Latest Posts by soulsharingsistas - Page 3
Keep the Faith Blog Tour
Keep the Faith Blog Tour
Book Title: Keep the Faith
Release Date: July 31, 2016
Author: Ana Tejano
About the Book:
As a community development worker, Faith was quite familiar with heartbreak and recovery after all the time she spent on disaster relief missions. So when her five-year relationship ends right before she left for a mission trip to a typhoon-stricken town in Iloilo, she tries not to make a big deal out of…
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New Release Follower Giveaway!! Hosted by @lovekissedsteam #IARTG #bookblast #kindle #giveaway Check out the January New Release Followers Giveaway 1/15-1/23! Over 40 Romance Authors... These authors have come together to offer you a quick, convenient way to get to know them, their new releases, and special deals...all in one place!
Cover Reveal and $250 cash giveaway #booklover
Cover Reveal and $250 cash giveaway #booklover
We are rearing for our first release of the year Lesson That Taught Love, our first book in that’s Contemporary Romance( traditional romance that isn’t New Adult) and its quite different from our normal style of writing, so we hope people like it! But did you know we’re nearly complete with a second release? We just got the cover done for it, and it’s super pretty that we just had to share it!
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Why Book Reviews Matter! Part Two-The Financial Side
Why Book Reviews Matter! Part Two-The Financial Side
Okay so *cracks knuckles*.
We promised we’d make a post about how both retailer site reviews help on the creative side and another on the financial side of things. Both are and should be important because, let’s face it, writing isn’t all about creativity and entertainment, it’s also a business and a ton of writers make their livings off writing alone.
There are tons of reasons why reviews impact…
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Why Book Reviews Matter! Part One-The Creative Side
Why Book Reviews Matter! Part One-The Creative Side
I’m sure everyone is tired of hearing about the conversation about reviews. As an author they’re helpful, as a reader they’re helper, but I know some folk think reviews aren’t important. I was actually inspired by an author friend M. Hollis, who recently wrote a twitter thread about how helpful reviews are to marginalized writers, who have the hardest time getting their books in front of the…
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★★★★72 Signed Paperbacks up for grabs in the 12 Days of Giveaways!★★★★ How much do you love signed paperbacks from your favorite romance authors? Yeah. We thought so. …
Lover of romance books? Enter this bookish giveaway!
Lover of romance books? Enter this bookish giveaway!
We’re feeling festive so I’ve joined forces with these amazing authors to bring you a HUGE giveaway running from the 15th December – 20th. Looking forward to the New Year’s sales? We’ve got $500 cash to give away, perfect for treating yourself or stocking up on goodies for next year. Check out the authors involved then enter below. And don’t forget to stop by Love Books’ Facebook pagefor more…
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Guest Post: Romancing the Blog
Guest Post: Romancing the Blog
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October is #BlackSpecFic Month. Visit bit.ly/BlackSpecFic for a chance to win a $100 Gift Card and free books http://thndr.me/N2Xfpb
This is so beautiful!
The Unforgettables by GL Tomas
“With that kiss, I was free to finally be myself instead of the person I pretended so long that I was. I wasn’t the perfect person and I wasn’t the perfect daughter, and now I understood that that was okay. I had to start letting my heart guide me in the right direction, otherwise, I’d never find the bravery to do something like that again.”
September FREE for All-Free book for a limited time! Plus a #giveaway!
September FREE for All-Free book for a limited time! Plus a #giveaway!
Check out the September FREE for All & Giveaway!
Same Page and F*THS will be free for a limited time!
And that’s not all!
40 Romance Authors are offering 40 books…
Most of them are FREE for a limited time. It’s just our way of thanking our loyal readers.
Even better, we’ve pooled our funds to offer an awesome giveaway! Enter to win a Kindle and Amazon Gift Cards just for subscribing…
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by Ryy Dickerson When people halfheartedly say that Young Adult literature is extremely white, I laugh. Being a person of color and queer means often times I find myself in a young adult book either as the gay character or the character of color. Not too often do I get a chance to see myself as
We’re going to be at @blogboundcon this July! There's a free event we're managing to take the train to. We're mainly going for the workshops, but if you're a YA blogger, consider stopping by!
