#PD15 EBook Giveaways (Offered by @PDMIPublishing)

PDMI Publishing have joined with Promo Day this year to offer the following giveaways during the event. For a chance to win just enter via the Rafflecopter below.

The Prizes:

R.S. Hunter 

Why hire mercenaries to kill an innocent family just to obtain one little key?

That question haunts Jacquie Renairre for six years as she hunts down the people responsible for murdering her parents. Not even accepting an assign-

ment to investigate a conspiracy that aims to start a war can keep her from searching for the key. 

Armed with her father’s guns and socialite Clay Baneport, she continues her quest for answers abroad. With the world edging closer to disaster, Jacquie is running out of time to figure out how the war, the key, and ancient legend are intertwined. The fate of the world hinges on her ability to unravel both mysteries before it’s too late.

Find out more about the book and author at: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw4mof94wH3saF9GcG5oVHBZb1k/view?usp=sharing

Peter Wells 

Having spent his childhood in a barren emotional wasteland overseen by a father who valued order above feeling, Bill finally meets a woman who leads him to a place he can call home. Arriving in the small coastal town in England with his new wife, he finds that he is quickly assimilated into her community and extended family. With his somewhat murky past behind him, he forges a new life within a solid, caring community and discovers what being valued means. As it happens, his wife appears to be overly interested in “organizing” everything and everyone around her, including her young cousin who is the apple of her father’s eye.

Within the garden of Eden Bill knows he can show no interest in this apple called Misty. He knows the price of doing so, and the value of what he now enjoys. Will that be enough to protect him from desire? Luck is with him: she has no interest in him. But what if circumstances where to change and she looked at her world and him with new eyes. Would he cling to common sense?

With the hand of a surgeon, Peter Wells gently probes the thoughts of the mundane to seek those corners that still long for adventure. Those bits and pieces of each of us that gaze out on the world and find something to settle on and wonder... Tenderly touching the wounded, lonely parts of his characters’ hearts, Peter gently leads them to a destiny they never could have imagined on their own.

Find out more about the book and author at: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw4mof94wH3sbHJyRFV0SmpkM2M/view?usp=sharing

The Shaughnessy File by Etta Jean 

Come to the 3rd District in New York City where pumpkins become limos and corporations are kingdoms in this modern take on classic faerie tales.

Trouble starts in the Shaughnessy household when youngest daughter Aenya starts dancing her way through her shoes every night-without ever leaving her room! She keeps her double life a secret from all the men who try to find the truth, but then private investigator Hiro Michaels arrives on the scene. 

Can she find a way to have her dreams and her love all at the same time?

Kienan Shaughnessy throws his dreams of a musical career on a wild gamble that takes a detour once he meets plain nightingale Madelyne Winters. The young innkeeper has been burned by love and cursed by hate, and she can’t trust anyone as beautiful as swan-like Kienan. Can he teach her to sing a love song before it’s too late?

Eldest sibling Taegan Shaughnessy unexpectedly gets a new pair of glass slip-pers as he pines for a princess out of his reach. Station and impropriety alike threaten to keep Kalliope Tavoularis from having the man she loves, but this princess won’t take anything lying down. Can some help from an unlikely 

faerie godmother stop the clock from striking midnight forever?

Mel Shaughnessy is the wild-spirited beauty of the household. Though as smart as he is handsome, his college grades have plummeted past the point of no return. His only hope is the university’s tutor: a woman nicknamed ‘the beast’. Audra Alexandros has no sympathy, and no graces, and yet there’s something about this lone wolf that Mel finds himself helplessly drawn toward. Can the beauty win the beast and close the file on the Shaughnessy Family for good?

Find out more about the book and author at: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw4mof94wH3sZVVNQTNJdTZ3c0U/view?usp=sharing

The Universal Mirror by Gwen Whiting 

On the island of Cercia, the gods are dead--killed by their followers and replaced with the study of magic. Magicians are forbidden to leave their homeland. Laws governing the practice of magic also prevent the casting of spells on the living--whether to harm or to heal. Quentin, a young nobleman, challenges these laws out of love for his wife. 

His best friend, Asahel, defies authority at his side, unaware that the search for this outlawed magic will bring them both to the edge of reason and even threaten their very souls. The Universal Mirror shows how far two men are willing to go for the sake of knowledge--and what they will destroy to obtain it.

