Author of Graveyard Shift, Angela Roquet, talks about her books and life as an indie author

March 4, 2013 by sharonsant

Continuing on the Indie Giveaway theme, I’m pleased to share an interview with the author of the highly imaginative ‘Lana Harvey, Reapers Inc.’ series, Angela Roquet. You can win the first book in the series, Graveyard Shift on the giveaway.

Your books are really unique! How would you classify them?

While my series doesn’t contain vampires and werewolves, it is still considered Urban Fantasy, as the story takes place in modern time and it contains a variety of mythical deities and creatures commonly found in fantasy.

Where do you get your ideas for your books from?

I love studying world religions and mythology, and like most story ideas, mine began with a series of daydream questions. What would a modern afterlife look like? What if all the deities of every faith had to coexist on the other side, the same way we have to coexist on this side? What kind of terrorism might threaten a society like that? And who might I need to keep those rebels at bay? And that is how I met Lana Harvey, a Reaper employed by Grim at Reapers Inc., a thriving business in LimboCity, the capital of the afterlife.

Your covers look great! Did you pay an artist to design them?

I am a graphic designer, so fortunately, I was able to design my own covers. I get asked a lot about cover design from new authors who want to design their own covers, but don’t really know how to go about doing it or don’t think they’re talented enough to handle it. There are some really nice, simple cover designs out there that did not require a professional artist. If you can afford it, a professional cover design is great. But if you’re on a tight budget and want to DIY, my suggestion is to keep it simple. It’s okay to use fonts that are fancy, but make sure they are still easy to read. Go for a bright background color, or one that contrasts nicely with your text and images, and don’t underestimate the power of a simple, symbolic graphic. Get on Amazon or Goodreads and really look at the covers. You’re bound to find some inspiration and some examples that are simple enough to replicate.

How do you handle editing as an indie author?

I had three professionals with English degrees edit my first novel, and I still had a few typos slip through. I still find typos in traditionally published books too. It happens. As an indie author, I do not have a ton of books in a warehouse. They’re printed on demand, so I’m able to make corrections if I find an overlooked error. Which, as a perfectionist, I love! If you don’t have a few professionals at your disposal, there are still a few steps you can take to help ensure a grammatically correct novel. Make a list of the things you have the most trouble with, whether that be then vs. than, or grey vs. gray, and do a search in Word to make sure your usage is proper each time. Also, when you do your final read through, start at the end of your novel and read the pages in reverse order. This will help keep you from getting lost in the story. You’ll read slower and more carefully. If you want more tips on how to self-edit, subscribe to my Youtube channel. I’ll be posting a video in the next few weeks covering some common editing pitfalls.

What do you have coming out next?

“For the Birds” the third novel in my series “Lana Harvey, Reapers Inc.”, will be out in April 2013. I’m running in circles trying to finish it and simultaneously do edits. I would also like to release the fourth book in the series later this year, and possibly a standalone YA, either at the end of the year or early 2014.

Check out Angela’s amazing website

You can also find her on Goodreads or find out more about her books on Amazon

Runners release news

March 3, 2013 by sharonsant

After a long chat with the peeps at my wonderful publisher, Immanion Press, I’ve taken the decision to postpone the release of Runners. The official date is now 8th June 2013. I apologise to the readers who have been waiting patiently for the book’s release and hope that they’ll stick with me just a little longer. I’ll make it worth your while, I promise! For a start, it will avoid the rather messy business of my head exploding. Spring 2013 will belong to the Sky Song trilogy – the final book in the series, Not of Our Sky, coming out early May – and summer will be all about Elijah and his friends. The Runners cover is being designed by the team at Immanion as we speak, (after the humiliating failed attempt to get local kids to model for it) and as soon as I get a peek I’ll share it with you. For now, all I can do is keep everything crossed that I don’t have a total meltdown between now and June!

About Runners

Elijah is nothing special. He’s just a skinny kid doing his best to stay one step ahead of starvation and the people who would have him locked away in a labour camp – just another Runner. But what he stumbles upon in a forest in Hampshire shows him that the harsh world he knows will become an even more sinister place, unless he can stop it. As past and present and parallel dimensions collide, freedom becomes the last thing on his mind as he is suddenly faced with a battle to save his world from extinction. But before Elijah can find the courage to be the hero the world needs, he must banish his own demons and learn to trust his friends. And all the while, the sinister figure of Maxwell Braithwaite looms, his path inextricably bound to Elijah’s by a long dead physicist, and hell bent on stopping Elijah, whatever the cost.

