Posts Tagged With: self-publish

What should I call my book series?

Posted on November 27, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

As work on the sequel to Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It proceeds at a glacial pace, my thoughts turn to the series as a whole and what it should be called. Considering that the first two things that draw me to a book are 1) the cover, and 2) the name, I want to make sure the series name is just as catchy as the book names themselves.

So to recap you, the two books currently in the series are Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It (published) and Chasing Nonconformity (not yet published). The genre is young adult space adventure / romance / humor. And now I need a series name.

The obvious choice is to base the name off of “Imminent Danger”, since that’s the first book in the series. But that could look a bit silly. Imagining browsing through Amazon and coming across this name:

Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It (Imminent Danger, #1)

Seems a bit redundant. Then again, that sort of thing happens to Twilight, Divergent, The Hunger Games … lots of popular series. Hmmm …

Time to draw inspiration from popular book series! Let’s see which popular YA series have “series names” that differ from the name of the first book in the series …

  • The Mortal Instruments (first book = City of Bones)
  • Caster Chronicles (first book = Beautiful Creatures)
  • The Infernal Devices (first book = Clockwork Angel)
  • Percy Jackson and the Olympians (first book = The Lightning Thief)
  • House of Night (first book = Marked)
  • Lunar Chronicles (first book = Lunar)
  • Gemma Doyle (first book = A Great and Terrible Beauty)

Time to analyze! Weeeeeeeeeee …

So it seems like most YA series go with whatever the name of the first book is. Probably makes life easier. The series that don’t do that seem to draw their names from either the protagonist, important items in the story, or … well, whatever the heck “House of Night” means. The word “Chronicles” also seems popular.

Either I go with something slightly dull, like The Imminent Danger Series, or I spice it up and capture the essence of the book with something a bit more vague, like The Lamri Chronicles or The Reluctant Xenophile Saga or Abducted! (I quite enjoy the gratuitous exclamation mark in the last one).

Hmm … what do you guys think? What’s a good series name for my fledgling YA space adventure / romance / humor series? All suggestions welcome, no matter how silly!

 

Unrelated media of the day:

I may have already shared this last Christmas, but whatever. It’s a lovely Christmas medley shot in a very cool way, so listen/watch and enjoy!

Categories: My Works, Self Publishing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 46 Comments

Cover Reveal! Legends of Windemere: Allure of the Gypsies (Charles Yallowitz)

Posted on November 25, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

Happy Monday, everyone! I’m psyched to announce that I’m taking part in fellow blogger Charles Yallowitz‘s cover reveal for his new book Legends of Windemere: Allure of the Gypsies.

Without further ado … the cover reveal!

Allure Final Cover (2)Isn’t it gorgeous? It was created by talented artist Jason Pedersen — click his name to check out his website!

And now, since you’re probably wondering what the heck the book is actually about, here’s the blurb:

The epic adventures of Luke Callindor and Nyx continue after their journey down the L’Dandrin River in Legends of Windemere: Prodigy of Rainbow Tower.

Reeling from his failures in their previous adventure, Luke leads his surviving friends to his hometown.  With his mind frayed and his confidence fractured, Luke must face the family and fiancée he left behind.  It is a brief homecoming when the vampire Kalam attacks the village, forcing Luke and Nyx to break into his lair for the key to resurrecting a fallen warrior.  It is a quest that will force both young heroes to reach new heights of strength and power that they never knew they had.

Can Luke and Nyx escape the lair of Kalam?  And, what role will the orphaned gypsy Sari play in their looming destiny?

The book will be released on December 1st, 2013 — so mark it in your calendars!

Also, this is the third book in the Legends of Windemere series. If you want to check out the first two books, here are some links:

Book 1 — Beginning of a Hero:  http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Hero-Legends-Windemere-ebook/dp/B00BL9GBU2/

Book 2 — Prodigy of Rainbow Tower:  http://www.amazon.com/Prodigy-Rainbow-Legends-Windemere-ebook/dp/B00E8WUD5S/

Aaaand to round out the cover reveal, here’s some info on the author himself, Charles Yallowitz!

Charles Yallowitz was born and raised on Long Island, NY, but he has spent most of his life wandering his own imagination in a blissful haze. Occasionally, he would return from this world for the necessities such as food, showers, and Saturday morning cartoons. One day he returned from his imagination and decided he would share his stories with the world. After his wife decided that she was tired of hearing the same stories repeatedly, she convinced him that it would make more sense to follow his dream of being a fantasy author. So, locked within the house under orders to shut up and get to work, Charles brings you Legends of Windemere. He looks forward to sharing all of his stories with you and his wife is happy he finally has someone else to play with.

Check out his blog to learn more about his books!

I think that covers it! Best of luck to Mister Yallowitz and his new book!

 

Categories: Self Publishing, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Win a copy of my debut novel!

Posted on November 19, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen — it’s Goodreads Giveaway time! Wooooooo! I’m giving away four softcover copies of Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It, and I can sign them to whoever you want if you win (you know, so you can give it away as a Christmas present or whatever).

