Laura Stone

I was delighted to find my book, AND IT CAME TO PASS, on a list of the best of 2017–the best 17 of 2017–list of romances on USA TODAY‘s book review website, Happily Ever After.

A tremendous list to share company with! See sidebar for buy links, and don’t forget to ask your library for a copy if money is tight!

Oh my gosh, y’all are the BEST. Thank you so much!

And I am currently writing a new book, yes! [zips lip about details]

[unzips lip]

ItsaLesbianGhostStorySouthernGothicinTheSwampsofEastTexas

[zips lip]

You may have noticed I’m not super active here. Tumblr and author pages are sort of fading away in general. I am however, quite active on Twitter, if that’s a thing you’re interested in. I also have a robust (and spo!l3r-free!) weekly Game of Thrones discussion post at heydontjudgeme.com.

So, big step forward with my small publishing house, @interludepress​ - they’re now on NetGalley, which is kind of a big deal. (The link will talk more about it.)

BUT. I want to talk about, by which I mean flail and make happy noises at the fact that like, straight dudes are reading my book about two gay Mormon missionaries... and they are loving it.

I was not sure that I would like this book, but I found it enlightening and informative, life-affirming and thought-provoking. Were I young and gay whether from a religious background or not, I would find an invaluable source of support from it. It affirms the importance of unconditional love in all relationships. The book is at different points funny, touching, frightening and moving. Highly recommended. 

~Netgalley Review

Look. I get it. Folks around here like to really frown at straight dudes, but I am so happy that they’re trying? And not only that, they’re able to read a story that maybe isn’t their norm and then fall into the story? YOU KNOW, LIKE FEMALES/NON-STRAIGHT DUDES HAVE FOR MILLENNIA??

It’s just very inspiring. :D

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to plotting out my next book. <3

[I know, I know, it’s a repeat conversation, but it’s crucial enough to my survival as an author that I must repeat the conversation!]

FRIENDS, LOVED ONES, FOLKS SCROLLING BY, let me sing the song of my people, my people being authors and artists and fellow-creative types.

[hits a C, but a bouncy C]

No, I’m not actually going to sing because Chairman Meow up there keeps borking it up. 

But I am going to talk about how important reviews are for content creators such as myself. And let me blow your mind with this right off the bat: the type of content in the review is irrelevant. Like, it doesn’t matter if it’s fourteen paragraphs long (omg, we love those, though) or if it’s a short “Cool. Liked it.” or the even shorter “not for me”.

What does matter is that it exists. And more importantly, what matters most is where this review gets placed, in particular.

Por Ejemplo:

One. You leave a review on Goodreads. That’s awesome! Danke! But the people you’re connecting with are folks looking to (statistically speaking) borrow the book or... just add it to their TBR pile. And this is fine! A lot of these folks reading the review from Goodreads will stumble on a copy at a library or borrow from a friend, and faces in books of writers is always A+++. But the reach for new readers who buy the book is... so-so. It’s good! But not great.

Two. You leave a review on Amazon. First, I know. I know we all have issues with Amazon, especially from the content-creator perspective. But the truth is that reviews on Amazon generate sales.

MORE IMPORTANTLY, there is a magic number of reviews on Amazon that push those sales into hyperdrive. Let me explain... Let’s say an author gets 50 reviews, and again, it can be paragraphs of gushing or a short “meh, I didn’t HATE it” or even “I hated it”. It’s the number that matters. Why? Because Amazon will then start promoting that book-at no cost to the content creator-when it hits that number!

Promotions like:

When you turn on your Kindle and a book cover appears as the home screen

When you log onto a website and Amazon Ads make suggestions for books to purchase

When you log onto Facebook and Amazon plonks a book suggestion in your feed or the side bar

When you surf Amazon itself and it suggests books for you to read both below and in the sidebar

And here’s how magical our monkey-brains are: the more we see a cover and a significant # of reviews, we think to ourselves, “THIS BOOK MUST BE GOOD AND/OR INTERESTING. ADD TO MY CART, JEEVES, I WILL ONE-CLICK THIS, BY GOLLY.”

