The Story Behind Ten Gold Coins by Joni Parker

 

 

 

The Story Behind Ten Gold Coins: Book Two of The Golden harvest Series

By Joni Parker

 

The inspiration for my book, Ten Gold Coins, came from two sources—the story of Judas and his betrayal of Jesus for 30 silver coins, and second, The Hunger Games. A long time ago when I was in Sunday School, I was shocked when I heard the story of Judas and his act of betrayal. But over time, I’ve learned it happens all the time. But how would my main character, Alex, react when it happens to her? 

My second source of inspiration came from The Hunger Games in which the twelve districts must pay an annual tribute to Panem. In The Golden Harvest, the tribute is in the form of gold instead of people, and it only comes around every four thousand years. The next tribute will be for a hundred million knots of gold due in the year 12,000, but it comes early. My main character, Alex, manages the program, even though she has no control over it.

Once I finished writing the book, I self-published it on Amazon (kdp.com), since I don’t have an agent. Although this limits me to selling on Amazon, I’m okay with that. It’s easy to do, and Amazon has a huge market share. Besides, it’s free.

The site (kdp.com) was simple to use. The first step was to open an account. After that, I followed the step-by-step directions to set up the book. Note: the title and series title can’t be changed once it’s there, so if that happens, start over. To format the book, I used Kindle Create, available on kdp.com, instead of paying someone to do it for me. It included pages for front and back matter, as well as a Table of Contents based on chapter headings. I could even add images and edit it after it’s uploaded. I don’t pay for a cover designer either, and used Cover Creator (also on kdp.com) to design it. It can be done with or without an image.

After a few more steps for pricing and distribution, the ebook was done and published. The printed version took a little longer, so I could get a proof copy. After I approve it, I can purchase author copies at cost. What a deal!   

 

 

 

 

Title: Ten Gold Coins: Book Two of the Golden Harvest Series

Author: Joni Parker

Pages: 354

Genre: Fantasy/Scifi

Lady Alexin (Alex), the Keeper of the Keys for the Elfin Council of Elders, returns home to Eledon to help her grandmother clean out the warehouse, but she’s kidnapped and forced to use the magical Keys of Eledon in a series of life-or-death missions with consequences that span across the realms. Her captor, Lord Fissure of the Rock Elves, demands her magical help, but once he’s done with her, he turns her over to the Marsh Elf Sawgrass, a criminal, who sends her into the treacherous depths of Hades’ kingdom in the Underworld for his own benefit. To save herself, Alex calls upon the powers of Poseidon, but he enlists her help with the Golden Harvest for Olympus before the Mentors arrive. His brothers, Zeus and Hades, are the only ones who know where the gold is stored, so Alex follows their trail into the mortal world, only to find they aren’t ready to return. What must she do to get them back to Olympus so she can return home to Eledon?

You can pick up your copy at Amazon at https://amazon.com/dp/B0CW1GJDPH .

Joni Parker was born in Chicago, Illinois, but moved the Japan when she was 8, so her father could become a professional golfer. Once he achieved his dream, Joni and her family returned to the U.S. and moved to Phoenix, Arizona. After high school, Joni served her country for 22 years in the Navy and another 7 years in federal civil service. She retired and lives in Tucson, Arizona, devoting her time to writing, reading, and watching the sunrise.

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The Story Behind The Edison Enigma by Thomas White

 

 

 

The Story Behind The Edison Enigma

By Thomas White

I was watching TV one day and there was a commercial for an electric car. I remembered doing a corporate event for Saturn where we did a big reveal of an electric car several years earlier. I wondered what the heck happened to that car? I started poking around and found several articles that were entitled, The Death of the Electric Car. That got me curious about the history and I researched it rather thoroughly. I found out that at the turn of the 20th century the electric car was the most popular car on the road, quiet, clean and efficient. The one problem was the power source and through the first decade of the 20th century they were hard to come by. The first electric car that drove 100mph was in 1899, if you can believe that. There were often races that would see the electric car travel hundreds of miles on a single charge. In 1911 William J Bailey invented the solar powered battery and there was the power source. So what happened to the electric car?

