Elizabeth Dunlap's Blog, page 2

Cover Aesthetics

Being an author, it’s all about the way you present things.

The covers.

The blurb.

The advertisements.

Everything is about getting more readers excited about your work!

Keeping with that, I decided to re-design my Born Vampire series covers, just to see if I could come up with something more dynamic and fitting the genre. I whipped up a new set and posted it around Facebook asking for feedback, and got positive responses everywhere!

The files were updated and my ebook covers were changed before the day was out. I won’t be changing the paperback covers just yet, to make sure everyone can still get the original covers if they want a complete set, since there will be two more books in the series!!

And now the unveiling!!

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Aren’t they beautiful?? I like them even better now. Look forward to the changes of the paperback editions to match my new ebook covers!!

Review of the Royal Replicas Series

Browsing through Facebook, I mostly see book ads on my feed. One of them stood out to me and I earmarked it as a future read.

The Royal Replicas series by Michael Pierce.

“Princess Amelia is dead and one of you will replace her.” – The opening tagline-

With one friend telling me she loved the series, I got copies and dove right in. I devoured books 1-3 and part of book 4 in one day (I’m a speed reader), and finished book 4 over a few days after that. Worth every hour spent in my chair with my tablet, and I ached to have them in paperback because I loved them that much.

So let me break it down, and keep in mind, I can’t promise no spoilers. Onward!

The story opens with a girl named Victoria. There’s a lot of physical abuse going on in her home with her adoptive father, who beats her feet until they’re bleeding and broken when she does something wrong. Now, I know that’s off putting, and trust me it was hard to get through. It was worth reading, because the rest of the series more than made up for it, and Victoria eventually was able to rid herself of her abuser.

Even though the abuse bothered me, I felt like not enough books touch on abuse because it’s a very sensitive subject, and I think that seeing it was good. If you’ve never been abused, you can get a sense of what it’s like for those that have. Just because a subject is taboo doesn’t mean we shouldn’t write about it, and this series not only had the abuse, but also getting justice for it, which I appreciated.

Victoria soon finds herself at the royal palace in her nation Westeria, where she discovers she is a clone of the “dead” Princess Amelia and it competing with six other clones for the right to “become” Princess Amelia. Not really spoilers since it’s in the book description. What follows after is a very clear imitation of the tv show “The Bachelor” in order to win the heart of Prince Byron, the handsome prince that has agreed to marry whomever wins the contest, and that part had me rolling my eyes. “Oh we only have so much time together so you not letting me make out with you isn’t very cool.” Like, really?

Ignoring that bit, I did like seeing the romance develop between Victoria and Byron *spoilers*. Her relationship with the other love interest Kale was kind of meh, and when that eventually dissolved I thought the reasoning behind it was stupid. Still, as I said, I enjoyed the romance. It was sweet. I thought it could’ve been a bit more physical, but that was fine.

After the abuse and the Bachelor, the real story starts to take place. Conspiracies and plotting, and all that good stuff was very enjoyable. Where book one was very safe, the rest of the series has a danger to it that I liked. I think the plot progressed well and I was very unwilling to stop reading for anything, even forgetting to eat because I was so absorbed.

On a critical note, I will say that the writing could’ve been a bit more polished, even though it was very engaging. Words were repeated, like a sentence having the same word twice. “He swung around to face the door and then moved around the couch.” (not an actual quote, just an example) It might be just me because with my writing I try not to do that, but it wasn’t so obnoxious that I was brought out of the story. It just felt a bit unpolished, as I said. There were several typos, but no one is perfect and it didn’t take away from my enjoyment. Honestly I take typos with a grain of salt.

The covers are masterpieces, and I can’t wait to have paperback copies to read next time.

Overall, I really enjoyed this series, the good and the bad. I felt it was up there with the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld (one of my favorites). It had elements from other books but merged everything successfully, and even if it was something I’d seen before, I still didn’t see some of it coming and I liked that.