Monica La Porta tells how a podcast inspired her novel, The Priest

March 2, 2013 by sharonsant

It’s time for another visiting author from the group of awesome indies involved in the Indie Author Giveaway. Today I’m hosting the beautiful and talented Monica La Porta to tell us more about what inspired her to write The Priest.

The Story Behind the Story

Sometimes, inspiration comes from the most unexpected sources.
A few years ago, during a flight back home, I was listening to a podcast of a famous Italian stand-up comedian blathering about men. She ended her hilarious piece with a few remarks about the possibility of creating life without male’s contribution. Once I stopped laughing, the idea of a Roman Empire a` la Amazon formed in my mind. I’ve always enjoyed what-if tales and my favorite classes back in college were Sociology and Anthropology. I started wondering of what would happen from an evolutionary point of view to a society that mirrors ours; similar but reversed. An alternate Earth where women have absolute power and love between opposite genders is considered the most heinous sin. The seed of an idea was planted and I started writing Pax in the Land of Women. Almost halfway through what should have been the first installation in the Ginecean Chronicles series, two characters, Mauricio and Rosie, came to life. The elderly couple’s love story was heartbreaking and demanded to be told. It was November 2010, I took a break from Pax in the Land of Women, and decided to join Nanowrimo to write The Priest. A month later, the first draft was done. I finished writing Pax, now the second book in the series, and then started looking for the right editor to work on both novels. It proved to be a long and tortuous path. In October 2011, the person I had hired for the last proofreading pass of The Priest told me the manuscript wasn’t ready and needed to be edited. I was bummed, I had already paid two different editors to polish it, but I wasn’t going to release anything I couldn’t be proud of. Fortunately, my search ended soon after, and one year ago, in February 2012, thanks to my current editor, my little book finally left the safety of my computer for good. Six months after, Pax in the land of Women followed, and soon Prince of War should be released. The rest… is still to be written.

Links:

Monica La Porta’s blog:
The Ginecean Chronicles’ Facebook page
Goodreads Author page:
Where to find my books:
The Ginecean Chronicles:
The Priest
Pax in the Land of Women
Children’s books and YA short stories:
The Prince’s Day Out
Linda of the Night

The Priest

Mauricio is a slave. Like any man born on Ginecea, he is but a number for the
pure breed women who rule over him with cruel hands. Imprisoned inside the
Temple since birth, Mauricio has never been outside, never felt the warmth of
the sun on his skin. He lives a life devoid of hopes and desires. Then one day,
he hears Rosie sing. He risks everything for one look at her and his life is
changed, forever. An impossible friendship blossoms into affection deemed sinful
and perverted in a society where the only rightful union is between women. Love
is born where only hate has roots and leads Mauricio to uncover a truth that
could destroy Ginecea.

Indie book giveaway!

February 21, 2013 by sharonsant

Welcome to the Indie Giveaway! Eleven talented indie authors (or ten and me) have banded together to offer you the chance of two great prizes. The first haul is 11 ebooks. The second is three signed paperbacks and a $20 Amazon gift voucher. Fantastic prizes? I think so! The giveaway is open from midnight GMT on the 25th February until 11:59pm GMT on the 11th March and there’s loads of ways to gain entries.

First, check out the authors and their books below:

Sky Song, by Sharon Sant: An unknown past. An unwanted destiny. A fight for survival.

Dominant Race, by Elisa Nuckle: Lilia, a genetically altered human called a modified, and her allies must choose: help a tyrannical government in the business of killing their kind, or defend someone in the business of killing everyone else?

Earth Angel, by Ruth Ellen Parlour: Earth Angels of Eardecia, fighting against their chosen destiny, discover a secret the God’s never told and use it against their sworn enemy.

Graveyard Shift, by Angela Roquet: Lana Harvey is a reaper, and a lousy one at that, but when Grim promotes her to a high risk assignment, all hell breaks loose…

Blood Roses, by Jason Graves: Madeline and Marissa Owen are identical twins who, with their paper-white skin, look a lot like vampires… well, sometimes, looks can be not at all deceiving.