   My research brought up some very interesting coincidences. Between 1895 and 1910 several historic events happened; the advent of the electric car and the internal combustion engine, Thomas Edison invents the electric light and John D. Rockefeller is the richest man in the world because he owns Standard Oil. Standard Oil's primary product was kerosene. But, with the invention of the electric light, the entire kerosene market was about to collapse. In 1900 there were about 5% of homes that had electricity. In 1910 almost 80% of homes had electricity. Along this time another milestone occurred, the discovery of the Texas oil fields. 

   My imagination began to run wild. I am not a big conspiracy guy but all of these factors were pointing in one direction, someone decided to support the internal combustion engine over the electric car. The world’s largest corporation is about to lose its main product. The byproduct of kerosene is gasoline, which they used to throw away. And the invention of the internal combustion engine which is powered by gasoline. Odd things were happening all around the country. On Staten Island they held an Electric car race promising to hit 100MPH. The car hit a trolley track and flew into the crowd killing two people. They outlawed electric car racing. As thought it would not have happened had it been a gas-powered vehicle.  I never found any congressional accounts of this becoming a topic on the senate floor but it seemed a short stretch that it could have. 

   At that point I began to wonder how that could have been done? How could someone direct people’s attention to an inferior product. I realized that it is done all the time and I will use the VHS vs Beta tape as my example. Then, I started to formulate a story that included the possibility that electric and solar power were the original power sources for the planet and that somehow that had gone array. One thing led to another and a story was formed. What if solar and electrical power had been the original destiny for the world but someone went back in time and changed it? I had my plot line, now I just needed to put a story together. The result, The Edison Enigma.

 

 

Edison, a Chicago physicist, manages to successfully transport an object through time. Almost immediately following this success Dr. Edison is shut out of the facility and told by benefactor Raphael Barrington, to take a vacation. He is contacted by Don Rivendell, a grizzled old man with a secret. Rivendell explains to Tom that he is not the first person to discover time travel. Someone else went back and changed history by saving a young girl from dying in an internal combustion engine explosion.

Dr. Edison is tasked with going back and fixing history. He travels back to 1904 to find the younger version of Rivendell and stop him from saving the girl. 

You can purchase your copy of The Edison Enigma at Amazon at https://t.ly/_NOoo.

 

 

Thomas White began his career as an actor. Several years later he found himself as an Artistic Director for a theatre in Los Angeles and the winner of several Drama-Logue and Critics awards for directing. As Tom’s career grew, he directed and co-produced the world tour of “The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coming Out Of Their Shells”. The show toured for over two years, was translated into seven different languages and seen by close to a million children. Tom served as President and Creative Director for Maiden Lane Entertainment for 24 years and worked on many large-scale corporate event productions that included Harley Davidson, Microsoft, Medtronic Diabetes, and dozens of others. The Edison Enigma is Tom’s third novel following up Justice Rules which was nominated as a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association 2010 Literary contest, and The Siren’s Scream.

Author Links  

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The Story Behind Northern Echoes by Melody Ash

 

The Story Behind Northern Echoes

Ask any author and they will tell you inspiration for books come from just about everywhere: dreams, movies, a song, the kid next door. And I can tell you all these are true. But for Web of Echoes (because it was really the series I had the inspiration for and not the book) was a little less straightforward. So we’ve got to take a little tour of what I enjoy, and all the pieces will come together. 

While I was writing this, I was trying to figure out the best place to start, and since I’m watching tv (Stranger Things) with my oldest kiddo, I figured we’d start there. I LOVE movies off all kinds: romance, some romcoms, thrillers, suspense, adventures. If the story is good, I’m all over it. But I do a thing for movies that can take me away for a little bit, that bend the rules of our world, that leave you thinking, “What if?” When I was growing up, it was Star Wars, Gremlins, The Neverending Story (all you 80s kids will get it). As I got older, not a lot changed. With TV favorites like Outlander and Vampire Diaries, fantasy still grabs my attention. 

