K.C. Sprayberry's Blog, page 155

Spotlight on Adventures in Death and Romance: Vrykolkas Tales

Out of Control Characters welcomes Monette Bebow-Reinhard today. She’s talking about her recently released paranormal novel, Adventures in Death and Romance: Vrykolkas Tales.





Blurb:
Vrykolakas – the word is a mouthful and seems to get caught in the throat, doesn’t it?  But that’s as it should be. Let Arabus Drake, Greek vampire, grab you by the throat and pull you around the historical world in his tales. Kicking and screaming and saying no more please, and yet unable to stop turning pages, unable to walk away, because his world is your world, after all, and you’ve known he was out there all along. Give him a chance to get under your skin and you will find you’d rather go a day and a half without breathing than turn your back on Arabus Drake.
Arabus tells his tales of seeking acceptance in a living world since the day he emerged from the grave in 1503.  Included are tales that give readers insights into how it feels to be undead.  Along the journey his search evolves from seeking the soul of the woman that he was murdered with to finding a more unusual way of loving and acceptance, along the way fighting the Turk army, pirates, Tories, a vindictive lawman and a wily ghost who stands between him and a woman he thinks can finally love him.






About the Author
Monette Bebow-Reinhard spent years, while raising children, satisfying her artistic bent by acting, directing and writing plays.  She began writing movie scripts when in 1992 she gained access to the world of Bonanza through contact with its producer/creator, David Dortort.  After three years of convincing him she could write Bonanza material, she became the only authorized Bonanza writer.
She studied acting for a year at college and dropped out for the family life, returning to college in 1994 after a near miss with a publisher on a unique vampire novel series, now after a variety of versions is newly released.  The BA earned in 2000 didn’t give her good enough research skills to finish the book on her grandfather’s great-uncle’s 20 years in the army in the 1800s, and she returned to school to earn an MA in history in 2006.  She’s marketing that completed nonfiction, Civil War and Bloody Peace: following orders, and is also marketing a movie script derived from this material on what really led to the Little Bighorn.
Her biggest passion is the culture, environment and traveling for research. She drives a 2006 Honda Insight, and envisions with all her writing to pass on the passion for the environment, for cultural integrity, and for peaceful living. Her daughter CarrieLynn is assistant professor at Dominican University in Chicago, sons Adam and Bennett both work for Microsoft in Seattle, and one has given her two grandchildren.  She tries to imbue all of her historical material with respect for the environment and cultural sensitivity. 
She also recently signed with another publisher on her short story collection, Grimms American Macabre, a collection of short stories under the pen name Lizbeth Grimm. It’s been a dream of hers since learning she is a Grimm.  She has another historical novel, Saving Boone: Legend of a Half-Breed, that she’s marketing and will be presenting on the topic of politically correct in history at the August conference of Historical Writers of America in Virginia.
Social Media Links:
Website 
Facebook 
Twitter 
LinkedIn 
Blog 
Goodreads 

Publish or Perish

One can attribute this phrase to academia, but it also applies to the fiction author. We are in competition with the thousands of books uploaded every week on Amazon. A book uploaded today for sale will be yesterday’s news unless we are hard at work not only writing a new book but also promoting it as what we’re working on at the present.
I’ve heard far too many authors recently talking about how you shouldn’t publish a novel more than every two years. That was the rule for decades. It takes time to write a novel, or to clean up what can only be described as a sad mess once you finish your annual NaNoWriMo madness during November. You not only need to write, revise, and edit your novel, but you also have to go through the submission process for agents and/or publishers, and then the pre-publication editing and proofreading before your book actually is ready for upload.
Okay, sounds pretty daunting, doesn’t it?
In a way, it is daunting, especially if you’re writing a series. Or several series. There are only so many hours in the day and you do have a real life that needs attention too. But the stories in our heads won’t go away. And that leads to a scheduling problem that will make the most compulsive person in the world scream in terror.
How do you manage to write so many books?
I’m asked that questions constantly, and not just by other authors. My fans also ask. My response is that I’ve been in this game for many years before I was published. Therefore, I have a huge stock of stories I’ve written—shorts, novellas, and novels—that are ready for a final polish and a query to my publisher. A little over twenty years ago, writing became my life. I learned how to work around housework, children’s activities, and a loving husband in order to pound out the stories in my head. With the children all adults now, I have a little more time, but the daily grind still presses against me, especially when I’m plotting through a difficult scene in order to make it work.
On top of all this, you, as the author, are also expected to promote your work daily on social media, to make appearances at the local library or schools, and to do your best to always be on display. Authors must always have a smile on their face and be willing to speak to total strangers about their work.
Yet, through all of this, we must also continue to pour out new tales, to contrive new scenarios, and to get that next book written far faster than any author has done in past decades. All of this is done so that our fans don’t move on to the newest author on Amazon. We want to whet their interest in our latest creation and still maintain a balance of being available.
So, yes, fiction authors are now living in a publish or perish world. We have the intense pressure of putting out new work every few months instead of every few years in order to keep people looking for our books. Yet, despite all that, I will stay with this crazy job I have, because I love it.

