Lost Wings Is Live!

We are so proud to announce the release of Lost Wings, the first urban fantasy novel from Elephant's Bookshelf Press. I know it seems everything I've posted this year has been about Lost Wings (that may even be the case; I haven't checked), but the book has brought about a real shift in my thinking, especially with regard to promotion. It's really a significant book for EBP.

Over the past several months, I've listened to dozens of videos and read at least a dozen books and blog posts about the various nuances of book promotion, but the way I see it is: If you don't have a great book to promote, no one will care.

In my opinion, Lost Wings fits that description. But the opinion of readers is what's going to determine whether it does well in the marketplace.

I'd love to hear what you guys think.

You can order a copy on Amazon, available as an ebook and in paperback. If you post a review on Amazon by October 1, I'll have the author send you a signed copy of the paperback! Just send me an email with the link to your review and your mailing address, and we'll take care of the rest -- even if you hated the book. (Of course, why would anyone who hated the book want a signed copy?)

Cover Reveal: Lost Wings, by Don M. Vail

We are happy to reveal the cover of Lost Wings, by Don M. Vail, the latest in the herd!

This debut novel is different from every other EBP offering. Our first urban fantasy novel, Lost Wings is also our first written with an adult audience in mind. Gritty and graphic, Lost Wings goes places no other elephant has ventured…

When Richard Eastman, a down-and-out veteran of the Gulf War, defends an injured woman with strange injuries on her shoulder blades, he finds himself battling an unexpected enemy — the devil. Hellish minions cut off the wings of the woman — the angel Avesta. But if she’s an angel, where is God and why won’t he help? With little to go on but his wits and experience (and what he can remember from Catholic school), Richard takes on a new mission: save the angel or die trying. But to do that, he must descend into Hell, confront the demons and the damned who exist there — as well as those from his own life — and ultimately fight Lucifer. He knows he can’t accomplish his mission alone, but who can he trust in Hell? Yet, if Richard fails, Lucifer will breed a new race of beings with the stolen angel. And if that happens, all hell could break loose.

While this is a debut novel, the author isn’t exactly new to writing. Robert K. Lewis is writing as Don M. Vail. Robert is a talented crime-noir author, but Lost Wings is not like his previously published work. While there may be some of Robert’s readers who enjoy the work of Don, we’re letting Don build his audience from the pebbly ground beneath his feet and work his way up.

“I wrote this novel over ten years ago,” Robert wrote on his blog. “Every so often I would take it out and rewrite it to the level of my abilities at that time. I just couldn’t give up on it.”

At EBP, we’re glad he didn’t. We were drawn in from the first few pages.

Busy Days Ahead

School days, school days, break the golden rule days!

Yes, by now, school is back in session all over the U.S., and I think some Canadians have already taken their first snow day.

The fall is shoring up to be a very busy time for Elephant's Bookshelf Press, too. In the coming weeks we'll be revealing covers for the next two publications: Tales From the Bully Box, an anthology of anti-bullying stories targeting Middle Grade readers edited by Cat Woods, and the much anticipated Billy Bobble Makes a Magic Wand by R.S. Mellette. I can't tell you how excited I am about both of these books!

In the coming weeks, I'm also aiming to reinvigorate this blog, where we'll post interviews and profiles and news about some EBP writers and friends of EBP. For example, did you know that Stitching Snow, the debut novel by our book designer, R.C. Lewis will released from Disney Hyperion in mid-October? I've got my hard-cover copy on pre-order, and I hope you do too! And the next novel by Mindy McGinnis, In a Handful of Dust -- the companion novel to her fantastic debut, Not a Drop to Drink -- will be out in just a couple weeks.

And those are just the works that slide off my brain stem after a half cup of coffee on a Friday morning.

What hot debuts and releases are you looking forward to this fall?

Q&A: Author Lori Sjoberg

LoriSjoberg grew up on a steady diet of science fiction and fantasy. Star Trek, Star Wars, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits – you name it, she watched it. That diet nourished her imagination, she says, and once adolescence hit, creativity plus hormones added up to a bevy of enticing story ideas. Her debut novel, a paranormal romance called Grave Intentions, will be released by Kensington Publishing in January 2013.

Lori, who also spends time on AgentQuery Connect (which is where I met her), spoke with me via email about her book and her writing life.

Elephant’s Bookshelf: You’ve done a wide variety of things in your adult life--worked in retail, financial services, insurance--and you grew up a lover of science fiction and fantasy. How did that add up to paranormal romance?

Lori Sjoberg: For a while it didn’t add up to much of anything. After college, I got so wrapped up in work (especially during the retail years, when I worked 60-70 hour weeks) I rarely had time to read. And if I did read, it was business related: self-help, industry education, motivational, etc. Strange as it sounds, I was reintroduced to the wonderful world of recreational reading by the wife of my then-boss. She talked me into reading the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. That reignited my passion for fiction. Recommendations from friends led me to Anita Blake and Sookie Stackhouse, which opened my eyes to the wonderful worlds of urban fantasy and paranormal romance.