And that leads us to stop number two. Now you’ve got to understand, I don’t get time to enjoy many hobbies – not with two kiddos, homeschooling and you know, all the stuff that makes up adulting and being a mother. I wouldn’t really have it any other way. But every once in a blue moon, I take a couple hours (usually during the winter) and do a little gaming. Like some of my favorite movies, my favorite games allow me explore and have an adventure, figure out puzzles. Whether its fighting monsters in games like Resident Evil or Silent Hill, or exploring in games like Tomb Raider (which is my favorite, btw), I could lost in these games for hours. 

Now stop three and the final one on our little tour, and the one that makes my hubby just a little bit crazy. By now, this probably won’t come as a surprise to you, but you put me in the middle of the forest on a strange path I’ve never been on before, and I can guarantee you one thing: I’m going to want to know what’s at the end of it. Add in some mysterious brick walls or an overgrown brick path, and you’ll have me circling it for hours, imagination in overdrive, looking for clues on what it might have been. Coming up with stories to it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve freaked out my husband when we first started dating, finding the most remote trails and heading down them for hours only to find another and following that. 

One thing people will tell new writers is to write what they know about, and as you can see, the inspiration for Web of Echoes came from many different parts of what makes me who I am. In that way, there is probably more of me in the series than in any other project I’ve undertaken, and that’s a scary thing for an author. But in the end, I hope its those pieces that make you fall in love with Caitlin, John, and all the characters who make up the Web of Echoes story.

Caitlin Benoit assumed the next destination would be her time, her world. Instead, the stone thrusts her further into the past and onto a different continent.

Now in 1831 England, she’s discovered by William, the Duke of Lancaster. By sheer luck, he’s willing to allow her into his manor. While she fights to gain a footing in this new time, Caitlin discovers the stone also ripped John from Charleston.

Everything she thought she knew about how the stone worked is false, and neither John nor her understand how to escape the grip of the past. As they work to uncover the mystery of the stone, an acquaintance of the Duke plots an intricate scheme certain to destroy them all. She and John must solve the puzzle in an unknown amount of time or risk getting stuck—or buried—in 1831.

Book Information

Release Date: March 3, 2020

Publisher:  Independent

Soft Cover: ISBN:979-8619635171; 301 pages; $9.29; eBook $4.99

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3IQZteU

I grew up loving the endless possibilities Fantasy and Sci-Fi held between their pages or played on the big screen. Star Wars, Stephen King, The Neverending Story, vampires, Disney, I loved it all (and still do!) At age ten, I picked up a pencil and began coming up with stories of my own that toyed with other worlds and the mysteries of this one. 

My first attempt at writing came at ten years old while, during a sleepover, I tried writing a ghost story. In sixth grade, I entered my school’s writing contest, and in college, my writing professor allowed me to work on a novel instead of following the curriculum.

 But at the time, writing was only a hobby I enjoyed. I picked it up, put it down, sometimes for months or years at a time, but I didn’t think of it as a career. Instead, I majored in communications with the goal of a career in journalism. After a couple of years, I changed course and entered the travel industry. Travel had always been another love, especially to Walt Disney World, and the choice seemed the perfect fit. I opened my own travel agency and grew it from the ground up until the Great Recession of 2008 rolled in, along with the blessing of my first child.

With her birth, I left behind the office career and finally admitted what I already knew – I wanted to spend my life creating on paper what played in my head. A series that had already been haunting my dreams for months that I knew would be my first attempt to break into the publishing world. 

After releasing romantic suspense under the pen name, RM Alexander, Caitlin Benoit started whispering in my ear and her story started forming. My passion for adventure and travel bled onto the pages as Caitlin was launched into the adventure of a lifetime. But because the story wasn’t focused on romance, I knew I needed a new pen name that would be focused more on UF / Sci-Fi, and Melody Ash was born. 

As a complex PTSD and trauma survivor, I often write characters who often face the worse circumstances and must search for their inner strength. It is my hope readers not only connect with the characters and stories but also are encouraged, as they read the last word, that their real-world problems can be overcome.

Outside my writing world, I spend my time with my husband, two children, and Pomsky (who you’ll likely find posted on my social media) in Indiana. I still love to travel and am addicted to orange juice, Ghirardelli chocolate, and adventure. 

