A.R. Hellbender's Blog, page 5
July 3, 2015
My BooksUnicorn Hunting-“Like many young women, Caoilinn...
My Books
Unicorn Hunting-
“Like many young women, Caoilinn “Cal” Valderan has chosen an alternative to marriage or the nunnery: hunting unicorns. Though unicorn hunting is rewarded with monetary compensation, is the slaying of these pure white magical beasts truly worth the rewards?
In choosing between unicorns and humans, and between family obligations and her own values, Cal goes against what society expects of her and questions what others do not dare to question.“
Revenge of the Unicorns (Unicorn Hunting #2)-
"One year after the battle that put the training of unicorn hunters to an end, an epidemic of unicorn blood addictions has the kingdom in its grip. Cal and Delphina, still traumatized by their experience as unicorn hunters, embark on a journey to send the remaining unicorns back to their world and rid the kingdom of an old friend-turned-enemy.”
Coming soon
Her Dark Highness-
“Emotionally drained from several lifetimes of experience, Beatrice hardly remembers why she chose immortality. In seeking a way to die, she enlists the help of the kingdom’s most wanted outlaw, Sable Basilisk. Eternally indebted to Beatrice for saving his life, Sable Basilisk is torn between giving his sullen companion the death she wants, and keeping her from it.”
Coming Soon
If You Don’t Read, You Can’t Write
Reading is seriously one of the best things you can do for your writing career. I run into the occasional person who really doesn’t understand why reading should make a difference in how well you write, but I feel like it makes all the difference. Reading good books is what teaches me how to write well.
Sometimes, I’ll read a badly written book, and feel like I can’t write well all of a sudden, so I’ll have to read part of a well-written book in order to be able to write again.
Why do I come across badly written books sometimes? Because the authors of those books probably didn’t read enough. I started reading one book today that was written too terribly for words. At first, the bad writing was bearable, but then it became evident that the author had probably not gone back through it at any point or had any beta readers do so. At one point, some dialogue jumped from “the old woman said” to “Agatha said”, before the old woman had even introduced herself as Agatha. And of course, the worst part was the phrase “her brain blinked at his choice of weapon.” Um, no. Brains do not blink. Perhaps, if the author of that book read more books, they would have been able to better describe what they meant.
July 2, 2015
Publishers vs Record Labels
As a musician, you pretty much need a record company to give you the promotion you need (unless you can make it on your own). And as an author, you need a publisher to get your books out there.
What a record label used to do back in the day was say “hey, this band is pretty good, let’s offer them a record deal” and help them become the whole thing and get to the point where they’re really good, and then promote them a lot.
These days, a record label finds a band who has already become the whole thing and already has a big following, and then just promote the hell out of them and make a lot of money.
Publishers haven’t changed quite that much, but they have still changed. Back in the day, an author could actually sell their own book to a publisher. But now, a publisher will pay no attention to an author who has no agent.
A record label pays for all sorts of stuff for a band, but the band will then owe it all back if their album doesn’t sell well enough to cover those costs. This can run some bands into the ground because the expenses are many. An author, on the other hand, does not owe the publisher back the advance on their book if it doesn’t do well.
It is completely possible for a musician to get big without the aid of a label. People all over the world have done it. It’s just a lot more difficult without the paid promotion that a record label can give you. You may not get as many radio campaigns and other promotion as an unsigned artist, but you are still eligible to win a grammy or all sorts of other awards if you’re that good.
An author without a publisher, on the other hand, has a harder time gaining a following. Sure, it’s possible, plenty of people have done it, but it’s very hard. And only traditionally published books are the ones winning the awards.
Both of these industries have undergone a lot of changes in even just the past decade. But of course you don’t need a record label or a publisher to make a living off of your art. Lindsey Stirling and Amanda Palmer, among others, have gotten to be very well-known musicians without the aid of record companies (and in Lindsey Stirling’s case, no management).
You may not hear of indie authors getting to be quite that famous, but some still make millions. Take Amanda Hocking, for instance. Or Hugh Howey, the author of WOOL, which is now being made into a film.
