I’m very excited to announce that Curiosity, my second novel, is now available on lulu.com as a paperback POD or as an ebook. The link to learn more, and purchase if you wish, is my lulu.com author spotlight at:
As I’ve blogged about before, Curiosityis very different from my first novel, The Seed. The first novel was a passionate, heavy, introspective, character driven dark romance. Curiosity is lighter, though the humor is dark. It’s a satire of aspects of our modern media age.
Curiosity tells the story of a (somewhat) benign sociopath – Peter Graham – who believes the world has already ended and no-one noticed. He believes at the moment the world dissolved into the current state of chaos and meaninglessness, everyone had one essential characteristic remaining to them. His is curiosity. And his curiosity drives him to do something which inadvertently makes him one of…
Either alongside Legends of Windemere: Allure of the Gypsies or to cushion the delay, I’m hoping to release a horror novella on Halloween. I wrote up the blurb and was hoping to get some feedback. Also, I’d appreciate any volunteers to post about this book’s release on Halloween. I’m going for minimal marketing again because I have to save money for Allure of the Gypsies.
Here is the blurb:
Jeffrey Miller hates his life of failure and mediocrity. Darla Ravensford hates her life of fame and attention. Separately, they are two miserable people who depend on their loved ones to remind them why they should be happy. When trapped on an elevator together, Jeffrey and Darla begin to realize that misery doesn’t always love company. With the screams of death and chaos echoing from outside the elevator, they find themselves slowly slipping into a depression that they may never recover from. All the while, something is terrorizing the convention going on outside and turning the guests and celebrities into psychotic monsters.
Enjoy this experiment into the genre of gory horror and psychological torture.
I had an interesting conversation with an acquaintance about this week’s subject of friendship and family in fiction. It really wasn’t a conversation. I mentioned a few things and got a surprising response:
Sam & Dean Winchester = Incest
Sam & Frodo = Gay Lovers
Batman & Robin = Gay Lovers
Xena & Gabrielle = Lesbians
You get the idea from those. It seems a lot of people go for the mocking or serious belief that close friends in fiction are romantically involved. Even siblings get the accusation for some reason. I don’t know if it’s simply fun to mock or people are really uncomfortable seeing other people be close/emotional with each other while not having sex in the equation. I’m guessing this is a vocal minority too with a touch of homophobia in the mix. I think the homophobia is either genuine or the person likes using it as a shield for their teasing. Get angry about the people say Sam and Frodo were fucking then you ‘hate gay people’. Doesn’t matter if you’re sick of hearing it or annoyed that it’s the only LOTR conversation you seem to have. You have to sit there and take the abuse from those that see every fictional relationship as fucking.
It seems to be two types of this. One is when the friends are of the same gender and have emotional conversations with each other. If the friends are only joking around and on the adventure together then people over look it. That crossing into what reality calls best friends is where people go batty. I think it stems from characters being emotional and having physical contact. Maybe seeing the emotions of another person, even fictional, makes a person feel awkward. They’re seeing something that they shouldn’t be seeing, so they mock and tease the friendship. A character who cries in front of a friend and has physical contact for comfort must be ‘weak’. To these people, the relationship itself ‘must’ have some romance in it because ‘only’ lovers are that open with each other. Then again, I might be over-analyzing people that simply love to piss off fans of characters.
The other type is when the friendship is between male and female. I have heard a few people want Luke Callindor and Nyx to go further than friendship. True is that I can’t see them beyond that. I remember people going on about wanting Harry with Hermione and Aang with Toph. People will always have their favorite characters/couples even if the author isn’t behind the pairing. Nothing you can do about it without writing fan fiction to cure your ails. This does come off a lot like male and female characters need distance in their friendships. Going to the point of best friends that comfort each other, laugh with each other, and cry with each other causes some confusion. It’s almost like readers consider this type of friendship a precursor to romance or a ploy by the author. Some even get annoyed when the series ends and those two characters never went in the romantic direction.
