About Books

  • ·

    Touch of Frost cover revealed (again) …

    21 Comments

    Well, it looks like I posted too soon.

    My publisher has decided to change the cover art for Touch of Frost, the first book in my Mythos Academy young adult urban fantasy series. I’ve known about this for a while. In fact, my editor told me that they’d decided to change the cover a few days after I posted the first cover here. That’s how it goes sometimes. LOL.

    At left is what the new cover will look like — aka the girl cover. Below, I’ve posted what the old cover looked like — aka the gargoyle cover.

    It’s not uncommon for cover art to be changed. Like the books themselves, the cover art goes through several different rounds of development and lots of folks have to sign off on the cover art before it’s finally approved.

    I like both covers, but I think the girl cover is a better fit for the book/series. To me, it’s a little hipper and edgier and says young adult urban fantasy more than the gargoyle cover did. I think that’s important  since Touch of Frost is all about my heroine, Gwen Frost, and is told from her first-person point of view. Here’s the back cover copy for the book:

    My name is Gwen Frost, and I go to Mythos Acad­emy — a school of myths, magic and war­rior whiz kids, where even the lowli­est geek knows how to chop off somebody’s head with a sword and Logan Quinn, the hottest Spar­tan guy in school, also hap­pens to be the deadliest.

    But lately, things have been weird, even for Mythos. First, mean girl Jas­mine Ash­ton was mur­dered in the Library of Antiq­ui­ties. Then, some­one stole the Bowl of Tears, a mag­i­cal arti­fact that can be used to bring about the sec­ond Chaos War. You know, death, destruc­tion and lots of other bad, bad things. Freaky stuff like this goes on all the time at Mythos, but I’m deter­mined to find out who killed Jas­mine and why – espe­cially since I should have been the one who died …

    So now that I have the final cover for the books, I can go forward with things on my end, like getting flyers and bookmarks made. I’ll post here when I get the bookmarks and let you guys know how to get some.

    By the way, I’ve seen the preliminary cover for Kiss of Frost, the second book in the series, and it is freaking awesome. I can’t wait to share that cover with you guys. 😉

    Which cover do you guys like better? Share in the comments.

  • ·

    Back to print …

    14 Comments

    Well, I have a bit of good news to report: Venom is going back for another printing. Huzzah!

    This will make the third printing for Venom. Spider’s Bite and Web of Lies are in their third printings as well. Now, I don’t have huge print runs to start with and these subsequent printings are pretty small (5,000 more copies this time around for Venom). But the books seem to keep selling at a very steady pace, which is good.

    Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks to all the book reviewers and bloggers out there for spreading the word about the series and of course to all the readers for giving my books a chance. You guys rock! 😉

  • Blogs, blogs, blogs …

    17 Comments

    I like reading about books just as much as I like writing them. Probably more so, since reading books doesn’t come with pesky things like copy edits or deadlines. LOL.

    Today, I wanted to give a shout-out and say thanks to all the book reviewers and bloggers out there. You guys are so instrumental in getting the word out about so many great books, and I thank you for that.

    Book blogs are like my own personal form of crack. I probably look at about 20 book sites a day, not only so I can keep up with what’s going on but just to find new books and authors to add to my TBR pile. So I thought I’d share some cool book blogs with you guys today. Here goes:

    All About Romance

    Babbling About Books, and More

    Bitten by Books

    Fiction Vixen

    Literary Escapsim

    LovLivLife Reviews

    SciFi Guy

    Smexy Books

    Supernatural Snark

    The Book Smugglers

    I could go on all day. There are literally dozens and dozens of great book blogs out there. This is by no means an exhaustive list — just a place for you to get started if you’re hungry for book news like I am. What about you guys? What are some of your favorite book sites? Share in the comments.

  • · ·

    First Frost e-short story …

    6 Comments

    Well, I’ve turned in the page proofs so I guess I can announce this now: I’m doing an e-short story for the Mythos Academy series.

    The story is called First Frost and is a prequel to Touch of Frost, the first book in the series that’s coming out on July 26 from Kensington. Basically, First Frost fills in some of the details of how and why Gwen winds up going to Mythos Academy and gives folks a sneak peak at the academy and some of the characters there. It’s sort of like the Spider’s Bargain short story that I wrote for the Elemental Assassin series.

    First Frost is about 40 pages long (around 11,000 words), and I believe the plan is to offer the story as a 99-cent download through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. (Although don’t quote me on that just yet.) I’m told that the story will be released in July. I’m assuming early July since Touch of Frost is out on July 26, but I don’t have a firm release date yet or exactly how this is going to work.

    Now, because my publisher is releasing the story as an e-book, that means that I can’t post it here on my website. I’ll probably be able to post the first page or two as a teaser, but that’s it. We haven’t worked out all the details yet.

    I know some folks will be disappointed that the story isn’t available on my site for free. But I thought letting my publisher offer it as a download would be a really good marketing opportunity and hopefully attract some new readers, not only for the Mythos Academy series but for my Elemental Assassin series as well.

    E-books and short e-reads are really taking off right now, and I think offering the story as a download is a smart thing to do. More people visit Amazon, etc. than look at my website. Maybe having a 99-cent download will convince more folks to surf on over here and try my books. I don’t know, but I figured that it was worth a shot.

    Of course, you don’t have to read First Frost to enjoy Touch of Frost, but if you like bonus material, you might enjoy it.

    I’ll post more details, including the cover, when I get them …

  • ·

    Letting go …

    18 Comments

    So I’ve been sending out e-ARCs of Tangled Threads to reviewers/bloggers, and a few folks have e-mailed me back letting me know about typos, small mistakes, etc. I’m really grateful for this, and I’ve been able to make some changes based on these e-mails. Even if it’s too late to make changes to the original version, I still pass along the info to my editor so the second and subsequent printings can be corrected (assuming the books go back to press).

    But no matter who it’s from, whenever I get an e-mail pointing out a typo, etc., I always cringe a little inside because I hate, hate, hate that there are mistakes in my books. Argh! It makes me feel like Charlie Brown running up to kick the football and Lucy pulling it away from him at the last minute.

    Believe me, I’ve tried to cut down on the typos and mistakes. I spend days (sometimes weeks) apiece on each round of rough drafts, revisions, copy edits, and page proofs. I probably read through each one of my books at least 10 times (if not more), editing pen in hand every single time. And still at the end when the book goes into print, there are typos and other mistakes that creep in.

    Argh! I feel like I just hit the dirt again, just like poor ole Charlie Brown.

    I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot since I just finished up the page proofs for Touch of Frost and am currently working on copy edits for Spider’s Revenge. I’ve looked at these pages until I can see them in my sleep, but every time I go back through them, I see something else that I could fix or tweak. Sigh.

    I know that I’ve just got to make peace with the fact that my books are never going to be perfect. There’s always going to be some small typo that I don’t catch or a better word that I could have used somewhere — but letting go is never easy.

    I think maybe the next time Lucy pulls the football away from me, I’ll just lay there on the ground awhile and take a nap. At least then, I’ll be well-rested. LOL. Until I get the next round of edits or page proofs, that is …