V.R. Cumming's Blog, page 8

New Urban Fantasy Facebook Page

I was reading through kboards this morning and discovered that a fellow indie author had created a new Facebook page specifically to highlight Urban Fantasy series. If you're into Facebook, head over and like the page, comment, and share posts to get the word out.

I mentioned a while back that I'm working on a couple of special projects, to be announced officially next year. One of those happens to be an Urban Fantasy set near where I live. UF is one of my favorite genres (you could probably tell by my reading list on GoodReads), so I'm really interested in supporting this author as he attempts to shine a spotlight on UF. Go help him out, y'all, and have some fun learning about new releases!

Serials or Novels?

I'm taking a good, hard look at my writing schedule for next year (this year's being pretty much set), and contemplating the format of the books I'm writing under this pen name. 

One of the reasons I write serialized stories (or episodic stories, take your pick) is because I can work short segments of writing into my schedule easier than I can work writing a whole novel into my schedule. Time wise, it probably works out even, but with episodes, the story it out to the reader that much faster.

November is National Novel Writing Month. I'm planning on writing a very special story during that month (if my schedule works out correctly) that will fit nicely into Eric and Gianna's story. If I finish it, it will be released as a full novel. In fact, I'm already plotting this story out and there's no way it would work as a serialized story. 

So, all of this contemplation got me thinking, and there's no better group of people to ask opinions of than those who actually choose to read what I write. My questions to y'all are: Do you really like the serialized form or would you prefer a full-length novel? If the latter, would you be willing to wait the four to six months between installments in a series while I write, revise, and polish a longer story? Or is the serialized form your ideal reading style? Comments, opinions, and questions are welcome, either here, by e-mail, or on Facebook.

Thanks so much!

Now Available: The New Vampire, Episode 1: Shadow and Light

And we're on a roll with the releases...

Shadow and Light , the first episode of The New Vampire Series is now available for purchase through Amazon.com, iBooks, and Smashwords. It should be available through Barnes & Noble within two weeks.

TNV is told from Gianna's point of view and picks up about fifteen months after the end of The Vampire's Pet . I've scheduled successive episodes for release about every three weeks, though, as always, if I can finish them sooner, they'll come out sooner.

I hope y'all enjoy this next series and the continuing journey of Eric, Gianna, and Jason through the world of the Vampyr.

The Vampire's Pet Series Bundle Now Available!

I'm so pleased to announce that, at last, The Vampire's Pet is now available for purchase through Amazon.com and Smashwords. It should be available within about two weeks through Barnes & Noble and iBooks. For those who would rather have a physical copy to read, the print edition is available through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and CreateSpace.

Speaking of the paperback copy... If you receive my new releases mailing list (aka my newsletter), don't forget to take advantage of the Special Offer inside, tailored just for y'all. 

I hope y'all enjoy the bundled and print editions of The Vampire's Pet Series. They sure were fun to write!

GoodReads Giveaway of The Vampire's Pet Is Complete!

The GoodReads giveaway of a signed, print copy of The Vampire's Pet is now complete. Ten winners have been chosen. I'm addressing envelopes and hope to get these out in the mail tomorrow afternoon. My policy on giveaways and mailings is at the bottom of this page, but be sure to contact me if you have any questions. Congratulations to the winners and many thanks for entering.

Coming Soon: The New Vampire, Episode 1: Shadow and Light

Next week, the first episode in The New Vampire Series will be released. The working title was The Awakening, but as you can see, after completing the story I had a change of heart. The finished title is Shadow and Light . Once you read this one, you'll understand why I re-titled it.

I've put a couple of teasers for this story on the Facebook page as well as on the book's page. Because my schedule has worked out correctly, mailing list subscribers will absolutely, definitely receive at least one day's [advance] notice of the title's availability before the release is officially posted here.

Here's the blurb for Shadow and Light:

Fifteen months after being attacked by the vampire Selena, Gianna Logan awakens from the shadows that have consumed her for far too long, alone and in precarious control of her fragile mind. Her life has been a waking nightmare filled with blood and visions of the Before, and her home a cold steel cage she leaves only to feed.

