Allan Batchelder's Blog: Immortal Treachery, page 2

What's Inside?

One of the worst experiences you can have as a reader is to get sucked in by a fancy cover, a snappy blurb, and find the book you've invested your money and hopes in is boring. So, you check out the reviews. Mine are great! What will you find inside Immortal Treachery?

An anti-hero MCTerrible monstersFreakish monstersA Lovecraftian monstrosityMysterious underground ruinsUndeadGiantsFaeCannibalsBarbariansWizardsGodsA DruidA talking chickenAn homunculusNumerous betrayalsShameless alcohol addiction and abuseOrgiesExtreme violenceProfanityA kill-count that is so high, it literally cannot be estimatedAdulteryInterspecies hijinksTyrantsAlchemySlapstick comedyCrude humorShakespeare!Countless sly literary allusionsLGTBQ charactersDesperationIncredible courageNobilityUnthinkable and forbidden actsTortureRomanceBeautyMore twists and turns than a pretzel factoryAnd a whole world of other, incredible stuff!

QuaranCon

What's the difference between #DarkFantasy, #Grimark, and #Horror? I hash it out with Anna Smith Spark and other notables at #QuaranCon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3uYX...

A Start...

I recently read the first fantasy novel I’ve ever read by a black author, and while I was embarrassed that it was the first, it also got me wondering what the climate is like for black readers and writers of fantasy. Fortunately, I have an acquaintance on Twitter who reads a lot and pulls no punches in her social commentary. So, I thought I’d poll her and also the author of this novel I’ve just read and ask them a few questions that have been zinging around my brain. There’s nothing revolutionary here, but it’s a start, the beginning of a larger, necessary conversation.
Here are my questions and their responses.
 
What are you not seeing in contemporary fantasy that you’d like to see or feel we should be seeing?

Lexie
More UNAMBIGUOUSLY brown-skinned or dark-skinned Black lead characters. I know that we're starting to see more of it lately like with the popularity of Children of Blood and Bone, but in my opinion, there still isn't enough. Often times when an MC or even a side character is Black, they're ambiguous and/or light-skinned. They have "caramel" colored skin, curly hair, and cute little nose. I want a dark-skinned character who looks unambiguously Black with Black facial features. The media has always had a tendency for colorism, wherein they cast or depict lighter skinned ambiguous Black people who you cant really tell if they're Black. Light-skinned privilege is real and it’s everywhere. Darker-skinned Black people are often overlooked or portrayed negatively and I want to see more of them in the spotlight in my fantasy books.

Alexzander
I don’t see people of color (POC) existing within but beyond their ethnicity. My blackness is usually determined by the room I’m in. I don’t sit alone in my room ‘feeling black’, I am usually reminded of my pigment by someone else’s reaction.
I listen to hip-hop and R&B but I also listen to Maroon 5 and Florida/Georgia Line. My childhood cemented how I feel, but not what I think. Miles Morales (the black Spiderman) is a great example of a black character whose character has nothing to do with his blackness, if that makes any sense lol.
Is Bruce Wayne of German descent? Does it matter? Is Jaime Lannister influenced by his ethnicity one-tenth as much as by his family and particular life experiences? I would like to see more characters who just happen to be POC and fewer ‘POC’ characters.

(How) can black authors participate in fantasy in a way that is uniquely their own, speaks to their heritage, and yet appeals to a broader base in the name of book sales?

Lexie
Honestly, I don’t think they should have to appeal to a broader base. If a Black author wants to write their story in such a way that it mostly appeals to a Black audience, then so be it. Is a predominantly Black audience not good enough? I can imagine an editor saying "the story is great, but what about the white readers, they may not be able to relate to this" and to that I would hope a Black author responds, "What about them? This story is steeped in Blackness and white people can learn to relate to experiences that don't exactly match theirs or not. But Black readers have been doing it for years."

Alexzander
I have no idea! I write stories where the characters simply happen to be dark skinned, as the series progresses and more social issues become the focus of my main character’s journey, I will address things like discrimination, incarceration and slavery – but not from a western point of view. Racism is very different in a world where there are literally different races but the feelings, the oppression, exclusion, and hostility it creates, remain. I think simply by writing in the genre, our unique experiences will pepper our work and thus spread our perspectives. I have more friends raised by grandparents than parents. When I write that into a story it’s not to give it some urban edge, it just happens because it’s natural for me. As far as sales go; just write good books. Oh, and promote, promote, promote!

