Pippa Jay's Blog, page 86
December 22, 2011
Review - Solaris Rising edited by Ian Whates
My review of Solaris Rising, a science-fiction anthology, is now live on the Fantasy Book Review website here. If you're looking for your first taster in scifi, this is a good place to start. :)
December 21, 2011
Do you judge an Author by their book cover?
I have to say, I ALWAYS judge a book by its cover. It's the first thing you see. In most cases with a new book, it's the first thing that attracts me, that gets me to pick it up and read the blurb, unless I've already decided on the title because of reviews or recommendation. The cover has to at least grab your attention for those few seconds your eyes skim over the thumbnail on Amazon or the shelf of your local bookshop.
But something occurred to me this weekend after several differing reactions to my cover. Not only might my book be judged by my cover, but would I be as well? The thought came as a bit of a shock.
Now, I love my cover. I think it perfectly captures the mood of my male MC and the story itself. Some people have found it a little...well...racy perhaps? More naked than they were expecting? Generally that's been well-received (predominantly by my female friends, which comes as no surprise!). It is not, I will admit, probably a cover to attract male fans.
Now that's a bit of a conflict for me. I have never written with a target audience in mind - I follow that adage of writing the book I wanted to read - so I guess that would make my main audience, intended or not, scifi lovin' women like me. At the moment I have a straight scifi story out on sub, whereas Keir is a scifi rom, so the cover's going to reflect that. But does it mean people will view ME in a certain way? Will they take one look at my cover, and decide the kind of person I am?
Does it matter? And should it? I'm a pretty modest kind of person, but I think Keir is a damn good story and I'm proud of it. I know there are going to be people who won't like it. I get that. Honestly I do. I know I can't please everyone, and I'm not going to twist myself in knots trying doing so. For those who don't like romance, I'll have straight scifi coming out - I already have a free scifi short out that isn't the least romantic, and another I hope to release next year.
But the thing is, I don't get to chose the cover. A lot of people, especially the non-writing ones, probably don't realize that's how it works with a publishing contract. I had a form to fill out of the kind of thing I had in mind, but I get no say. I can ask for changes to be made, but in essence the cover is decided by the publisher.
So do you find that people judge you by your covers? Has it ever come up? Perhaps I'm just being too paranoid about the whole thing!
December 18, 2011
Six Sentence Sunday #41
Hello peeps! Welcome to another #sixsunday. Thanks to everyone who stops by and comments each week, much appreciated. Last week we were with Gethyon as he arrived home, but later that morning I got a nice surprise in my inbox - the cover for my first full length science fiction romance. Squee! So this week I'm going to share my beautiful cover and the six opening lines from Keir, due out on the 7th May 2012. Enjoy!
In the darkness and the silence, Keir sat with teeth gritted against the pain racking his body. With each ragged breath he sought to shift his focus from the agony of ribs that were surely broken. He tried not to feel the ache in his head where his hair lay matted with blood against his scalp. The cell's damp seeped through his rags and into his skin until he throbbed with the cold. He clenched his fists against the shakes that possessed him and wished he could force them still.Wordlessly he raged against the injustice of it all, as though the anger could keep his life burning when all it really did was waste his energy, hastening the end.
© 2009-2011 Copyright Philippa J. Green All Rights Reserved
Please check out the other awesome authors participating by clicking on the banner below. :)
A Very Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year!
In the darkness and the silence, Keir sat with teeth gritted against the pain racking his body. With each ragged breath he sought to shift his focus from the agony of ribs that were surely broken. He tried not to feel the ache in his head where his hair lay matted with blood against his scalp. The cell's damp seeped through his rags and into his skin until he throbbed with the cold. He clenched his fists against the shakes that possessed him and wished he could force them still.Wordlessly he raged against the injustice of it all, as though the anger could keep his life burning when all it really did was waste his energy, hastening the end.
© 2009-2011 Copyright Philippa J. Green All Rights Reserved
Please check out the other awesome authors participating by clicking on the banner below. :)
A Very Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year!
