Michael C. Bailey's Blog, page 100

And Now, A Word From Our Sponsor

See this artwork here?

This is the back cover art for Action Figures – Issue Two: Black Magic Women, by Tricia Lupien. Do you dig it? So much you want it for yourself? Then go hit Tricia’s RedBubble shop and get it as a print, card, or sticker, on a T-shirt, or even on a throw pillow…and let me tell you, it looks pretty damn cool as a throw pillow. If this particular piece isn’t to your liking, no worries, she has other pieces up at her shop you might like.

Like me, Tricia is an independent artist, and her art contributes to her ability to make a living, so go check out her shop and grab something — and after you do that, spread the word to your friends.

Cracking The Charts

As an independent author, my benchmarks for success are quite different than they are for traditionally published writers, particularly those authors with an established career. Some days, simply selling a single copy of one of my books is great news.

So imagine my delight when I look at my sales over the past week and see that I’m having my best run since I began this endeavor last September. Books have been moving steadily, and one particular day I hit an all-time one-day sales peak. It’s a huge ego boost, and it encourages me to keep going.

And then there’s finding this on Amazon.com’s Kindle Store best-seller chart in the science fiction and fantasy / fantasy / superhero chart:

That’s my book in the lower left corner, sitting at the #96 position…two spots above something with George R.R. Martins’ name splashed on the cover.

While I’m not going to start slapping the boast of “best-selling author” on my stuff, because that is, even by indie author standards, a HUGE stretch, I’m absolutely going to bask in the fact that book one is moving well enough to appear anywhere on any best-seller chart.

Book Signing Announcement!

This popped up in my Facebook feed yesterday, so I guess it’s all official now:

Yep, I have my first official book signing coming up! It’ll be hosted by friend and fellow writer T.M. Murphy and held at the Silver Shores Shanty in my home town of Falmouth, so if you’re down on the Cape that day, stop on by to grab a copy of Action Figures, get it signed, and chat me up.

Sharing The Love, Part Two: Superheroes Are For Girls, Too! Contest

What?! Two blog posts in one day? CRAZY!

But I couldn’t resist after seeing something pop up on my Tumblr feed: a contest sponsored by a Tumblr entitled Superheroes Are For Girls, Too! Click the link to see what it’s all about, then spread the word of this very cool contest.

Sharing The Love: Jake Hawking & The Bounty Hunters

See that cover, the one below this paragraph? That’s the cover for my friend J.M. Aucoin’s new Jake Hawking omnibus, Jake Hawking and the Bounty Hunters.

The book collects his three Jake Hawking short stories and adds some new material. This is the first time the stories are available in print format, so if you’re not a fan of e-books (like me), you can finally read the stories. Just click the image and it’ll take you to Amazon, where you can spend you money wisely.

PS: When you’re done reading it, go leave a review. Seriously. Indie authors benefit greatly from positive reviews, so don’t slack off.

Meet Carrie Hauser

My friend and fellow author J.M. Aucoin invited me to take part in a “blog hop” project, which I thought was pretty cool in concept: an author answers seven questions about the main character in his/her current or upcoming novel, tags off to another author, who then does the same thing. So, here is my entry.

First, I formally accept the tag-off from Justin, whose entry is right here, and tag off to T. Michelle Nelson, who previously interviewed me for her blog, and Amy Rachiele, who interviewed me for her Uxbridge Community TV show Book Talk.

Now, for the seven questions…

1) What is the name of your character? Is he/she fictional or a historic person?

Artwork by Patricia Lupien.

My protagonist’s name is Caroline Dakota Hauser, but her friends call her Carrie. She’s fictional, but inspired by many young ladies I’ve met through various professional channels who possess her more positive traits: intelligence, maturity, independence, and self-confidence.

2) When and where is the story set?

The when is “now-ish,” meaning the present day, but it’s not anchored in a specific year. The where is Kingsport, a fictional community on the South Shore of Massachusetts.

3) What should we know about him/her?

Carrie is the daughter of recently divorced parents, and she moved to Kingsport with her mother, who was looking to start a new life. Carrie is very much her father’s daughter, and her love of Bruce Springsteen, James Bond movies, and The Hobbit were all inherited from her dad. Her stubborn streak and tendency to argue she inherited from her mother.