Two men emerge from the shadows, bringing light into her lonely existence. Eric and Jason surround her with their devotion and the promise of eternal love. Though Gianna doesn’t remember them, she welcomes their companionship and the hope represented by the rings they wear, symbols of the bond of three made one.

The shadows haven’t completely left Gianna, however. Her mind remains fractured by her violent turn and the shattering of one, broken to protect her lovers from the horror of Selena’s attack. While Eric and Jason’s love is strong, Gianna fears it may never outpace the darkness hovering over her, haunting her with blood-soaked memories she must learn to control if she is to re-enter one and claim the light and love she craves.

On Being Real

There's been a lot of huff and roar lately over plagiarism, which seems so much more common now in the digital age than it was when we were all confined to print. Just in the past few weeks, a writer using the name Clarissa Black was outed for transforming Aubrey Rose's novella City Girl, Country Wolf into a work so similar (titled City Girl, Mountain Bear), it was eerie. Then the news hits that Tiffanie Rushton, writing under the name Sam Taylor Mullens, had plagiarized earlier works of Rachel Ann Nunes, among others. 

Plagiarism is nothing new, but that's not the story I want to focus on. While reading through the appalling problems these other authors are facing, I've become a bit disturbed by readers' reactions, in particular those that decry the use of "fake" names and pictures by authors.

Here's the thing. There are tons of authors out there legitimately using pen names as the front for their writing. Again, this is nothing new. Back in the day when women in Western societies were pigeonholed into tightly defined roles, several prominent women assumed male names in order to have their writing accepted by the world at large. Silas Marner comes to mind. It was written by Mary Ann Evans, better known as George Eliot, a name she used so her work would be taken seriously and not brushed aside as romantic mumbles derived from the female mind.

In modern times, writers use pen names for a variety of reasons. Some use them to distinguish works of one genre from another. Others use them to guard their privacy, and still others assume pen names so that they can write about material that's not exactly accepted by the public at large.

I do all three. My writing career had its start in non-fiction in a narrow niche market where I'm fairly well-known. When I first began writing fiction, I knew I'd have to use a pen name to distinguish between my non-fiction and fiction works, though everyone knows I write under both names. I make no attempts to hide that.

When I began writing erotic PNR and dark fantasy, I chose to write under yet another name, one that only a handful of people associate with the real me. Thing is, I live in the rural South, right in the heart of the Bible Belt. My father is very Southern Baptist, and while he's open-minded about a lot of things, I'm pretty sure the explicit sex found in The Vampire's Pet would give him a heart attack. I love my Dad. Ergo, I use a pen name and guard it carefully. The biography on this website is totally made up, but if you read down, you'll see that it's meant as a joke. 

The truth of V.R. Cumming comes in the biography I leave everywhere else: I live in the rural South where I write all day long, and sometimes all night long, too. This is the absolute, unvarnished truth. That it sits beside a doctored stock photo is immaterial. The real me shines through with every word I write, with every character and story and book world I share with my readers. This is the real me, the bluntly honest woman with a darkly creative mind. 

Not many people see that woman. Most see the smile I wear to hide what's going on in my head and never look beyond it, and you know what? I'm perfectly fine with that. Everyone wears a mask, everyone. To single authors out because they use a pen name as their mask is hypocritical, and it's unnecessary. If you want to know the real person behind a book, read it. Go ahead. Read that book and learn every vulnerability, every weakness, every fear. Every character contains a part of who we are. Every story line is something that affected us personally, sometimes in ways we don't even realize until we're knee deep into writing and a dam opens we didn't know existed and all that pain and hurt and betrayal floods out of us onto the pages of a book.

The truth is, and I'm giving you the God's honest truth here, folks, authors can't hide who they are because everything we are is on display for everyone to see. It's the bad sister with anger issues and a taste for pain. It's the man who slowly begins to understand that love comes in many forms, some of them not tolerated or accepted by society. It's the polluted river running by our house and the ghost haunting the deep wood and the memory of blood so deep, it stains us forever with its fetid stench. 

People say a lot of things about me, but the one thing no one who's read my stories can accuse me of is being fake. I'm a real, flesh and blood person. All you have to do to find me is open a book.

Mail time!

My copies of The Vampire's Pet  came in the mail today. Part of these will go to the winners of the GoodReads giveaway I'm doing and part are for a very special purpose. The first copy went back out again today about two hours after I picked the (very heavy) box up from the PO.

