Andy Gavin's Blog, page 177
January 5, 2012
The Final Cover
And if you believe I'm really done, I've got a bridge to sell you…
But anyway, I'm done for now.
Click to embiggen.
As you may have noticed if you were following the last cover post, I went with the orange — again for now. The gray is perhaps prettier, but the orange pops. I also changed up the author font to a more vintage typeface to imply the 1913 time frame of the novel. And we made various other tweaks like brightening the girl which is mostly for shrunken E-Book versions of the cover where she got lost in the shadows.
Anyway, I've already uploaded the new version to all three E-Book sites I'm currently live with. Amazon has already updated, but the lamer, slower other sites will lag behind. If you downloaded the old cover and want to upload I suspect you can just "delete" the book from your Kindle app and retrieve the new one from the archives. I'll test that myself soon.
So you should just go and buy it if you haven't
January 3, 2012
Special Prize Winners
The first round of the crazy Naughty Dark Contest already has not one, but two special prize winners! And these lucky guys are both from Crash's home country, Australia.
Tyson Cleary of Tasmania
and
William Errey from Perth
For more info on the contest, a detailed list of prizes and rules can be found here!
Both guys also wanted copies of the original Crash Bandicoot and here they are prior to shipping. I signed both cover and CD, including my special unforgable "symbol." Yes, like Prince, I have a symbol. But you'll have to ask the Painted Man what it means.
Thank you both immeasurably!
It's also worth noting that this has made the virtual hat for the first round even more lucrative for the rest of you. Due to their prize winning each first round ticket is worth at least a 2% chance of winning a prize now — and if someone else claims a special prize, it could be even greater. So read up on the rules and participate.
Start by purchasing The Darkening Dream!
For sale at B&N and Google
My novel, The Darkening Dream, is now for sale at Barnes and Noble and the Google bookstore.
Buy it Now!
The Nook version is fine, but use Google only if the others don't work for you. Google's processing engine rips apart the EPUB and puts it back — with less than dazzling results. You can read it fine, but they mangle my nice CSS formatting and butcher the little chapter start illustrations. I'm still trying to get an improved version through their system.
Paper versions are coming in about two weeks.
Truly it's no wonder Amazon is winning the E-Book war. I simultaneously started the process of uploading to: Amazon, B&N, Google, Kobo, Sony, and Apple. The results, from best to worst:
Amazon: Took 15 minutes, it was ready 7 hours later.
B&N: Took 15 minutes, nice previewer, took 7 days to post.
Google: Took 2 hours. The interface is one of the worst ever designed. I wasn't even sure it was processing when I was "done." Took 48 hours to post. Mangled the book and the price and have been struggling for days to get an updated version posted.
Sony, Kobo, Apple: Still waiting for my applications for accounts to go through. This should be instant! Haven't even been able to submit the actual book yet.
As a note too, I refuse to use Smashwords until they allow a direct EPUB upload. Using their crazy meatgrinder is not appealing at all.
Sugar & Spice
Title: Sugar & Spice
Author: Saffina Desforges
Genre: Crime Fiction
Length: 353 pages
Read: Dec 26 – 28, 2011
Summary: Disturbing, but gripping
_
I was slogging through a best selling YA historical fantasy when I finally couldn't take it anymore. That particular piece of anonymous juvie trash was making me want to gag myself with a spoon so I needed to wash the bad taste out of my mouth with an entirely different kind of filth.
Enter the disturbing indie crime thriller about no less a subject then a serial killer with a taste for little girls. Apparently it's been a runaway best seller in the UK (both the author and the setting are British). And you'd have to be a total whack-a-doodle like me to even pick up something like this.
Sugar & Spice doesn't have the greatest writing in the world. The book has a peculiar distant quality — maybe a good thing — and the point of view changes are frequent, confusing, and totally jarring.
Still, I couldn't put it down. Desforges sure did a lot of research into the dark unpleasant corners of the human psyche. And this book attempts to put you there. Full frontal. It's not a comfortable place, but it does have all the fascinating quality of a colossal train wreck. There's no brilliant storytelling here, although the prose is workmanlike and clear. The book could use a 15-20% trim-job. But it's still a compelling journey if you like to read on the dark side.
If you don't, stay far, far away.
January 2, 2012
Announcing the Naughty Dark Contest
This is the kickoff post for my new experimental — and hopefully permanent – giveaway program. Via this contest you, dear reader, will have the opportunity to win signed copies of Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter games as well as my books and cool toys. All you have to do is participate in my gleefully elaborate scheme to help sell and promote my new novel, The Darkening Dream.
A detailed list of prizes and rules can be found here!