A quick disclaimer before I share the link to the giveaway: it’s only open to Canada, USA, and UK, because shipping a book to the other side of the world is really freakin’ expensive. Sorry in advance!

Alright! Without further ado … here’s the link: Click here to win a copy of Imminent Danger!

Good luck to everyone who enters!

Unrelated media of the day:

Source: http://distractify.com/fun/fails/the-x-worst-asian-sign-translations-of-all-time/

Categories: My Works | Tags: , , , , , , | 12 Comments

VLOG #11 – Argyle Arts Festival + Writing Update!

Posted on November 2, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

Remember how I lost my flip cam and therefore couldn’t do any more vlogs? Well, I found it! It was hiding under Tibbers, my enormous teddy bear.

Thus, without further ado, my new vlog!

Categories: My Works | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Book Review: Cannibal Hearts (by Misha Burnett)

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

Important note: The book being reviewed below is the sequel to Catskinner’s Book. 

 

The Bookcannibal hearts

Cannibal Hearts

The Genre

Sci-fi / Mystery

The Author

Misha Burnett has been writing poetry and fiction for around forty years. During this time he has supported himself and his family with a variety of jobs, including locksmith, cab driver, and building maintenance.

The Plot

A year ago James Ozryck was a loner, forced to keep the world at bay by the alien entity he calls Catskinner who shares his body. Now he has found a community of others whose lives have been changed by the Outsiders.

Along with Godiva, his half-human lover, James runs a property management company that serves as a front company for Outsider activities.

When the pair’s mysterious boss, Agony Delapour suddenly shows up in town with a new project, however, things gets dangerous fast as events unfold that threaten the life that they have made.

The Review

Despite its admittedly dark and gritty nature, I had a lot of fun reading this book. It’s a great sequel to Burnett’s first novel, Catskinner’s Book, and I especially liked that all the characters I enjoyed in the first book made their way into the second book. One of my personal favorites is the red vixen, Miss Agony Delapour, who played a minor and terrifying role in the first book, but happily gets much more screen time in the sequel.

One theme I really like that runs through the series is that we’re never quite sure what’s going on with everything. We’ve got our protagonist and his associates, who are actually more bad than good, some of whom try to actively do good things and fail, while others are clearly bad but just happen to be working with good people for their own nefarious purposes. And we’ve got our antagonist, who’s the dictionary definition of “mysterious” – we don’t know who he is or what he’s planning, beside the fact that he’s apparently trying to kill off the protagonist. And the fate of the antagonist is just brilliant. You’ll have to read to find out what it is!

All in all, a thrilling read! I recommend you check this out if you’re a fan of sci-fi, thrillers, or mysteries.

The Rating

Five out of five blood-encrusted stars.

 

Check out Cannibal Hearts here!

 

Unrelated media of the day:

This is a really cool game my brother showed me the other day. It’s really off the wall and bizarre, so check it out if you have a few spare moments and want a nice escape from reality!

http://www.trevorvanmeter.com/flyguy/

Categories: Book Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Opinion time! What should I put on the Imminent Danger bumper sticker?

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

That’s right, my friends. It’s time. Time to make an Imminent Danger bumper sticker. Please, contain your excitement. Falling off your chair and collapsing on the floor in a quivering wreck is undignified. And what are we without our dignity, I ask you? WELL?

Moving on. I want to make an Imminent Danger bumper sticker, mostly because I want one to stick on my car. That’s right, I have a car now! Technically it’s my mother’s, but she bought a new one and gifted me her old one — virtual high five for awesome mothers! The car’s a bit rusty, but it’s now mine, and I want to decorate it. So let’s talk bumper stickers!

I’m thinking text is probably the best option, since bumper stickers are small and I’m not sure intricate artwork would really come across well. I was originally thinking of just putting the book title on the sticker, but that doesn’t really do much to promote my book — and ideally, the sticker would both say “Yay! Imminent Danger!” and “Buy this book!”.

Any thoughts? I’m considering including my website on the sticker, but I’m worried that’s going to put too much text to read clearly from a distance. Hmmm.

My brother suggested just having one big word — “SHWOOP”. That is, of course, the sound my spaceships make when they leap across great distances. Very appropriate for a vehicle. But no one would get the reference, not to mention it wouldn’t advertise my book at all. Then again, having a SHWOOP sticker would be pretty cool. If a couple of people got them, we could be like a secret SHWOOP club.

What do you guys think?

 

Unrelated media of the day:

I may have shared this already, but whatever, it’s funny.

Source: http://imgur.com/gallery/poxZL

 

Categories: My Works, Self Publishing | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 35 Comments

New Imminent Danger fan art from Celeste DeWolfe!

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

I’m psyched to announce that the lovely and talented Celeste DeWolfe has created a new piece of fan art for Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It. Huzzah! This piece is called “Complicated Relationship”, and it nicely captures the … well, the complicated relationship between the novel’s two main characters.

Note: The blue glowy things around Eris’s hands in the second panel are alien handcuffs. This will make more sense if you’ve read the book!

complicatedrelationship_celestedewolfe_fanart

 

 

Categories: My Works | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Reached 200 downloads on my silly short story!