December 14, 2011
Riding the Wave
Several things have happened over the last couple of days that have really hit home the reality that I'm a soon-to-be-published author. After three rounds of edits, Keir feels like a whole new book, and much stronger for it. The essence is still there, the heart of it still intact, but it's been polished up and revamped. The flaws have been smoothed out. It's a good feeling.
But Sunday I got a wonderful new present delivered to my inbox. My cover! Oh, it was a shock at first. I had to stare at it for a while, leave the computer, have a little wander round and then come back. And then I knew. I loved it! It was dark and brooding, like my MC. It was clean and simple. Perhaps not the Keir I had in my head, but the guy on the cover is very...er...VERY nice, and I can see him as my MC. He is missing his tattoos, but there are limits with photo stock images, and I understand that. As soon as I got permission to flaunt it you can bet I did just that! Here it is -
But it's not just the fab artwork. It's seeing the title in lovely, flowing script. The tag lines that I came up with stamped on the cover. And most of all, it's seeing MY NAME on it, with the publisher's logo. It makes it real in a way that the contract didn't. That even the edits didn't. This isn't just some picture that I've put together in my spare moments for a bit of fun, or a poster off the internet. This is the real deal, a proper book cover from MY publisher, with MY name on it as author. It's a beautiful symbol of all the work I've put in, all the tears and moments of doubt, all the voices inside and out saying I couldn't do it. I have done it, and the cover is there to prove it.
And then there was more! Tuesday morning I got a tweet from Lyrical Press. My gorgeous cover was up on their 'Coming Soon' page for all to see. Not only that, but my name and author bio are up on the site too. I'm officially and publicly Pippa Jay, author of Keir, with Lyrical Press Inc. Oh, man, that's such a great feeling!
There's still a long way to go. More edits. More forms. More steps along the way. I've been compiling lists of useful information for the lead up to release day. I'm doing a New Year blog hop and a guest post on the 18th. I just got my first author interview too! As the year draws to a close, I know the first few months of 2012 are probably going to be the most hectic so far. Would I have it any other way? Hell, no! :D
December 11, 2011
Six Sentence Sunday #40
Hello! Welcome to another #sixsunday. I wasn't sure if I'd make it this week due to edits, but I managed to squeeze myself in at the bottom of the list, yay! A big thank you to everyone who stops by and comments each week. So, another six from my scifi novella Gethyon. Our hero has made it home via a temporal gateway, but there's not much sign of a welcome for him ...His footsteps sounded hollow as he entered the hallway. His shadow cast itself the length of the polished wooden floor, almost touching the edge of the stairs. Dust motes glimmered briefly in the sunlight, stirred into dance by his movement.Gethyon hesitated. Had the house been abandoned in his absence? "Hello?"
© 2009-2011 Copyright Philippa J. Green All Rights Reserved
Thanks for stopping by and please check out the other authors by clicking on the banner. :)
December 9, 2011
Review - Silver Thaw by Amy Rose Davis
My review of the fantasy novella Silver Thaw by Amy Rose Davis is now live on the Critique de Book review site here. "The ending left me with tears in my eyes and the intention to read it again very soon."
December 5, 2011
I Haz a Kindle!
So, I've finally entered the e-book club. Well, actually I've been there for a while, by downloading and reading digital books on my computer, but there is definitely something to be said for having an e-reader at last. For one thing I'm hoping it won't make my eyes hurt quite as much! And I have to admit that holding it is a little exciting ... TMI? :-P
When I first started looking into publishing, the Kindle was a new and rare thing. E-books were just starting out, and self-publishing via e-formats and POD services were something that had become available to almost any author. With my own book due out in May next year (and with no definite date or eligibility for a print version) I stopped looking at an e-reader as an expensive toy I didn't need. Instead it became an essential piece of kit for me to have. After all, there's not a lot to be said for having an e-book out and not having the means to read it myself, is there?