Or by clicking anytime on the big contest icon in the sidebar.
So if signed copies of any of the following look up your alley, read the rules and participate! And even if you aren't a collector they apparently have significant dollar value because a set of four signed Crashs sold on Ebay recently for over $453!
Giveaways5 photos
January 1, 2012
A-Frame – Ultimate Picnic Food
Restaurant: A-Frame
Location: 12565 Washington Blvd, Los Angeles CA 90066 – tel: 310-398-7700
Date: December 15, 2011
Cuisine: Gastro Picnic
Rating: Really yummy
_
A-Frame's building used to be an IHOP — hence it's architecture and the name.
It has, however, been really revamped.
A nice Burgundy to begin.
The menu is fairly short. We ordered everything tapas style, regardless of the category.
"WAGYU BEEF TATAKI with sliced pearl onions, ginger, pickled jalapeño and shoyu vinaigrette." This was a wonderful dish. Very tangy with great texture.
"BLUE CRAB CAKES with lemongrass creme fraiche, bibb lettuce, and perilla leaf." These crabcakes were to be eaten "thai-style" wrapped in lettuce. They were quite good.
"CHARRED BABY OCTOPUS with carrot kochujang puree, bok choy, pickled vegetables and nori seaweed." Another nice dish.
"SESAME LEAF WRAPPED SHRIMP TEMPURA with fresh cucumber, herbs and shoyu dipping sauce." This had shiso (a Japanese mint relative), which pretty much means I adored it.
"CLAM CHOWDER with green curry, lemongrass, pancetta, coconut milk and toasted sourdough." A really nice take on "clam chowder." Essentially it tasted a lot like one of those creamy coconut milk/lemongrass thai soups, but with a nice bacon richness somewhat akin to a great New England chowder. Bravo!
"BABY BACK RIBS air-dried and hoisin-chili glazed." These were some great ribs too, with a rich "Chinesy" taste and a good amount of vinegar.
"ROASTED LAMB with toasted sesame oil, shoyu and garlic served with fresh herb salad and salsa verde." This dish was fine, but it didn't have the flavor impact I was looking for.
"CRACKLIN BEER CAN CHICKEN with kimchi, century egg, salsa roja and verde." Good fried chicken.
"BANANA BACON CREAM PIE vanilla cream, caramel bananas, and bacon brittle." I hate banana, but this was still good. The bacon sold it!
"THICK ASS ICE CREAM SANDWICHES with black pepper szechuan ice cream and salted chocolate cookie." This was a wonderful ice cream sandwich. I loved the peppery ice cream.
"CHU-DON'T-KNOW-MANG pound cake cinnamon churros, with malted chocolate milk and vanilla ice cream." And this was the complete winner in the dessert category. These were some of the best churros I've had, and that milkshake-like thing was awesome.
Happy times!
The chickens going around and around.
Overall, I was very pleased with A-Frame and will totally be back. This was a VERY tasty meal with a unique take on fairly uncomplicated food. Essentially, it's very contemporary without being avant garde, and fuses eclectic flavors from around the world with American comfort foods.
December 31, 2011
Cover Takes – Opinions Wanted!
Even after the product launch has begun, I'm still tinkering — and such is the way of it in the new world of agile product development. My current cover (to the left) now has an awesome image, but the overall effect isn't quite bookish enough. So in the interest of total transparency (or mind numbing boredom?) I'll continue to let you in on these intermediate steps of the creative process.
My cover designer, Pete Garceau, has whipped up a couple concept sketches. To the right is a darker colored take and below one in the original color scheme. You can click them to embiggen.
These are NOT in any way finished. Just concepts.
What I want to know for you, reader, is:
1. Which color scheme do you like, and why?
2. Your opinion of The Darkening Dream font/logo?
Please let me know in the comments!
Discover more about my novel, The Darkening Dream here or on all sorts of other links in the left sidebar.
It's worth noting, that in the specialized world of book design the book designer (interior), the cover designer (logo design cover layout), and the illustrator (who paints the image on the cover) are sometimes all different people!
NOTE: I updated this post at 10:43am PST with slightly newer takes on the covers. The "older" two can be found here and here.
December 30, 2011
Kotaku Dreams
Gaming site Kotaku has run a quick little feature on The Darkening Dream today.
What do you do after founding and retiring from one of video games' most successful development houses? If you're Naughty Dog co-founder Andy Gavin, you write books.
The first of said books is The Darkening Dream, a shadowy fantasy novel about a young girl caught up in a battle that pits ancient supernatural forces like vampires and Egyptian gods against each other.
You can check out the full post here.
