First Book Signing!

Great news for everyone who may have been wondering when my first book signing will be!  I talked to the Safe Homes LGBT group in Worcester, MA and they scheduled for me to come in on the 16th on October!  If anyone would like to come by, its ages 14-23 and is free to all, unless you plan on buying a copy.

All copies of the book are $8 and I will personally sign them for you.

I look forward to meeting anyone who comes.  If you have any questions, you can comment below, of post on my wall on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/alecbellefanpage.

Thunderclap Page

With the lack of readers lately, I have decided to start a Thunderclap.  A lot of you may have no idea what it is, so let me briefly explain.

Thunderclap is a site used for people promoting something--whether it be something of value or an event or *cough cough* a book--and it gets people from all around the world to see it.  The only problem is that I need 100 supporters on MY end before it actually goes up on the site for everyone to see.

This is where I need your help.  It's such a simple task, really, and I need as many of you to do it as possible.  Below, there is a link to the Thunderclap page, and you click that.  Once you arrive to the Thunderclap page, click on the "Support" button and share it on either your Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr.

It's free.  It's simple.  And I can't do it alone.

So everyone, please help me out.  The ones who have read and purchased my book have been a great help at kickstarting my career and I need your help to keep making this dream come true.

With two clicks, you can make this dream come true.

https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/16534-read-before-i-break

Planning a Book Tour

So my book has been out for almost two weeks and it's about time for me to start planning a book tour around my area.  This is where I need the most help I can get.

My book tour will most likely be in the Webster/Worcester area of Massachusetts and I am looking for places who are willing to have me come in.  I am looking for places like bookstores, libraries, and schools to either let me come and do a signing or some sort of public speaking.

Or both.

Any LGBT festivals, meetings or groups work as well.  If you are looking for an author to come and speak of the issues among the LGBT community, you can email me at bellealec@gmail.com.

I hope to hear from some of you soon.

Tennessee To Pass Law Allowing LGBT Bullying

Tennessee is now about to pass a bill that allows religious freedom in schools. This sounds like a good thing on the outside, but what will this do to other students?

For the longest time, people have wanted to be able to discuss their religious beliefs in schools, but many people haven't looked at the downside. Tennessee is about to pass a law that could do a lot of damage to students, especially those in the LGBT community.

In this bill, known as the "Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act", will allow students to be able to discuss their religious views in school. Students will be able to write answers like "God" as answers to chemistry test questions, do reports and papers on certain religious topics, and will even allow the freedom of religious speech. It sounds all great and dandy until you get to the one problem that is beginning to worry lots of people, including me. With this bill, students will not be allowed to preach hate in their schools as long as it abides by their religions. So what does this mean for LGBT students?

Let's look at an example. You're sitting in class and an evangelical Christian has an announcement from her church that she would like to tell the school--that homosexuality is a sin. They can tell you that you need to abandon your lifestyle or you're going to hell. They can tell you this all day long and the schools won't be able to do anything about it because it is a common Christian belief.

This, for me, is the problem.

Every day we have hundreds of people kill themselves. Approximately every 13 minutes someone commits suicide, and for me, with this type of speech now being allowed in schools, the suicide rate will only rise from here. We've come to a point in our country where we need to take a loom what we're actually telling people, because while you may think telling someone their going to hell for loving someone of the same-sex is a good thing, it really isn't. It's cruel. It's a misunderstood part of the Bible. It's something that we as people really need to examine a little bit more closely.

So what happens when gay students are going to be depressed, hurting themselves, or scared to go to school because of this freedom of religion in schools? For the longest time we've seen things on the news about girls who can't bring their Bibles to school, or how you can't put up flyers about God, etc. and we all wonder why. But now that this will no longer be an issue in some states, including Texas and Oklahoma, we need to look at the real reasons behind the ban of religion in school.

If we allow religion in schools, it will only cause more problems. It's not solving anything by allowing someone to tell everyone in their school that gay people are going to hell.

We need to take a stand against this, because as a Christian myself, I don't even agree with this bill. If it passes, there may be a lot more problems than we've had before.

Happy 17th Birthday to Who? Me!

Today is the day that marks my 17th year of living, and it also marks the 4th day since my book's release.  The funny thing is, I never really expected that I'd get this far after only 17 years, but turns out I did, and I am really looking forward to looking back on my life.

