Sulan Blog Tour: Author Camille Picott Guest Post

Today is Day 2 of Camille Picott's Sulan, Episode 1: The League Book Tour and we have a special guest post by her. Her post is about the evolution of her very intriguing book cover and how the process of creating it developed....

Evolution of a Book Cover

For me, cover creation is the most exciting and most terrifying part of publishing a book. I know from my own shopping habits that readers do judge books by their covers. I spend a lot of time thinking about my book covers and working with Joey Manfre, an amazing illustrator and graphic artist. 

Before Joey begins a cover design, we sit down and discuss concepts. We talk about main characters, setting, target audience, and the overall feel the cover needs to have.

For Sulan, Episode 1: The League, I wanted the cover to target a YA audience with a potential crossover into adult. The story has a strong blend of cyberpunk and fantasy, both of which I wanted to be conveyed in the final piece of art. It was also important for the name SULAN to be prominent. SULAN is the central brand for this book, so it needed to stand out on the cover and catch the eye of readers.

1st Draft:

 

I really love the strong font Joey chose for SULAN. It really stands out and draws the reader’s eye. For a branding image, it’s hard to miss. I also love the way he worked in the cyberpunk theme with the stylized circuit board in the background. The central image of Riska (the winged tiger) also brings in the fantasy element I wanted to convey.

2nd Draft:

 

I have to admit, I freaked out just a little when I saw the bright green wing. LOL. But, I also saw what Joey was trying to accomplish. Giving Riska a black wing, which he has in the book, really caused him to disappear into the circuit board background. The green wing helps him visually pop. Once I saw the image of Sulan the character in full cover, I also wasn’t sure she was the right image for the front cover, either. The overall feel was too adolescent with an anime sensibility, which is not the audience I wanted to target.

3rd & Final Draft:

In the end, we decided to move the image of Sulan and Riska to the back cover. For the front, we opted for a simpler, more streamlined image of a blue sea serpent, which maintains the fantasy element that I wanted to include. You can see that Joey tied the serpent to the circuit board theme. If you look at the back cover, you can see he also used the serpent image on the background. Thematically, this really tied the front and back covers together.

Another thing to note is the purple border that surrounds the entire cover. Joey did this for a technical reason. In print-on-demand, there is a certain amount of drift tolerance with every print run; the paper moves on the press as it shoots through. In other words, your graphics will shift. No book cover produced on a POD press will ever be perfectly centered. Joey compensates for this by implementing the border, which helps disguise the tolerance. If the art went all the way to the edge, the shift would be much more obvious.

It is very common for Joey and I to do lots of tweaking as we work toward a final piece of art. (We actually had a lot more drafts, but this guest post would be WAAAAY too long if I included all of them!) We toss ideas back and forth and try different things as we work toward the ideal cover. For us, it’s all part of the creative process, which is very engaging and a lot of fun. It always yields a cover that I love.

Thanks, Cathy, for hosting me at Abnormally Paranormal! 

Author Bio

Camille Picott is a mom, wife and writer. She writes and self-publishes speculative fiction with Asian-inspired settings and Asian main characters. She is the author of the Asian inspired middle grade book series, Chinese Heritage Tales, Raggedy Chan and Nine Tail Fox as well as a short story "Warming Demon" and the first in her latest YA dystopian series, Sulan, Episode 1: The League. Visit her website at camillepicott.com. 

Why Writing a Book Is Where I Belong: Guest Author Janiera Eldridge

I've got another author guest blogger today. Welcome, Janiera Eldridge! She's blogging today about her bold move to quit college and become an author. I'm always up for stories about people who take big risks and go after their dreams....

Her novel Soul Sisters is available as an ebook at Amazon, currently FREE to AmazonPrime members ($2.99 regular).

Every day I’m able to get up and write is a blessing for me. Since I suffer from Fibromyalgia, a day of good health is nothing to take for granted. About a year ago, I made the decision I was not going to return to college, I was ill and college life just wasn’t what I wanted.  For me college was not worth the hassle and writing was what I really wanted to do. I was terrified of what my parents thought, but believe it or not, they were extremely supportive.
 