Thank you guys! And I've already seen a big sales jump. I hope all the fans of my old stuff love my new stuff too.
December 29, 2011
The Look – Pastor Parris
Pastor John Parris is the junior of my two point of view villains in The Darkening Dream. Given the kind of occult woodblock look I've been developing I tend to focus on the character's magical nature to develop their icon.
With Parris I got off to a false start, drawn in by this classic image of Baphomet. It has strong associations with the occult, witchcraft, and demonology. All good stuff that Parris likes to keep close at hand, wrapped in black silk coverings. Or perhaps in a human-skin pouch.
I even had my artists do this rendition (above). But this was a red herring. Truthfully, Baphomet is a nineteenth century rendering, a reinvention of such things in light of 1800s eclecticism. It's more akin to the effect this image has for us moderns, being cool, exotic, and devilishly naughty. Parris comes from a school of magic that is much more about really believing in fire and brimstone.
So I turned to this kind of image (above) showing a seventeenth century witches sabbath. This is totally apropos, but I didn't know how to make an icon out of it.
Then I found this view (above) of the witches table. Parris is a ritualist and he often employs candles (lychnomancy) in his magic. The scene was too visually complex, but it was a start.
So I did a ghetto version for my artists (above), using Photoshop to strip away some of the excess and they came back with below, which was about perfect. This shows the tools of Parris' trade: the candle, the powder horn, bowls for mixing, blades for bloodletting.
Discover more about my novel, The Darkening Dream
.
To find out about developing a style for the interior art, see here.
Or for more information on Pastor John Parris, the warlock.
December 27, 2011
Guest Interview – Farsighted
I'm experimenting again by allowing a guest post/interview by a fellow author.
– Andy
About Farsighted!
Alex Kosmitoras may be blind, but he can still "see" things others can't. When his unwanted visions of the future begin to suggest that the girl he likes could be in danger, he has no choice but to take on destiny and demand it reconsider. Farsighted is the winner of the 2011 Dragonfly eBook Awards. Get it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
About the Author: Emlyn Chand has always loved to hear and tell stories, having emerged from the womb with a fountain pen grasped firmly in her left hand (true story). When she's not writing, she runs a large book club in Ann Arbor and is the president of author PR firm, Novel Publicity. Emlyn loves to connect with readers and is available throughout the social media interweb. Visit her on her website, Twitter, Facebook, or GoodReads.
Let's get to know the author a little better through this rousing Q&A…
Q: What was it like writing from the viewpoint of a blind, teenage boy? Were there any parts of Alex's personality/life you found hard to come up with?
A: You know, it wasn't as hard to write blind as I initially thought it would be. It didn't take long to begin "seeing" Alex's world the way he does. I wrote the entire story without knowing what anyone or anything looked like (except for Alex himself). When it came time to shoot the book trailer, the directors were asking me questions about the scenes and which props they should bring, and I really, really didn't know what to tell them!
As I got to know Alex better and better, it became easier to tune into his way of seeing things. I read books about coping with blindness in a school setting and spent a great deal of time pondering how I might behave if I couldn't see. In the story, Alex has always been blind; he's always known the world to be a certain way. Not everyone understands that, and they have trouble talking about it with him. I gave Alex a tendency to overcompensate. He knows who he is and what he's capable of, and he wants the world to know it too, so sometimes he overdoes things a bit.
Q: Your cast of characters has international flavor? What's behind that choice?
A: I don't see why my characters all need to belong to the same culture or ethnicity. What fun is that? Culture shapes our characters in a big way, so by diversifying my cast, I was able to hit on more types of personalities and situations. Grandon is based on my hometown; it's small and kind of boring. I couldn't wait to escape and move on to bigger and better things. My home town was mostly Caucasian, but somehow I ended up with a very diverse set of friends even though they made up less than 1% of the student body. Fast forward a few years, and I end up marrying a man from India. He's from New Delhi, like Simmi. I've always been fascinated by other cultures; I even decided to pursue my Master's in Sociology for this very reason. I credit two early life influences for this attraction: 1) My adoration of A.C. Slater in Saved by the Bell, 2) Disney's Aladdin being the best movie ever.
Q: What was the inspiration for Farsighted ?
A: Everything started with a single image—my face in these tacky oversized sunglasses reflecting out at me from the car's side mirror. I was daydreaming while my husband drove us across Michigan for my sister's wedding. Something about my image really struck me in an almost horrific way. I felt the glasses made me look blind but found it so weird that there was still a clear image within them; it seemed so contradictory. At the time, my book club was reading The Odyssey, which features the blind Theban prophet, Tieresias. I started thinking about what it would be like to have non-visual visions of the future and began forming a modern Tieresias in my mind. Lo and behold, Alex Kosmitoras was born. I didn't want him to be alone in his psychic subculture, so I found other characters with other powers to keep him company. Thank God for my poor fashion sense. 