This is my new (and first) Kindle. I got the one without the keyboard (and without the adverts. Okay, okay, I've been told the adverts - or 'special offers' as Amazon insists on calling them, sheesh - aren't that annoying, but with the amount of constant advertising we get thrown in our faces, I saw the extra expense of having the advert-less kind very worthwhile. I was rather surprised to find that there is an on-screen keyboard which you can navigate with the 5-way controller button - not much use to me in terms of writing, but an unexpected bonus (um, yeah, I didn't read up the specifications THAT well. ). The only annoyance for me was that I don't have a wireless connection. I thought (silly me!) that I'd just be able to download the dozen e-books I had sitting on my pc (including my own scifi short story), but nooooooo! You have to register the darn thing first before it lets you do anything other than charge it up! D'oh! Luckily for me, a quick trip to the local library with my Kindle to use the free wifi soon solved that one. Registration was dead simple (once the library wifi decided it was going to stay on - their problem, not one with the Kindle!).
I have no idea how this compares to other e-readers, or even to the other Kindles. I know there are Kobos and Nooks and Sony e-readers, but those few people I know with e-readers either have Kindles or iPads. I have no idea how it compares to the older Kindles either, so you're not going to get any technical kind of review here (sorry!). I knew what one looked like. It was slightly heavier than I expected - I'm assuming the weight is probably down to the battery. The manual said it takes three hours to charge, but it worked out at less than that. It came with its USB cable for connection to the pc which surprised me - I swear the blurb says you have to buy one separately, and I'm glad I didn't do that! The driver software set up automatically on both my old main pc and the newer notepad, so if you have any issues with yours, I'm afraid I'll be no help at all! I had a little trouble loading the e-books from my pc to the Kindle (for some reason it didn't put them into the documents folder on the Kindle so I had to cut and paste them in) but once I'd done that, it was simple.
So here is my new toy ... er ... I mean essential piece of equipment. With my own free scifi short story loaded up of course ( <cough> blatant self promotion <cough>). :-P
Here I must say a very special thank you to Liz Culver and Becky Thompson. Ladies, I am most sincerely in your debt. :)
When I first started looking into publishing, the Kindle was a new and rare thing. E-books were just starting out, and self-publishing via e-formats and POD services were something that had become available to almost any author. With my own book due out in May next year (and with no definite date or eligibility for a print version) I stopped looking at an e-reader as an expensive toy I didn't need. Instead it became an essential piece of kit for me to have. After all, there's not a lot to be said for having an e-book out and not having the means to read it myself, is there?
This is my new (and first) Kindle. I got the one without the keyboard (and without the adverts. Okay, okay, I've been told the adverts - or 'special offers' as Amazon insists on calling them, sheesh - aren't that annoying, but with the amount of constant advertising we get thrown in our faces, I saw the extra expense of having the advert-less kind very worthwhile. I was rather surprised to find that there is an on-screen keyboard which you can navigate with the 5-way controller button - not much use to me in terms of writing, but an unexpected bonus (um, yeah, I didn't read up the specifications THAT well. ). The only annoyance for me was that I don't have a wireless connection. I thought (silly me!) that I'd just be able to download the dozen e-books I had sitting on my pc (including my own scifi short story), but nooooooo! You have to register the darn thing first before it lets you do anything other than charge it up! D'oh! Luckily for me, a quick trip to the local library with my Kindle to use the free wifi soon solved that one. Registration was dead simple (once the library wifi decided it was going to stay on - their problem, not one with the Kindle!).
I have no idea how this compares to other e-readers, or even to the other Kindles. I know there are Kobos and Nooks and Sony e-readers, but those few people I know with e-readers either have Kindles or iPads. I have no idea how it compares to the older Kindles either, so you're not going to get any technical kind of review here (sorry!). I knew what one looked like. It was slightly heavier than I expected - I'm assuming the weight is probably down to the battery. The manual said it takes three hours to charge, but it worked out at less than that. It came with its USB cable for connection to the pc which surprised me - I swear the blurb says you have to buy one separately, and I'm glad I didn't do that! The driver software set up automatically on both my old main pc and the newer notepad, so if you have any issues with yours, I'm afraid I'll be no help at all! I had a little trouble loading the e-books from my pc to the Kindle (for some reason it didn't put them into the documents folder on the Kindle so I had to cut and paste them in) but once I'd done that, it was simple.