I achieved graduating at the top 10% of my class in high-school but I had so many books that I started writing, but never finished. Soul Sisters was the first book I started on since leaving college and it felt right from the moment I started writing it. Every character (especially Ani and Dana) spoke loud and clear in my head, even when I wish they wouldn’t.  Freelance writing can be a fun and rewarding gig but, some days I couldn’t wait to pop open the laptop and return to visit my characters. I wanted to know what they had been up to, what they were feeling and thinking.
 

Sometimes they chat when they’re not supposed to and they want me to give them love and attention. Most of the time I’m forced (and happy) to oblige. The feeling I get from writing and creating my own world is peaceful exhilaration. There is so much in life you can’t control but in my book I control almost everything! There is no better feeling than seeing a story evolve and come to life right under the tapping of your fingers. Every time, I go to start a writing session I know that writing a book is where I belong. One day I hope to be able to make a living out of being an author. If you know writing books is where you belong, don’t be afraid to take steps to make that dream a reality. Nothing is impossible to achieve with some hard work and a dream.

About Soul Sisters:

Soul Sisters is an urban fantasy novel about African-American twin sisters Ani and Dana who have a rather unique secret: one sister is human while the other is a vampire. While the sisters have lived peacefully with each other for many years one fateful night will change both their lives forever. When a drunken man tries to attack Dana (the human sister) Ani (the vampire sister) protects her sister with all of her ferocious power.

However, when the vampire’s leader Donovan finds out about the public display he calls for the sisters to be assassinated for disobedience. Ani and Dana now are in for the fight of their lives to protect each other as well as the lives of their dedicated friends who have joined them on their mission for survival. If Dana and Ani can make it through this time of uncertainty, Ani can take her new place as vampire queen. Soul Sisters is expected to be a trilogy; The book also features a multicultural cast of characters that brings a new edge of chic to the vampire world.

About the Author:

Janiera enjoys feeding her book addiction when she not writing. She is also a book blogger at Beauty and Books where she mixes being a book nerd with keeping things chic. When not reading or writing she is freelance writing in the entertainment industry. Soul Sisters is her debut novel.

Connect with Janiera...

Blog: Beauty and Books: http://janieraeldridge.blogspot.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/lazenbeauty
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/janiera.eldridge.1
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/jaeldridge18/
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13640540-soul-sisters

To Boldly Go Where No Dark Fantasy Novel Has Gone Before (Guest Post)

Today, I'm hosting a guest blog post by author Red Tash who is here to tell us all about her adult dark fantasy Star Trek parody, This Brilliant Darkness. Without further ado, I present Ms. Tash's charming post....

“To Boldly Go Where No Dark Fantasy Novel Has Gone Before….” 

 

First of all, thanks for Cathy for having me today.  I love her blog, and am thrilled to be here!  I guess the second order of business is “Who am I?”  Well, I'm Red Tash, and I'm a novelist, the author of This Brilliant Darkness and a few other books that are coming out soon. Recently, I read one of Cathy's reviews about a Star Trek novel.  I'm a member of StarTrek.com, and I've secretly read Kirk/Spock slash on the down-low, for years. It's a guilty pleasure, because I grew up with Star Trek as part of my Sunday morning ritual—it's almost holy to me!  My perennially feuding parents could never keep it civilized long enough to actually attend church on Sunday mornings, so my peaceful, easy feelings from on high came via the holy trinity of doughnuts, CBS Sunday morning, and Star Trek reruns.  Can I get an “amen?”

Yes, I am old enough that during my childhood, the only Star Trek reruns available were from the original series.  And what a series it was!  Who didn't fall in love with the stoic Mr. Spock?  Who didn't admire the fiery Scotty?  And when this image began circling the net a few years ago, I did indeed agree with Shatner's portrayal of Kirk as Capt. of All that is Awesome:

In addition to being a Trekker, I've always been a voracious reader.  Fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, you name it.  Lots and lots of science, thanks to Mr. Asimov.  I'm still more likely to check out a non-fiction book from the library than anything else, because I love to learn.  I think it makes life way more interesting to have an active mind than a dull, boring one.

One of my most “mind-activating” activities was writing my first publishable book.  (I say publishable because most authors write a few awful books before they put together anything worth reading.)  About eight years ago when I finally got over my enormous fear and negative self-talk about writing a novel, I began the manuscript that would eventually become This Brilliant Darkness.  As you might expect, I had years of useless knowledge built up, ready to spill out into something.