Because, my precious, magnificent antelopes, you can buy RIGHT THERE. Goodreads, while without question is useful for researching what book is For You, is unfortunately a few clicks away from a purchase, which, we know we’re already exhausted from thinking about clicking THREE MORE TIMES to get somewhere when we only have to click ONE TIME on another site. 

This is not to say that a review on GR is useless, not at all! It just doesn’t generate sales like an Amazon review will. (And hey, no reason you can’t cut-and-paste a review onto BOTH sites, ahem.) Goodreads leads to LIBRARY sales, and that’s pretty stellar! I’m a huge fan of libraries getting books! It’s a raison d'être, you might say. 

But reviews on Amazon auto-populate OTHER book sellers pages, which also have that one-click to purchase thing working, so it’s just a win-freaking-win.

My plea: asking for 50 reviews as a small press author seems impossible, so how about helping me get my latest book to 25? If you’ve read AND IT CAME TO PASS and haven’t left a review, would you consider it? (And hey, BITTER SPRINGS got to 26! How about helping me get it to 30? THE BONES OF YOU petered out at 19, maybe 25 is a worthy goal there, too? I’d like to toot my own horn and remind the world that they got high-praise from critics. How about from you, Dear Reader Pal?

I just got back from the ALA Con in Chicago, drove to a Buddhist temple (where I’m working to beautify things for a visit from the Dalai freaking Lama) and am now on my way to Nashville for a Game of Thrones convention where I’m a panelist (check: heydontjudgeme.com for why I was asked) and it’s a whirlwind of activity!

If you’re in Nashville this weekend, check out Con of Thrones and come see me! I would LOVE to meet you and get super fannish about things.

BTW, Amazon just put my latest novel And It Came To Pass on DEEP discount (31%) but I still make $$$ so if you’re interested, there you go! (Or ask you library to get a copy! THEY WILL. YOU PAY NOTHING. IT’S AWESOME)

And if I may? If you’ve read the book, would you consider leaving a review on Amazon? GR is great, but AMAZON generates sales. When I get to 50 reviews, I get FREE PROMOTION from Amazon, which, as you can imagine, is massively helpful. Would you help me get to my goal of just 25 reviews by July 10th? That would be amazing. REBLOG, write a review (if you read it, and it can be one sentence!) and I will love you forever.

Otherwise, I will only love you for 15 years. I’M JUST SAYING.

A Stoney in the wild... and by wild I mean Chicago and the ALA (American Library Association) Convention, June 23 - 26th. I’ll be signing and chatting with folks Saturday and Sunday morning at our booth, #2029G in the Diversity Pavilion.

I’ll be there with @erinfinnegan, new @interludepress author Nancy Stewart, and Editor-in-Chief Annie Harper. I would love to meet you and talk books! 

The proclamation that began this highly revered holiday was held in Galveston, and the city continues to host huge celebrations for the descendants of the slaves there that day, food (barbecue in particular) being an absolute central focus. A resurgence in this holiday's importance has spread outside the state, and Juneteenth events can be found as far north as Milwaukee.

One of the prominent ways to celebrate this day in history is through rodeo.

Black Rodeos are making a comeback, and as well they should seeing as the average cowboy in the Old West was statistically not-white and (not straight).

Black cowboys were far more common than white cowboys. Black horsemen were crucial to the building of United States in the 19th Century and these rodeos honor that oft-forgotten past.

If you’re near a Juneteenth celebration today, I highly recommend joining in and honoring this important (and neglected by white America) piece in our country’s history.

The podcast is back! This week we’re talking about Current Events (the 12-year-old who came out to her congregation only to have them shut the mic on her and usher her away from the podium) and the significance of the particular meeting she was speaking at.

The link above takes you to my website (and a Complete Episode Guide can be found right here including downloadable links and transcripts). You can also listen on iTunes, Google Play and Stitcher.