Tag: literature

Get to know the author – Kate Aaron

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The race really is on to Christmas now, and if you’re looking for some great fantasy books, then you’re in the right place. Last week I interview Patty Jansen, an Aussie author with a huge back catalogue of gripping fantasy and science fiction novels to devour. This week we’re bringing back to Britain and meeting Kate Aaron – Liverpudlian, parrot owner and fantasy author.

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Tell us about yourself? Do you write for a living? If not, what’s your day job?

It’s about 50-50 at the minute, although I do have a day job: believe it or not, in construction project management. I’m the only woman working at my company, which is great when I write predominantly about men – I’ve got an insider insight into how they interact!

Favourite food, place, colour and writing zone, please.

Oooh, I’m a bit of a foodie, so that’s difficult. I’m horribly addicted to Man vs Food at the minute, which I know is trash TV but I just can’t stop myself. I’m a big fan of sushi, but I’m also pretty awesome at baking (if I say so myself). My pear and almond cake has to be eaten to be believed (slight aside – please can I have some?! Sounds delicious – Geoff). My favourite place is probably a little croft my family owns in the Scottish highlands, it’s the ultimate writer’s retreat and I keep threatening to move up there and become a hermit. My favourite colour is purple and I’ll write anywhere as long as it’s quiet. I’m not one of those pretentious types who takes their laptop to Starbucks!

You write in the fantasy/supernatural genre….who’s been your inspiration? Favourite books? Movies? TV Shows?

I’ve always liked fantasy, from Bram Stoker to Charlaine Harris. Give me vampires and I’m happy! (Just as long as they’re not the glittery kind…).

Who’s your favourite all time fictional character?

Has to be Heathcliff, I just love, love, love him. So dark and brooding and tortured.

Who’s your favourite character in your own work?

That’s a difficult one. I’ve got a soft spot for all of them, but probably in my fantasy my favourite character is Fenton, my tortured asexual vampire who’s desperate to find love on his own terms. He’s such a divisive character, but I adore him. Writing his story breaks my heart.

Let’s talk superpowers….there’s no denying we’d all love one. What would be your choice, and why?

Teleporting would be awesome – no more time wasted travelling! But I think everyone wants the gift of invisibility, it’s the ultimate superpower.

Inspiration’s a funny thing. Where do you find yours? Is there one particular moment that stands out?

Not particularly. I don’t plot or anything, I just sit down and write. It’s like an itch that needs to be scratched, but I’m never sure quite what I’ll produce in advance. I’ve written my whole life, but the first book I published – Blood & Ash – I wrote as a sort of reaction to the books I’d been reading. I love fantasy, and I generally prefer to read books with queer MCs, being gay myself, but I didn’t buy the way m/m romance writers combined the genre with fantasy: the worldbuilding in the books I’d read just fell flat. (I’d like to add that I’ve read some really, really superb m/m fantasy books since then!). Because I couldn’t find the book that I really wanted to read, I wrote it.

Writers have very different approaches to completing our works. Are you a heavy plotter? Jump back and forth between scenes? Sit down, start at the beginning and just write?

I’m definitely a ‘sit down and write’ gal. When I’m on a roll I can barely keep up with myself, but when I’m stuck there’s no getting around it. The entire plot resolves itself somewhere in my subconscious. It’s an interesting process from my perspective; when I wrote Blood & Ash, for instance, I knew it would be the first of a trilogy but I didn’t have a clue how the story arc was going to pan out. I included certain things in that book that I knew were foreshadowing something to come later – but I didn’t know what! When I came to write the second book, Fire & Ice, a lot of things suddenly came together in a way I’d never consciously envisioned, but clearly somewhere deep down I’d already got it all worked out.

What’s fresh about your books? Quirky and different? Likely to entice readers and keep them coming back for more?

I like to think that I write something a bit different to the usual m/m style – in fact, I don’t consider my Lost Realm series to really be m/m anymore, it’s definitely more high fantasy with a strong gay side-story. In my world homosex is punishable by death, which makes a change from the usual m/m trope where it sometimes seems that everyone is gay. I’ve also got a bit of a succession crisis in the fae royal family, and an asexual vampire. So I’d say that my series is pretty unique!

What are you working on now?