The ending felt nice. It wasn’t what I’d expected, though before it happened I could see it coming. It felt right, and I was happy. It was a full circle ending.

This series had its flaws (honestly, what series doesn’t??) and it was also very enjoyable. I loved the writing, I loved the story. It’s definitely worth the read, and a delight to finish.

10/10 would read again!

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Releases and Events!

It’s going to be a busy few weeks for Elizabeth Dunlap readers!!

Bite of the Fallen is releasing on October 13th.

I’ll be selling my books at Texas Teen Book Festival in Austin, Texas on October 6th, and at San Angelo Comic Con on October 12-14th!

I’m so excited for all the fun we’re going to have!! Make sure you come and see me! Texas Teen is free, but you can find out more about the event here:

https://texasteenbookfestival.org/

San Angelo Comic Con is $15 for one day, or $25 for two! You can buy your tickets here:

https://www.sanangelocomiccon.com/

Bite of the Fallen, coming soon!

The next book in the Born Vampire series is hitting Amazon on October 13th! I finished writing it and now it’s in the editing/beta reader stage. I’m so excited with how it turned out and I can’t wait for everyone to read it!!

It’s Knight’s turn to narrate, and he’s got several things to say when things start going wrong for the vampires and Lycans!

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Knight of the Hunted FREE chapter preview

Chapter One

Upstate, New York

Present day

I woke up to the scent of blood in my room. Blood and coffee. I opened my eyes and saw my companion sitting in my armchair, sipping a mug and playing a game on his phone. I narrowed my eyes at him when I noticed he was wearing a pair of Pokémon pajamas, and no shirt. He fiddled with his rusty red bleached hair as he concentrated on his game.

“What are you doing, Cameron? You know you’re not supposed to be in here.” I stretched my arms above my head and pushed long black curls out of my face. My golden comforter crinkled when I slid off the bed and onto the soft vanilla carpet.

“I was going about my merry business and heard you shouting in your sleep. When I walked in, you calmed down, so I stayed.” He looked up from his game and gave me a half smile, his brown Japanese eyes showing sympathy. “Finneus. That’s what you kept shouting.”

I looked away as I remembered what my dreams had been about. A memory from another life. “He was my friend when I was a girl. I turned his mate, but they insisted on living in the village away from our castle. It was only a matter of time before the humans figured out they were vampires. A mob set their house on fire and burned them alive.” I could still feel that moment like it had been yesterday. The raging heat of the flames. The screams as they turned to ash. I wrapped myself in my arms to try and shake the memory off. “It was a long time ago.”

“Right,” Cameron said softly. “So, was that five hundred or six hundred years ago?”

I scowled at him, even though I knew he was joking. “I’m not THAT old.”

He made an ‘if you say so’ face at me, before we heard a knock at the door of my suite. “That’ll be Othello,” Cameron stated with annoyance. “That man does not know when to quit.” I slipped on a robe, poked Cameron in the stomach, and walked into the living room. When I opened the Venetian front door, I was hit with a huge whiff of dead flowers held by the head of my Order.

“Good morning, Lisbeth,” Othello said brightly, a smile on his gaunt face. I’m sure when he was younger he was quite handsome, but at that moment he looked like he’d walked straight out of a Dracula novel. I took the bouquet from him and heard Cameron leaving my bedroom. Othello almost showed displeasure when he noticed my companion coming from my room, but he hid it. “It’s almost time for the meeting. It’ll be in the drawing room. The bigger one.” He waited for me to respond beyond, “Of course,” but I didn’t. As the head of my order, he had the power to choose any of us as his mate, but he’d set his eyes on me.

Even though I’d told him to back off several times, he still came by every day with flowers so he could compliment my hair and scowl at my companion. It’s not like I slept with Cameron. That didn’t happen between a vampire and their companion. But the fact that a man lived in my suite drove Othello up the wall. I didn’t much care for his opinion on the matter.

“I’ll be down directly,” I told Othello, and promptly shut the door in his gaunt white face.