Find out more about the book and author at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw4mof94wH3sSFVicXN1ZVJJc2s/view?usp=sharing

Vengeance by Andrea Zug

When the Lancers expertise is requested in Los Angeles, California by their friends Ramon and Carmen Valdez, Angela has a troubling epiphany. She senses something sinister and dangerous lurks beneath the surface, and when Mike tries every trick in his arsenal to keep her from going with him, she considers her fears validated. From the moment they enter the city of Angels it is obvious that Carmen Valdez did not overstate the problems within the neighborhoods. The Lancers encounter one bizarre and, at times, unbelievable set of circumstances after another in an effort to bring the case to an acceptable conclusion. Their understanding of the concept of good and evil is tested. Mike’s belief in a God that is good and just was lost in Vietnam amid the blood, death, and man’s inhumanity to man. Can he trust what his eyes tell him to be true over what his brain allows him to believe? If God exists, can the devil be a lie?

Find out more about the book and author at: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw4mof94wH3sQzRNbmxzNFpIWDA/view?usp=sharing

Enter now for a chance to win:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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#PD14 Sponsor: Dinosaurs, Meteors and Mammals – How History Republishes Itself

History is a cycle of recycles. Never-ending births and rebirths. Time and time again, the new phoenixes arise from the ashes of the old ways, born from a “death” that never dies.

The original subtitle for this piece was “Every Lesson The Publishing Industry Needs To Learn Was Taught 65 Million Years Ago.” And in that case, the master teacher was a giant rock from outer space. No artful soliloquies were waxed rhapsodic by this six-mile-wide asteriod when it visited our planet and “surfed” the Yucatan peninsula. Yet our astral guest and its master lesson have remained with our dear Earth ever since, teaching all those who can open their minds to see the inevitablity of the inevitable.

In the last decade, not one but two meteors have struck, this time at the heart of the publishing world. First, do-it-yourself publishing, upending a century of print-centric contracts and distribution methods. Second, the digital e-book reader, which bypasses print distribution entirely.

The key question: How have the “Big Five” publishers reacted to the entire publishing world changing around them? They signed Amanda Hocking and E.L. James, after these two women proved they did not need a major publisher to sell large numbers. The D.I.Y “tail” is now wagging their dog, to the point where the newest print deals with Hugh Howey and John Locke allowed them to keep their e-book rights. The New York publishing houses, by their own admission, are no longer dictating the terms for every authors’ success, and in the cases above they are simply hitching a ride on the authors’ own coat tails.

The Big Five’s contract language and terms have changed very little; even as the advances, promotions and shelf space allocations that “justified” such terms are now dying on the vine. Is it any wonder why many authors who could play the New York game now orbit around the “meteor” of do-it-yourself publishing?

One big question remains. Is do-it-yourself publishing a meteor, or an infant dinosaur?

Will do-it-yourself publishing burn bright in the sky, then come crashing to Earth from major online retailers suddenly pulling the plug on direct do-it-yourself publishing? The voices suggesting this “insane” possiblility; are they mad rants from the farthest fringes of the Internet, or are they the earliest harbingers of an inevitable outcome the great majority cannot even visualize as yet?

Do-it-yourself publishing may be the new dinosaur, disguised as a meteor. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. New strengths, and new weaknesses to match. The odds of a single author rising from the DIY jungle worsening daily, as potential readers have to sift through a mass of e-books growing at a geometric rate. Readers left sifting for tiny grains of diamonds in the near-infinite sand dunes. Already no end is in sight for this paradigm, and more importantly no fundamental change is in sight. And, as the events 65 million years ago taught us, we know what happens when an established “institution” cannot adapt to changin conditions.

As “impossible” as it may seem right now that a major online retailer could “pull the plug” on direct do-it-yourself publishing, the wise will take the time to consider what would happen if they did. Millions of authors’ dreams would “die” all at once, enough of a “disturbance in the Force” to turn us all into Obi-Wan Kenobis for a day. The new dinosaur, dying a meteor’s death.

The master lesson: Those who cannot adapt to a major paradigm shift will be buried by the winds of change, the bones of what they used to be fossilizing under layers of “ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.”

You are reading this because your mammal ancestors could adapt. They survived in a world full of dinosaurs, but what mattered is that they could also thrive in a harsh world that drove the dinosaurs to extinction. Adaptablility meant being able to work around the dinosaurs while they were still alive, and work around their carcasses after the meteor had its last laugh. And 65 million years later, adaptability means being able to recognize dinosaurs and meteors when you see them, and being able to work with every possible outcome.