So here is my new toy ... er ... I mean essential piece of equipment. With my own free scifi short story loaded up of course ( <cough> blatant self promotion <cough>). :-P
Here I must say a very special thank you to Liz Culver and Becky Thompson. Ladies, I am most sincerely in your debt. :)
December 2, 2011
Update 02/12/2011
Soooo, I got an email overnight to tell me that my MS will be back to me today/tomorrow. In some ways it's a relief and exciting - although my stomach is tying itself in knots over what might still need doing and how long I'll have. However, I'm confident I can deal with it. :)
So expect a bit of silence for at least the next week. I had the foresight not to sign up for any weekend blog posts - not because I can't schedule things to go up, but because I think it's unfair for me to post when I can't be sure I'll have time to return reads to anyone. Apologies if you've come looking for my #sffsat or #sixsunday snippets. Hopefully I should be back in mid-December (just in time for the holidays, tsk!)
Keep writing!
So expect a bit of silence for at least the next week. I had the foresight not to sign up for any weekend blog posts - not because I can't schedule things to go up, but because I think it's unfair for me to post when I can't be sure I'll have time to return reads to anyone. Apologies if you've come looking for my #sffsat or #sixsunday snippets. Hopefully I should be back in mid-December (just in time for the holidays, tsk!)
Keep writing!
November 30, 2011
Weird Wednesday #2
Dragon's Skull
Don't believe that's what it is? Then what do you think it is? My husband found this on the beach at Frinton-on-Sea and we were stumped. It looks, for all the world, like a dragon. I thought perhaps an eel or maybe a fish like a gunard. I posted it to my Facebook profile (so some of my friends now know the answer to this mystery) but snakes, rays, even dogs were suggested.
The wonderful about the internet is that the answer was relative easy to find. But shocking nonetheless. This, in fact, is the pelvis of a sea bird. Yes, really! You can go here and see for yourself - this is obviously from a different species to ours (and we haven't been able to pinpoint exactly which ours came from) but the draconian appearance of it is amazing!
It's also incredibly light and fragile. How it survived at all, I don't know. I'm not really into bones and skeletons, but I can appreciate the beauty and delicacy in this, and the speculation over it's true identity.
So there you go. Dragon skulls on the beaches of the UK, there for the finding, to entertain your kids and friends. Weird enough for ya? :-P
It seems fitting with presenting this piece of weirdness to comment on the sad passing of the Dragonlady herself, Anne McCaffrey. As so many authors have said on the internet since the news was announced, a great loss and an inspiration to so many, myself included. Much sorrow.
Don't believe that's what it is? Then what do you think it is? My husband found this on the beach at Frinton-on-Sea and we were stumped. It looks, for all the world, like a dragon. I thought perhaps an eel or maybe a fish like a gunard. I posted it to my Facebook profile (so some of my friends now know the answer to this mystery) but snakes, rays, even dogs were suggested.
The wonderful about the internet is that the answer was relative easy to find. But shocking nonetheless. This, in fact, is the pelvis of a sea bird. Yes, really! You can go here and see for yourself - this is obviously from a different species to ours (and we haven't been able to pinpoint exactly which ours came from) but the draconian appearance of it is amazing!
It's also incredibly light and fragile. How it survived at all, I don't know. I'm not really into bones and skeletons, but I can appreciate the beauty and delicacy in this, and the speculation over it's true identity.
So there you go. Dragon skulls on the beaches of the UK, there for the finding, to entertain your kids and friends. Weird enough for ya? :-P
It seems fitting with presenting this piece of weirdness to comment on the sad passing of the Dragonlady herself, Anne McCaffrey. As so many authors have said on the internet since the news was announced, a great loss and an inspiration to so many, myself included. Much sorrow.