Right now I’m working on a number of projects – first the third novel in the Lost Realm series, which is almost finished (eek!); a spin-off to my contemporary romance The Rest of Forever called When Forever Ends, (bit of a weepie, that one); and I’m also working on sweet little tale of forbidden love in Victorian England.

How can readers connect with you? (Facebook/Twitter etc).

I’m usually found haunting facebook, twitter, goodreads or my blog. My books are available from Amazon, ARe, B&N, iTunes, Smashwords, Sony, Kobo and Diesel.

A surprising new book

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You may have read an earlier post where I talked about how to promote books on Squidoo. I’ve become fairly addicted to Squidoo over the past few weeks, and whilst I am yet to actually note any sales as a direct result of my marketing there, I am having fun. In addition, creating a lens about how to write a great vampire novel seemingly triggered a creative thought process in my brain, and now I started a new book!

With it being NaNoWriMo this month, and the fact that I haven’t really got off the starting block with the third Inside Evil book, I’ve been a little worried. I’ve failed at NaNoWriMo for two years running, mostly because I just haven’t sat down to write, rather than attempting and failing miserably. I have no interest in writing a vampire story, it’s really not my thing, but my Squidoo lens talked about the importance of bringing something new to a genre, of putting your stamp on it, of creating a new tale with one or two features that are original. Finding originality in literature is incredibly hard these days as most things have already been written. Then, choosing to write in a small genre, such as vampires, makes the task even harder. But it got my brain thinking, and last night I had a flash of inspiration for, uh-oh, a zombie story.

The inspiration occurred to me yesterday, and I decided to write some notes and shelve the idea for a while. After all, I’m in the middle of writing TWO book series. Plus, I’ve NEVER wanted to write about zombies. However, as I was working at a gardening client’s today, the novel just wouldn’t leave me alone. Ideas were coming thick and fast, and I’ve just ended up writing a 3,000 word first chapter for the book! I don’t have time to write a full length novel, not when I’ve got other series in motion, but a short 20k/30k novella might be OK. So, it’s decided, this NaNoWriMo I AM going to participate. I’m going to write my first ever short story. I’m going to take a leaf out of Hugh Howey’s book, and throw a short out there and see if it gains traction. If it does, I’ll write more. If it doesn’t, I’ll be happy that I completed NaNoWriMo for the first time and crafted my writing skills a little more.

I’m excited! I’m off to write!

Get to know the author – Patty Jansen

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Can you believe we’re in November already? The race is onto Christmas, and if you’re a writer, then you might even be participating in NaNoWriMo this year. Last week I brought you the insights of Drako, an author who fills his world with beautiful dragons. This week we turn to Patty Jansen, a science fiction and fantasy author who has a back-catalogue to keep you going for months!

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Tell us about yourself? Do you write for a living? If not, what’s your day job?

When I’m not writing,  I sell non-fiction books online.

Favourite food, place, colour and writing zone, please.

Coffee & chips in my office and my own chair. If not, out on the back veranda where I can sit in the nuddy (not that I ever do) and no one would see. From up there, the only thing I can see is trees!

You write in the fantasy/supernatural genre….who’s been your inspiration? Favourite books? Movies? TV Shows?

Actually, my inspiration has been my job. I worked as a research scientist and often wondered about taking the science (nonsensical or real) into the realm of the impossible. My favourite writer is C.J. Cherryh, my favourite movie is Independence Day and I don’t watch TV. I’m baaaaad at pop culture.

Who’s your favourite all time fictional character?

I absolutely adore C.J. Cherryh, and my all-time favourite character is Banichi from the Foreigner series. Yes, he’s an alien, but he’s awesome.

Who’s your favourite character in your own work?

I have a favourite character in every book. In my current WIP (Shifting Reality, currently serialised on my blog by way of ARC), my favourite character is Ari Suleiman Rudiyanto. Yes, he’s Indonesian (the name kinda gives it away), and he’s gay, and does dubious things in a space station. He’s also very smart, and because he’s bored, he does the most stupid things, like tinkering with important technology and smuggling stuff.

Let’s talk superpowers….there’s no denying we’d all love one. What would be your choice, and why?

I’d love to be able to live a very long time, like some of my characters.

Inspiration’s a funny thing. Where do you find yours? Is there one particular moment that stands out?

