Let's Talk About Interlude (and ramble)

So, the brief break hasn't been a result of lacking activity or a general state of doing-nothingness. Nope, far from it. Victoria and I have been writing up a storm on a separate, yet...related, project -- something that we're keeping hush-hush at least for now. Once we move along with Marionettes and Monsters, we may decide to coyly put it out there. It's been an incredible project so far with crazy challenges and a lot of awesome things we've never tackled before.

But, shh, I never said anything about that.

Between scenes and whenever I had a break, I worked on formatting the Interlude paperback. At about 100 pages, it's not as much of a monster as the other books. Formatting those things makes me question everything I used to think was holy.

But whenever we get the first proof in the mail, heck, all that tedious work is so worth it. The Interlude paperback is freaking gorgeous, I can't even believe it. All the colors just made me want to eat it.

Er. Hypothetically, of course. It's a bit too fibrous for my diet.

So, I tweaked with a few things, making sure everything was perfect. Now that it is, the paperback's available through Createspace and Amazon! You can, of course, still get the ebook.

But what is Interlude even about, exactly? What's it's purpose in the series? What's it supposed to do?

(Some spoilers ahead, so make sure you've read at least up two book 2, Fracture the Spider's Web before you continue on!)

Interlude formed in our heads as just a little ha-ha, things we talk about when it sounds like we're gossiping over real people in public. But, this particular part of the story became an interesting piece of the overall puzzle. We had the chance to explore some things that we don't get to in the Marionette's books, and the whole arc of Interlude affected a few particular characters in a way that we didn't expect.

It starts off as a neat little field trip, but then evolves into something deeper, something that moves the characters and reveals them in ways that foreshadows the events in book three, Taste a Thousand Deaths. Not only that, but a Little Something in particular comes back later on.

Is it a critical Little Something necessary to proceed onward without confusion? No. But it's sort of like reading a book, then seeing the movie, and knowing the moment an exact reference is made back to the book, something that might inspire you to elbow your friend over and over and over like, "DID YOU SEE WHAT THEY DID THERE?" To which your friend says, "You need to stop."

What I love most about the Marionettes and Monsters series, unquestionably, is the cast of characters. Each and every one is so beautifully flawed. They make bad decisions, mess up, break down, fall apart, and sometimes come together, whether with another character's help, or on their own. It's probably some fatal flaw how much Victoria and I love these dumb kids.

But, really, the part we hate the most is how we can't explore every single character as much as we want to in the stories.

With Interlude, however, we had a chance to take a few of those kids and explore their perspectives. I mean, really explore their perspectives, from first person point of view. We get to hear their voices unfiltered and understand how those weird cogs tick, and it creates an interesting dynamic compared to the decisions they make in TaTD.

Here's one of my favorite pieces from Interlude, a scene from Jason's perspective as he speaks to Elliot:

I rubbed the side of my face as trees swiveled and leaves scattered. “Why’re you taking me to something that was blessed? I’m supposed to have allergies to that, you know.”

“To gauge how well the land was blessed. It won’t be sacred ground. You might just get some hives.” He smirked at me. “But it’s mostly just a formality. If what we’re after simply tore through the holy protection, I don’t think any sort of exorcism or curse would make a difference.”

Oh, sure. Use me as the test subject.

His mouth held the slight quirk as he looked out to the trees. “What do you think?”

What did I think?

I didn’t know much about the superhuman and supernatural world. I’d done my own research on various species and subspecies so I could dissect and avoid bias from facts, but this didn’t really match up with anything that I’d heard of before.

Ripping open animals and eating them raw? Pilfering mechanics and working in the night? I didn’t know what the heck it could be.

Ave and Elliot had a lot more experience in this field. They knew the weird better than I did.

“I don’t know,” I finally said. “It’s just odd to me that it specifically chose oil country to haunt, you know what I mean? And if it’s pulling apart machines and stealing only pieces, then it’s pretty intelligent. Even if the local pastor came out and tossed holy water onto some trees, it’d be smart enough to dance its way past. And if it’s eating things like deer, then it’s bigger, or at least got a big appetite.”

Elliot hooked his hands into the pockets of his coat and nodded. “What would you have us do next?”

My head swung so I could look at him with whatever my face read. “What—me? Why me? I’m not the captain, Ave is.”

“And if you were captain, what would your next move be?” His pale eyes narrowed on me over the rims of his glasses.