#repost cc: @melaniehoo #bookstagram #authorsofinstagram #bookreview #booklover #indielove #indieauthor #bookblogger
😍 my goal this year is to review every book I read👍 I don't always but I really need to start😅 #reviews #booklover #bookblogger #authorsofinstagram #authorlifemonth #bookreview #bookstagram
Day 14: #authorlifemonth today's post is awesome! It's favorite one of your covers *cues fabulous entrance* So this one isn't out yet but my sis and I are working on it right now titled #itscomplicated Funny thing about this one is I went in with low expectations cuz I got idone for 10 bucks on fiverr😂😂😂 Turns out to be my absolute favorite out of all our other romance wip's. My sister and I are super lit irl so comedy finds its way in all of our work but I think this one will be a lol romantic comedy. Plus it's pink!!! I love pink!!! #bookstagram #booknerdigans #beautifulbookcovers #coverreveal #ambw #interracialromance #weneeddiverseromance #romanticcomedy #gltomas #InterracialLove #coverlove #ContemporaryRomance #vlogger #indielove #authorsofinstagram #indieauthor
When you can fix what you broke...(A tale in self publishing)
We’ve been going through the motions of what it’s like to be self published, and we’ve learned a few interesting things along the way.
Disclaimer:
All our experience is with Independently publishing books, and this post isn’t meant to scare folks away from going a more traditional route.
But back to the post. What if you had a project you were interested in exploring, spent months with blood,…
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Day 10 of #authorlifemonth favorite non author photo Okay so I totally feel bad for skipping yesterday but I couldn't come up a challenge overcome that my sister @dos_twinjas didn't already address. So this is my favorite picture of my hair after being natural for 6 months after a big chop in September 15'. This was the first time I ever wore my natural texture out after rocking braids nearly every month after I big chopped. I was so afraid that everyone would hate it and some of my family members still do but accepting my hair's natural texture has been a pivotal time for me. Being a black Latina we grow up thinking that beautiful hair is straight aka European hair and it took me 29 years to realize that's not the only type of hair that's amaZing! Just like #Beyonce said "I like my baby hair with baby hair and afros". That line has become my mantra 😂😂😂 In this picture you would think I've always Been confident about it which is why I love it so much. Sorry for the essay😍😎 P.S. my hair is even longer now and ten times bigger and more amazing! #naturalista #curlbox #4chair #naturalhair #Afro #afrohair #pajon #afrocubana #afrolatinx #blacklatina #blackgirlmagic #negra
Day 8 of #authorlifemonth my awesome moment. Soooo my awesome moment was a few weeks after #samepage dropped. We rarely ever get emails about books or wips so when I got this I was floored. Never underestimate how Much you can make a writers day with just an email saying how Much you loved a book😍 especially if you're not the type to leave reviews. #weneeddiverseromance #samepage #naija #authorlifemonth #authormonthlife #NARomance #ContemporaryRomance #bwwm #ku #kindleunlimited #InterracialLove #interracialromance #providence #portugueseboys #portugueseheroes
It's Day 7 of the #authorlifemonth challenge! Much like @dos_twinjas it’s hard for me to actually write “while” I’m listening to music, but I get hype af listening to playlists in anticipation for writing! My first two projects in the #NA #Romance genres have similar tones. So I basically listen to 50% of the same artists. #SamePage has more #NewJackSwing and #90sRnB while what makes #FTHS #playlist different, is due to the Miami vibe. #Reggaeton, #Spanish #pop music and a bunch of songs that highlight #friendswithbenefits themes! It’s fun! #InterracialLove ##weneeddiverseromance ##bwwm #bookstagram #booknerdigans #GLTomas #NA #NARomnace #ContemporaryRomance #EroticRomance #Diversebooks #diverselit #diverse #bisexual #naturalista #miami #providence #blackgirlmagic #FTHS #FriendsThatStill #SamePage #NextChapter #naija #nigerian #afrolatina #afrolatinx #messyromance #afrocubana #interracial #interracialromance #NA #diversityjedi #portugueseboys