The point here is that you can have characters become close friends, but you’ll always have that group of readers that see it as something more. It probably says more about them than you and your characters. Everyone has their own definition of friendship and some believe it is always a precursor to sex.
Feel free to voice an opinion or mention your favorite best friends of fiction.
My friend Kevin Brennan over at http://kevinbrennanbooks.wordpress.com/ has a new novel coming out on October 22, 2013! Here’s a description of Yesterday Road (back of the book blurb):
In this “coming-of-old-age” tale, Jack Peckham finds himself on a journey into his distant past, helped along the way by Joe Easterday, a young man with Down syndrome, and Ida Pevely, a middle-aged waitress with her own mountain of regrets. Jack has a hundred grand in cash that he can’t explain, since he can’t remember yesterday much less forty years ago. Setting out from Northern California for “points east,” he gets lost, carjacked, abandoned, and arrested, but he’s always homing in on the one object of his inner drive — home. With humor and plenty of unexpected turns, Kevin Brennan’s second novel is a lyrical and poignant story of memory and identity, of how it is the whole of experience…
BROKEN is now available for pre-order at an unbelievable discounted price of $4.99 (ebook ONLY). But this special price is only available if you pre-order the novel before November 5!
For Scarlet Killian, every day is a game of Russian roulette—she has a 1 in 5 chance of dying…
New York Times bestselling author CJ Lyons makes her YA debut with a fast-paced thriller sure to keep readers guessing to the very last page.
Fifteen-year-old Scarlet Killian has one chance for a normal life. Only problem? It just might kill her. Diagnosed with a rare and untreatable heart condition, Scarlet has never taken the school bus. Or giggled with friends during lunch. Or spied on a crush out of the corner of her eye. Scarlet has come to terms with the fact…
To celebrate the launch of The Living One and The Osiriad, and as the launch date of our new book, Heart of Albion draws very close, Stuart France and I, partners in literary mischief, are offering free Kindle download of The Initiate.
The promotion runs for three days only… from the 18th to 20th October 2013 only.
If you don’t have a Kindle you can download a free Kindle app for your computer, tablet or smartphone… and there are thousands of free books to choose from, not just ours! Just visit your regional Amazon and it takes minutes.
And if, when you’ve read it, you feel like leaving a review… 🙂
THE INITIATE:
Adventures in Sacred Chromatography
Sue Vincent & Stuart France
Foreword by Steve Tanham
Imagine wandering through an ancient landscape wrought in earth and stone, exploring the sacred sites of peoples long ago and far away in time…
“So this is where you went,” Nyx slurs, awkwardly sliding to the floor.
“Eporwil must be so proud of you,” Luke says, his face a mixture of worry and mild amusement.
“The goddess of ale and I have an arrangement. I drink and . . .” she starts before her mind blanks out.
“How much did you drink?” he asks. He brushes strands of her ebony hair from her sweat-covered face.
“About four sailors’ worth before I gave up my chair,” Nyx proudly announces. She curls her fingers in her hair and nuzzles the warm tresses. “Unlike you and Aedyn, I don’t need a spell to help me drink. I love my warm, sweet hair, but my teachers always told me to stop playing with it. It isn’t lady-like and . . . my tummy hurts.”
Luke helps Nyx to her feet and tries to keep her steady. Nyx smiles and belches in his face before her throat starts gurgling. Forest tracker reflexes and self-preservation help Luke shove her head over the railing. He holds her hair back as she continues to lean over the side. Luke hands her a scrap of cloth, which Nyx smiles at and gladly accepts. She neatly tucks it into her shirt collar before wiping her mouth on her sleeve. Luke is about to say something when Nyx takes the cloth out and attempts to wipe her sleeve clean.
“This is entertaining,” Luke laughs.
Nyx’s speech suddenly becomes a frantic slur. “Don’t let Fritz look down my shirt.”
“I will protect your honor and chastity until you can take care of yourself,” Luke solemnly swears. He makes a small salute and bow, which Nyx giggles at. “Now, I think it’s time for you to grab a waterskin and try to get some sleep. Just lean on me and I’ll help you with that difficult activity we sober people call walking”
“I have a waterskin,” Nyx states. She holds up the dripping pouch and tries to pry it open with her teeth.