Oh yes. I sold a novel to a small press (Ambassador, coming out in 2013), and this book started in a very strange way. Usually, inspiration for a novel will come as a scene where two characters are talking to each other. I’d always wanted to do something thriller-y and political, and I had this idea of a character going on a major mission (the character is Cory Wilson, who as kid is the main character of my kids novel The Far Horizon). Cory was talking to this important person about a job he was about to do. I made a note of this scene, intending to file it for later. The scene was really boring, full of backstory and setting. These scenes never survive in the final product.

Anyway, the scene was so boring that my brain subconsciously decided to make it more interesting: it threw a bomb into the window of the office where the meeting was taking place. I spent the next four drafts finding out who did it.

Writers have very different approaches to completing our works. Are you a heavy plotter? Jump back and forth between scenes? Sit down, start at the beginning and just write?

Oh no, I am a pantser extra-ordinaire. In fact, I’m a pantser to my own detriment. Plotting bores me to death, although I’ll probably have to do a lot more of it if I want to be more efficient.

What’s fresh about your books? Quirky and different? Likely to entice readers and keep them coming back for more?

I write three distinct genres:

My space-based SF is hard SF. Lookie, see! I’m a woman writing hard SF. I’m trying to prove that science geekery and character development are not mutually exclusive.

My space opera is unique in that it contains aliens, and it contains Earth in a way we can recognise it, in other words, not that far into the future. In my space opera world, alienoid humans came to Earth in 1968, and lived as humans amongst us. They came, not to the US, not the UK, or not South Africa, but to Athens, Greece. It’s kinda funny how I wrote all of my novel Ambassador before the current crisis, and it’s almost as if that book was prophetic. It’s scary.

My fantasy is weird. It’s not medieval, it’s not urban fantasy, there are some science elements. My trilogy is set in a post-apocalyptic world where something that sounds suspiciously like radio-activity doubles as magic. Some people can use it, many die from exposure. I did a fair bit of reading on radiation poisoning for this one. One of the countries has steam power and uses telegraphs and balloons. Not the standard fantasy fair.

What are you working on now?

My hard SF novel Shifting Reality is almost finished.

Tentative blurb:

A few years ago, a military doctor walking the corridors of New Jakarta Station saved Melati’s life. She signed up for the International Space Force to pay back her moral debt to him. But her family thinks she has betrayed her people. It was ISF who forcefully removed their grandmothers and grandfathers from the crowded slums of Jakarta to work in interstellar space stations.

It is Melati’s job to teach six-year old construct soldiers, artificial humans grown in labs and activated with programmed minds. Her latest cohort has one student who claims that he is not a little boy, but a mindbase traveller whose swap partner took off with his body. It soon becomes clear that a lot of people are scouring the station for this man, a scientist with dangerous knowledge.

What would be a better place to hide a fugitive than in the seething mass of traditional and modern cultures and subcultures in New Jakarta’s B-sector? Problem is, Melati’s family, and especially her cousins Rina and Ari, are involved in a scheme to sell the scientist in return for greater political power for the workers so that those who wish can return to Indonesia. Never mind that if the scientist’s knowledge falls into the wrong hands, none of them will live to exercise that right.

After this, I will be writing the sequel to Watcher’s Web, after which I may write a quasi-historical fantasy based on the Dutch VOC, in which the Chinese come to a city that sounds suspiciously like 17th century Amsterdam in steam ships. Watch 17th century Europe & their squabbling royalty fight over steam power and cosying up to the Chinese! Yeah, I love torturing history. MWAHAHAHAHA!

 How can readers connect with you?

I’d love everyone to follow my blog Must Use Bigger Elephants. I also have a website: http://pattyjansen.com, and am on Facebook and Twitter.

If you’d like to find out more about Patty’s extensive range of books, please see her Amazon author page. Enjoy!

5 Things NOT to do when promoting your book on Twitter

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I love Twitter. I’ve been using it for five or six years on various plaforms, and when I first took to the micro-social networking website, it was largely undiscovered. I’ve learned how to use it over time, and I love connecting with people and being social. I’d even go so far to say that because I’m so hermity in real life, tweeting people throughout the day helps me fulfil some of my social fix (SAD, I know).

