A Word Please

Why is it that the phone company can get away with charging for a service that I do not use?

I have Verizon. And I’m among the dying breed of people who still have a landline. I don’t use my landline phone to call long distance. I don’t have a long distance plan on that phone. Consequently, each month I am billed $5, plus an additional 54 cents in “taxes and surcharges” for not dialing long distance. If I use it, and spend more than the $5, the charge is not applied. Now how is that fair?

Wouldn’t we all love to charge for services we do not use? For instance, our car insurance. Each month we don’t use it, we could charge the company a fee. And our health insurance, our life insurance. Why not extend that to our doctors, dentists, etc.?

Granted, $5.54 isn’t a whole lot of money each month. But it’s a charge for a service I did notuse, yet I must pay it. And can you imagine how much money Verizon rakes in on this charge alone? How many customers do they have that do not use long distance on their home phone? A hundred thousand? More? Multiply that by $5.54 each month. That’s a whole lot of earnings for services not rendered.

I have placed an excerpt from my upcoming novel Beyond Salvation on my website! The book should be available by the first of October.

This is the grand unveiling of my new novel, Beyond Salvation! I have approved the proof, so this book should be available in just a couple of weeks!

Today I received my proof copy of Beyond Salvation. One step closer to publication! I’m going to pass it around and get some opinions before I approve it (although I happen to love to cover!). Once it’s a sure thing, I’ll post the cover here for its grand unveiling.

I have just added a new 48-Hour Book Giveaway to my contest page! I will be giving away a signed copy of my novel No Justice. To enter, click here and fill out the form at the bottom of the page. (The form at the top is for the monthly contest. You are welcome to enter that one as well!)

Here is the blurb from the back of my upcoming novel, Beyond Salvation:

A teenage runaway disappears from the streets. The only people that care, or even notice, are her two best friends who are also runaways. For reasons of their own, they can’t go to the police for help.

They seek out Michael Sykora, a software designer by day and hit man by night. Known on the streets as The Ghost, Michael has a reputation for taking on the twisted criminals. Rapists. Child molesters. He has never been hired to find the lost. Until now.

Michael teams up with ex-prostitute Nicki and full-time hit man Sean. Together they bend the rules of the justice system in order to find a young girl few people care about. In the process, they uncover a world where salvation comes with a price tag and God’s words are used to incite fear in a congregation of believers.

Recently, I had the absolutely amazing luck of “meeting” (in the virtual sense) Lisa Fisk. She is one of those rare, truly giving people we all wish we had in our lives. Lisa lent me her editing talent for my upcoming book, Beyond Salvation. I freely admit, editing is not my forte. Lisa, I am forever in your debt!

For September’s contest, I will be giving away a signed copy of my novel Hit List. The contest is open to anyone 16 and older in the U.S. and Canada. Click here to enter!

Congratulations to Susan from Ohio, the winner of my August Book Giveaway Contest!