More importantly, she has super-powers, which she received from a dying extraterrestrial she chanced across (hey, things like this happen all the time in comic book universes). After moving to Kingsport, she was discovered by a group of super-powered teens, and joined them to form the Hero Squad (she didn’t choose the name).

4) What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?

5) What is the personal goal of the character?

I’m answering these two together, because they tie into one another quite closely.

Carrie, like a lot of teenagers, is simply trying to figure out who she is, but a lot of people interfere with her attempts at self-discovery: well-intentioned adults like her parents and teachers, who often don’t listen to what she wants for herself; those with more selfish motivations, such as schoolmates who simply want to tear her down; and super-villains who want her (or rather, her alter-ego Lightstorm) dead.

However, while these and other obstacles make Carrie’s journey much, much more difficult, they keep her focused and driven. By trying to deny her what she wants for herself, her challenges only make her more determined.

6) Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?

7) When can we expect the book to be published?

Again, taking two related questions at once.

There are two full novels already available: Action Figures – Issue One: Secret Origins, and Action Figures – Issue Two: Black Magic Women. You can read the first two chapters on this website (check out the links on the left), as well as a free short story here.

Work on book three is already underway, and the working title for that is Action Figures – Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect. My goal is to have it finished and out by this fall.

Anatomy Of A Bad Cover

Cover art has been on my mind a lot lately. As previously mentioned in this blog, I rather agonized over the cover concept for Action Figures – Issue Two: Black Magic Women; I noted the conceptual similarities between the covers of Action Figures – Issue One: Secret Origins (by my artist Tricia Lupien) and the forthcoming issue of Ms. Marvel (by Annie Wu); and my buddy J.M Aucoin recently unveiled the cover art for his upcoming Jake Hawking omnibus (which, I add, I am looking forward to, since I am not a big e-book reader).

Cover art is a pretty critical element of the final novel package, and an element that a lot of novice authors overlook or ignore. Pop over to Lousy Book Covers and you’ll see how wrong covers can go, and I think that will serve as enough of an explanation as to why good covers are important. I mean, would you pick up any of those books?

Comic Book Resources recently posted a harsh, but dead-on, analysis of the cover for the newest relaunch of DC Comics’ Teen Titans. At first glance, the artwork (by Kenneth Rocafort) looks pretty damn cool, but CBR delves into its flaws in terms of concept, composition, and how it presents its characters — in particular Wonder Girl, who CBR maintains is sexualized to a ridiculous degree. It’s hard to disagree.

The background clearly suggests a high school setting is involved, and the book is called Teen Titans, so it’s not unreasonable to assume we’re looking at a teenage girl — and teenage girls do not look like that (not without the benefit of no small amount of plastic surgery).

It’s easy to dismiss criticism of Wonder Girl’s look as pointless fretting over sexed-up comic book females because that’s what comic book females look like, they’re idealized versions of real women, so shut up already and enjoy the book for what it is, but chances are, the people saying that are all guys who like their super-heroines to look like Victoria’s Secret models, but that’s one reason why such representations are so subversive: they send a message to readers that this is the norm for female characters.

This cover is the latest misstep for DC Comics’ “New 52″ relaunch, which also shrank Starfire’s already skimpy costume, reimagined Harley Quinn as a pole dancer, and turned Amanda Waller, one of DC’s best characters, period, from a big, middle-aged African-American woman into a young, skinny, sexy African-American woman, because reasons.

Someone needs to show DC the memo that girls and women read comics too. Better yet, they need to show them Kelly Sue DeConnick’s run on Captain Marvel and show them how to do a character redesign right.

 

Great Minds

Nothing of consequence today, but I was amused to see the variant cover for the upcoming Ms. Marvel (which you should really check out), by Annie Wu (who you should also check out, because I dig her stuff). The concept: the star of the series, at school, subtly displaying her power in front of her locker, which contains her costume. Sound familiar? It should…

Action Figures #1 at left, by Tricia Lupien; Ms. Marvel #3, at right, by Annie Wu.

Creative simpatico is its finest!

