Tag Archives: urban fantasy

Release Day! #ebook #books #NewRelease #YA

Cover Reveal and Pre-Order: Ghost Is the New Normal

sk4ecover

Book 4 is a real thing with a real release date: March 21, 2017. It has a pre-order at only 99 cents (this price will only last until March 22!), and it’s all ready to go so I can have copies in hand for Norwescon (Seatac, April 13-16). The audiobook is scheduled for release one week later, on March 28. I’m excited about this one because it has giant mutant cockroaches. And also ghosts and dragons, of course.

Claire has a big problem, Drew has a smaller problem, and Justin gets to have some fun. Iulia causes trouble. Avery is sensible. Enion remains adorable and Tariel is still the only real grownup in the room. If you’re new to this series, check out where it begins with Girls Can’t Be Knights, available in ebook, paperback, and audio!

With this book’s release on the horizon, I can now also officially state for the record that the Spirit Knights series will have a total of 5 books. That’s right, Number Five will be Number Last for the series. But that’s not the last you’ll see of Claire, Drew, Justin, and the rest of the crew. Claire and Justin kind of already aren’t Spirit Knights anymore, you see. I freely admit that this series began with a book I wasn’t expecting to make into a series. It’s gone places I didn’t really foresee. As such, the series title doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense anymore.

Which is why, following book 5 of Spirit Knights, I’m shifting to a different line of attack with this stuff. There will be more stories, some about Claire and some not. They’ll all take place in the same world where Portland is extra-weird. But they won’t all take place in Portland, or even in the PNW. I’m looking forward to spending time with the kind of people affected by [spoiler] [spoiler], and [spoiler].

New Releases and Excitement! #free #ebooks

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This past Tuesday, Ethereal Entanglements released. This is book 3 of Spirit Knights, a young adult, paranormal, modern fantasy series about ghost hunting in Portland. Book 4 will have to wait a little while, as I have some other projects with deadlines to deal with. Hopefully, Ghost Is the New Normal will be out in time for Norwescon 2017.

If you missed it, Girls Can’t Be Knights rocketed up the Amazon charts to reach subcategory bestseller status on June 15-17 as a result of some professional promotions work, and it’s now in a whole lot more hands than it was before. I need reviews, though! If you’ve read it, please leave a review. A sentence or two is fine.

I also need reviews of book 2, Backyard Dragons. Comment with a link to your review of Knights–because book 2 has a much better grounding if you’ve read book 1!–and I’ll find a way to get you a review copy of Dragons for free. And if you’ve read Backyard Dragons already, link me to that review and I’ll get you a copy of Ethereal Entanglements. This is a limited time offer, available until July 20.

In other news, Illusive Echoes, book 4 of The Greatest Sin, releases on June 28. This series is epic fantasy intended for the older, adultier crowd. Not because it’s filled with sex and violence (some violence, no sex at all and only minor romance threads), but because Chavali is in her mid-twenties and her issues aren’t teenager issues. I would’ve read it as a teenager and been cool with it, but I was a precocious reader.

Book 4 brings tragedy to Chavali. Again. She’s on the warpath, looking for justice. Or maybe revenge. The spirits torment in new and exciting ways, and she has only her wits, crankiness, and sharp eyes to deal with that and more.

For this series, I’m also offering free copies of book 2 in exchange for reviews of book 1. Book 1 is The Fallen, an origin story for Chavali, who really thinks it’s none of your business. Book 2 is Harbinger, a mystery set in the coastal city of Ket, with plague, murder, and magic. If you’ve already read book 2, link me to your review and I’ll set you up with book 3, Moon Shades. And if you’ve already read that, the same goes for a review being worth a free copy of book 4. Like the Spirit Knights series, this offer expires on July 20.

Happy reading and reviewing!

Dragons In Pieces #Ebook Bundle

Spring Fever!

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I’m contractually obligated to remind folks that Backyard Dragons releases this Friday. If you’re interested, I strongly recommend reading Girls Can’t Be Knights first, as Dragons is a sequel. CAUTION: This is Young Adult Urban Fantasy WITH NO ROMANCE. Seriously, there’s no romance. Please don’t read it and get mad there’s no romance, because there’s no romance. It’s an ACTION/ADVENTURE series with a female protagonist.

I also must point out that Working the Table: An Indie Author’s Guide to Conventions is now available in paperback. The ebook version will be available whenever Amazon is able to figure out why their system is spazzing over the file. Hopefully, by the end of this week. If you have any interest in pimping your own books at events, this book can help you make your first event more of a success than a “learning experience”*.

With that stuff out of the way, Spring is springing where I live. This weekend, we had gorgeous weather here in the PNW. After spending the past five months chained to my laptop, working nearly nonstop on Backyard Dragons, a handful of anthology submissions, book 4 of The Greatest Sin, Chowndie, Ethereal Entanglements, and the next Ilauris book, I set it down. For, like a half an hour. I went outside. There was this bright, yellowish thing in the weirdly blue sky.