A Boy With A Mission

The airlock door opens on adventure and a main character with an attitude. Readers are introduced to a group of teens without a lot of fear, the knack to get into trouble walking across the room, and dedication to accomplishing what they set out to do.
Science fiction for teens is gaining ground. The stories aren’t so much science driven but rather they’re the adventures of young adults in a futuristic world and how they handle the restrictions placed on them. The stories can be on space stations, during travel to another world, in a completely different galaxy. There can be all sorts of monsters, both human and otherwise. Of course, there are bad guys, and you might see a strange creature or two.
The fun of building your own world is that you can set new rules, but some rules have to remain the same. Okay, so you need gravity on a space station for people to be able to function. Why not have instances of the gravity failing. What can happen then?
Perhaps you have teens who love using flitters to earn a few bucks. What if a group of space pirates showed up to make trouble?
That’s the situation facing BD Bradford in Canoples Investigations Tackles Space Pirates. It’s only one of the problems he faces during a day that never seems to end, but when it does, he’s still stuck with one issue—BD Bradford will never understand girls!
Blurb
BD Bradford resides on Canoples Station in 2364. He's on his last break before graduating high school. The biggest worry on his mind is scoring enough creds to buy the latest vid-game, and making up with his girlfriend, if she'll stop glaring at him. An announcement at breakfast hatches an idea in his ever-active brain – space pirates might be in the vicinity. Visions of creds tumbling around him after he captures the miscreants war with thoughts of what he did to torque off his girlfriend. He catches a glimpse of the villains outside the promenade's viewport, but he beats feet to safety upon hearing one of his sworn enemies having a drama moment.




Canoples Investigations Tackles Space Pirates 

Reviews

Amazon has created a conundrum with their latest attempt to avoid another sock puppet scandal. In their zeal to ensure another individual doesn’t create multiple accounts under fake names to give poor reviews to their competitors, they are removing reviews if they believe the individual is connected to the author in any way.
Most authors have reacted badly to this policy. Some have claimed Amazon has “stolen” their reviews and have been quite vocal about this on social media. Nothing can stop these authors in their vehemence to attack the retail giant for removing those reviews.
First, this is Amazon’s territory. They have every right to take precautions from having their reputation sullied with another scandal such as the one that rocked the industry in late 2012 when one RJ Ellory created personas to give his book sterling reviews designed to gather readers. However, this author didn’t stop there. Using those same fake profiles, this author attacked his competition by giving them poor reviews on their books.
The news broke in The Guardian in the U.K. and was talked about for quite a long time. (for the full story, click this: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/sep/04/sock-puppetry-publish-be-damned). Once the dust settled, Mr. Ellory made numerous apologies for what he’d done. Another issue came to light, that being how other authors were doing the very same thing.
Amazon uses reviews to allow consumers to rate their products. Authors love to see their work reviewed. It gives them an insight into how people feel. We authors have been known to lurk on Amazon, waiting to see the first review of our work come up, ready to cheer for the great accolades and weep from the poor ones.
Now that the review system has been reset so to speak, authors are becoming militant about the removal of reviews, which they claim has no rhyme or reason. But, this is a byproduct of a loophole that a few less than ethical authors took advantage of and we must all pay the price.
Certainly, I want to see reviews of my books. They’re rather nice, but I agree with Amazon’s system now. It allows for the honest review versus a few people taking advantage of a loophole to hype their own work and slap down the competition. 

Everybody Reads YA ~ Paradox Lost: Their Path

Happy “Everybody Reads YA” Sunday! Today I’m sharing an excerpt from my YA fantasy/time travel novel: Paradox Lost: Their Path. A prophecy dooms triplets, DJ, Matt, and Elisa to an uncertain future. 



He wakes with a sense of alarm racing through his body. For the fifth time this month, Dennis James Sullivan hears unseen callers in his head, but today is far different from any other.At seventeen, he is taller than most boys his age. His dark red hair falls over his deep blue eyes. He shoves the hair back and leans his elbows against his knees. His whole body feels as if it belongs to someone else, what with his knees and elbows all knobby, and the way he constantly springs up another inch overnight. Not that that wasn’t normal, but then the voices began speaking to him, and he can’t make sense of it


About the Author
Born and raised in Southern California’s Los Angeles basin, K.C. Sprayberry spent years traveling the United States and Europe while in the Air Force before settling in northwest Georgia. A new empty nester with her husband of more than twenty years, she spends her days figuring out new ways to torment her characters and coming up with innovative tales from the South and beyond.
She’s a multi-genre author who comes up with ideas from the strangest sources. Some of her short stories have appeared in anthologies, others in magazines.