November 29, 2011
Validity of Reviews - Free Books v. Purchased.
A couple of days ago I took part (very fleetingly) in a discussion on Twitter. Apparently one of the reviewers I follow had had the validity of his review questioned because it was an ARC he had received for free. The implication was that, since he got the book for nothing instead of paying out hard-earned cash, his review had no integrity. That it didn't count.
Huh?! Call me stupid, but don't the majority of review sites all receive their review copies for free from publishers and editors purely for review purposes? Does that then make every single one invalid by default? Isn't the whole customers being allowed to post their own reviews on purchases a relatively new thing?
Reviewers are now required by law to state whether they receive a book for free or not. I've posted reviews that are a fairly equal mixture of free and bought, and yet given my honest opinion regardless. My philosophy is if I can't find anything nice to say about a book, whether free or not, then I simply wouldn't write a review. I like to enthuse about the books I love, not tear down someone else's work simply because the style/content/theme aren't to my personal liking.
I see no reason for someone to claim a review is invalid because the book came free - unless, perhaps, that is the philosophy of the person making the accusation. Judging by the mixture of good and bad reviews on sites that receive ALL their books for free, that clearly doesn't happen - at least, not as a general rule. Even in the occasional case where it does, the number of sites/blogs etc posting reviews, and customers rating their purchases on the sites where they were bought, should ensure a fair spread of reviews and opinions.
It's hard enough for some authors to get reviews. Unless you're a big name or can pay for them, or are lucky enough to have a publisher that submits to reviewers for you, it's a hard slog and a long wait to receive them with no guarantee you'll get one or that it will be good. So many people who buy a book from somewhere like Amazon don't leave a review. I confess I never used to. It's only in the last year that I've come to appreciate how much a review can mean to an author, even if it's only a star rating and a 'I liked/loved/enjoyed it.'
So please, do your favourite authors a favour and leave them a review. It doesn't have to be an essay, just a few words. And incidentally, if you're looking for a reviewer yourself, there is a comprehensive list in my Pages at the top of the blog - I think we're currently up to 144 and adding new ones every week. :)
Huh?! Call me stupid, but don't the majority of review sites all receive their review copies for free from publishers and editors purely for review purposes? Does that then make every single one invalid by default? Isn't the whole customers being allowed to post their own reviews on purchases a relatively new thing?
Reviewers are now required by law to state whether they receive a book for free or not. I've posted reviews that are a fairly equal mixture of free and bought, and yet given my honest opinion regardless. My philosophy is if I can't find anything nice to say about a book, whether free or not, then I simply wouldn't write a review. I like to enthuse about the books I love, not tear down someone else's work simply because the style/content/theme aren't to my personal liking.
I see no reason for someone to claim a review is invalid because the book came free - unless, perhaps, that is the philosophy of the person making the accusation. Judging by the mixture of good and bad reviews on sites that receive ALL their books for free, that clearly doesn't happen - at least, not as a general rule. Even in the occasional case where it does, the number of sites/blogs etc posting reviews, and customers rating their purchases on the sites where they were bought, should ensure a fair spread of reviews and opinions.
It's hard enough for some authors to get reviews. Unless you're a big name or can pay for them, or are lucky enough to have a publisher that submits to reviewers for you, it's a hard slog and a long wait to receive them with no guarantee you'll get one or that it will be good. So many people who buy a book from somewhere like Amazon don't leave a review. I confess I never used to. It's only in the last year that I've come to appreciate how much a review can mean to an author, even if it's only a star rating and a 'I liked/loved/enjoyed it.'
So please, do your favourite authors a favour and leave them a review. It doesn't have to be an essay, just a few words. And incidentally, if you're looking for a reviewer yourself, there is a comprehensive list in my Pages at the top of the blog - I think we're currently up to 144 and adding new ones every week. :)