Posted on October 5, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

200 downloads on The Coin Collector! Booya! I believe this means that people have officially downloaded my short story more than my debut novel. Ah well. The short story is short, not to mention free, so I suppose it makes sense. Still, happy day! Round numbers are awesome.

Speaking of short stories, a lovely lady in my writing critique group just published a short story called Chameleon – check it out here. I’ve only read the preview thus far, but it looked pretty darn good, so check it out if you’re looking for a quick read of the sci-fi/action/spy thriller variety!

In other news … yeah, I have no other news. Well, actually, I have officially started re-writes for Chasing Nonconformity. Two paragraphs down, several hundred to go! I stuck my notebook back in my bathroom and took out all the books so that I have no choice but to write during my morning … let’s call it a “sojourn”.

I also have a question for all you WordPress-literate types. My page views and “likes” have been down in recent months, mostly due to me being very lugubrious in my posting frequency, but I still get a few new people following my blog every day. So, no raise in views/likes … but new followers every day. Very suspicious. Any thoughts on this bizarre phenomenon? A mass conspiracy by the internet to mess with me? An unintended and inexplicable result of the recent American government shutdown? Could the United Platypus Alliance be involved?

 

Unrelated media of the day:

 

Categories: My Works, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , | 42 Comments

And Thus the Re-Writing Commences!

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

As you may recall from my previous post, I recently got my manuscript for Chasing Nonconformity (sequel to Imminent Danger) back from my beta readers. Huzzah!

Now come the re-writes.

I’m not going to lie — I’m having a lot of trouble with Chasing Nonconformity. Sequels are really hard, and I’ve been struggling with making sure this book has as much “oomph” as the first book. It’s a delicate balancing act — bringing enough elements from the first book to keep the feel of the world and characters the same, while at the same time introducing enough new elements to keep the story and characters changing and evolving.

My first draft, waaaaaay back in 2010, was a lot of fun to write, but there was a distinct lack of plot. The characters mostly just wandered around and did amusing things — as I said, enjoyable to write (and probably to read), but not exactly a “story”. My second draft, which I finished back in the spring of 2013, was much better — the characters actually had motivation for doing stuff! But the stakes still weren’t high enough, which once again made it feel like the characters were just milling about.

Then, a couple of weeks ago — and all credit goes to my brilliant brother Jesse — the solution to my “lack of stakes” problem arrived. I can’t tell you what it is, obviously, but it is both awesome and incredibly amusing (well, amusing to me, at least!), and it has the added bonus of wrapping up a few loose ends from the first book. Woo!

That’s pretty much how my brain works. First I write the story … then I go back and figure out how to make it make sense. Not the most streamlined of processes, but … well, for whatever reason it seems to work for me!

So, for everyone keeping track of my writing progress, Chasing Nonconformity is slowly but surely getting done. Assuming all goes well, this should be the last major re-write. I figure that’ll take me a month or two. So going into December the story should be ready to go out to another round of beta readers … give them two months to read it, since my beta readers are notoriously slow … putting us at the start of February …

Therefore I’m going to tentatively put the release for Chasing Nonconformity somewhere around the Spring 2014 area. I was initially aiming for January, but that’s just not going to happen now. Onwards and upwards, my friends! To victory!

 

Unrelated link of the day:

Are you a 90s kid? Prepare to be blown away by nostalgia:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/things-that-look-just-like-childhood

 

Semi-related image of the day:

Categories: My Works, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 22 Comments

First Imminent Danger Fanfiction!!!

Posted on September 7, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

A few wonderful, sunny months ago, Celeste DeWolfe fulfilled one of my big life dreams by creating the first ever Imminent Danger fan art. Now, an anonymous source whose identity must be protected for … well, for his/her own protection … has written the first ever Imminent Danger fanfiction! And it’s awesome!

The link is coming up right below. Fair warning, though — if you haven’t read the book, the fanfic probably won’t make much sense to you. To remedy this problem, I shamelessly suggest clicking the giant book cover to the right of this post and buying/reading the book ASAP!

Everyone ready? Steady? Freddy? And … link!

The first ever super awesome IMMINENT DANGER FANFICTION!!!

Awesome, right?!

For everyone who didn’t just click that link, I will now share with you some of my favourite quotes to entice you into clicking. Ready? Favourite quote #1:

Eris’s Brain: Finally, I’m free! I couldn’t stand it in there! Eris’s Heart kept going on about how cute that stupid raider was.

Eris’s Heart: HIS HAIR WAS SHAGGY AND I LOVE HIM!

Eris’s Hair has deactivated its Facebook account!

Favourite quote #2:

Varrin Gara’dar has taken the quiz “What To Say When Your Girlfriend Is Taken Hostage”!

Varrin Gara’dar has scored 0% on the quiz “What To Say When Your Girlfriend Is Taken Hostage!”

Hehehe. Okay, so now that I’ve somewhat ineffectively convinced you how awesome it is, go read it now! Or not. I’ll still like you either way.

Unrelated media of the day:

Cool opening video/song for the Civ IV game. As a history major, this gives me chills of the “Mankind freakin’ ROCKS!!!” variety.

Categories: My Works, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

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