EB: Does your work life inform your writing, or is writing a way to basically escape from your work life?

LS: For me, it’s an escape. My job is fairly analytical and structured in nature, so it’s nice to let the creative side come out and play. After a long day at the office, I let the left side of my brain take a breather while the right side gets a workout.

EB: What was it like to see the cover for your novel for the first time?

LS: It was quite a rush, although I must admit it took me a couple minutes to work up the courage to open the attachment. So much hinges on a book’s cover – if it doesn’t catch the eye, the reader might not be interested enough to click on the link. Same thing goes if the cover is hideous. Plus, I’d seriously considered self-publishing before receiving the offer from Kensington Publishing, so I already had a few cover ideas in mind. But the apprehension gave way to happiness and relief when I realized the folks in the art department had gifted me with an eye-catching cover.

EB: Considering how you’d spent some time thinking about the cover, how involved were you in the final decision?

LS: Very little. My editor worked closely with the art department to create the final cover image.

EB: How many manuscripts had you completed before the one that became Grave Intentions?

LS: I completed two full-length manuscripts (and a whole bunch of fan fiction short stories) prior to Grave Intentions. At the moment they’re tucked under the bed, where they will stay until I have the chance to give them a thorough rewrite.

EB: How is the impending release of your novel different from what you expected?

LS: Even though I’d heard about it from some of my author friends, I still wasn’t fully prepared for the time lag between the completion of final revisions and the release date. I was one of those kids who barely made it to Christmas without tearing open a present, so the next couple of months are going to be excruciating.

EB: What's next? Is your next novel in the writing stage, the editing stage, or the pre-production stage?

LS: I’m currently working on the sequel for Grave Intentions. At last check, it’s around 70 percent complete. For better or for worse, I tend to edit while I write. Once the manuscript is complete, I’ll send it to my beta readers for one final round of critiques/revisions before sending it off to my editor. If all goes according to plan, I’ll be submitting it to my editor at the end of this year.

EB: We look forward to seeing and hearing about your progress. Good luck, and thanks for sharing with us!

LS: My pleasure.

How I'll Spend My Summer Staycation

Summer is coming to a fast close and I'm getting antsy. I've not taken any time for myself, and time for myself soon will become a commodity I have less of. My wife and I have kids on the way: two, our first. I won't go into much detail about them on this blog because this is not the place for it, but I am certain these little ones will change almost everything in my life.

As a quick aside, I'll say this: over the Labor Day weekend, I got a terrible case of poison oak. I thought I'd been careful, wearing jeans, keeping my gloves on whenever I pulled at anything as I cleared away a backyard full of brush, but it was warm. So I wore short sleeves.

Dealing with the scrapes and welts and yellow fluid were bad enough, but the itch was miserable. I tried Benadryl gel, which helped but was insufficient. I pinked my arms up with Calamine lotion, but it's not always convenient in a work environment. And then there was a funeral. Nothing is ever quite right when a funeral is involved.

After the torrential rain and wind of the past weekend, we finally made our way back home, and I treated my itch with more care. For the most part, I'm back in shape. Yet there is still a dull aching itch I need to scratch.

I'm taking next week off — my summer staycation — and I already have a full list of things I want to accomplish. It's a list I'll never fully complete and which will leave me frustrated at least till January, when my new list of resolutions kicks in. But a key point on that list is to scratch at my itch. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

The novel is ready. I have begun to write flawed queries that will not see an envelope, but by the end of next week, the first will be off on its way. I've always needed to write, and I've found excuses not to; I suspect I'm like a lot of "aspiring novelists" in that regard. But I have a novel and I have a need — I don't mean the money, though with hungry pooping progeny on the way, that's not to be dismissed either; I simply don't expect much money to come of it. One must be realistic.

But if I have anything to give these children, it's to teach them that the world is full of potential. They could become many things, and some of their dreams will crumble like fallen eggs, but there will be aspirations that stay with them their entire life. Like writing has for me. I need to show them that it's not only good to pursue one's dreams, it's crucial for life itself. It's the only way to live comfortably when an itch just won't go away.

I've begun writing every day again.

Edgar Sawtelle and the Millions of Would-Be Novelists

Now, this is good news. It seems the reading world is going ga-ga for David Wroblewski's The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, which I've not yet read.

The Boston Globe said that the book "is proving that readers can still fall hard for an old-fashioned literary epic by someone they've never heard of." Personally, I think anyone who took a college-level literature course understands that already, but we are talking about the general American public and I'm just happy to hear that they're still reading.

I love that this guy's book took a decade to complete. I can relate. I came upon the original idea for my novel in 1995. I penned scores of pages of notes before I wrote the book's first few dozen pages, but it wasn't until after 9/11 that I realized how quickly time and life could be erased. (Indeed, that idea became an important theme within the novel.) If I were to sell this novel by the end of the year, it'd probably be nearly a decade between the time I actually started to write it and its eventual publication date. And that's a best-case scenario.

