BRIGHTLY cover reveal

Today's the day! Brightly's cover is live! What do you think?

After escaping the faeries that held her prisoner in Otherworld, Lee Capren has made a new life for herself. When she’s not slinging spells with her monster-wrangling roommate, Filo, or honing her newfound magical abilities with her boyfriend, Nasser, she’s working in a shop that caters to Bridgestone City’s magical crowd. It’s not exactly a normal life… but it’s hers.

Everything changes when three strangers arrive with a desperate plea for help and a connection to Filo’s cruel former masters. Lee and her friends are soon swept up in the strangers’ quest to break a curse that plagues their island home.

Unraveling the secret of the curse will take them from an island where merfolk swim in the coves to a hidden city beneath the streets of Seattle and beyond. As the danger grows, relationships are tested, new ones are forged, and in the face of impossible choices, Lee learns the hardest lesson of all: Where there is love, there is also heartbreak.

With time running out and lives on the line, it becomes clear that failure could cost their lives—and success could cost them everything else.

Publication date: November 2013

Add Brightly on Goodreads!

Femininity in YA fiction

You know what would be nice? Reading a YA fantasy or sci-fi novel with a butt-kicking heroine that doesn’t demonize femininity. I can’t tell you how many books I’ve come across recently—both ones I’ve read and ones I’ve read reviews of—that star a spunky teenage girl who rejects anything and everything that is considered “feminine” because she thinks that makes her weak. She scoffs at the girls and women around them, for they are shallow and petty and enjoy wearing dresses and makeup. (Cue me trying to find a good wall to bash my head again.)

I’m getting really sick of the scores of books where the heroine’s strength must come at the expense of anything “girly” or “feminine.” I’m sick of being told, over and over, that these heroines aren’t girly because being girly is the same as being stupid and weak. I’m sick of “not feminine” constantly because equated with “strong.”

Frankly, I’m sick of being told that the only way to be a strong person, the only way to be independent, the only way to be a good heroine, is to utterly reject anything associated with women because it’s frivolous, surround myself with boys and scoff at any girl who doesn’t.

To the YA writers who are churning out this content, because apparently quite a few don’t realize: There’s nothing wrong with being a girl or liking traditionally “girly” things!

I repeat: There’s nothing wrong with being a girl or liking traditionally “girly” things!

At the same time, of course, there’s nothing wrong with being a boy or liking traditionally “boyish” things. Apply the same principle to any combination of gender identities and behaviors: Basically, your gender, no matter what it happens to be, is all right, and your likes and interests are all right, because they’re yours and nobody can tell you who you should be. Nobody should give you crap for being who you are. Nobody should tell you that you have dress or act a certain way, or have certain interests, to be a certain thing (like, say, an awesome heroine in a YA novel). Nobody has the right to kick you out of the club because they think your personality has conflicting traits.

But that happens all the time. In fiction, female characters, female identities, and traits, behaviors and interests that have been traditionally thought of as feminine are constantly mocked and trashed. We’re getting the message that, for a girl to have value, she must reject her femininity because it’s worthless. And that’s all kinds of messed up.

Did you know that you can wear a dress sometimes and kick butt other times? You can even do both at the same time! Did you know that you can use weapons and be a trained fighter and embrace your emotions? Or get this: You can form close relationships with other girls—even the dreaded “girly girls!”

Isn’t that shocking?

To a fair few writers out there, it probably is—and that saddens me.

Does anyone have recommendations for YA novels that don’t do this? Goodness, I need something new to read.

SpoCon 2013

It’s that time of year again!

Unfortunately, I was only able to attend Friday and Saturday, but those two days were fantastic. I was able to catch up with some lovely folks I only see at this convention (including the very talented Frog and Esther Jones and Erik Scott de Bie, who apparently bought a sword at some point during the weekend.)

I had a great time on my panels, especially the one where Frog and I discussed Kindle Worlds. Frog is a lawyer, and he dropped some pretty serious truth bombs about what publishing with Kindle Worlds really means. I hope he writes a blog about it someday. The information is really sobering. In a nutshell: If you ever plan to write anything other than fanfiction, DON'T PUBLISH WITH KINDLE WORLDS. DO. NOT. PUBLISH. WITH. KINDLE. WORLDS.

Also, it was an absolute delight to speak on a panel with authors Rosemary Jones and Mike Shepherd. Just being a room with them made me feel smarter! I hope our panel (about getting your foot in the door of the publishing industry) was helpful to the lovely people who attended.

On a side note, I sold all the paperback copies of Flicker I brought with me, which was a very pleasant surprise. (Some were given away as raffle prizes during my reading.) Also, the fine folks who attended the reading got a first look at the cover of Brightly and heard me read a SpoCon exclusive scene that I haven’t posted or shared anywhere else. They were a lovely crowd.