When I turned to walk to a display table and deposit the flowers, Cameron was sitting on one of my gaudy Victorian couches, still playing his game, but wearing a shirt this time. “Ick,” he muttered in Japanese. Well, to be specific, it was, “That was so disgusting I need a shower.” I giggled and replaced the poppy bouquet from yesterday with today’s roses. Even if I didn’t want the flowers, they certainly fit in with my furniture choices.

On a normal morning, I would’ve drunk from Cameron and then we would go down for breakfast. But today wasn’t normal. Today was the most important day of the year. I went back to my room, changed into a black and white dress, and ran a brush through my black curls until they looked presentable. When I returned to the living room, Cameron was waiting for me, also changed.

“Like what you see?” Cameron offered, smirking at me. I realized I’d been standing there for a few minutes, staring at his outfit.

I smiled sarcastically at him. “If I do, I’ll let you know.” He rolled his eyes and I headed for the door, but he got there first and shoved me playfully out of the way.

“Me first, old lady.” Instead of letting him pass, I picked him up and walked out into the hall, then deposited him on the thick red carpet. “Ugh. I hate when you do that,” he groaned. “Makes me feel so unmanly.”

I stuck my tongue out at him. “Get over it, shrimpy.”

He sighed and smiled at me. “And to think, ten years ago you didn’t know how to be sarcastic. Now it’s all I hear.”

“You created a monster,” I said, grinning. We started walking down the dark red hallway, so different from the brightness of my white rooms. I always had the windows uncovered so the sunlight could pour in. Since I was a Born vampire, the sun didn’t hurt me. If I was one of the turned, that would be a different story.

At the stairs, Cameron and I parted ways. He went to the kitchen, and I walked down the long ground floor hallway to the drawing room. The bigger one. It was a large dark green room with an enormous window that let in enough sunlight to chase away any memory of darkness. My work partner and best friend, Olivier, was waiting for me. We educated the turned vampires together. She looked alien here, her perfectly dark skin in such contrast with everyone else’s pale white skin. She wore a weird black mermaid dress, per her usual style. I was fairly certain it was a private joke about vampire stereotypes, which she denied.

I walked up to her and tugged on one of her Steampunk style dreads. “I vant to suck your blood,” I whispered, giving her my best Dracula impression.

She looked up and narrowed her eyes at me. “Are you making fun of my dress?”

I tried to look innocent. “Uhh… noooo?”

She scowled, jokingly, then smiled at me. “Speaking of Dracula, was it roses?” She could smell the bouquet from Othello on my skin.

“Roses.” We started making faces at the idea of being with Othello, until the person in question walked over to us. We straightened up and pretended to be occupied.

He was all business this time, though he did give me looks that had that ‘I like working with you’ vibe. “Alright, ladies. They’re coming in now. Remember that flashing your fangs or making scary faces is NOT funny. The humans need to think we’re civilized.” He handed me a clipboard with names on it and walked past us over to one of the doors.

“Did you hear that, Lisbeth? Be civilized.” Olivier playfully smacked my arm. Othello’s warning was justified, though. We often played pranks on the new recruits.

“You are no fun,” I told her, sticking my tongue out.

Othello clapped his hands to get us to zip it, and opened the huge door to the adjoining sitting room. Inside the sitting room was a group of humans who had been selected and prepared for today. The day they would become the turned.

“Welcome, my friends,” Othello said brightly, holding his arms out. “Please come into the drawing room.” They all got up and followed Othello back to where we stood. “I won’t make you suffer with anticipation, so we shall journey below to the dormitory and begin.”

One of the humans apparently hadn’t been paying attention during their bare bones briefing because he brought his hand up to ask a question. “Why is it in the basement?” the human male asked.

Othello smiled at him like an old grandpa talking to a child, though as his subordinate I could tell the head of my Order was annoyed. “Once you join the turned, the sun will burn your skin and turn you to ash.” All the humans somehow ended up looking at the enormous window behind me. The warmth of the sun was pouring through the paned glass onto my arms and back. It felt nice, like a soft comfy blanket. “This is your last chance to feel the sunlight,” Othello warned them. “You will never walk outside in the sun again.” We waited, but none of the humans walked over to the window to soak in the sun. They’d already accepted their new life.