Q: What would you like readers to take away from Farsighted ? Is there a different message for adults than for teens?
A: First and foremost, I hope that readers will enjoy themselves. My primary goal is to tell an interesting story that people will find entertaining and be glad they read. Secondly, I'd like to infuse contemporary Young Adult fiction with a bit more diversity and teach readers about the beauty of other cultures and other ways of life. I also hope that Farsighted is a book that leads to introspection—what would I do if put in Alex's place? Did Alex ever have a choice or was this path his destiny? What would it be like to see the world the way he sees the world?
I like to think of anything I write as being kind of like a Disney movie, in that the primary audience will be children, but there are extra tidbits for the adults too. Farsighted has been infused with a great deal of research about runes, classic mythology, and Eastern spirituality, but you don't need to understand any of that to be entertained by the story.
Q. There have been articles written this year about YA being too dark for teens. What are your thoughts on this?
A: I definitely agree. I want to get back to the core of the YA genre, and I attempted to do that with Farsighted. I also think that paranormal has gotten a bit too out there. One thing I hear from readers quite a bit is that the paranormal seems normal in Farsighted. They don't question the existence of the powers, and it doesn't seem out there like some other books of the genre do. That was important to me. I wanted my story to be run by the characters, not the fantastic elements. This is a story about Alex, not about a blind psychic.
Q: What motivated you to structure the book around the runes?
A: Remember how I said my Master's degree is in Sociology? It's actually Quantitative Sociology. I'm a numbers person as well as a word person. I love things to be organized just so. If you set a stack of papers in front of me; I'm going to fuss with them until they are lined up in a perfect stack. It's just the way I am. Shaping each chapter around a rune gave the story order, which made me feel happy and comfortable. Whenever I got stuck and didn't know what should happen next, I was able to learn more about that chapter's rune and get the inspiration I needed to continue. The runes themselves tell a story, one that is successfully completed. I felt that boded well for Farsighted.
Q: What is your writing process like?
A: I begin with a seed of an idea and work out from there. With Farsighted, I started with Alex and created the rest of the story and characters to fit around him. Using the runes as a structural framework for this novel created an outline for me too. I'm a numbers person as well as a word person. I love things to be organized just so. If you set a stack of papers in front of me; I'm going to fuss with them until they are lined up in a perfect stack. It's just the way I am. Shaping each chapter around a rune gave the story order, which made me feel happy and comfortable. Whenever I got stuck and didn't know what should happen next, I was able to learn more about that chapter's rune and get the inspiration I needed to continue. The runes themselves tell a story, one that is successfully completed. I felt that boded well for Farsighted.
Q: What do you like to read? Who is your favorite author?
A: I LOVE YA—I read it, write it, love it! My favorite author is JK Rowling. The more I read, the more I realize how brilliant she is as an author. If you remove the dialogue tags from Harry Potter, you still know which character is speaking, and Rowling managed to create an intricate beautiful world without allowing her character development to suffer, which is tremendously rare. I consider her literary God. Suzanne Collins, and JD Salinger are classic faves.
My all-time favorite book is A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, definitely. The novel has so many layers and entertains on so many levels. Also the characters in that novel seem more real than those from any other I've ever read. It's just beautiful—that's the only word for it.
Q: If you had to be stuck on an island for a year with three literary characters, who would they be?
A: First up, we'd obviously take Robinson Crusoe. He knows what he's doing, and he can be the provider. I'll also take Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games—if we get in any kind of danger, she'd be a great protector. Lastly, I'd take Ron Weasley. Ron and I can live the good life, while the other two make sure we all stay safe and well-fed. I know I would never get bored with Ron around—he's just 24/7 entertainment.
Q: You've taken a risk by going with an unconventional ending. Without spoiling the story for your readers, can you tell us why you made this choice? Are you glad you did this? Do you feel it's been successful? Why or why not?
A: Yeah, I ended with a cliffhanger, which goes against traditional publishing wisdom. But you know what? I. AM. INDIE! Being indie means taking risks and breaking the mold and, boy, am I excited to do it. The ending is kind of polarizing, people either love it or wish there was more there. The joining thread is almost everyone mentions looking forward to the next book in the series. Farsighted demands a companion, and people see that. I think it was a good decision since this is the first in the series and since I enjoy toeing the line of convention. It's fun to shake things up.