At the reading, I connected with a young woman I actually met last year at SpoCon 2012. After the con, she requested a copy of Flicker at her local library, read it, and apparently liked it, since she came to my reading this year. It’s mind-boggling for me that someone would actually carve time out of their schedule to listen to me read, especially when there was a Brandon Sanderson panel going on upstairs at the same time. Every time something like that happens—every time I get a message from a reader who wanted to let me know how much she enjoyed Flicker, every time someone buys a paperback from me, every time someone downloads an ebook—I am absolutely blown away. It’s an incredible feeling. I feel so grateful to have each and every reader, and I’m so happy that they enjoy spending time with my imaginary friends.

The highlight of my weekend came on Saturday. I always look forward to SpoCon—there’s nothing quite like a local convention—but what makes it special every year are the guests. The first year I attended, Patricia Briggs was the Guest of Honor. (I was lucky enough to win a copy of River Marked signed by both Patricia and by Dan Dos Santos, the cover artist for all the Mercy Thompson books. Incidentally, River Marked is my favorite book in the series, and it has my favorite cover.)

Last year, as you might recall, I met Peter S. Beagle. Peter S. Beagle. The man who changed my life through The Last Unicorn. When I met him, I was completely overwhelmed, and I sort of cried. He was wonderful about it. (He attends loads of conventions, and I suspect fans like me probably cry at him all the time, so he’s probably used to it by now.) Later that weekend, I sat in the front row during a showing of The Last Unicorn where Peter S. Beagle (Peter! S! Beagle!) gave commentary the whole time. It was surreal.

This year, the Guest of Honor was Brandon Sanderson. Yes, the Brandon Sanderson. All year, I’ve been ridiculously excited for SpoCon so I could see him—for myself, yes, because I’m a fan (though I’ve only read Mistborn and Elantris so far), but also for another reason...

(The rest of this massive round-up post under the cut.)

BRIGHTLY updates!

It’s official—Brightly is on Goodreads! You can add it to your “to-read” list and everything!

The expected publication is November 2013, though the exact date has not yet been determined. I’ll unveil the cover on Friday, August 30, 2013. That’s a little more than two weeks from now. Mark your calendars and keep your eyes on this blog, or on my official Facebook page!

Here’s the official summary:

“After escaping the faeries that held her prisoner in Otherworld, Lee Capren has made a new life for herself. When she’s not slinging spells with her monster-wrangling roommate, Filo, or honing her newfound magical abilities with her boyfriend, Nasser, she’s working in a shop that caters to Bridgestone City’s magical crowd. It’s not exactly a normal life… but it’s hers.

Everything changes when three strangers arrive with a desperate plea for help and a connection to Filo’s cruel former masters. Lee and her friends are soon swept up in the strangers’ quest to break a curse that plagues their island home.

Unraveling the secret of the curse will take them from an island where merfolk swim in the coves to a hidden city beneath the streets of Seattle and beyond. As the danger grows, relationships are tested, new ones are forged, and in the face of impossible choices, Lee learns the hardest lesson of all: Where there is love, there is also heartbreak.

With time running out and lives on the line, it becomes clear that failure could cost their lives—and success could cost them everything else.”

While you wait for the cover reveal, you may want to check out my Pinterest, where I pin all kinds of Brightly-related material, as well as images related to an as-yet-unnamed fantasy novel (separate from the Flicker series) and assorted geekery.

What I'm Reading

First: Happy Independence Day to my American friends, and happy July 4th to everyone else! Now that we've exchanged pleasantries, let's move on to our next topic: books.

I don't buy a lot of books, for two reasons.

1) Books can be very expensive and I'm a college student, so when I do purchase them, they're usually paperbacks and often used.

2) I don't have much room for more books. Over the years, I've accumulated so many books that I've pretty much run out of places to keep them. I've scouted out a spot in the house where I could fit another bookcase, and I'm currently on the lookout for one that's the right size, which will increase my book-buying capacity.

So for the most part, I request books from the library. It's a win-win: I get to read them for free, and they don't take up too much space, since I have a cubby that's reserved for library books. Most of the books in my personal library are ones that I really, really love and would be checking out from the library constantly if I didn't own my own copies.

But recently, there was a fabulous sale on used books at Hastings (which is where I buy most of my books), and I was able to pick up a few used copies of some books I'd been wanting to own for a while. (I'll take a photo of them to post sometime, but for now, the covers will have to suffice!) I went home with:

The Iron Knight by Julie Kagawa. I love this book. It's probably my favorite in the Iron Fey series (even though I've always been Team Puck), and the cover is to die for. *swoons*

Red Glove by Holly Black. Amazing book! And if that weren't enough, I also picked up...

Black Heart by Holly Black! On one hand, it's great that I've finally completed my Curse Workers collection. On the other hand, NONE OF THE BOOKS MATCH AND THAT IS FRUSTRATING.