Part ll of #authorlifemonth created by that dope author you keep hearing about @missdahlelama I had two fan art posts and i almost wasn't going to but then i found these awesome photo apps and said wjat the hell? This post features the inspiration for our next messy romance #FTHS in th3 form of our main characters w/ actor Sterling Beaumon as #AsherRose and model Brittany Sky as #TheodoraKing #naturalista #afrocubana #afrolatinx #interracial #InterracialLove #weneeddiverseromance #interracialromance #bwwm #diversebooks #bookstagram #diverse #diversityjedi #booknerdigans #miami #blackgirlmagic #messyromance #naromance #bisexual #FTHS #Friendsthatstill #GLTomas #contemporaryromance #eroticromance
So today is Day 6 of the #authorlifemonth challenge 😊 I'll be doing two parts, so here's Part II It's supposed to highlight fanart/edit. I've found that with #NA vs #YA readers are less vocal when they read and like something. So people who've loved our #NA #romance #SamePage don't necessarily shout it out as opposed to #TheMarkOfNoba I've decided to make cool homemade fanart😇 The two ppl who inspired their looks were Travis Garland, a bomb ass singer I met and loved 😆 and Chime Edwards a hair vlogger I have hair envy over! So that's what inspired the art👍 #naturalista #naija #nigerian #interracial #bwwm #diversebooks #bookstagram #diverse #diversityjedi #diverseromance #booknerdigans #portugueseboys #blackgirlmagic #providence #messyromance
Day 5 of #authorlifemonth #authormonthlife comp covers!!! So the cover in the middle pretty much inspired the two on the side. Loved how the couple on the cover was split in the middle. @dos_twinjas said "THAT'S WHAT I WANT!!!" #interracialromance #contemporaryromance #eroticromance #naromance #comingofage #afrolatinx #afrolatina #afrocubana #bisexual #bwwm #gltomas #FTHS #Friendsthatstill
#wce all these ladies are my women crush everyday's and the thing they all have in common is that they're Cubana like me. Cuban culture is such a diverse range of people since like the USA, it's a melting pot of identities coming together. #cubanas #afrocubanas #afrolatina #mulata #blanquita #triguena #latinascomeineveryshade #blanca
Day 4 of #authorlifemonth #authormonthlife created by the extraordinaire @missdahlelama my wips So I'm a little embarrassed that I have like 4, but in my defense, I work on wips with my writing partner @dos_twinjas so it'll never just be one wip cuz that's not how we roll😃 WIP 1: #NextChapter our sequel to #samepage, a NA contemporary romance WIP 2: #FTHS an erotic romance featuring an Afro Latina MC(y Cubana tambien) WIP 3: #Friendsthatstill , the sequel to #FTHS WIP 4: #Wanderthisworld ,our first attempt at NA erotic horror Such an exciting year of wips. What are yours???
Day 3 of #authorlifemonth #authormonthlife brought to you by the amazeballs @missdahlelama My last 5 star read. Whoa, so I haven't been reading lately but I definitely remember what my last 5 star read was. The Sista hood: on the Mic by E-fierce aka Elisha Miranda. So a little confession I read and review YA and friggin love it. The themes usually present in YA are themes I wish were present in NA and adult novels more often, my three favorite being cultural identity, racial identity and sexual identity. By our adult years it's like we're supposed to have it figured all out but In my unique case I don't. And this is one of books that I always bring up in my YA presentations when I publicly speak on books. Why I connected to it: 1.An Afro-Latina main character. ( I'm an Afro Latina of Cuban ancestry and this was the first time I read a girl in a book who was Latina, DARK SKINNED not mulata but negra como yo w/a big kinky Afro. I cried reading that because from the cover you can't tell the main character is black) 2.Characters that come from a lower socio-economic background. 3.Queer female characters of color, especially Black and Latina characters of color. (This is the kicker. This is also one of its kind for me because usually #lgbt books are never about black and Latinas. I wish more people knew about this book 😪) 4. Characters that reflected the Hip-Hop culture without being offensive, appropriating or stereotypical. The Sista Hood on the Mic follows Mariposa Colon aka MC Patria, an Afro-Puerto Rican girl from San Francisco, CA with a love for Hip Hop and making a name for herself but she needs a fly crew to do it! That is where The Sista Hood comes in. This was a book about a girl but most important it was about a girl who maybe likes girls. A girl who valued friendships with girls. This book is about empowerment between girls and I think it's sad that more people don't know about this book. The friendship between the girls is something I think is missing from YA. Everything always seems to be centered on getting a boyfriend and while Mariposa wanted to be with someone, her friends were more important. That's, like, a big high five for me!