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#PD14 Sponsor: Inspiration: What a Poem Can Do

Near the shores of Lake Kyoga, Uganda, in the Nakasongola district, the 687 students of Kiguli Army primary school are the educational centerpiece of their local communities. From fishing communities to landing sites to the Ministry of Defense ordnace factory managed by Luwero Industries, these students’ families represent the childrens’ diverse backgrounds, lifestyles and experiences.

The school is also the centerpiece of Luwero Industries’ corporate social responsibility plan, which includes re-forestation of local areas near the school.

The school is a primary school, not a military or boarding school. Its teachers seek to instill the values of discipline, hard work and community service in their students. From Primary One through Primary Seven, students learn Social Studies, Mathematics, English and Science. No students are promoted until they complete the work needed to earn a passing grade in their current level of study. Students also excel in extra-curricular athletic activities such as football (soccer) and volleyball, winning district accolades and advancing themselves to a district-wide football showpiece which will showcase these children’s unrivaled skills in this sport.

For the past several years, the school has been turning out the best students in the district. Last year, however, the students’ academic scores suffered a decline, due in large part to the economic woes befalling Uganda. These children teeter precariously close to spending the rest ot their lives in poverty if they fail to get the education they so desperately need to better their stations in life.

The school itself also suffers from Uganda’s economic malaise. Porridge is now the sole meal served to the students. The school’s buildings have fallen in disrepair. Teachers are earning a pittance, or volunteering their time. The parents, Luwero Industries and other local benefactors have managed to raise some funds to repair and renovate the school. This, however, is but a drop in the school’s ocean of need.

“We have a strong sense of mission. And we have faith that initiatives such as this project will flip the floudering fortunes of this school and its glorious, inspiring students.”

So, what can a poetry book do to combat such a mountain of obstacles? A lot. This project, The Songs Of Kiguli, has given these children the inspiration to believe in themselves and what they can accomplish. This is why the majority of the 2012 class went on to secondary schools of higher repute, in spite of their academic losses when compared to the previous years’ classes.

The Songs Of Kiguli has drawn many accolades, in Uganda and internationally. Uganda’s Minister Of Internal Affairs, Aronda Nyakairima, stated that their writing reached of a level of quality exceeding what he though rural school children were capable of. The children have also collaborated with American students in a “poetry without borders” program, learning about the things they share in common as well as their differences.

The school indeed stands on the cusp of monumental achievement. The Songs Of Kiguli gives these children a way to reach the world with the beauty of their poetry, lift themselves out of poverty and give them a path to a stronger future. Not just for themselves, but the people of Uganda, and Africa as a whole. Their moment in time has come, a moment that will shine far beyond any 15 minutes of fame.

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#PD14 Sponsor: 13 Ways PDMI Rocked the Indie Publishing World

2013 was an amazing year for PDMI Publishing, LLC. Many new people have joined our team here at PDMI. Our printing quality and options have been greatly enhanced, and our authors are now getting their books into physical bookstores.

Our fans have shown us time and time again their love for our small publishing house. As this important and eventful year of 2013 comes to a close, we want to acknowledge our best moments of the year, and give a huge thank you to our loyal fans and team members who have made all of this possible.

• PDMI has acquired 30+ authors, adding their works to our fast-growing catalog of titles.
• PDMI has gained access to bookstores such as 2nd & Charles, Dragon Quills Comic Book Store, Catos, etc.
• PDMI has established official Editorial, Marketing and Illustrator Teams.
• PDMI has developed an industry-leading client interface where authors can log in and view what is happening with their projects, submit support tickets, access the author knowledgebase and get access to premium industry news.
• PDMI now works with the Library of Congress to assign Control Numbers to all books.
• PDMI’s distribution partners have increased from 20,000 online retail stores to 30,000+.
• PDMI has become a full-fledged Traditional Publishing House, while remaining aware of the Author’s needs and concerns.
• PDMI has established a variety of Imprints to categorize our content into specific reader genres.
• PDMI makes extensive use of #RebelMouse to dynamically connect and manage all author content.
• PDMI offers exclusive discounts on our titles at 55% to Distributors, Wholesalers, and Retailers; with the option to return stock.
• PDMI’s rapid growth in the year 2013 has been skillfully orchestrated by the steady hand of Victoria Adams, our Director of Business Operations.
• PDMI is devoted to crafting quality products in every sense of the word; from seeking out the finest and most innovative authors, to graphics design, formatting and printing quality that equal and even surpass the standards of the large New York publishing houses.
• PDMI has been referred to as “the publisher of the future” by several noted industry insiders, who have long advocated for many of the publishing innovations that PDMI has put into practice.

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