The past changed the future
            … the future must salvage the past.
DJ, Matt, and Elisa are mostly normal teens. They have their friends, and their squabbles, and their dreams of the future. Yet, they are also very special teens, brought into this world to fulfill a prophecy made by an ancestor 200 years in their past. One of them dies, one receives incredible powers, and one discovers a place no one suspected she would have.
It was meant to be nothing more than a fun and adventurous spring break from the Beaufort School of Visionary Studies for triplets DJ, Matt, and Elisa. Little did they know that the prophecy made about them was about to catch up. When they are warned that Rogues have targeted them and their family, they go into hiding to protect everyone. But the Rogues have other plans. Can they make the right choices even though they know others will be hurt by their decisions? Even when one of those decisions means certain death?


Paradox Lost: Their Path 

Life Imitates Art

An all too familiar scene greeted me recently. No, I wasn’t visiting a place I’d been to before. That would have been preferable. What I saw and experienced a mere week ago brought home the realization that no matter how hard we try as parents, our children will eventually discover ways to make us crazy.
Imagine this scenario…
An accident…
It can be along a dangerous road or where the driver goes off the side of a ridge…
There may or may not be injuries…
Weather or other factors may be involved…
Now think about this…
The cause of the accident was…
A drunk driver deliberately runs a person off the road, without caring about the consequences. That vehicle tumbles down the side of a ridge, eventually coming to a stop on its side and burns. Both occupants are killed.
Extreme weather conditions lead an inexperienced driver into a position where they fight to control a skid, only to end up in a deep ditch and then bouncing against a culvert. Their vehicle goes airborne and flips, landing on its side. There is no fire, thanks to an anti-tilt system working as advertised. All three occupants are injured but not so badly that they can’t resume their lives. Yet, the vehicle is a total loss.
One of these scenarios is a scene in my novel Softly Say Goodbye, written in 2010. The other was a scene I went to exactly a week ago, where my youngest child was the driver.
Thankfully, scene two applied to my life. My child and his passengers will recover. But seeing that vehicle, the exact same model I used in Softly Say Goodbye gave me a shock I won’t ever forget. The scene I witnessed won’t be in a movie but it was one I already knew… partially.
I endured a deputy’s patronizing, “Don’t worry, Mom, all will be okay.” while knowing that I could never explain to this man why I was so shocked.
Thursday, March 24, 2016 was the day I learned that life truly can imitate art.
Will I hold back in my stories now, avoiding scenes I don’t want to see? Absolutely not. The scene I witnessed in my own life being so similar to the one in Softly Say Goodbye is why I worked so hard to get the exact details right. The reasons behind each scenario are a little different—one being caused by a drunk driver and the other by driver inexperience. Yet, they were also shockingly similar, where families are thrown into a state of shock and wondering if their lives will ever be the same again.

Beat of a Different Drummer

Cover art is something agonized over by all authors. Just what do you want to portray on your cover. This is the first thing people see when they search sales venues for a new book to purchase. As an author, you want to have the best cover possible, so you stand out against all the competition.
When my first book was published, I went with a cover that portrayed a couple staring into each other’s eyes. This was for a book about underage drinking, and a couple caught up in the hazards caused by this problem. At that time, I felt this portrayed the underlying love story in the novel.
The cover was well received. It was very well done. But eventually, I opted for a new cover, one showing a location important to the book’s overall theme rather than a secondary story line.
Why?
Many authors use couples on their cover art. This is more than a theme. It’s an overdone idea that the reader wants to see couples. Or they want to see a person important to the book. Searching for the perfect cover becomes more than difficult if you remain with this theme. There are only so many ways you can use people on a cover that will garner attention, if that’s all possible.
One of the big problems that I’ve noticed is when searching Amazon or other sales venues for different books, I’ve found that approximately 85% of the covers feature people. Have you seen that offering under a book you’re interested in? The one that says “If you like this book, you might like these” line? Go ahead and peek. How many have people in them?
As someone who has done this on numerous occasions, I can tell you. Too many to count. In fact, I noticed that even though I was looking for important information on books similar to mine, I couldn’t stop my eyes from sliding over those covers with people in them. There were far too many to stop and examine the blurb or read the first 20% of a book to be bothered.
That’s when my brain screeched at me. “Hold on. Just a minute. Do you want your books consigned to this type of problem?” And I came to a decision. Yes, I might pick out a few covers that included people, but from this point on, I was going to look for imagery that portrays the overall theme of the book. It might be a piece of architecture important to the story. I might locate scenery that portrays the theme of the book. I’ve even gone with something that people might initially think is unrelated to the book, but shows the emotions therein.
What feedback have I had after coming to this decision? One cover elicited comments from someone I’ve admired for years, scolding me for not having pictures of the people involved, for having a title and my name that aren’t done so large that you can’t see the picture. And for not demanding that the artist “fix” the problem immediately. That was one person out of hundreds who indicated they loved the cover art and wanted to buy the book as soon as they could. But those comments hurt because I’d admired her for so long, until I realized that what I had done was attracted a lot of people with my cover and they had nice things to say about it.After coming to that realization, I didn’t look back. The cover art is the first thing a reader sees when they’re evaluating the book for purchase. A picture appeals to our sense of aesthetics. Once I’ve captured a reader’s attention, they will be more willing to take that step to click on the buy button, and that’s exactly what I’m after.