And what kind of book did I want this to be?  That was a question I didn't even dare tackle until after the first 150,000 words were on the page.  Yes, 150k!  When all was said and done, I had to sit back and go “Hmm.  Now, what?”  I had monsters, aliens, time travelers, angels, reincarnated saints, and this quirky little town that made Northern Exposure's Cicely, Alaska look bland in comparison.  So.  Much.  Stuff.

I put on my editor's hat and started cutting.  Cutting and cutting and cutting. 

There were some things that refused to leave, though.  I'd included a Star Trek parody subplot that I couldn't sacrifice.  In This Brilliant Darkness, the fictionalized City of Bloomington has an annual Star Trails parade, and our protagonist attempts to attend it on the night she is hunted by an ancient monster.  There's also subplot involving Captain Kurt, played by Bill Shackler, sending messages to Christine via videocassette, from the past. 

I knew when I finished This Brilliant Darkness that it was only half the full story, and that I needed Captain Kurt in book two like my body needs both a right arm as well as a left.  There would be no cutting Captain Kurt, no sir!  So he stayed, and, honestly, whenever I think of him and his role in book two, I think of how busy he is being awesome, just like William Shatner's Captain Kirk.  (That's all I can tell you about book two for now, because it's still a work in progress and I don't want to jinx it.)

I can tell you, though, that very soon, a short story based in the world of the Star Trails parade in Bloomington will be published in an anthology called The Corner Cafe.  The common thread between all the stories is that they mention a place called The Corner Cafe, so when someone suggested I submit a story, of course the light bulb went off in my head.  You see, it just so happens that there's a scene in This Brilliant Darkness where our heroine, Christine, stops by a place called The Corner to grab a coffee, and ends up giving The Finger to some FullCons (or maybe it was originally KlingOffs, I can't recall).  The Finger, of course, is the sign for “Live Well and Tidily” in the Star Trails mythos. 

It was a serendipitous delight to write a short story from the perspective of the aliens in the Corner Cafe who interact with Christine.  It was a hoot, being back at the Star Trails parade.  While I'll always love ST and all its iterations (I personally can't wait to see Benedict Cumberbatch in the new ST movie!), I have a lot of fun writing parade sequences with hip-hopping Red Shirts and green girls on unicycles. 

I guess it's sort of like having a holodeck, you know?  Remember how the writers of Next Generation abused that plot device?  Well, I call it abuse, but it was a lot of fun watching Picard in a fedora playing Private Dick, or seeing Worf walk the plank of a British fleet vessel.   The holodeck of ST:TNG is a bit too futuristic for the world of This Brilliant Darkness and its upcoming sequel, but who knows?  I see potential, don't you?

Sometimes, making fun isn't about being mean.  Sometimes it is about manufacturing fun, for the sake of having it.  Good, clean, fun.  And Star Trek is full of great fun, just waiting to be had.  I hope you'll enjoy that aspect of This Brilliant Darkness, and of my story in the forthcoming Corner Cafe collection!


Author Bio:
 

Red Tash is a journalist-turned-novelist, and the author of the Top-rated best-selling Dark Contemporary Fantasy, This Brilliant Darkness, as well as The Wizard Tales, a light contemporary horror fantasy short story series.  Coming in 2012 from Red Tash: Troll Or Derby, a YA fantasy of trolls, fairies, and roller derby, oh my!  Also, Joan of the A.R.C., a YA action/adventure story co-written with author Axel Howerton.  And much, much more!  Subscribe to Red Tash on the web at RedTash.com.  She loves chatting with readers at Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, so do get in touch.

My Writing Influences: Guest Post by Rosemary Fryth

Today, I’m very excited to have my first author guest blogger. I’ve decided to offer authors an alternative to requesting reviews of their books from me. Seeing as how I can’t keep up with reading review copies any longer, I wanted to figure out a way to still do something for them without requiring me to necessarily read their books. They still get exposure on my blog and get to impress my readers directly with their posts.

The following is a guest post by Rosemary Fryth, Australian author of the adult dark fantasy, Dark Confluence….

All my life I’ve read fairy tales. As a child I read stories by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson; as an Australian child I also read Snugglepot and Cuddlepie by May Gibbs about her Gumnut babies, and the big, bad Banksia men. As a teenager I progressed onto Tolkien, Susan Cooper and C.S. Lewis. As an adult my fantasy reading became even more voracious, devouring works by Charles de Lint, Raymond E. Feist, Mark Chadbourn, Robert Jordan, David Eddings, and many more. All these books I read and loved; however, for the exception of May Gibbs, all were overseas authors, telling fantasy stories set in England, Europe, Canada or America. As a reader, what I really wanted was an adult fairy story set right here in Australia, in a place I was familiar with, and could relate to.