These turned out really well. L.J. Anderson, the cover designer, did an excellent job and CreateSpace's printer put the whole together very well. Hopefully, this edition will please readers and give them many hours of enjoyment down the road.

The official release date for the e-book version of the series bundle is next week. The first episode of The New Vampire will also come out that day. As always, the story goes on...

Eh, what exactly is that?

I'm gearing up for the release of The New Vampire's first episode, The Awakening . Those of you who've read through the entire Vampire's Pet Series or received my last newsletter have already had a taste of it. I'm trying to work my writing schedule around so that newsletter subscribers also get a first crack at new releases by at least a full day, but that's a story for another day.

One of the things every writer has to do is decide what genre(s) and subgenre(s) their work falls into. Since beginning the Vampire's Pet Series in early May, I've wrestled with this. Are the V.R. Cumming tales erotica? No, there's more of a story and less sex, though the sex is explicit, so it's not exactly romance, either. So, erotic romance it is. Paranormal, yes, but there's also a touch of horror. And, wait, there's not a Happy Ever After at the end of the first series, a trademark of the romance genre so...

You can probably see why I've struggled with how to categorize these stories. To readers, this kind of classification isn't all that important. A good story is a good story, right? And it doesn't matter if it's classified as paranormal or something else as long as it's a satisfying read.

Where knowing the genre really helps is with retailers, who rely on genre and subgenre classifications to group books appropriately for their customers. On Amazon, for example, it's really difficult for a book to be discovered by readers who would enjoy it if the keywords and categories (genres) aren't properly configured.

Unfortunately, none of my stories fall precisely into a specific subgenre. The Vampire's Pet, for example, is erotic, yes, but it's not erotic romance (there's no HEA or Happy for Now, a requirement of that genre). It's not exactly Urban Fantasy or Horror because it contains explicit sex. Sex is usually alluded to in UF, but not explicitly detailed, and modern Horror is evolving more and more toward a separation between tales that contain supernatural elements (Dark Fantasy) and those that do not ("pure" Horror). 

I finally settled on defining my stories as something between Erotic Paranormal Romance and Dark Fantasy. Though I would prefer the more honest and simple Erotic Dark Fantasy, many people who see "dark" used in conjunction with "erotic" expect much darker sex (heavy on the BDSM). So, Erotic PNR and Dark Fantasy will just have to do.

A lot of indie authors have this same problem. One reason why we're indie is because traditional publishers expect closer compliance with rigid genre expectations and tend to reject authors whose work can't be neatly pigeonholed (or, worse, they edit it to death, losing much of the story's vibrancy in the process). That's also why indies are so successful, because we're able to blur the lines and draw in readers who would like something different in their fiction. 

I hope that's what I'm achieving here with the World of the Vampyr stories. Keep an eye out in the near future for a continuation of this world, as well as a new series I hope to release early next year. It's set in the same fictional world as the Vampyr, but doesn't directly involve the characters already introduced. Don't worry, I won't leave Eric, Gianna, and Jason's story hanging. In fact, I have another surprise there that I'm working on. More details should be forthcoming near the end of this year on both the new series and that surprise.

Cover for The Vampire's Pet Series Bundle/Print

I was going to wait until tomorrow to officially reveal the cover for The Vampire's Pet Series e-book bundle and print edition, but I just can't keep it in any more! I mean, just look at it. Go ahead. Lookit! Ain't it boo-tee-full?

This was done by the awesome L.J. Anderson of Mayhem Cover Creations, who is known for the gritty textures of her covers. 

The e-book bundle and print edition will contain all six episodes of the series (see below), so if you've bought all of those, don't feel like you have to buy this version. It's exactly the same story, just with a different cover.

To celebrate the release of the compiled versions of The Vampire's Pet and the start of the new series, I'll be doing a couple of giveaways. I don't know exactly what that will entail yet or how I'll do it, but keep an eye out for them. I know, for example, that I'll be giving away ten print copies to US residents through GoodReads. I may also do something special for my newsletter subscribers, but that mostly depends on what my schedule looks like over the next few weeks. (Yeah. Probably hectic.)