That made my job easier.

Olivier picked up the enormous ice chest filled with bagged blood and followed me to the basement door. The humans started a line behind us, and we all started walking down the darkened hallway that led downstairs.

“Hey,” one of the humans whispered, trying to catch up with me. I kept walking, but turned my head to look at him. He was an older man and had a kind face. “What’s in the ice chest?”

Olivier made a frustrated noise and grumbled in a pitch only I could hear, “Don’t humans ever pay attention?”

I smiled at the man, channeling all the patience I knew I had. “It’s blood. All part of the process.”

We reached the doors to the basement staircase and the human male stood beside me as the group stopped. “I thought we’d be given a feeder.”

“Companion,” I corrected. Calling our companions feeders was rude, but I forgave him. A feeder was a hit and run drink. Like a one-night stand. And we didn’t treat humans that way. Making them our companions gave them anything they needed in return for their service. It was only polite. “You won’t be given a companion for the first month. Born vampires have control from birth but the turned don’t have that luxury.” I glanced at Olivier, and with a nod, I opened the doors and let the humans in.

At the bottom of the stairs was the enormous turned dormitory. There were rows of coffins, each with a small nightstand and dresser next to it. The coffins weren’t necessary, it was just a bit of vampire humor, like Olivier’s wardrobe. You couldn’t say Born vampires didn’t have a sense of humor.

There was no electricity in this room so dozens of candles and torches lit up the large stone walls, illuminating the rest of my Order, all Born vampires. They stood in a circle in the center of the chamber, waiting for us to reach them. The younger vampires would turn at least one human. The older vampires, myself included, would turn however many we needed to. I glanced at my clipboard and called out all the human’s names and which vampire was to turn them. Olivier and I had three humans, and Othello had four.

Then it began.

The room started to stink of fear. No matter how much preparation the humans had had, seeing us drop our fangs brought out their primal fear. And it wasn’t surprising. They were our prey, and had been for thousands of years. Only within the last few centuries had we become a civilized species. Well, most of us.

The younger Born drank from their assigned human, just a pint or so. My three humans stood nearby, one of them the human male that had spoken to me. Their faces looked as pale as mine when I dropped my fangs and leaned in to the first human’s neck. The woman’s blood filled my mouth, and my entire body seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. I hadn’t noticed my hunger until I was already drinking. I was careful to not drink too much from them, not to spare them the effects of blood loss, but so I didn’t over drink. I took only a mouthful from each one.

When every human had been fed from, we bit into our wrists and pressed it to their mouths. The humans drank our blood, even though their faces showed they were disgusted with it. That would soon change.

As soon as our blood hit their stomachs, the process began. They screamed in agony and fell to the ground, their bodies no longer willing to support their weight. We backed away as they writhed on the floor, wracked with pain. The vampire blood worked its way through their systems quickly, but Olivier had enough time to distribute a bag of blood to every Born vampire. I balanced three of the bags in my arms, and we all waited for the writhing and screaming to stop.

The humans soon grew still. They were now technically dead, for the moment. Their bodies had changed. All imperfections were gone. Those that had been old were now young. The overweight had shed every extra pound, and their once pink skin was now pale with death.

Collectively, they all came back to life, gasping in a breath, and opened their eyes.

They were no longer humans.

They had become the turned.

 

Want to read more? Find all the buy links here:

http://www.elizabethdunlap.com/knight-of-the-hunted.html

Website is live!

I FINALLY have a website!! I used to have one but the site host randomly deleted my entire site, a bug which led them to nixing the site building feature all together. I let it stand for over a year because building a site is so much work, but I finally bit the bullet and updated the Weebly site I’d already made, and tied it to my domain!

elizabethdunlap.com

Unfortunately, Facebook has it in its head that my website is spam, and no amount of complaints or emails is getting through. In the meantime, enjoy my website!!