What develops between this little piece of the cast is something that causes me incoherent noises of the super embarrassing kind.

Plus, the place they go to is freaken creepy. I'm not too big on horror, but there's definitely a reason why we made the ebook version of the novella available for Halloween.

So, there's a bit about Interlude and why we love the heck out of it. Also, on top of all that stuff I talked about, there's, well...some hints about the Monsters series in there, too. More on the first book of Monsters (plus the cover) soon.

Eheheh.

Movie Tie-In Covers Can Be Cool Too

I mean, kind of. Recent history hasn't really proven that for me, but now that I've been working in a bookstore, I've been working very close to covers. For me, this's awesome, because I make all of our series covers (and I'm so very excited about the next books' covers, I could float away). I get the chance to just glance over the elements of about a million covers and analyze what and why and how and--yeah.

Before working, and even up until recently, I was of the conclusion that movie covers suck. Seriously. The most recent example I'd had before working was Beautiful Creatures.

Okay, so I do admit to picking up this cover just because of the typography and mood -- which totally signifies how important typography alone is. The cover IS the typography, and the title could have meant anything, so I did pick it up just because of that and how dark it looked. I like me some dark fantasy.

And then, the movie cover.

Mmmmmph. Lots of mmmmph-ing. It's soooo busy, so "LOOK THIS IS A MOVIE." The awesome typography totally gets overwhelmed and just adds to the busyness of the whole thing and mmmmph. It's very basic, to say the least.

I totally understand that movie tie-in covers are supposed to attract an untapped part of the potential reader audience, and they're supposed to be commercial with a wide appeal and all that, but. But, but, but. Why? Why so obvious?

I'm a fan of subtly, and when I started working, I got to see the movie-tie in of City of Bones come out. Actually, I really like the movie tie-in, but I'm in total coverlust for the whole freaken Mortal Instruments series covers. They're gorgeous. I picked up the first book just because I wanted to own those covers.

I'm also a total loser for shiny things. If there's a sparkly element to a cover, I'll pick it up. And if Createspace ever offers some sort of shiny cover option, I'll cry metallic tears. (And, honestly, the Marionettes covers are so meant for sparkly covers.)

The movie tie-in is based on the movie poster, which is totally brilliant and came out about the time Dance in Shadow and Whisper did so unfortunately they look painfully similar, so I wasn't surprised that they used the poster.

It's got the same shiny design, and it's also the same size, so what actually happened was that customers got confused and simply went with the original design, since it matches the rest of the series. It seemed to me that this cover was more for the already-fans, to buy it and add it to the collection, as opposed to generating a new fanbase.

Of course, I don't know the complete psychology of things.

I still really like this cover, though. It didn't go the obvious route of slapping the whole cast onto the cover under the title.

I like when covers feature an element or a particular feel that makes a book stand out. It's all well and good slapping a pretty girl face on a cover and throwing in some effects, but it's the same formula over and over again. I mean, let's take Vampire Academy.

Wowowow, the original first cover. I have this cover. I've had this cover a real long time, and talk about basic. Pretty Angelina Jolie face photoshopped with a mysterious silhouette of a castley school, photoshopped with a mysterious wrought iron gate.

Sighs for days.

I don't even want to get into the fact that Rose is supposed to have darker skin and look half Turkish because that's another post entirely.

Eventually, as Vampire Academy picked up a larger fanbase, the creative team tried to reinvent the covers.

Pretty sure this tells us even less about the actual story. At least it looks a little less like a photoshopped mess, I guess?

I'm really trying here.

Anyway, once the first book movie deal went through, the covers were reinvented yet again.

....

I'm. I mean. Well.

Let's just fast-forward to the movie tie-in edition.

I picked this up in the store for the first time, and if you've seen it, you know the pink is foil. That means shiny.

Well. I do like shiny, and. Y'know.

For me, totally scrapping the original cover design and borrowing the movie poster was the best thing to ever happen to the VA covers. Also, NOT making the cover bright green like the poster = extra points. Then, on top of that, making it shiny?

There are a ton of things I hated about the outfits. I'm totally for teens expressing their sexuality, but sexualizing teens is a bit of a different story. But, honestly, my biggest complaint is that Rose's outfit is hardly practical for combat. Short skirts ride up like crazy, and they're definitely not made for roundhouse kicks.

I know. Semantics.

But, in the end, I actually really like this cover. There's the box set of the first three, and it's taken all my will power not to tear through the plastic wrap just to see what they did to the other two.