Using Twitter to promote and sell eBooks

I’ve had quite a lot of success selling Inside Evil and The Tower of Souls through Twitter. I know that some authors hate the platform, and scorn anyone that promotes using it as a marketing tool. But, from first hand experience, it’s worked for me. It doesn’t sell vast numbers, but it’s sure better than being lost in Amazon’s algorithms.

Twitter won’t work for everyone, but it’s worked, and is still working, in helping me get the word out about my books. You can make friends, RT reader’s compliments to your own followers, connect with other readers – it really is a great tool.

However, over the past few months I’ve noticed that a hell of a lot of authors are just going about it completely wrong. Hell, there are some authors I follow that I seriously need to sit down and have a word with. If they’re driving me crazy when I’m trying to support them, then they must be turning potential readers off left, right and centre.

So, with that said, here are five things not to do when promoting your book on Twitter.

1. DON’T SPAM.

I truly do not care if you’re ‘promoting‘ your book, but tweeting every five minutes, hell, tweeting every 10 minutes about your book is SPAM whether you think it is or not. It fills up the Twitter feed with useless rubbish that IS NOT GOING TO BE READ by readers. Worse than that, it will cause people to unfollow you. Yes. It’s really not a good move to make. In my personal opinion, if you end up in Twitter jail, then you’re tweeting way too much and need to reign it in a bit.

2. DON’T ONLY TWEET LINKS

OK, this isn’t quite as spammy, but tweeting your book link and only your book link is not going to gain the attention you want. If you are going to tweet about your book, at least give your followers some information, as ‘Inside Evil available now at ________‘ simply doesn’t cut it. Give your followers something interesting to read. Provide a hook for your book, use weekly events such as #samplesunday to attract people to your sample chapters, or tell folks that your book’s a bargain if they’re looking for a new read. Fill out those 140 characters so your tweets are read, rather than falling into the virtual slush pile.

3. DON’T MESSAGE FOLLOWERS WITH BOOK LINKS

Oh my, if there’s one thing that infuriates me, it’s when mutual followers send me their book link out of the blue. Not only will I rarely click the link and take a look, but that author immediately gets a black blot on my copy book. You want to be remembered as a fun and interactive Tweeter, not someone who sends unsolicited messages. Of course, if you’ve had a full conversation with someone first and they’ve shown interest in your book, then by all means send them a link with a ‘here’s the link if you want to find out more‘.

4. DON’T RESPOND TO DM’S FROM NEW FOLLOWERS

This is a little bit of advice that I’ve learned myself in the past few months. I’ve always let my past Twitter accounts grow organically, but I’ve been a bit more aggressive in building my professional account. This entails actually going through Twitter, finding readers and following them. It can be highly rewarding if you meet new people, new friends and ultimately manage to get some sales. BUT beware responding to DM’s too quickly. DM’s (Direct Messages) are a great tool once you’ve got to know people and want to have a quick bitch, ahem, chat off-screen. But, returning DM’s from new followers before you’ve sussed them out can lead to some strange and uncomfortable conversations.

5. DON’T EXPECT MIRACLE SALES OVERNIGHT

A lot of people join Twitter to promote their book and think that the 1,000 followers they’ve followed are going to buy their book. This is NEVER going to happen. If you’re lucky 10 or 20 might check your book out. Five or six might buy it. Twitter isn’t an immediate promotional tool; you need to talk to people, engage, make friends. People WILL look at your profile, so put a link to your website in there. People WILL ask you about your book, especially if you tweet about it’s progress, about what you’re writing, about sales, covers, even other books you’re reading.

It’s been a pleasure getting to know readers over the past few months since I started my official author profile. I talk with many about far more than my work, I’ve made friends, and in return these folks have bought my books. If they’ve liked them, they’ve tweeted about them. I’ve RT their tweets.

If you’re using Twitter for book marketing, then please go in with open eyes. Twitter should be used about increasing your branding and exposure, not about sales…these will come later. Go, tweet, make friends, debate, and sales will come from the most unsuspecting places.

Inside Evil paperbacks are here!

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As you’ll know from my ‘Making paperbacks with Createspace‘ blog, I’ve delved into realms that I never thought I would as an author. The digital age has really opened up the world of publishing, and I thought I would be happy having my books online as ebooks. That was, until I held the beautiful crisp paper and stunning covers in my hands and put my own works on the study shelves.