“Is it really water?” Luke asks suspiciously.
“Yup. Good old wine. Hey! Gimme back!” Nyx cries as Luke snatches the waterskin from her. He drops the waterskin over the railing and where it gets caught on the rudder. Nyx weakly reaches toward the railing as Luke drags her away.
“You can have it back tomorrow. Time for Nyx to get some sleep,” he says, noticing that Nyx is pouting and trying to deadweight herself. Luke sighs as she goes limp and he easily picks her up in his arms like a child.
“Put me down,” Nyx groans. She weakly bops Luke on the nose with her fist, but he refuses to put her down.
“In a bit. I never realized how light you are,” Luke states, wiggling his sore nose. “You can’t be any more than one hundred and ten pounds. I never had a reason to pick you up before, but I expected you to be heavier. Please, stop flailing and squirming.”
“You’re being mean, little brother,” she mutters.
“That’s the second time you’ve called me that. Why?” Luke asks.
Nyx repeatedly smacks him on the temple until her palm turns red. “You’re eighteen and I’m almost twenty. That makes you the little brother and me the big sister. I always wanted a little brother to play with. I’ll call you that for as long as we travel together. The two of us make a good team, so we should wander around Windemere for a while. Get some experience under our belts and see the world. We also have to defeat this great darkness that Cyril told me was coming.”
Luke stops a few feet from the party and looks at Nyx. “Great darkness?”
“Yuppers,” she happily replies. “Cyril said that my leaving Gaia was a sign that a great darkness would be threatening the world. I’m going to face it. I think. He was rather vague about what it had to do with me. You want to help me?”
Luke smiles at the drunken caster who is staring at him with half-closed eyes. “Sure. We can fight the great evil after we bring Kellia home. Now, you have to get some sleep before you find any more trouble.”
“Not great evil. Great darkness,” Nyx corrects him.
“I’m sorry. I will help you defeat the great darkness,” Luke says, his smile growing wider.
“Thanks, Luke. I knew you would be the one to help me if I asked. Kellia was right about you. You’re very kind and nice even though you can be a stupid jackass at times,” Nyx says, a crooked grin growing on her face. She yawns and playfully tussles Luke’s hair. “It’s like having my very own little brother. Someday you have to introduce me to my little sister-in-law that I keep hearing about.”
Luke quietly sneaks her below decks to her room and lays her on the bed without saying another word. He checks the waterskins that he finds around the room until he comes across one that has water instead of wine. Nyx takes it with minimal whining and drinks like a baby with its bottle until she falls asleep. Luke leans back in a creaky chair and keeps an eye on her for the rest of the night. He can hear the party end as the sun begins to leak through the partially covered porthole.
“I’m going to remember this night for a very long time,” Luke yawns, falling asleep in the chair.
The Hollow Living is very close to its intended release date (November 1st) and I would like to, over the next few weeks, market it as aggressively as possible. But to do so I need YOUR help!
Everybody relaxed and smiling? Good because I’m going to go over a few things that might terrify some of you. Seriously, I’ve talked to a lot of people who avoid Twitter out of fear. I used to be one of these people, but now I’ve found how powerful a tool it can be. I don’t Tweet about my life because that’s not me. All of these tips are to help promote your book. So, here’s a set of tips to make it easier and more useful:
Getting Started and Followers
This will be the hardest part, but if you’re already blogging and on Facebook then you’ve done this drill before. The challenge will be picking your first Twitter Feeds to follow. It is not as daunting as you think. I went for Daily Show, Colbert Report, Readfulthings, Rome Construction Crew, and an actor who I now forgot. Done and able to do whatever you want at this point.
Yes, most of these people will not follow you back. How do you get that type of follower? This is where time will be needed and blogging is a boon. Most of your WordPress friends have a Twitter account connected to their blog. Go to their page and click on it to start following. Also, check for publishing companies and favorite authors. You have to take it easy because follow too many in a short period of time will get you frozen because the system will mistake you for a bot.