Sort of.

Some of you probably know me personally, but the ones reading this blog probably either don't know me or don't know me that well, and that's okay because today I feel like I want to tell the world a little bit about myself.  Not only do I feel like I can be myself, but with the release of my very first book, a lot of people are probably curious as to where most of the ideas came from.  And one of the questions I know people are probably dying to hear is whether or not Avery or Cyril's character is based off of myself in any way.

The answer to that question is...

.

.

.

.

.

.

Avery Branson was based almost entirely off of my life.

The thing is, I used to be a self-harmer and have tried to kill myself three times.  So writing from and outward perspective was a bit difficult for me, but I felt like Cyril saw exactly what I wanted him to see.

And I can proudly that I am 17 years old and I do not self-harm anymore and my depression is gone.  I've gone through a lot in the last few years, but today is the beginning of a new year for me, and I am going to use it wisely.

Happy birthday to me.

Update on the Sales

A lot of you may have already purchased a copy of BEFORE I BREAK, and right now the sales are doing just as well as I expected.  I do have to say that I am extremely happy about this week's sales and here is why.

My book is available on ebook for Kindle, which is great and dandy for some, even though I personally don't like them.  I prefer physical copies of books but that's just me.  But the one thing I do have to credit ebooks for is how almost immediately people have been getting and reading my book and I love that feeling.  And through Kindle, I am included in a program that allows my ebook to be free for a week.

Yes.  You heard right.

For one week, the ebook BEFORE I BREAK will be free, glory to Kindle Select, and it has caused my sales to skyrocket and the position on the Amazon Bestseller List to go from #300,000 to in the #5,000's.  Every hour new people are getting the ebook and trying it out.

Some of you may be wondering, Why does he want to sell his ebook for free?  That gets him no money.  Well, here is the honest to God truth:

When the book first came out, the only people buying my book were friends and family, which gave me about $20 by the time the royalties were calculated.   This left me feeling very weak, but I had to remind myself that I am self-published author and this is my fist book.  Then when I saw that I could make my book free for a week, I figured it might help get some hesitant readers who aren't sure about a new author a chance to try me out.

So sure enough, by the time I woke up, the rank of my book had changed and over 20 people had bought it by the afternoon.  And I use the term bought lightly because, well, you know why.  And now it's the end of the night and nearly 30 people have bought my book.  This means I have 30 new readers who will probably tell other readers, and then those readers will tell other readers who tell other readers.  

Point made.

But like I said, after the week is over, it'll go back to it's regular $3.99 and new readers will have to buy it, but if people have heard it's good, there's a great possibility they'll be okay with paying a few books.

Below is the link if you want to check it out.  I really hope to start hearing from readers soon!

http://www.amazon.com/Before-Break-Alec-John-Belle-ebook/dp/B00NDAB2TC/ref=sr_1_2_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1410308841&sr=8-2&keywords=before+i+break

SURPRISE

A big a surprise today, and one that was actually unplanned whatsoever.  When I was working on Createspace and uploaded my book to Kindle Direct Publishing,  it actually released my book early!

So now you can buy the paperback and the ebook!  The paperback can be bought from the Createspace store and the ebook can be bought on Amazon.


https://www.createspace.com/4874568


http://www.amazon.com/Before-I-Break-Alec-Belle-ebook/dp/B00NDAB2TC/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410044400&sr=1-2&keywords=before+i+break

Only 15 Days!

Can you believe there are only fifteen days until the release of first novel, BEFORE I BREAK?  I am just as excited as you guys are, and maybe even a little bit more, to be honest.

This process has been quite long and boring for the most part, but now with just about two weeks away, all the boring editing, editing, editing is done and I can begin major advertising!  There are only a few things left on my To-Do List!

1.  Get my book copyrighted.

On the 16th of this month, just days before the release of my book, I need to pay for the copyright application I filled out and then can move forward with publishing it.

2.  Order my proofs (ARCs)

I will finally be able to order a physical copy of my book and be able to give a few out to book bloggers for free, so if you're interested, please let me know!  I'll only have about 4.

3.  Plan mini book tour.

The two main states I plan on visiting are MA and SC for right now, but probably not anywhere else for a while.


Are you ready for BEFORE I BREAK?