Next up, Day 2 of #authorlifemonth Author photos!!! If you jump to my sister's account @dos_twinjas you will learn that our pen name #gltomas is actually a shared one, since we're a team of writers so work collectively on projects we thought, oh what the hell? Why not just combine our pen name. Since I'm the first born we battled on putting L first, but mutually decided that G.L. sounded better than L.G. Since its a cell phone brand😂😂😂 I basically just screenshot her post😂cuz I'm lazy like that. But love this picture since it was our first time on the West Coast. Plus it was months before we big chopped. I think we chould get another one with our beautiful natural hair, objections? Hehe Thanks to the lovely @missdahlelama for hosting this event. Everyday I look forward to Everyone's post. Lurking on the hash tag like a stalker!👤
Micro-aggressions, Unpacking privilege, and The Knee Jerk Response
Micro-aggressions happen all the time. Everyday. Even by people you think are your allies. For example: Black woman says: I am so upset about the violence against the Black community. White LGBTQIA woman responds: What about the LGBTQIA community? What about violence against us? This is a micro-aggression. This is an invalidation of the Black Woman’s statement even though the White woman is right about violence in the LGBTQIA community. However, by co-opting the conversation, by making it about her own marginalization at that immediate moment, she has asserted her white privilege and any chance for a conversation ends abruptly. To be a good ally, we must learn to listen and support each other when people who are hurting are talking. Your time to talk will come soon enough, but don’t take it at the expense of others. Don’t let your privilege co-opt a conversation on race. I will give you a more personal example. I grew up during the race riots between the Korean American and Black community in NYC. My parents owned a store and we lived in the apartment above it. It was a scary time. At school I got into an argument with a Black classmate. She said it was incredibly hard being Black and having to deal with racism. In my young, resentful and admittedly self-centered mind, I didn’t like what she said. So I responded – “Well Korean Americans get hate and racism from both the Black and White communities.” That was a blatant micro-aggression. I invalidated her by pushing my marginalization over hers. And I was completely wrong. But at that time, I was unaware of my privilege. In my mind, my marginalization – being Asian – was just as bad as being Black. I was so wrong. Now I know that I have a privilege and if I I could go back in time, I would apologize to her. But I can’t and so the only thing I can do is keep learning and try my best to do better. I am Asian American, straight, cis-gender, educated, middle class. And even though I am a woman of color with invisible disabilities, I am also deeply aware of my privilege, because I am a woman of color who is not Black or Brown. I am also a woman with disabilities that are not visible. While these marginalizations make my life extremely difficult, I still have privilege and I must constantly remind myself to never forget that. It is not easy, and it is not supposed to be. But you check your privilege because it is the right thing to do. To be a good ally. Recently, I have noticed a troubling trend among white allies who, perhaps unknowingly, talk over and invalidate WOC by playing their own individual marginalization card. And in general, I’ve noted that it always comes on the heels of Black Women talking about race and intersectionality. This troubles me deeply because it causes resentment. It also bothers me when other WOC (especially other Asian women) aren’t as supportive of Black Women as they should be. I saw this happen in an online group, a good friend of mine (who is Black) tried to speak on race and found her whole discussion derailed in a heavy pile on by white marginalized feminists who co-opted the conversation. It was so frustrating that I posted the Huffington post video on White Feminism with this statement, “I think this video should be mandatory viewing for everyone especially because sometimes I think white feminists who are also LGBTQIA+ or disabled forget that intersectionality applies to WOC also, and that no matter what your marginalization is you have never experienced not being white. And if that statement makes you mad, you need to think about why.“
