hole from where the ceiling used to be nearly to the floor. Bent rebar jutted out of the plaster every few feet.

More gunfire, another explosion. The floor shook.

Beyond the walls of the bedroom, the rumble of an engine and a rhythmic, metallic click-click-click-click-click tightened his stomach. He recognized the sound from a dozen war movies: a tank. It was rolling closer, getting louder.

He reached the wall and dropped to his knees. He peered out onto the dirt and cobblestone streets of a small village. Every house and building was at least partially destroyed, ravaged by bombs and bullets. The streets were littered with chunks of wall, roof tiles, even furniture that had spilled out through the ruptured buildings.

David’s eyes fell on an object in the street. His panting breath froze in his throat. He slapped his palm over his mouth, either to stifle a scream or to keep himself from throwing up. It was a body, mutilated almost beyond recognition. It lay on its back, screaming up to heaven. Male or female, adult or child, David didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. That it was human and damaged was enough to crush his heart. His eyes shot away from the sight, only to spot another body. This one was not as broken, but was no less horrible. It was a young woman. She was lying on her stomach, head turned with an expression of surprised disbelief and pointing her lifeless eyes directly at David.

He spun around and sat on the floor. He pushed his knuckles into each eye socket, squeegeeing out the wetness. He swallowed, willing his nausea to pass.

His older brother, Xander, said that he had puked when he first saw a dead body. That had been only two days ago—in the Colosseum. David didn’t know where the portal he had stepped through had taken him. Certainly not to a gladiator fight in Rome.

He squinted toward the other side of the room, toward the shadowy corner where he had stepped into . . . wherever this was . . . whenever it was. Nothing there now. No portal. No passage home. Just a wall.

He heard rifle shots and a scream.

Click-click-click-click-click . . . the tank was still approaching.

What had he done? He thought he could be a hero, and now he was about to get shot or blown up or . . . something that amounted to the same thing: Dead.

Dad had been right. They weren’t ready. They should have made a plan.

Click-click-click-click-click.

David rose into a crouch and turned toward the crumbled wall.

I’m here now, he thought. I gotta know what I’m dealing with, right? Okay then. I can do this.

He popped up from his hiding place to look out onto the street. Down the road to his right, the tank was coming into town over a bridge. Bullets sparked against its steel skin. Soldiers huddled behind it, keeping close as it moved forward. In turn, they would scurry out to the side, fire a rifle or machine gun, and step back quickly. Their targets were to David’s left, which meant he was smack between them.

Figures.

At that moment, he’d have given anything to redo the past hour. He closed his eyes. Had it really only been an hour? An hour to go from his front porch to here?

In this house, stranger things had happened. . . .

Dee & Mom Know the 7 Secrets 2 Love Giveaway

THIS SUMMER HAVE AN INTIMATE BIBLE STUDY w/LOVED ONES

This summer I planned to start a new bible study. For the past three years I have shared a woman's bible study with church friends from my old neighborhood. But like me many of them have relocated, so I thought I would be solo this summer. To my surprise my mom asked to join me. My mom and I are polar opposites in terms of personality, but we share the same spiritual beliefs and have the same hearts' desires, to take care of our families the best way we know how. It was appropriate that we chose Dr. Gary Chapman's Love as a Way of Life.

USE THIS BOOK AS A NINE WEEK BIBLE STUDY

The book is broken up in three parts. We used the first part as a warm-up to get to know each other. The second part we are using like a weekly bible study session. Each week we will learn one of the seven secrets to love. We use the bible study companion in the back of the book to take this session deeper. So far so good. I'm learning some things about my mom, myself, our relationship, and what God has probably been trying to tell us for a long time. :)

AN INVITATION AND CONTEST TO BE APART OF 7 SECRETS COMMUNITY

I invite you to use this book as a personal bible study with your parents, your bffs, your spuse, your kids. See how God moves through you. In fact I like this book so much I am giving away a copy here at Christian Fiction Blog. To enter this giveaway you must do one of three things:

• please add my badge to your sidebar(if you have one,)
  
• twitter the link to this blog post with the words "@deegospel & Mom Knows 7 Secrets 2 Love. Do U?" between now and July 23
  
• or join The Christian Fiction Network.

The winner will be announced next Wednesday in our Wednesday Read-Up. (Yeah I know. I didn't post one this week. :) Leave your entry in the comments. Thank you.

A little more about Gary Chapman

CFB: What is the take-away message of Love as a Way of Life?

Dr. Chapman:

Love as a Way of Life is designed to help the person who sincerely wants to make a positive impact in the world. I believe that is ‘most of us.’ Our biggest problem is that we don’t know how and we keep getting tripped up by our own selfish ambitions. The purpose of the book is to help us break free from the prison of selfishness and come to experience the satisfaction of truly loving others as a way of life. It is little acts of love that build up to a lifestyle of service.

Author Bio:
Gary Chapman is the author of twenty-five books, including the New York Times bestseller The Five Love Languages, with more than 4 million copies in print. His daily radio program, A Love Language Minute, is broadcast on more than 100 stations nationwide. Chapman, a graduate of Moody Bible Institute, Wheaton College, Wake-Forest University, and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, serves on the pastoral staff at Calvary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Atlanta Author Shorts Christian Fiction’s Best

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 18, 2008
Contact: Dee Stewart
deegospelpr@gmail.com

Atlanta Author Shorts Christian Fiction’s Best
Marital Grace Defeating Homosexual Disgrace Makes Debut Novel a Good Read

My Soul Cries Out made the list. The novel depicts an unsuspecting wife realizing that her husband, a music minister has been struggling with homosexuality since childhood, and that their church has been covering up this secret shame for just as long. The novel has already received acclaim through book clubs, reviews and author endorsements. It is also an Essence Magazine Bestseller.
Winners will be announced on September 20, 2008 at the ACFW Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota

About Sherri Lewis
Ms. Lewis is a staff physician at a Georgia Department of Corrections’ women’s prison, and the author of two bestselling novels, My Soul Cries Out and Dance into Destiny. Her third novel, The List will be released March 2009. To learn more, visit Sherri Lewis at www.sherrilewis.com.

About ACFW
The American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) is an association of 1500 authors, editors, agents, publicists and aspiring writers working in the Christian publishing industry.