Sciron, by David Rashleigh: History, mystery, ghosts and a touch of romance in a Lancashire town.

Storm Dancer, by Rayne Hall: Dahoud saves to fight the woman he loves from the evil inside him.

The Priest, by Monica La Porta: Love doesn’t look at skin color/social status/gender. Society can’t restrain our hearts.

T he Violet Fox, by Clare Marshall: The Violet Fox is Cinderella meets Robin Hood with a dash of The Little Mermaid.

Torched, by Andrea Lynn Colt: When cheerleader Rose Whitfield is framed for arson, she sets out to clear her name and take prime suspect Paxton down hard–not necessarily in that order.

Trinity, by Clare Davidson: Three unlikely companions set out to do the impossible–restore a trinity of gods, which was destroyed a thousand years earlier.

For a chance to win this haul of brilliant books, simply fill in the details below and you’ll be entered into the draw. Don’t worry, your details will never be used for anything but this.

ebook giveaway
paperback giveaway

Neither Mickling nor Muckling

January 6, 2013 by sharonsant

Neither Mickling nor Muckling was the weird saying that my late mother-in-law used to utter every now and again. At the time I wondered what it meant (Billy Liar fans feel free to get rancid tomatoes at the ready) but I think I have a pretty good idea these days.

This week I handed out three different manuscripts to three good friends. None of the manuscripts was remotely like any of the others. I’m one of those annoying, mercurial types who can’t stay focused on one thing for long; instead, I dip into pools of knowledge and interest all over the place – science, history, archaeology, literature, philosophy – a little of everything and mastery of none. And I’m moody too, so while I seem to be my usual cheery self every day, underneath that I’m sometimes melancholy, some days introspective, some days just plain vacant. So I suppose it’s only natural that my writing brain functions in the same way. The project I work on today might be a quirky romance, but next week I might start a horror story. Sometimes it will be a big cross-genre mash or completely defy classification at all. And often, something that I thought was amazing when I wrote it will annoy the hell out of me and end up deleted the following week.

Which got me thinking. By writing this way am I actively scuppering any chances of actually writing for a living? The publishing world is so fond of genres and pigeon holing and people in general seem to like things where they can say: yes, this fits just here. I recently read a tweet from another writer saying that she wondered if she was unsellable because her work was cross-genre, and although I can think of lots of successful examples of work in that vein, I can probably think of more where it represented problems getting the work accepted for a long time.

If you write lots of stories in lots of genres, do you risk alienating readers too? If someone loves your quirky romance (just let me dream for a moment, will you) and they go looking for more (ok, I know it’s a stretch – indulge me) and they download your next book to find it is some paranormal weep-fest, will they be so disappointed that they will never read anything you present to them again? Can you build a following of loyal readers like that? Can you sell books like that?

But then, can you change what you do? Are you a slave to your writing brain, the one that won’t stop nagging you when that ghost story pops into your head, even though you’re in the middle of a kids’ book? I’m certain I can’t be alone in this confusing camp.

So, I suppose what I’m really asking is this: is there is a choice to be made here? Do I slap the metaphorical bottom of my writing brain and tell it to start behaving itself, or do carry on doing what I do and I accept that I’m destined to annoy the hell out of people for evermore?

Why I should live in a cave

January 3, 2013 by sharonsant

‘There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.’ Maya Angelou’s assertion is true, of course, but then I bet she never had to create a book cover for kindle, then put it into a pdf, then convert it back into a jpg just to get it to upload. And don’t even get me started on formatting and converting the damn book. Telling the story suddenly seems like the easy bit.

It’s not that I don’t like technology – I love it. It’s just that technology doesn’t like me. Take now, for example. I’m typing this with an irritating pop up floating in front of my face that, somehow, I have managed to invite onto my computer, despite blocking all pop ups on my internet security. And no matter what I do, it won’t go away. If I walk past a printer in the office, the front falls off. If I go to use the photocopier, without fail, it jams. I’ve been barred from even strolling past the local Curry’s.

If someone gives me instructions to follow, to set up a new piece of kit – be it computer, phone, tablet – and they follow these instructions with any of the following phrases: a child could do it or it’s so user friendly or any variation thereupon, then I know I’m in big trouble and within minutes I have wrecked said new gadget.