Yahoo Image Search
What About Content?
This is easier than you think. There are a few types of tweets you can do:
Retweets from other authors in the hopes of reciprocation. Don’t get mad if it doesn’t happen because everyone is busy and you still get some attention from it.
Blog posts by connecting your Twitter Feed to your WordPress page. This is the easiest and takes no effort on your part.
Tweet from pages like your book’s Amazon page or review sites. Look for the Twitter symbol and click on it. You’ll get a Tweet page with the link and just add your own opening and adjust the given information to what you want. For example, I delete the ‘by Charles E Yallowitz’ when I tweet from my books’ Amazon pages because my Twitter Feed has my name. Another benefit of this is that your tweet is connected to their page through an @ thingy like @Amazon. You’ll see this is how you communicate through Twitter.
Finally, you can build tweets from the ground up. These are where your creativity is going to shine. Be creative, use hashtags (explain in a bit), and add the link (get to that next). I’m going to focus on this method for the rest of the post because it’s where a lot of the tricks will be used. These tricks can also be used for the ‘Tweet from a Page’ method.
Tiny URL
You only have 140 characters to make your point and that Amazon page link can be brutal on there. So, get a Tiny URL from the site I linked to. Keep a file where you have one of these for each book (beats have to get it again each time). One thing I always do is chop the original URL to this:
This removes all of the added junk from an Amazon search and makes it a cleaner URL that you get. It becomes this: http://tinyurl.com/k3t8ezc and that gives you a lot more to work with.
#Hashtags!
Yahoo Image Search
What is a hashtag and what does it do? First, a thank you to Danielle Taylor for teaching me about these months ago. Now, a hashtag are those things you see with a ‘#’ in front of them and this turns those terms into search items. A person searches on Twitter by using these hashtags.
So, what do you hashtag and how? Go for keywords like your genre, platform (Kindle, Amazon, Nook, etc.), and any other special words. For example, I put hashtags on fantasy, sale, weekend, magic, action, humor, adventure, demons, and others when I use them. One thing I do with hashtags is I use the words as part of the message. An example Tweet from me:
This is simple. To save space use & instead of ‘and’. 1st, 2nd, & other shortcuts can be used. Avoid going for the Text Speak like ‘U will luv this buk’.
Set Your Mood
Basic informative is good, but push for the mood of your book to get attention. If there’s humor and epic adventure then make it sound like that. Bring up courage, heroism, or heavily armored battle sheep (only if you deliver). If your book is full of suspense or romance then write accordingly. Think of these tweets as small book pitches. You don’t even have to say the title every time because the link will bring people to it. One thing I also do is make character specific tweets to sell the cast. Fizzle, Nyx, and the Hellfire Elf seem to work very well here. Fritz too if I mention womanizing gnome. See how this works?
Once is Not Enough
I know people get annoyed if you’re always tweeting your book promos, which is where retweeting and connecting to your blog will help break that up. Still, this is to push your book first and reveal what you ate for breakfast second. I try to put out a book Tweet every 3-4 hours and vary between straight from my Amazon page and a freshly made Tweet. The reason for this is simple. You have people in different time zones and schedules, so you need to keep things moving. Don’t expect most people to read back on your tweets.
That’s all I can think of sharing. Sorry for the long post, but I hope this helps out a lot of people. Two final notes:
Not too long ago, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by the wonderful Briana Vedsted and now I get to return the favor. Please enjoy this talented author’s awesome interview!!
Do you write under any other names? No, I don’t use any pen names.
What are you currently working on? I’m planning to start working on my fantasy series again. I first started writing it in 2009, so I have a lot of editing and rewriting to do. I hope to have the first book done by January, but I make no promises!
How many (if any) books do you have published and what are their titles? I have three books that I’ve self-published, and one that should be out in November, published through Tate Publishing (Title: Me and Billy the Kid) The three self-published titles are: The Night I Walked…