Are you seeing any increase on bookstore shelves and/or Amazon for black fantasy authors?
 
Lexie
I have seen an increase; I actually recently download some books to my Kindle by Black fantasy authors that were recommended by the Kindle algorithm which I appreciated. I haven't read them yet but I was very happy to see a decent selection. I even went looking for more Black fantasy authors and was pleasantly surprised to find more than I expected
 
Alexzander
I am not seeing a bunch more authors of color, but I am seeing more POC characters on covers and that’s fantastic! When Drizzt Do’Urden came into my life, everything I thought about fantasy changed. Just to see a dark face on a fantasy cover was inexplicably beautiful to 14 year old me.

Who are you favorites or inspirations?

Lexie
My favorite fantasy author of all time is currently Rick Riordan, I'd follow him into Tartarus honestly. My original favorite fantasy author was Anne McCaffrey until I discovered Rick. I don’t have a favorite Black fantasy author YET ‘cuz sadly I haven't read many.
 
Alexzander
I love Rothfuss, Jim Butcher, R.A. Salvatore, Mark Lawrence – Michael J. Sullivan is my current professional hero. Slim on options beyond white men for this list lol. These authors write characters. You could throw their creations in completely different universes and you would still get compelling stories because they are fully crafted, beautifully evolved, incredibly complex and complicated characters. And any of them being black or Asian or Martian would still not be the most fascinating thing about them.

What are you sick and tired of seeing?

Lexie
Going back to my first response, I'm tired of unambiguous or light-skinned Black characters.

I'm tired of the "sassy Black best friend", while Black people are often humorous in real life and yes, we can be pretty "no nonsense", often times in books they're one dimensional. They have no personality or identity beyond being sassy.

I'm tired of seeing Black characters sacrifice their life or loved ones for the sake of the white MC. When this happens, the Black character often exists for the sole purpose of being killed just to save the more important white character. An example of this is Bonnie in the Vampire Diaries tv show. Over the course of 8 seasons, Bonnie dies twice (both times it was to save her white friends who caused the problem that resulted in her death), her father is murdered, her mother is murdered, her grandmother sacrifices herself to save Bonnie's white friends, and her lover is murdered. And at the end of the show, she gets NO happy ending. Nope, no happy ending. She goes off to Africa for some random ass reason. I mean really. Its absolutely ridiculous. She was a plot device who existed to suffer for the fuck ups of her white friends and then either she or someone she loved had to die as punishment or sacrifice. I am so beyond sick and tired of that shit.
 
Alexzander
The ugly side of realism. People write dragons, spaceships and elves on one page then add Nazi’s on the next because ‘realism’. Every female character gets raped, realism. The people who are poor speak slang are the darker members of their species because, you know, realism. Teen pregnancy, local bullies that everyone just kind of tolerates as he traumatizes their children. Jaded soulless teachers. You can do anything you want, and you build a world with all the problems of this one?! Why? I mean, I don’t know why one would make that choice given all the options available. This is fantasy, be fantastic.

For those interested, Alexzander's book can be found here.