How to Self-Publish your book!

Last year I made a blog post about how to publish your paperback book on Createspace (https://lizziedunlap.wordpress.com/2017/06/25/creating-a-book-on-createspace-a-guide/) and now I’m going to guide you through self-publishing your book!

 

First off, I’m going to assume you’ve finished the novel, you have sent it for a healthy round of edits with beta readers (or paid for professional editing), and you have a cover made! If not, let’s get that done!! (I will be publishing another post on how to format your novel!)

 

The first choice to make: ebooks and paperback, or just ebooks! For me, I’ve never had much paperback sales online, but they sell like hotcakes at events! Having paperback options makes your work look more legitimate to readers, so even if you don’t have paperback sales, I recommend having the option just in case.

The second choice is: Will I put my books in Kindle Unlimited? Kindle Unlimited, or KDP Select as it’s called, is a program made by Amazon that puts your book into their KU subscription program. Readers pay Amazon money every month to read as many books as they want for free, as long as they’re in KU. Sounds awesome? Well, the downside is you can’t make your books available ANYWHERE else while your book is in KU. It demands Amazon exclusivity, so if you had your heart set on seeing your book on Barnes and Noble, KU will nip that in the bud. I had my books available in KU for a year and saw diminishing returns, but I’ve seen other authors make a bang for their buck with it, so that is your decision.

 

To start, you will need an account at the following sites.

https://kdp.amazon.com/

https://authorcentral.amazon.com/

https://createspace.com

That’s it? Yep, that’s it.

The first site is where you post your ebooks to Amazon. KDP is also where you manage KU, if you decide to put your books in that program. You can do one promotion for each book every three months, where you can make it free or do a falling price deal for up to seven days. Note: You cannot make your book perma-free from KDP. “But what if I want to make my book perma-free?” We’ll get to that later!

The second site listed is how you will create and manage your author page on Amazon. If you do not have an author page, there is no landing page for your readers to find you at. When they click on your pen name, it will direct them to an Amazon search of your books, but they can’t see your face, your bio, and more importantly they can’t follow your releases. That is crucial, because if someone likes your work and follows your releases, Amazon will send them an email when you release a new book. You can also check your ranking here. Once the account is created, go to the books tab, and add your books to your profile. Note: You will have to have at least one book published or in pre-order to make this account.

The third site is where you publish paperbacks. “But KDP offers paperback options now!” Yes, they do. However, KDP Print doesn’t offer discounted author copies, and that is crucial if you do events like I do. It doesn’t make sense to pay a higher price for a copy I’m trying to sell. If that doesn’t matter to you, then by all means, publish your paperbacks with KDP Print, and manage your ebooks and paperbacks on one site. That’s perfectly okay!

Note: Createspace doesn’t offer paperback pre-orders. I don’t know why, I wish they would. It’s ridiculous. I always release my paperbacks a few days before the ebook so people can get their copies in time.

 

Now that you have the accounts made, it’s time to upload your work!

You’ll need the following:

A description

Two categories

Seven keywords

A price

Ermagherd, how do I do this? – Me last year. Writing descriptions is hard, trust me. It has to describe the book without giving away too much in a way that makes the reader want to actually read your book. One thing I’ve learned, there are some people who HATE first person with a vivid passion (I have no idea why, I really don’t) so make sure your description is in the person tense that the book is. You don’t want an angry reader yelling at you for having the audacity of making them think the book was third person when it’s first person. (Why does that even matter, for serious?) Regardless, get a killer description written, and don’t worry if it’s not perfect, you can always tweak it later!

Two categories is next. When I first published my vampire series, I put it in Paranormal – Romance. I realized later that that is not the same thing as Romance – Paranormal. Then I realized that my books were New Adult, and not Young Adult, and that changed everything too. Finding the right category will take some trial and error. Amazon will place the book into a sub category after you’ve chosen where to put the book, like my vampire series is in Romance – Paranormal – Vampires, and Romance – Paranormal – Werewolves & Shifters. So, Amazon placed them in the right sub-category. Make sure they are in the right place, because sometimes the category is changed without telling you. If my books were suddenly in Romance – Medical, I’d be a little upset!