You can visit Melody’s website at www.melodyash.com and connect with her on Facebook and Tik Tok.

The Story Behind Cyber Fighter by William Joseph Hill

 

The Story Behind Cyber Fighter

CYBER FIGHTER is the story of a clumsy temp Brian Baldwin who takes a job at defense contractor Kirkman Enterprises, where he volunteers to test their latest software program on himself by getting black belt fighting skills downloaded directly to his brain via a Virtual Reality immersive experience, turning him into a human weapon.  

When Brian discovers that the eccentric main programmer Humbert Cloogey has sold him off to the Army for induction, he makes his escape, assisted by his only ally Dr. Kate Rand, a neuroscientist who works for the company, but who has some secrets herself.

Simultaneously as Brian is undergoing the experiment, a Triad crime boss and part-time cloning engineer Lau Xiaoming, operating out of North Korea, hacks into the U.S. server hosting the software, planting a Trojan program into Brian’s brain that holds the secret to “Project Starfish”, his plan for world domination.  Brian finds himself pursued by not only the U.S. Army, and FBI, but also by Xiaoming and his minions, all looking to grab him for their own exploits.

The core of my story is Brian’s journey, going from a middle-aged man who gave up on his dreams, to suddenly finding himself empowered with skills he never thought he’d ever achieve.  Almost overnight he acquires an almost superhero status.  But he discovers that he apparently hasn’t achieved any more control over his life than before.  In fact, his life seems pretty much out of control now.

My message to the readers is to not just keep dreaming, but also be prepared for when you do achieve those dreams.  Because there will be forces out there looking to use you for their own means.  This story is also a satire on the U.S.’s military industrial complex and how it’s run almost like a corporate entity - completely profit driven.  I’m also sending up popular action movie tropes in a fun, comic-book way.  There’s a lot of humor in the book, and you can tell I was heavily influenced by Monty Python and other comedic sci-fi like Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Originally CYBER FIGHTER was a feature film screenplay that I wrote as a martial arts action movie that I want to star in, back when I was temping at an aerospace company (that became the inspiration for the fictitious Kirkman Enterprises).  The story was originally inspired by cyberpunk adventures like The Matrix.  The twist was that instead of having the fighting skills in the virtual world, we used Virtual Reality to give Brian skills in the real world.

Through the years, the script developed. The story changed and evolved, while periodically being shelved when I was working on other acting or writing projects.  When self-publishing technology became easier and more user-friendly, I decided to adapt the screenplay into a novel and publish it before making the film.  My intention was to put the story out there and build an audience, much like J.K. Rowling did with her Harry Potter series. 

Along with developing this novel into a feature film, I’ve written and am working on a short film proof-of-concept that I intend to shoot later this year to help build an audience for the feature as well as to help promote the book too.

I self-published the novel on Amazon, using the Kindle Create software to format the book.  The great thing about the software is that you can not only format the Kindle e-book, but also your paperback and hardcover editions as well.  I also produced and performed the audiobook version for Audible and I created a comic book adaptation from the short film script which is on Amazon too. 

CYBER FIGHTER is the first book in an intended trilogy exploring a wider story arc for my main character Brian Baldwin.  Along with working on the film projects, I’m currently working on the mapping out the next book as well as writing a short story prequel that takes place in the early 1980s, highlighting the young Humbert Cloogey and how he first developed the technology for the Virtual Reality program.

 

William Joseph Hill’s book CYBER FIGHTER, with its big screen adaptation underway, is a sci-fi/martial arts/action-adventure story that will engage readers in this action-packed “page turner.”

Said the author Mr. Hill, “I’m hoping that my CYBER FIGHTER readers have fun with the story and have a few good laughs, along with being thrilled by the action sequences I have in the story. I’d also like them to think about the scientific possibilities that the story explores.  As we spend more and more of our lives online, the idea that you could learn skills via Virtual Reality is becoming less science fiction and closer to actuality.”