This comment in the Globe is also telling:

One thing is clear: No one is buying this book because it's similar to something else they've read recently.

Having spent many hours now on Agent Query and other sites, I know there are thousands of people out there with novels, memoirs, works of nonfiction, short stories all hoping to get published. Probably millions more have ideas that they believe would make a great book. Many of the writers even seem capable of stringing sentences together in interesting ways, so I believe the possibilities for wonderful literature are endless.

One of my challenges is getting a sense of what other books might be similar to mine. In other words, who is my potential audience? I've read lots of items about how you compare novels, and I suppose if I knew of a book that was exactly like mine, then mine would be superfluous at best. I've even asked my readers who my style reminded them of; what other writer did they think of when they read my book...

I believe that ultimately this is the agent and publisher's problem to resolve, but from what I've read, they like to have a good idea before they even review a book by an unknown quantity like me.

For all I know, perhaps my competition is David Wroblewski. At least now I'll be able to read his work and find out.

Chris Moore Can Wait

At long last, I've printed out the latest iteration of my novel. Although I started reading Christopher Moore's Island of the Sequined Love Nun on Friday, I'm going to have to put that on hold for a little bit, as I want to reread my book again. I probably won't send any queries out this month, despite my initial plans to start by June 30, because I want to make sure that there's no stupid errors in there. The close of the month — indeed, the first half of the year — is fast coming upon us. But the deadline is self-directed. I will send queries when I've finished my homework.

Just as important is that I've not been able to adequately research agents and agencies. This takes time, and it's time well spent. I could write queries now — I'll probably map out some templates soon — but I want the queries to sing to an audience that will understand and appreciate the tune.

But this should be the most important quest of my life; I need to be prepared. When Shackleton was putting together a crew for his ship's trek to Antarctica, he placed an ad in the paper, saying in part: "Men needed for dangerous quest. ... Survival in doubt, but if successful, fame will follow." I'm almost certain I've got the quote wrong, but its spirit is accurate. The point is, I must prepare myself. I've got a product to sell and future products being planned: I need partners.

On another note, I've noticed some other good Web sites of young and/or aspiring novelists, and I may want to develop something for myself along those lines. But that's hardly of immediate importance. I like having this blog and my other site, and it's not always easy to keep these up to date with the constant crush of life in general.

So my reading returns to Hoboken. Then I'll venture back to the island of the sequined love nun!

Was It Good for You Too?

Don't let the image scare you, I won't allow this blog to get too graphic. But the Los Angeles Times reported recently that there's a possible trend in literature: kinky sex. I can't say that I've noticed such a trend in the contemporary novels I've been reading. Sex, sure, but nothing too kinky.

While I'm no prude, I don't feel a need to read about gratuitous sex in the books I read. But if a character's development is directly related to sexual experience, then I think it's certainly appropriate.

Sounds obvious, perhaps, but this is something that is not always easy to determine. One thing that the selected readers of my novel commented on was the vivid details of a sex scene. One of my primary characters loses her virginity, and I may have offered a bit more detail than some (though not all) of my readers would have preferred. My argument was that the girl's experience was important to her development and to the story; she was a teenage girl somewhat obsessed with the idea of sex. She would remember every detail. That's all well and good, my readers said, but we can imagine much without seeing everything.

I think they're right, and I've toned down the sex scene to a great degree. It's still quite apparent what's going on, but I leave more to the imagination.

In the LA Times article, however, the amount of erotica that is involved would clearly alienate some readers. Personally, I want to develop an audience. As a first-time novelist, I'm not sure freaking out some readers is worth the bad word-of-mouth it engenders. Finding the balance between developing readers and developing an authentic voice may be one of the most difficult tasks for any writer.

Nearing 'The End' Once Again

I'm on vacation and taking a break from my novel, which is only about 30 pages away from "re-completion." I anticipate adding some more description in one of the last chapters; I was never pleased with it. But I believe that I'll have it done by dinner time tomorrow -- if not sooner. I've already started letting those few "early readers" know that they will be receiving copies soon. It's not quite like how I felt when I first typed "The End" a couple years ago, but I believe this time the book will be better than it was then. The next entry will acknowledge another goal reached!

Gotta Be in It to Win It

I don't know that "Forrest Gump wins the lottery" works for me as a pitch. Call me crazy, but I think he already had won the lottery. He had enough money that he didn't have to worry about it (which is nice, because it's one less thing), had earned the love of a beautiful woman, and had fathered a child who loved him.

I realize it's a pitch, and Patricia Wood, in Lottery, her first published novel, wasn't writing about the fictional character Forrest Gump but creating her own -- based somewhat on her own family circumstances. I'm happy for her to have received a nice advance after struggling with novels that for whatever reason didn't make the grade. And I like the closing quote in the USA Today story: "I never in a million years would have predicted where I would be now. But there's an inevitableness about it. There's this strange familiarity I am where I belong."

Here's to another writer belonging.