Seven keywords. Now, you might think that a keyword is simply a way to describe your book. Vampire, werewolf, romance. Nope. It’s what people are typing into the search bar to find books like yours. So while you might think they’ll type in vampire romance, they’re really typing in vampire werewolf romance. I use KDP Rocket to help me get better keywords, and it has worked really well for me. Find those seven keywords, and make sure they’re specific to your book and what people actually type into the search bar.

Pricing! This is the most important part. You might see an increase in ebook price for well-known authors. They price their ebooks at $10+ and I’m always rechecking to make sure I’m not on the paperback page because of the high price. I’ll be honest when I say that we as self-publishers cannot price our books so high, but don’t under price your books either. For a full length novel, between $4-5 is a good price. That is utterly up to you, and you can price it whichever price you think is fair, it can always be changed later.

 

There’s one last thing to discuss. Should I release my books wide? What does wide even mean? Releasing wide means having your books available on different platforms (Amazon, Itunes, B&N, etc.). Staying on Amazon is perfectly fine, and you can make a career without ever leaving the Zon’s shores. But if you’re adventurous, and you want to make sure that any reader can get your books, no matter where they shop at, consider releasing wide! You can do it on the individual sites (Ibooks, Nook, Google play) or you can use a site like draft2digital to help manage it all for you, and release to many platforms instantly. I had the privilege of using a site called Pronoun before it shut down, and it was similar to draft2digital (I miss it, please come back Pronoun

Look, a distraction!

I’m a real scatterbrain. For serious, I forget almost everything except random history facts, and every episode of Star Trek TNG and Warehouse 13. Believe me when I say that when I planned on writing three books this year, I didn’t realize my brain would decide to use all processing power to work on all three at once.

It’s not going very well, for obvious reasons.

In a constant brain fog, I’m still managing to chug along on my new series, and it’s going really well! I even came up with a new new series, like I needed more things to work on lulz!

I’m also piling up more and more books to read, and since I’m trying to write, I’m not reading books right now. Who knew cutting off reading would make me so sad all the time

Have we already Covered this?

I’m in the shallows of my next novel, slowly working my way into the deep end. At 13k words, the story is starting to fill out and we’re getting to more character introductions.

Do you want to see a sneak peek? Of course you do!

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I also redesigned the cover to The Grumpy Fairy, and though it was a difficult choice, the new cover will allow me to continue with the series, because holla, I’m working on book 2!

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I have three projects to work on this year, and since I’m being a complete slacker, I’m trying to focus on just one at the moment! Plus I’m also making premade book covers to sell now and I’m loving that too!

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If you like my style, or any of these covers, check me out at Pixie Covers on Facebook!

Time to get back to my writing everyone stay awesome!

Two conventions in, time for a new novel to begin

I’m riding high after Fan Expo this past weekend, my second convention appearance, my first being Permian Basin Comic Con!! I had a blast getting to know my author friends, and getting my books in so many hands!

Felicia Day was there, and she is one of the women I look up to, but sadly I couldn’t get away from my booth long enough to talk to her DX

Instead, my boyfriend got her to sign my comic and told her that my next book featured a character named after her daughter, Calliope! Naturally, that means I have to write this book ASAP! I started it last night and it’s going really well! Having to write about teenagers is a bit of a challenge because I had a less than normal upbringing and I was never like other kids either, not to mention I was homeschooled after fourth grade XD All that is setting me back in knowledge, but I’m not letting that stop me!

Anticipate my next novel because it’s going to be amazing! It has authors, new writers, poets, and maybe some mystery?????? Who knows! It’s a new genre for me, and we’re going all out, baby!

My next appearance will be at Lib-Con in Abilene, Texas on April 28th! I hope I see you there!!