Regaining Trust

Once you lose someone’s trust, it’s nearly impossible to regain it. So many teens have discovered this when they do something their parents have forbidden and find themselves without the ability to do things they once did.
Most teens will come up with all different manner of reasons why they’ve earned back the trust they lost. They live in an instant world and expect everyone else to do the same. But there are some issues where not listening in the first place and going through with your plans leaves you in hot water up over your head. The only thing to do at that point is to ride out the situation until you reach a point where you can prove you’re worthy of trusting.
Hailey Hatmaker and her sidekick, Sly, are in just that situation in The Ghost Catcher. They made a mess of things at the end of Ghosties Trouble To The Max, resulting in the Ghosties being broken up. This troublesome duo decide the looming trouble can’t be ignored and jump into the action, sneaking around to do that—the very thing that got them into trouble in the first place.


A gift to know when people are in trouble of the ghostly type puts Hailey Hatmaker in the middle of a major problem – one that winds up getting her into more hot water than she can handle. In true Hailey Hatmaker fashion, she dives into what turns out to be a battle with Limbo, her number one nemesis.
Can Hailey rescue two friends before it's too late? Or is she forever condemned to losing to Limbo?




The Ghost Catcher 

Guidelines

I don’t need no stinkin’ guidelines!
How often have writers ignored the guidelines listed on a publisher’s website and submitted with what they chose to include?
Are you one of these people who decides guidelines given by a publisher don’t mean anything and all you need to do is offer a cover letter, synopsis, and a few chapters of your “best seller that will make you millions?”
One of the first things everyone learns when looking for a job is that you put your best foot forward. You won’t show up for an interview wearing greasy jeans, a ripped t-shirt, with your hair looking like you should have visited a stylist for a trim and shampoo. Who would dare appear at a bank dressed as if they’re auditioning for Chippendales or a strip club?
But, you argue, that’s an interview. Guidelines are flexible.
Actually, a publisher’s guidelines serve two purposes. They tell you exactly how the publisher wants to see your submission. They also are an indication if you can follow directions.
In other words, the guidelines are exactly like an interview. They are your only chance to put your best foot forward and show that your book is worth considering.
For that reason, despite the advice you’ve received from writer’s groups, your friends, even experts abounding on the internet, when you finally get ready to submit, read the guidelines first.

Everybody Reads YA ~ Go Away

Happy “Everybody Reads YA” Sunday! Today I’m sharing an excerpt from my YA short story, Go Away. Lanie hates her older stepbrother, Mark, so much so that she wants him to go away forever.




Glancing in all directions, I sneak toward where I live. He can’t see me. I can’t let him know that I’m home. Not until I’m safely inside.
“Hey, Lainie! Do your friends know that you dance in front of the bathroom mirror every night? Maybe I should sell tickets.”
Face burning, I duck my head, running up the stairs and the last few feet to our apartment. How can my jerk of a brother do this? Turning, I stand in front of the door and scream out my frustration.
“Mark, I don’t want you to live here anymore. You should stay at your dad’s this year. Like in never come back!”


About the Author
Born and raised in Southern California’s Los Angeles basin, K.C. Sprayberry spent years traveling the United States and Europe while in the Air Force before settling in northwest Georgia. A new empty nester with her husband of more than twenty years, she spends her days figuring out new ways to torment her characters and coming up with innovative tales from the South and beyond.
She’s a multi-genre author who comes up with ideas from the strangest sources. Some of her short stories have appeared in anthologies, others in magazines.  




Lainie’s older stepbrother, Mark, is the bane of her existence. He always embarrasses her. She swears she hates him… until a terrible day when she realizes just the opposite is true.

Go Away