What I received back was a whole lot of angry Knee Jerk reactions. And what I mean by that is the “How dare she try to tell me that my marginalization is not as important as hers!” “How dare she try to police diversity!” “How dare she not check her privilege!” “How dare how dare how dare…” I call this a Knee Jerk reaction because these are not all bad people. These are people who are invested in the diversity movement themselves. So they are not the enemy. And yet they responded with a knee jerk reaction to being called out on having white privilege. But instead of getting so angry, accusing me of being a bully, demanding that I be banned and reported (for what, asserting my opinion?), and trying to silence me, they should have done exactly what I asked in that last sentence. They needed to think about why it made them so uncomfortable. They needed to reflect on their own privilege. What they did instead, was focus on their own marginalization as if it somehow negates their white privilege. The problem is that nothing negates white privilege. The poorest, most marginalized white person in the country will still not have the racist issues that the Black community faces. They will not be poisoned knowingly by their government. They will not live in fear that the police will kill their young children and never be punished. They do not have to worry about having the highest incarceration numbers in the land, simply because of the color of their skin. They do not have to worry about the school to prison pipeline because of inadequate resources in public schools. But because these issues do not actually affect white feminist’s personal lives, it is easy to focus solely on their own individual problems. After the responses so vividly proved my point, I left the group because I cannot stay where people believe that silencing the voices of POC instead of promoting open discourse is ever acceptable. Of course, this is not the first time I have been silenced and made to feel unwelcome by white feminists. Truth is this is commonplace for WOC. But it hurts more when it is done by people who say they are our allies.
I know that I will receive hate mail and harassment, but on this I feel too strongly to stay quiet. Because I stand in solidarity with the Black community. And we all need to speak out when wrong is wrong. The thing is, if a white person’s response to someone talking about White Privilege is to say “I’m marginalized too!” then they don’t get it. Because that is, essentially, how privilege works. It wants to take over the conversation and invalidate other people’s struggles. And if your response to that is “why is race more important?” I want to point you to one of my new favorite blogs -Reading While White. They address this very issue as follows:
This is a great explanation because it doesn’t say race is the most important issue, what it does is make clear is that race is the most all encompassing. That it crosses into all identities, all marginalizations. Intersectionality means that POC also exist in the LGBTQIA and disabilities communities. It affects all races, not just white people. But white privilege, even within those communities, wants to dominate. Unpacking your privilege is a hard thing. It is not easy. Nobody wants to think of themselves as being in the wrong, they’d rather think of themselves as being wronged. So you stay secure in your self-righteous indignation of “How dare yous” instead of thinking about how systemic racism and your own privilege has seeped so firmly into all aspects of your life that you can’t even see it. In order to be a good ally and make a difference in the fight for ALL OF US, we must recognize our own privileges and make a public stand to fight for what is right. But we cannot do that if our white allies don’t recognize what white privilege is and how deeply entrenched it is in our world. So I challenge white allies to really do some serious and probably very uncomfortable self-reflection. When POC ask you to check your privilege, do you get mad and immediately demand that they check theirs? When POC talk about their experiences do you roll your eyes and snidely comment about how it’s not always about race? When someone says something racist, do you just stand there looking awkward and ignore it? When the status quo is racist, do you just accept it? When people talk about taking action, do you just nod your head in agreement and do nothing? When POC speak on oppression, do you respond with your own tale of oppression?
In order to be a good ally, it is important to know when to speak up and when to shut up and just listen. And if you aren’t sure what to do, all you have to do is ask. How can I be a good ally to you? How can I support you?
In conclusion, I will leave you with Daniel Jose Older’s The 5 Stages of Confronting Your Own Privilege. Here’s hoping that we can all get past number 1.
Sooooo it's #authorlifemonth and I'm counting the days in February with hopefully a fresh post. Thanks to the lovely @missdahlelama for creating this challenge!!! Okay so confession, our first book was a YA fantasy called #themarkofnoba that was all types of fun but @dos_twinjas volunteered to show our YA stuff while I did the honors of highlighting the NA and adult books we have coming out. So I bring you #samepage , our debut NA contemporary romance that showcased a less than perfect story of two people perfect for each other with loads of obstacles In their way. Had fun setting up their first installment. Cant wait to finish this baby.