It’s taken a while to get the proofing correct and for CreateSpace to accurately link the Kindle versions with the paperback copies. This is largely due to an author name discrepancy that I talked about here. BUT, the good news is that you can now buy both Inside Evil and The Tower of Souls as books that you can actually hold in your hands!

Of course, paperbacks are more expensive than ebooks, and both my novels aren’t any different, making buying a digital version far cheaper. Also, I’m fairly sure there are large shipping fees and delivery periods for those buying in the UK. So, if anyone in the UK does want a version, I’ll be selling Inside Evil and The Tower of Souls at £6.74 and £8.99 respectively from my own batch. Just holla if you want one.

It is a glorious thing to hold an actual paperback in my hands though, and even though its probably very self serving, I’m glad that I decided to delve beyond the simple ebook niche.

Get to know the author – Grant Turner

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It can be hard to find new and interesting reads that aren’t mainstream in the fantasy and  supernatural genres. I’m not saying that mainstream fiction isn’t incredible – some books really are. But, there are some really awesome paranormal and fantasy novels out there too waiting to be discovered.

In ‘Get to know the author’ I’m featuring some indie author’s whose work you might like to check out. First up is Grant Turner, Manchester resident and author of Heavens Door.

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Tell us a little about yourself, Grant? Do you write for a living? If not, what’s your day job?

I like to consider that writing is my day job at the moment, I was a student at Manchester Metropolitan University studying Crime and Sociology; but with the economy there was no career prospects in the field of crime for me and as for sociology there was never  any career aspects. So currently I am looking for full time employment, hopefully writing can be that thing to fill the void!

Favourite food, place, colour and writing zone, please

My favourite food I am a fan of a quick meal so pasta would be my first choice, I am a little unconventional with it though butter and salt with my pasta please! My favourite place would have to be my bedroom – and not for any smutty reason, it is just my little bubble where everything is always good. For that reason my bedroom is also my writing zone, the rest of the house is too cluttered with people and noise.

You write in the supernatural  genre….who’s been your inspiration? Favourite books? Movies? TV Shows?

I LOVE SUPERNATURAL! Like so much, I have been interested in it for years, even before I began reading. Just the idea of seeing something not of this world is like a rush to me and to be honest I have had my fair share of paranormal experiences. Books and films though, I would have to say James Herbert was my key inspiration for writing, ever since reading Moon I just thought I want to do that too. Favourite supernatural film; that would have been sixth sense if it hadn’t have been ruined for me! One that always springs to mind though is The Others, I loved how that played out, goosebumps the full lot after that film.

Who’s your favourite all time fictional character?

Mort – as simple as that Terry Pratchett wrote him so well and in a way I see myself in Mort; tall, gangly and somewhat clumsy. I just think his character development from awkward teenager to omnipotent Death was superb. Well done Pratchett!

Who’s your favourite character in your own work?

In my own work I would have to say the character in my upcoming novel “Red Winter” – Eric Connelly. He is disturbed, obsessive and violent, but all in good cause. History always shapes a man.

Let’s talk superpowers….there’s no denying we’d all love one. What would be your choice, and why?

In a way I would already say I am invisible – but that’s my own choice I love to be alone. Super-powers though, I think telepathy would be amazing, not only to find out what people are thinking but also how to judge people properly and be able to see who would have the ability to be troublesome in some way. That way I could avoid their hassle.

Inspiration’s a funny thing. Where do you find yours? Is there one particular moment that stands out?

That is a tricky one, sometimes I could be watching a movie and I think – “what could I do with something like this, the premise is there but how could I make it my own?” Other times and more often than not it is a specific dream that I have had that will spark the writer in me and push me to write said story. For example in “Heavens Door” there is a scene where the main character is drifting off to sleep and he experiences something bizarre, that in itself was a dream I had. Left me feeling a little scared I must admit!

Writers have very different approaches to completing our works. Are you a heavy plotter? Jump back and forth between scenes? Sit down, start at the beginning and just write?

I know that I should plot, as to allow me time for more writing but I am definitely a freestyler; when it comes to my head it goes down onto paper, in very rare circumstances do I plot. It only happens if I find I have written myself into a rut or something like that.