But, let's not forget:

The original Hunger Games covers? Well, I didn't pick up the books because I thought the covers were exquisite. I didn't care for the Hunger Games first cover when I first saw it, and didn't care for Catching Fire, either. I only picked it up based off someone else's recommendation.

And then I was totally, wholly glad I did. But, the cover was not a seller. I'm a visual person, so at least one thing on the cover has to be visually appealing for me to give a cracker. THG and CF were not those covers.

When the movie tie-in came out for THG, I wasn't impressed, but I wasn't unimpressed. The CF tie-in?

Less impressed.

I really loved the debut character posters of THG, buuuut personally not so enthralled by CF's. The first posters were a fantastic show of resistance, holding back, and finding a single element to play up for an awesomely dark atmosphere.

This was...not that. Lots of textures laid over each other. Basic composition. Commercial as all heck. As a creative person, totally bored.

(Plus, the movie tie-ins aren't shiny. Ehehehe.)

But, on a separate note, there's the box set of the trilogy, the only way currently to get Mockingjay in paperback. Here's the CF cover for that:

I think it might at least be shiny.

But it does have a recognizable brand, and that's an important thing to have and capitalize on.

Recently, I was assigned the task of setting up the Divergent movie promo -- which I was super, duper, freaken excited about. The most exciting part? I got to open the box and see the movie tie-in covers for the first time.

Holy crap.

The Divergent cover didn't leave an impression on me in the beginning, either. It's a combination of design elements that tells me little about the story. Again, I only picked it up based off a recommendation from the same person.

The familiar original cover that went to shiny-shiny paperback during the winter time. That was a bonus.

When I opened the strict-on-sale box of new Divergent covers, though, I found this:

I'm in love. What an awesome show of restraint. And while looking for this cover online, I found the rest of the promo character posters -- they're absolutely gorgeous. All of them put a spotlight on the characters' tattoos and let that do the talking. It's so brilliant, I'm freaking out. I'd put up all those character posters just because they're stunning.

Oh, and the bonus?

The back cover has a little special treat.

The creative team totally knows who their audience is.

So, now that I have some mixed hope for the future of movie tie-ins, I wonder most what they're going to do with The Fault in Our Stars.

This is such an iconic cover for teen fiction -- what the heck are they going to do to honor both the original cover and also make it more commercial? The movie tie-in comes out April 8, so I guess we'll be finding out next month. Can't wait to alert all the TFiOS fans at work, either.

(And then there's The Giver, The Maze Runner, Mockingjay, Fallen, If I stay...so many covers to look forward to. I guess we'll see!)

I'm also really looking forward to debuting the next covers in the Marionettes series, and also the first cover of Monsters. Ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh.

DiSaW is Currently FREE for Kindles

Yep, yep, yep, if you haven't seen on the Tumblog, Dance in Shadow and Whisper has been remastered and is up as a free Kindle ebook! Go grab it.

Thanks to a ton of support from the Tumblog writing community, we're number SEVEN in the Paranormal/ Urban fantasy free books page on Amazon, which puts us on the very front page of that section. We're totally floored by this, like wow, I don't even know what to do with myself. My brain can basically only think in forms of "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?"

Also, for anyone who has a Goodreads account, a remastered paperback (now with a super rad matte cover) copy, which is also SIGNED, is up for a giveaway. Wowowowow.

More updates to come!

Book 3 Taste a Thousand Deaths is (finally) Available!

WELL, it’s certainly been a while. A lot of chaotic life things happened that caused us to postpone our original release date — seriously, I can’t believe we managed to even hit a December release after all that happened. I might talk about that later on, because whew.

I’ve still got a million things to catch up on, but I also want to mention that if you haven’t gotten your digital copy of DiSaW yet (or if you have the first edition originally published in June), we’ll be holding free DiSaW days through Amazon this weekend in celebration of book three’s release!!!!!! I’ll post when the book is officially free.

I’ll talk more about the newly released second edition of DiSaW later, so until then, get your Kindle copy of book 3, Taste a Thousand Deaths! I hear word that it’s a pretty darn okay book. Idle gossip and such.

Ehehehe.

A Tip On Making a Self-Published Cover

My Favorite Cover Tip: Textures

I love covers. I love making covers. I especially love that moment in creating a cover where everything just suddenly comes together and the clouds part and angels sing. I'm absolutely no expert, but the cover for my first book in the Marionettes series got some really positive attention for standing out amongst a slew of professionally made Young Adult fiction covers. That's some pretty solid cred right there.