But with three separate written guides and the advice of an experienced friend, you’d have thought that just this once I could do something as simple as upload a book to kindle within a reasonable amount of time. Not three days – and I’m not talking three normal days, I’m talking three long, morning until midnight days. With emails flying backwards and forwards between me and the amazon tech team. And cups of tea – lots of them. I suppose I ought to come clean about the swearing too. And the damn thing still wouldn’t go on.

So if you see me walking down the street with a funny, stiff kind of walk, you’ll know that there’s an untold story in me just desperate to get out, if only I could find a computer with its guard down long enough so I could sneak in and relieve myself.

Romeo and Juliet @ Trentham Gardens 25th June 2011

June 26, 2011 by sharonsant

Mister doesn’t like Shakespeare, so I was left to do this one with Mister’s brother and his wife. Mister’s brother had never seen Shakespeare performed before so this was really a voyage of discovery for him. This production was staged by a company called Page 2 Stage. I had actually never seen Shakespeare done in a setting like this before – it was performed outside in the gardens while the audience sat with camping chairs and picnic baskets and layers of blankets to fend off the freeze of a British summer’s evening (although, not so many blankets for foolish, unprepared me, just frostbite).

Before I go on, a little apology – I seem to have lost the programme and so details like actors’ names will unfortunately be in short supply (i.e. zero). Apparently, the actor who plays Romeo, Darren Langford, has been in Hollyoaks, but as I don’t watch it, I can’t be certain…

We arrived early so we could get a good view (but, as you can see from my usual ‘quality’ photos, we were thwarted despite our efforts). The interesting outcome of this was that we got to see the company warm up before-hand and, personally, I found this whole ‘nuts and bolts’ behind the scenes sneaky peek fascinating.

Cast warm up.

I didn’t really know what to expect from a small and fairly new company, and with tickets at £12 a head, I don’t imagine their production budgets are huge either, but I was pleasantly blown-away! It was a very youthful company and a vibrant and youthful production, fast paced, comedic and fun. Romeo and Juliet weren’t the earnest, angst ridden couple that I have seen in some productions, but flirty and irreverent; there was a humour to the characters that drew you in, made you love them so much that the tragedy of their eventual demise was all the more poignant. The trio of Romeo, Mercutio and Benvolio were absolutely hilarious together – the three performances witty, energetic and sometimes camp, a lovely three-way bromance. I really liked the Nurse too. She is always a funny character and quite rude, and this particular incarnation had all that, but also tenderness with Juliet. All that said, there were one or two dodgy performances, but thankfully, only from fairly minor characters like the apocathery, so although you couldn’t help but notice them, it didn’t detract too much from the magic of the central performances.

There were some interesting production points too. It was set in a forest. The play programme explained this as making the two warring families seem less about money and titles and more about simple honour, but I suspect the real reason for this setting was the fact that the company were also staging a production of Robin Hood on alternate nights and the scenery would not need changing (ahem…). If I had more time and money on my hands, I might have been tempted to test my theory. I liked the choice of contemporary music too as a soundtrack to the performance, such as Max Richter’s gorgeous reworking of Dinah Washington’s This Bitter Earth, played during the final death scenes of the play; it served to heighten the emotion and had me crying like the proverbial baby. The costume styling was very fresh and contemporary too (well, circa 1985 anyway as I couldn’t help thinking of Adam and the Ants/ Duran Duran every time Romeo tripped onto the stage) and I liked the splicing of a more traditional Shakespearean costume look with something quite punky.

Wild Boys!

This production wasn’t without it’s faults. I’ve already mentioned some of the weaker performances. There were technical problems with the mics failing from time to time which jarred you back to reality. The Prince was played in a very strange way by a faceless shadowy figure dressed in a gold hooded robe who popped up on the balcony every now and again; there was an echo type reverb thing going on with his voice which just made it so you couldn’t understand what he was saying. The same with Romeo’s dad, who was obviously played by an actor being used in another role, so he wore a red hooded robe all the time and you could never see his face- it just looked weird. But I really enjoyed it and would go to see another production by this company. If they come your way and the tickets are that reasonably priced, go check them out – (here is some info about them from This is Staffordshire).