Amanda Hocking

EDIT: Torn is now available at Barnes & Noble now, also for $2.99.

Torn is now available at Amazon for the Kindle for $2.99 and in paperback at Createspace for $8.99. Barnes & Noble hasn’t gone through yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as it is.

To get Torn at Amazon, click: here. To get Torn at Barnes & Noble, click: here. To get Torn in paperback, click: here.

A reminder: Switched is still 30% off through Createspace if you enter the code PUFRUS43. To buy Switched in paperback, click: here.  

Also, I think I’m going to keep Switched on sale for $.99 for a few more days, but it will be going back to it’s regular price by the end of the week. 

And, in case you didn’t know, new books are really lonely without any reviews. So if you enjoyed Torn (or even if you didn’t) please leave a review, so other people know that Torn isn’t alone.

Also, because I’ve gotten trailer happy, I made a trailer for Torn. (I’m currently working on one for Ascend as well.) 

I don’t like the Torn trailer as much as the Switched one, but I think, so far, I like the Ascend one the most of the three of them. Maybe. But let me know what you think of the Torn trailer.

If you missed the other blog: I have a blog with the trailers for Switched and Honalee posted: here. Also, the trailers are posted are under the tabs at the top – Switched with the Trylle Trilogy, and Honalee with the Witches of Honalee.

The giveaways for the books are now over, too, and I’ll be contacting the winners later today, and posting them on the blog this week. Thanks to everybody who participated!

So please check out Torn, let me know what you think, and tell all your friends. 😉

So, today, I’ve made a couple book trailers. I’m not sure how good they are, since I’ve never made a book trailer before, but I enjoy them. And that’s part of what counts.

Here’s the first trailer for Switched:

Here’s the second trailer, for Honalee:

So…. what do you think?

The giveaway to win paperbacks of Switched, Torn, and My Blood Approves ends TOMORROW, so enter while you can: enter here.

Switched will be on sale for $.99 for a few more days, at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. For a limited time, get 30% of Switched when you enter the code PUFRUS43at Createspace.

Naming characters is important and hard. With the Trylle Trilogy, I took special care in naming the characters in certain ways.

A lot of the names and words in the trilogy are Scandinavian influenced. Because of the basis of the story is based on Scandinavian folklore, I thought that made sense. I can’t find the exact article I read, but it was about “vitterfolk” and talked of trolls as being beautiful and ill-tempered and cunning. The article then went on to talk about changelings, and that’s the start of the trilogy. 

“Wendy” is named after Peter Pan, the way she is in the book. (As is Peter in My Blood Approves. Also, Wendy’s name had she been a boy would have been “Michael” – who is Wendy’s brother in Peter Pan.)

Finn’s name almost got changed because I finished writing Switched a week before Glee came on the air, and I thought I should change it because I didn’t want people to associate him with Glee’s Finn. But I really liked the name, so I kept it.

Some names are more literal. Tove Kroner, for example. The name “Tove” comes from Tove Jansson, a Finnish author who wrote a series of books about trolls. Tove Janssoon is a woman, but when I looked up the name, they said it was unisex, and to me, it sounded more like a boy’s name. His last name “Kroner” literally translates to the word “crown.” So that might mean something….

I purposely named characters with similar names if I wanted you to associate them with each other. “Matt” and “Maggie” are the only names that start with an “M,” except for “Michael Conrad Everly.” It’s weird because the word “mansklig” also starts with an “M.” 

“Aurora” and “Elora” are very similar, and so are their dispositions. “Oren,” I think, is a masculine counterpoint to that sound. They’re all “aura” sounding names. 

If I wanted characters to stand out from the rest, I made of point of having names that didn’t sound like anyone else’s. So if a name is different, there’s probably a reason for it.

Introduced in Torn are several new characteres. “Duncan” is a name I’ve wanted to use for a really long time, but never have. It’s geeky yet endearing, and that is what I was going for with Duncan.

And there’s “Loki.” If you know anything about Loki in Norse mythology, that might give you a hint to what he brings to the table.

Names definitely mean something in the Trylle Trilogy. So that’s something to keep your eye on, if you’re looking for hints.

Reminders at the top: The giveaway to win paperbacks of Switched, Torn, and My Blood Approves ends in a few days, so enter while you can: enter here.

Also, Switched will be on sale for $.99 for a few more days, at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

On the subject of Barnes & Noble, I have a favor to ask you. I have been slow at B&N, and I suspect it’s partially because of lack of reviews. So I’m asking if any of you want to, and have a spare a minute or two, would you please leave reviews for any of my books at Barnes & Noble? If you left a review at Amazon or Goodreads, just copy and pasting would be great.

I feel sorta slimy for asking (I don’t know why exactly) but I’m only asking for honest reviews. And only if it’s not too much trouble.

I guess probably the reason I feel so bad because you readers have already been so good to me that I feel bad for asking for anything more. But I had to ask. And you can say no.

Alright – enough of that. I’m no longer on my deathbed, and I’ve been working on stuff again. This is probably more exciting for me than you, but it is exciting.

What else is exciting is that I just bought a book about unicorns for my Kindle. I’m very excited to read it. First I have to finish up Stephen King’s newest book, then I’m reading HP Mallory’s To Kill a Warlock, then it’s all unicorns, baby. I also need to finish reading Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I don’t know what my problem with that is. I love that book.

In fact, if I’m being honest, Hitchiker’s Guide is probably the book I quote most often. During the junior and senior years of high school, my answer to most questions were “Life, the universe, and everything” and “42.” Really. 42 is always the right answer to any question.

It is only a few days until Torn‘s release, and tomorrow I’m going to post some inside scoops and little known facts about the Trylle Trilogy.