Marketing

A tale of dreadful, creeping evil and abject horror…Marketing!
So, you’ve done it: you’ve slept with a woman (sorry, Monty Python flashback). I mean, you’ve written a book and self-published or found a small indie press to put it out there for you. Hooray for you!
That was the easy part.
If you ever hope to sell more than a hundred copies, total, you’d better start marketing like your life depends upon it.
Where to start, though?
Since 2013, I have tried just about every approach there is, on every existing – and some now defunct – social media platform(s). I’ve made posts or paid ads on:FacebookTwitterInstagramTumblerPinterestMeWeGoodreadsBookbubLinkedInYouTubeTikTokSnapchatGoogleRedditDiggGoogle+Author websitesAuthor blogsSchool newspaper ads I’ve done podcasts, blogs, interviews, radio appearances, virtual and “real” conventions, done book, gift-card and swag giveaways, auctioned off the right for the winning bidder to die in my books; I’ve done writing contests, live readings at festivals, appeared in anthologies with other authors. I’ve commissioned an amazing musical theme for my series from an award-winning composer. I’ve hired a promoter/publicist. I’ve networked like a Trump supporter at a Covid19 super-spreader event…
And now I’m here to share some hard truths:No single effort will achieve what you’re looking for – assuming what you’re looking for is a fanbase and book sales.You are going to spend far more than you take in for years. YEARS. Or, you know, you’re just not going to be a factor in your genre.If you invest in swag, you’ll get stuck with a lot of it, or, if it’s something wearable, be prepared to never see it on the backs and chests of your friends, even if they frantically request said wearable.You will encounter assholes who mock your efforts, your work or your ideas. Are they jealous? What does it matter? Meanness sucks and is hurtful. And you’ll experience it.You will encounter saints, who are always in your corner and work tirelessly to promote your work for no apparent reason. Some of them are your colleagues and putative competitors. Nonetheless, they persist. One of these people for me has been author C.T. Phipps.You will be suckered into buying something with sky-high promises that never come close to delivering what you’ve been made to expect.The best things, the most spiritually fulfilling, are free. Those are general precepts. Now let me get down to the proverbial brass tacks.
Facebook , to me, remains the best bet for your advertising dollar. But be careful, it can get very expensive in a hurry and you need to know when to end a campaign before it breaks your bank. Also, its ad-making engines have gotten more and more byzantine as time has gone, and you practically need to know how to code to understand the damned stuff nowadays.
If you can get the fabled Bookbub , it is rumored to be the gold standard and ridiculously helpful. But Bookbub rejects many a successful author for reasons known only to them. I have not been so lucky, nor have many of my more-talented colleagues.
TikTok feels promising to me, but, so far, I haven’t found the right formula.
Book trailers are a necessary part of your larger campaign, but, in and of themselves, they don’t seem to have tremendous impact.
Colleagues who are friends. You must have them. You will need their advice and support, even if they don’t read your work – and most won’t. Don’t be a bitch about it. They have lives, family, illnesses, dreams and TBR lists like you wouldn’t believe. Quid Pro Quo is very, very rare. Get used to living without it. Support others because you’re a good human and don’t expect a reciprocal effort.
Do read the top indie and small-press authors in your genre.
I’ve already suggested this, but allow me to reiterate: spend everything you take in, and, if you can afford it, more. Do NOT look at your royalties as a supplementary income stream unless and until you have at least ten books published. But spend wisely. I’ve made every mistake you can make, so if you’re tempted but confused, email me at cblink.blink@gmail.com
Build your internet presence, be everywhere you can possibly be, so that the actual “web” of the world wide web leads to you through multiple, redundant paths. Make it more than easy for readers to find you, make it inevitable. Yes, you’re going to say goodbye to a fair degree of anonymity if you really want to sell your books. You can’t be both successful and anonymous.
Breathe . As John Lennon famously wrote, “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.”

Living in the Time of Covid

​It’s been a long time, huh?
I’m gonna blame it on 2020. After all, the year has given us:
Massive and ongoing protestsViolenceVandalismInjusticeHurricanesZOMBIE hurricanesMeth GatorsMurder HornetsRecord-setting wildfiresPolitical chaos and upheavalCovid 19 (200,000+ dead)Economic woes and potential ruin130 degree temps in Death Valley300,000 “recycled and reused” condoms in VietnamThe point is, as Shakespeare wrote, “If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.” In other words, truth is stranger than fiction. In OTHER other words, you can’t write this shit. So, what does an author do when the RW is weirder and more full of plot-twists than his/her imagination? Well, in the first place, I take this strange scourge of events as a sort of permission: if reality is this off kilter, this bizarre, then fantasy must needs be more extravagant. I mean, the whole point of fantasy is to outdo reality.
Or to offer escape, which is certainly something we all need right now.
So, what am I working on right now? I wild yarn in which Shakespeare fakes his own death, sails to the Jamestown colony and runs into some truly horrific troubles, as in monsters. Why not? When life gets ridiculous, the ridiculous get ridiculouser. Yeah, that’s a word. Now. I hope this story will be out in the summer of 2021. After that, I’m onto a steampunk about a man who is mysteriously turned into a goat, and then a horror novel about a man possessed by the spirit of a slavery-era serial killer.
Plus, you know, there’s my day job. And you?

New Interview

https://fantasy-focus.com/2020/05/aut...

Free Copies on Audible

Haven't read Steel, Blood & Fire, yet? Or you have and you'd like to hear it read? I've got copies for U.S. folks Message me if interested.

New Reading Group!

Immortal Treachery has its own readers' page, where you can interact with me and other readers, ask questions, play games, and even win prizes!

Check it out:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/25609...

For Those Who Like Trailers

https://youtu.be/NLzwFkcgEjw

Book Five is HERE!

Check it out!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/b07ztr3k6y?...The End of All Things, Immortal Treachery Book Five