The view out the window of my office. And when I say “office,” I mean “bedroom.” You may hate me for working from my beanbag if you so choose. You may also gape at what we in the PNW mean when we say “clear skies.”

I had to check the internet to find out that’s what the sky looks like when it’s not cloudy or raining. Who knew, amIright? Apparently, that bright light thing is called “the sun,” which seems kind of a silly name to me, but I’m not in charge of things like that. I prefer “daystar” or “cancerlight.”

Since the weather was so pleasant–all the way into the 60s–I went out and did some gardening. Okay, I really only planted four bulbs I picked up at the Portland Home & Garden Show. I’m taking a chance on an oriental lily this year. According to the saleswoman, whose business happens to be about five miles from my house (because of course I drove over 100 miles to discover a business where I live), they don’t get red lily beetle here. Allegedly. We’ll see. The rest of the bulbs were daylilies which are sort of my gardening chocolate. As opposed to actual chocolate, which is my writing chocolate.

I feel it’s only fair at the point in the year to warn people who enjoy my spring and summer Ragbrai-related posts that I’ve decided not to go this year. Don’t panic. I’m not dying and have had no major injuries. This year, instead of journeying to Iowa for the best week in the multiverse, Jeffrey Cook and I are embarking on a midwest road trip convention tour under the Clockwork Dragon banner. The timing of the cons we’re working makes Ragbrai impossible. I’m hoping to get back to the corn in 2017. I’ll probably still talk about it, because no matter how awful Ragbrai is, it’s still the best vacation ever.

P.S. You really should read Knights before Dragons. I’m not kidding. Will Dragons make sense without? Sure. In the same way Empire Strikes Back makes sense without A New Hope. See? Grab Knights first. Then brace for Ethereal Entanglements this summer, which is book 3 in the series.

*Notice how I’m not guaranteeing you’ll have the bestest first event ever. I’m not a huckster trying to profit from your hopes and/or dreams. I just want vendor rooms to be great places and am perfectly happy to share my experiences to help others. Jeff feels the same way.

Learning Curve #amwriting

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Top 10 Lessons I learned from writing Backyard Dragons, my 11th self-published book, 2nd in a series of…3 or 4. Or maybe 6. We’ll see.

High price editors who can take you on short notice are probably not worth it.
When an editor either doesn’t ask or doesn’t say what they use upfront, always specify your preferred editing style (Chicago, AP, British, or otherwise) when handing over a manuscript.
Selecting a release date three months in advance can be fraught with peril.
Line editors should not be relied upon for content editing. They miss information while focusing on grammar.
Good cover design is not hard, it’s just a matter of knowledge tempered by experience. A good eye helps a lot, as does a second opinion. So, it’s hard.
I’ve been using certain commas wrong for at least 30 years.
Always check the manuscript for ‘the the’ and ‘and and’.
When an editor isn’t a member of the intended audience, take all their advice and commentary with a thousand grains of salt. Spoiler alert: adult men may not like this book that was written for young (in age and at heart) women.
Readers unfamiliar with book 1 will generally be confused by the little things in book 2+ and there’s only so much I can do about that.
I hate deadlines. (Just kidding, I already knew that.)

Backyard Dragons is the sequel to Girls Can’t Be Knights, and it’ll make a lot more sense if you read that book first. It’s now available in paperback and the ebook is available for pre-order with a release date of March 11, 2016. It’s also available on Kobo and iTunes.

Cover Reveal: 3 At Once

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DamselECover This brilliant new cover for one of my older books comes courtesy of Kirbi Fagan. She did a fantastic job, and I’m pleased to have been able to find a female illustrator for this project.

Despite this not being quite her usual milieu, she did a phenomenal job and I couldn’t be happier.

I’ll have copies with both covers for a little while. Until I run out, I’ll be offering the old ones at a discount. There’s nothing truly wrong with those books, they’ve just got the old cover. If you see me at an event and want the old cover version, ask and I’ll pull one out of the secret stash under the table.

DragonsInPieces

My very first book, Dragons In Pieces, is also getting a facelift. As with Damsel In Distress, the previous cover art was nice, but not right for the book. This one is much more appropriate for its genre. It’s also cool.

Keith Draws handled this one, and he’s also working on Chains and Flight, so more reveals will come soon! I still have copies of the old version of this one too.

SK2ECover And finally, the new book! Backyard Dragons is scheduled for release on March 18th. It’s the sequel to Girls Can’t Be Knights, my young adult urban fantasy story about Claire, the first ever girl to become a Spirit Knight in its two-thousand-year-plus history. Justin, her mentor, is having a rough day. Claire’s isn’t so hot either. But, dragons!

This fun cover was designed by the talented Lia Rees, someone I met through Writerpunk Press.

2016 is shaping up to be an exciting year full of even more changes, appearances, and books than 2017! I’m thrilled to be buckling down for the last edits on Backyard Dragons this week and next, then diving into the fourth book of The Greatest Sin, which will hopefully be out in time to take to GenCon. With luck, the third Spirit Knights book, Ethereal Entanglements, will be hot on its heels.

Scripturience

Words. Lots of words.