Cyber Fighter is the story of a clumsy temp Brian Baldwin who takes a job at defense contractor Kirkman Enterprises, where he volunteers to test their latest software program on himself by getting black belt fighting skills downloaded directly to his brain via a Virtual Reality immersive experience, turning him into a human weapon.  

When Brian discovers that the eccentric main programmer Humbert Cloogey has sold him off to the Army for induction, he makes his escape, assisted by his only ally Dr. Kate Rand, a neuroscientist who works for the company, but who has some secrets herself.

Simultaneously as Brian is undergoing the experiment, a Triad crime boss and part-time cloning engineer Lau Xiaoming, operating out of North Korea, hacks into the U.S. server hosting the software, planting a Trojan program into Brian’s brain that holds the secret to “Project Starfish”, his plan for world domination.

Brian finds himself pursued by not only the U.S. Army, and FBI, but also by Xiaoming and his minions, all looking to grab him for their own exploits.

The core of my story is Brian’s journey, going from a middle-aged man who gave up on his dreams, to suddenly finding himself empowered with skills he never thought he’d ever achieve.  Almost overnight he acquires a superhero status.  But he discovers that he apparently hasn’t achieved any more control over his life than before.  In fact, his life seems pretty much out of control now. 

Plans for a CYBER FIGHTER feature length movie from William Hill lie ahead. He said, “I am also developing CYBER FIGHTER into a feature film.  Part of that process includes doing a short film version for a proof-of-concept for my vision of the full feature.  I am hoping to produce and shoot the short film this summer and have it go to festivals.  I also did a comic book adaptation of that short film version that is also for sale on Amazon.  Learn more at this link:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08ZL6X6W6

“Cyber Fighter is a fun and engaging read…Multiple strands and characters -as well as many pop culture and martial arts references…”

“Cyber Fighter takes you on a wild ride that is funny and a wonderful escape from all that is currently going on in the world. “

“The Matrix on steroids!!!”

“For fans of Sci-Fi, a-la Monty Python”

“A great read for the Martial Artist”

“It’s Matrix meets Die Hard, and definitely keeps the action going”

Book Information:

Release Date: Updated February 2022; originally Published November 21, 2019.

Publisher: Independent

Number of pages: Hard Cover/206 pages/ASIN: B09QP6QPG8 ISBN-13: 979-8727262665, Paperback/284 pages/ASIN: 1082737933-ISBN-10: 9781082737930-ISBN-13:19781082737930Kindle e-book/286 pages. Kindle — ASIN: B081SJRMJ1

Amazon Link:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081SJRMJ1

Audio version Links:  Apple:  https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/cyber-fighter-unabridged/id1531248640?uo=4&mt=3; Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/Cyber-Fighter-Audiobook/B08DJBL4WX

Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/CyberFighterMovie  Twitter: https://twitter.com/cyberfightermov  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/williamjosephhill/

 

When interviewed, the author tells us his life story, “I’ve actually been writing since elementary school.  I always liked writing my own science-fiction stories, though my early work was derivative of TV shows I loved like SPACE: 1999 and the 1970s version of Buck Rogers.  When my family moved to Hawaii (my Dad was a Captain in the U.S. Navy), I started making my own movies first with a Super-8 camera and then our family’s VHS camcorder.  In high school I wrote, directed, and starred in my very first feature Law of the Ninja, with my siblings as co-stars and the neighborhood kids as background actors.

When I came to Hollywood, I not only continued with my acting career, but also used my writing skills to pen some screenplays, a few of which I was hired to write from an indie producer.  CYBER FIGHTER was originally intended as a vehicle for my acting career, but gradually developed into a bigger story which my debut novel tells.  It is my very first book that I’ve ever published.

My wife Pamela and I started our own production company Four Scorpio Productions, and we have our own YouTube channel where we began making short films and then developed our own web series sitcom That Darn Girlfriend which is in its third season.  It’s a quirky fun parody of classic 1960s/1970s sitcoms, done in that style as well.  We’ve built an audience of over 3,500 subscribers.  I also share my filmmaking/VFX knowledge with a tutorial series that I produce and host on the channel as well:  https://williamjosephhill.com/  and http://fourscorpio.com/  and  https://www.youtube.com/fourscorpio.