July 1, 2015
We all know who Amanda Hocking is. If you don’t recognize...
We all know who Amanda Hocking is. If you don’t recognize her name, you may know her as “that one author who made millions by selling ebooks.” Because that’s what she did.
She needed $300 for a trip, and put some of her many completed books up on Amazon to make that money. 6 months later, by the time she needed the money for the trip, she had made $20,000.
What we don’t know about is the amount of work it took to become the overnight success that she is now. By that time, she had completed 17 novels because she stayed up all night writing and would finish writing a whole book in just a few weeks. It was her determination that got her to the point where she had that many books published and was prepared to take advantage of the opportunity.
Most writers probably wish they were in her shoes, and I’m definitely one of them. But the kind of determination that she had was what got her there, and that’s the kind of determination that we all need, too. Especially since we all know it’s possible now.
I’m Just a Number
The site that I write articles for is one on which individuals or companies can post what they want written, and any writer who wants to can pick it up, provided that they have the rating required for that assignment. I never know where the things I write are used, unless the instructions say what website it is for (more often than not, they will say “this is for a blog about blahdy blah.” So they don’t know who I am, I don’t know who they are, I’m just identified as a number. Although I have, on many occasions, saved my assignments and searched for them on the internet to find out where they have been used.
A lot of sites work like this. Some pay less and aren’t worth my time, while others pay more but won’t accept even my best writing samples when I apply. Similarly, the site that I am on offers an option for a five-star rating (as opposed to the 4 stars that I have) that lets a writer choose 5-star assignments that pay over 7x the 4-star assignments do. But it is too hard to get there.
A new writer can only get as high as 4 stars upon applying, and the only way to increase your rating is to have a lot of your submitted assignments get rated 5 stars by the staff. I have never had one rated 5 stars, so I sometimes wonder if you have to be friends with the moderators to get a 5-star rating. Because 5-star ratings cost the clients so much more, there aren’t as many of them. And therefore, fewer writers with 5-star ratings are needed.
A couple of weeks ago, I applied to a more legit version of this that actually had me email them links to writing samples I had done, instead of making me write an original one just for them as part of an automated application system. Today, I applied to a different one that was more in-between. I have no idea if either of them will even get back to me, but they might.
May 11, 2015
I just wrote a steampunk version of Sleeping Beauty. It’s a...
I just wrote a steampunk version of Sleeping Beauty. It’s a short story, and you can read it here: http://www.inkitt.com/stories/14157
Also, it’s submitted to a contest, so if you like it, it would be awesome if you clicked the heart at the bottom to vote for it. Thanks!
April 29, 2015
April 9, 2015
10 Random facts about Unicorn Hunting
- Adryan’s name was originally Cora, but it was so similar to Cal, that I typed the wrong name several times in just the first chapter, and immediately decided that the name Cora had to go.
-Cadogan’s name means “Battle Glory”.
-Donna and Claire grew up together, but that’s not revealed in the first book.
-There was an ice age era rhinoceros with a horn so big you’d think it would topple over trying to hold it up. That may have been the first unicorn, and the description evolved over time once it died out. From then on, explorers kept seeing one-horned antelopes and gazelles and saying “I saw a unicorn!” which pretty much led to the description we have of unicorns today.
-The vengeance fiend that switches bodies with Delphina was based on a weird dream. But the people it happened to in my dream were unrelated to the book. I just took the concept from that.
-The first draft was started during a NaNoWriMo, and was finished during a different NaNoWriMo. I’ve never won. But then again, my goals are a bit non-traditional.
-Cal’s full name was originally “Calliope,” instead of “Caoilinn”.
-Delphina’s name comes from the German word for “Dolphin,” which is “Delphine.”
-That’s me on the book’s cover. The sword is from a Halloween store.
-Even though keeping domesticated unicorns seems like an easier solution to getting unicorn blood (it seemed that way to me, at least), any unicorns in captivity disappear as soon as no one is looking. This hasn’t been revealed in the story yet.