What’s fresh about your books? Quirky and different? Likely to entice readers and keep them coming back for more?

I would say that with some of my writing I have taken horror and its description back to its gritty ways, I am not afraid to go into detail about blood and guts, in fact it’s the bit I love writing most! But I think my twists and sometimes multiple twists keep the reader turning pages and wanting more.

What are you working on now?

Currently I am working two projects – a re-write of my first novel “Red Winter” a supernatural thriller with many twists and turns, with a lovely cliff hanger and “The Darkest Hour” a compilation of short stories intended for Halloween. These stories are a mix of real life terrors and the paranormal so there is a little bit of something there for everyone.

How can readers connect with you?

Readers can interact with me on Twitter, as well as my Goodreads page where you can ask me questions and interact with me via the Authors blog.

Heavens Door is available at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

A novel update

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Today, about five hours ago, I wrote and edited the final chapter of my new novel. Since then, I’ve spent many frustrating hours trying to get .mobi conversions to work so that my editor and proofer can read, enjoy and work at the same time. I ended up having to strip out ALL formatting and start from scratch….still, it’s a cleaner ebook now that the step has been taken.

I’m still not entirely sure of the title, but it’s tentatively called ‘CRYO; Rise of the Immortals‘. I have no cover, have done no marketing, have only just revealed a possible name, BUT at least it is done. I’m heading for a mid Nov – early Dec release to provide time for the multitude of work that has to be done between completing a manuscript and actually publishing it. Now, the work starts really starts, and first on the menu is some blurb. I tentatively (that seems to be the word of the day) put together some ideas for blurb, but it’ll obviously need refinement/embellishment.

There are some dreams that never come true, but John Carlody’s just won a ticket to a privately funded cryogenics program and is on a one way ticket to the future. He’s about to escape from a dying world to a place where the troubles of the past have been cured and forgotten, where he can finally find contentment, where, if the worst occurs, he might lay happily and blissfully unaware in stasis forever.

But, leaving loved ones behind isn’t as easy as John originally thought, and lost feelings begin to reawaken. There are many who are determined to see him fail, to see his dream shattered. And, even if John does pass CRYO’s tests and he makes the program, is Earth’s future as bright as he’s hoping for?’

I always feel a beautiful sense of freedom when I tap out those final words of a piece. There’s a natural conclusion to the writing process even if, like CRYO; Rise of the Immortals is, the novel is the start of a series. However, there’s no relaxing or quietening the sounds of keyboard tapping in my house, as I am now headed back to the Inside Evil series, to book three, and to the plight of Ridgewood’s most loveable residents.

Correcting my author name

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I’ve learned a lot in the past seven months of self publishing. Oh, how daunting everything seemed way back in April, and now I have two novels on Amazon shelves and another on the way. However, if there’s one thing I haven’t been careful about, it’s my author name. Continuity is key when you’re developing a platform and creating a brand for yourself, so your author name should also be constant. Unfortunately, in my case, this isn’t true, and it’s got me into quite a pickle.

If Joanna Rowling suddenly published a new Harry Potter book, you might think that it was fan fiction. After all, she is known as J.K. Rowling by millions of people around the world, and it always seems a little odd to hear her called Joanna. Likewise, if an S. Myers released a new fantasy novel, it wouldn’t be instantly obvious that it was the same Stephanie Myers who wrote the Twilight Saga.

Having been attempting to upload my books to Kobo, and hence going through the manuscripts again, I realised that there was no continuity with what I called myself. I was Geoffrey Wakeling here, Geoff Wakeling there, and G. Wakeling on the front cover. It might seem like a small issue, but it’s importance has been highlighted with my recent creation of paperbacks via CreateSpace. My kindle books are listed on Amazon as written by Geoffrey Wakeling. However, my CreateSpace novels are Mr. G. Wakeling, and that has led to some confusion over linking.

From now on, I really need to start paying attention to keeping continuity and will be going through all my literature to correct my author name to G. Wakeling. Call me what you like, and I’ll respond as long as I know that it’s me you’re talking too. But, creating a constant author name is vital if you’re to create that all important branding and it seems that I’ve not been nearly careful ensuring in creating my author name platform.