Sharing The Love: Li’l Eddie

The day started off on a slightly annoying note, when I was made aware of a really dumb typo in Action Figures – Issue Two: Black Magic Women. It was a boneheaded mistake on my part, and one of those minor things that managed to escape my notice despite (or perhaps because of) several read-throughs on my part. It also slipped by five test-readers and my editor. It was too much of a goof to let it slide, so I spent part of the morning fixing the original files, and re-uploading them.

That means the print and Kindle editions were briefly unavailable while the system processed the new files. A small headache, in the grand scheme of things, but enough to irk me.

Micah and a copy of the first Li’l Eddie book.

So, in the interest of staying positive, and giving people something to try out while my books are being corrected, I present to you the first in a planned series of books under the Li’L Eddie banner, adapted from the works of Edgar Allan Poe by my brother-in-law, Micah Edwards. The first book, Ricky’s Spooky House, just dropped, and it’s on sale at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I’ve provided a handy link below so anyone who’d like to check out this book tailored for young readers (and those adults with a healthy sense of childishness) can go grab it right now.

 

When Michelle Meets Michael

Here’s your reading for the day: head on over to fellow author T. Michelle Nelson’s website, click the blog link, and check out the interview she recently conducted with me.

Since I like to quid pro quo such kind offers, here’s what you need to know about Michelle, courtesy of her website bio:

T. Michelle Nelson became enamored with vampires at an early age when she watched George Hamilton in “Love at First Bite.” As she got older, her tastes leaned more toward the dark and morose, but her love of all things vampire never wavered.  Little has changed over the years, except now T.  makes up her own macabre stories of the undead… mixed with a splash of romance, tough heroines and tons of dark humor.

T. Michelle Nelson is a native of Benton, Kentucky and a graduate of Murray State University.  Currently she resides in picturesque Mount Vernon, Ohio, which is also the setting of her Lily Drake series.  The first two books in the series, Life and Death of Lily Drake and ‘Til Death Do Us Part, are currently available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon or any of your other favorite online bookstores. A short story prequel The First Timeis also available. Currently, T. is working hard to finish her third book.

When she isn’t writing, you can usually find her spending time with her son, singing out of key, watching B-Horror movies or discussing world problems with her little dog, Toadie.

A B-movie horror fan? My kind of person!

And here is what you need to know about the books, again courtesy of Michelle (and you can click on the cover images to go directly to Amazon.com and buy them):

The Life & Death of Lily Drake



The life of a single mother is never easy, but Lily Drake is about to be put to the test.  PTA meetings, a full time job and raising her young son is enough to fill her plate, but when a friend sets her up on a blind date, Lily’s life spins out of control. Mistaking a vampire for her suitor, Lily finds herself thrown into a world where her decisions not only affect her and her young son’s lives, but also could turn the tides in a battle between warring vampires.

Maintaining a balance between Lily’s role as a doting mother and the dark secret society of vampires is no easy task, but when she finds herself in love with two of the vampires, choosing between humanity and immortality seems to be the easiest decision of all.  How will Lily find time to check homework, choose between two handsome vampire cousins and still have time to dispose of the bodies?

The Life and Death of Lily Drake is not your typical vampire love story. It’s a tale about the humorous mistakes a woman makes simply trying to survive not only life, but the dating scene.  How will Lily manage working full-time, taking care of her young son and fighting the undead at every turn?

Lily will have to figure it out, but who better to save the world than a mom?

‘Til Death Do Us Part



With a doting husband and a new job training a vampire military, Lily Drake was living up to the prophecies of being the best.  Her life was seemingly perfect, until tragedy strikes bringing her a loss she’s not sure she can endure.

The hard-working super mom / vampire slayer, Lily Drake, has just learned problems still exist even after you become immortal.

As everyone knows, even if you find the perfect guy, you don’t always get a happily-ever-after.  Lily may have found temporary happiness being a newlywed, but the honeymoon is over.  When she finds her husband going out for late night bites with another woman, Lily has to fight to try and regain what she wants most, love and a happy family.

If Lily thought being a single mom was hard, she’ll find being married can be a bloody mess.

Book Three to be released in June.