But speaking of, I don't think I ever posted photos of my copy of White Cat. My sister pointed it out to me when we were browsing for used books, and I just about dropped dead:

 

It's signed! Holly Black touched it! *melts into a puddle of goo*

Oh, and also made a trip to the library yesterday. I haven't been picking up many new books lately--I'm hard at work on Brightly and I just don't have much reading time right now, tragically--but yesterday, nearly every YA book that's been on my to-read list was on the shelves. It was like torture. I felt like they were taunting me, because they knew I didn't have time for them all. Finally, I settled on just two books:

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas, which I've been wanting to read forever. (My library's copy doesn't have this cover, but I like this one better. Such a lovely illustration.)

Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor. I read and enjoyed Daughter of Smoke and Bone last year--I had a few minor issues with it, but the concept was very imaginative--so I was curious about the sequel. I'll let you guys know what I think when I finish reading.

Your turn! Spill! What are you reading over the long weekend?

Why try to monetize fanfiction? On Kindle Worlds, the Fanfiction Community and (to a lesser extent) Merthur fanfiction

By now, mostly everyone has heard about "Kindle Worlds," a New Publishing Model for Authors Inspired to Write Fan Fiction. Essentially, it's Amazon's effort to monetize fanfiction.

Others have written on this topic (Malinda Lo's post is great, and includes some helpful links), so I won't rehash the same things everyone else has.

As a former fanfiction writer and an avid fanfiction reader, I find Amazon’s announcement to be… interesting. Many people have been describing it this way, and for good reason. At this point, it’s too soon for us pass judgment on Kindle Worlds. We have no idea how this program is really going to unfold, what its real-world implications are, and how it might affect the ebook industry and the fanfiction community.

Confession #1: When I was a kid, I wanted to be a novelization writer—because, as far as I knew, novelization writers were basically paid to write fanfiction. Canon fanfiction. They were living the dream! (For the record, I still think that’s pretty much what novelization writers do, and I’m still convinced that they’re living the dream. If anyone has more information about novelization writers, I’d love it if you hooked me up.)I'm excited by the possibilities that Kindle Worlds could open up for writers like me, even if I'm wary of Amazon's terms and agreements.

The way I see it, as long as the writers who choose to publish their fanfiction through Kindle Worlds understand the terms and agreements and are fine with them, then I'm fine, too. (A friend of mine suggested that fic writers who want to hold onto the rights to their original creations, such as original characters, should be very selective as to what fics they publish through Kindle Worlds.)

Frankly, I'm mostly interested to see what the cover generator ends up looking like--and if it's decent, I want to play with it. (Okay, even if it's not decent, I'll probably still want to play with it.)

My question is this: Who would pay to read fanfiction when there is an unlimited supply of free fanfiction available on other sites?

Teaser Tuesday #1:

It’s not actually Tuesday, but I’m not sure I’ll be online tomorrow, so I’m just going to give the teaser to you lovely people a day early. From a scene in Brightly:

On Book Sales

I recently saw a blog post from an indie author that really got me thinking.

This particular author has recently released a book that has not been selling as well as the author thought it would. The blog post lamented the sales and included some vague comments that sounded a bit like they were meant to guilt readers into buying more copies.

Now, I think every author hopes to sell thousands upon thousands of copies. But I also think most of us understand that it’s not the most realistic dream. There are millions of books out there. It’s easy for any book to get lost in the shuffle, especially books that don’t have the advertising might of a publishing house behind them.

Still, things are tough all over, even for traditionally-published books. As William Hertling said in his book Indie and Small Press BookMarketing (which is an absolute wealth of information that I highly recommend to anyone thinking of indie publishing a book):

“The average indie-published book sells less than two hundred copies over its entire life, while traditionally published first novels sell, on average, seven hundred and fifty books.”

That’s why I could never dream of writing a blog to complain about my book sales. I know that the book market is immense—so immense that I am deeply grateful for each and every person who buys a copy.

Every single time I see that someone has bought a copy of Flicker, I get excited: Someone has chosen to pay money to read something that I wrote! Someone has looked at the cover, read the summery, possibly read the Kindle sample, and decided to spend a few hundred pages in my fantasy world with my imaginary friends. That’s amazing to me, the biggest honor I can think of. It’s been just over a year since Flicker was first published, but that feeling of elation never goes away.

While I will say that, statistically speaking, Flicker is selling much more than the average indie book, I will also say that it's not selling enough copies for me to, say, quit my jobs and quit college and write full-time.

And that's all right with me.

Really, it is. Because I am so deeply grateful for each and every copy I do sell, and for each and every rating and review on sites like Goodreads and Amazon, and every single "like" on my Facebook page, and every single mention of Flicker on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook. I'm grateful that complete strangers are choosing to spend time with my words and tell other people about them.

So if you've bought a copy of Flicker, or reviewed it, or posted about it, or told a friend--

Thank you! I love each and every one of you!