So, in this little image-heavy article, I'll explain how I used the above textures to take my image and make it into a cover.

Yep, we used to work at a haunt

Is that something I could put on a resume?

Okay, albeit it was a small-scale haunt held every Halloween by my old boss, a family friend, but he's a serious Halloween haunt hobbyist. Each year, he and his family would build their house into a walk-through haunt for the heckuvit. They'd start planning in August just to have it ready for one day at the end of October, and each year had a new theme.

(Got some minor makeup gore in this post down below, so bewaaaaaaare.)

I'm not really a haunt-type person. Little me, I'm an introvert. But, despite that, I also participated in stage plays and musicals every year of my high school career. Kinda odd, I guess.

But scaring people is a whole lot different than speaking onstage in front of an audience. If anything, it's actually harder. It's a lot more intimate, and the audience is expecting a whole lot more out of the performance from every actor.

It's pretty demanding, even physically. My bossman has worked plenty of professional haunts, and he'd wake up the next morning sore and beat -- and got the worst cold of his life one time (misssserable). The first time I participated in his haunt, I bruised my hand up to my arm just to create the perfect slap-of-flesh-against-hard-surface tune. Those were some wicked bruises. Ah, good times.

Victoria's first go at the haunt utilized her vocal chords to the utmost capacity. As in, she screamed. Shattered glass with those screams. And every time my boss has his birthday bash with the whole family present, everyone always remembers her by that scream.

I mean, the makeup's convincing enough. I'm rubbing my neck even as I try very hard not to look at that picture. (I'm not a big gore person either. Yikes. Give me a psychological horror film, okay, but blood and guts? I'll make some embarrassing noises I'd rather not talk about.)

Just to give an idea of how intense her scream was, as soon as people entered her "chamber", so to speak, and she let loose that deadly shriek, people would fall over themselves and create some awesome fire hazards. Ah, yes. Memories.

After my first couple haunts, I got to be one of the walkers, antagonizing the line and perusing the haunt at my own will. At least then I could chose the people I wanted to approach, and I mean, a good and proper doll-like role was perfect.

Yo, also, that's totally my real hair. That's 100% my own hair attached to my head, and that was the end of the night after it had deflated from the elements.

I'd walk around barefoot just like that. All I had to worry about was dodging out of the way of shoes when kids went screaming.

And when I say "kids", I mean grown adults, as well as adult men. The guys were the most satisfying to get to wet their pants, I have to say. They come in with the most swagger, and then leave with the least.

But, this picture doesn't really show my face. So let's take A CLOSER LOOK.

Ah, yes. There we are, still getting ready. I hadn't emptied a can of hairspray into my hair just yet, but don't I look like just a dear? Almost as inviting as he looks. That's a guy you'd introduce to your parents, for sure.

Eheheheh.

But, if there was one thing I learned through these haunts, it was how to effectively scare people. There's "shocked scared", but there's also "buildup scared". When I write, the buildup scared is my favorite. I love some good tension, the "ohshit ohshit ohshit" moment before the explosive "OHSHIT".

I mean, "Interlude" is a perfect Halloween story, and we constructed it with my typical breakneck pacing style. Mmm, sweet, suspenseful tension.

Maybe next year we'll be able to market Interlude as a perfect Halloween story. For now, we're focusing on our marketing plan for November and December to get some momentum going -- and, as I've mentioned on the writing tumblog and blog, I'll be doing NaNoWriMo this year to get a head start on writing book 4.

Awesome times ahead.

Everyone stay safe this year!

INTERLUDE is now available!

SO, as you can see, INTERLUDE is now available! You can get your digital copy through the Amazon or B&N store. Formatting the paperback will take a little bit longer as I take care of some other priorities first.

Also, we DID mention that we were going to make the novella free — but we’re not sure if that’s breaching the Amazon contract. I understand it a little better now and have a better idea of how Amazon’s price-matching system works. Seems to be a rather fuzzy conflict there.

Instead, what what we’ll be doing is giving away free digital editions from now until October 31st. All you have to do is go to our contact page and send us an email, and make sure to put “Interlude ebook request” in the subject line. Let us know if you need either a Mobi (Kindle) or Epub (Nook) version or any instructions on how to transfer the ebook from your computer to your e-reader.

We’ll only be doing this through the last days of October, so make sure you get your email into us!