My love of fairy tales also cultivated in me a love of Celtic mythology, music and culture. Words like the Fae, the Faeries, the Sidhe, and the Tuatha Dé Danann, immediately captured my interest, and I read anything and everything about them. I felt too, that Celtic mythology should not simply be confined to the old lands, to the Celtic lands; but also be transported via words and music to the new lands, to the southern lands where so many families of Celtic ancestry made their home. In my book, the faerie race was my main protagonist; or rather, warring factions with the faeries, who decided to conduct their manoeuvrings for power and influence in an unassuming and small Queensland country town.

So Dark Confluence was written, and recently self-published on Amazon Kindle. It is a dark fantasy/paranormal fantasy/paranormal romance, set right here in Queensland, Australia. Once I started writing Dark Confluence, I felt too that other things needed to be said and written. Nowadays, too many books in the paranormal genre feature teenagers and their love for vampires and werewolves; as an older woman I felt disengaged from these characters, from these heroines. I understood that it was important for ordinary, mature-aged women to be able to relate to the characters in the books they read, so ‘Jen McDonald’ was ‘born’, an ex-patriot Scottish spinster, who, in her fifties, makes ends meet through her work as a proof-reader. Jen is not a beautiful woman—in fact she is quite plain, however because of her gift, she is faced with a problem that few understand, and ends up making what is effectively a life-altering decision. I like Jen as a person—she’s quiet, unassuming, and would rather let the world go by without interference, however she is put in a situation where she may well have to act in order to save her town from destruction.

I also felt that there should be ‘a story, within a story’, so I wove within the plot, messages and meanings that would be especially relevant to Australians who might be seeing their country change before their eyes and feel uncertain and unsettled by those changes—changes that in many ways have not been for the better. It is also a teaching story, with themes of self-sacrifice, of the acquisition of power at any cost, and ultimately the consequences of the same. In many ways Dark Confluence is my personal Pilgrim’s Progress—it may not be Christian fiction as such, but it does have themes that a spiritual person can relate to. There are also universal themes of love, the quest for power, and about making the right sort of choices, not just for you, but for others as well. 

I hope to have a sequel out this year, because Jen is telling me that her story isn’t finished yet, and there are other important things still yet to be said.

Summary of Dark Confluence

The small Queensland country town of Emerald Hills is under siege.

Jen McDonald, a small, neat, almost-overlooked spinster in her fifties faces a quandary. Traumatised by a car accident after seeing a mysterious, dark-shrouded figure on the road, the last thing Jen wants to be is a heroine. Is she losing her mind, or is there a far more malign reason for the terrible storm, frightening deaths and vanishings, and other mysterious goings-on in Emerald Hills. Jen feels trapped, not only between warring factions of the Fae, but also by her desire for one of them and that she may be fated by her special gift to be the town’s defender.

Dark Confluence is an Australian-themed, short novel in the dark fantasy genre. It is a modern-day adult fable, and through allegory, it deals with themes of self-sacrifice and the acquisition of power at any cost. It is written for readers eighteen years and older.

Dark Confluence is available for download from | Amazon Kindle | for FREE with Amazon Prime ($2.99 regular price).

ABOUT ROSEMARY FRYTH, IN HER OWN WORDS:

 

I’m on the wrong side of forty, I work and am happily married to a wonderful man, and we have two ‘fur kids’. If you check out my Facebook page you’ll see the furballs in all their wondrous glory. I live in Brisbane, Australia which for all you northern hemisphere folk, is in the sub-tropics…ie hot and humid in Summer. Christmas downunder involves eating vast amounts of prawns and crab and cold chicken/turkey, plus delicious home made trifle, sweating a lot, driving to rellies from one end of town to the other whilst getting hot and bothered, and if you are fortunate, cooling off later in the pool.

My other interests involve vegging out on the sofa whilst watching favourite movies, gaming (currently enjoying Civ5), reading, playing the bodhran at Irish music sessions, listening to a wide variety of music and of course, writing.

  

You can find her over at her author blog, RosemaryFryth.com.