Category: Guest Post

Guest Post: My Top 10 Favourite Book Covers

Today I’m happy to host a guest post from The Galaxial Word, a YA book review site.  It’s just starting up but there are already some really great in-depth reviews up.  Go on and check them out!  Now, here Galaxial will list his top 10 favourite book covers of all time.


 

OK. So, I know, I know, “you should never judge a book by its cover”, blah, blah. But let’s be honest here. Who doesn’t pick up a book and go:

1) OMG THIS COVER IS SOOOOOOO PRETTY LIKE I HAVE TO BUY THIS IF JUST TO PUT IT ON MY BOOKSHELF AND GAZE AT THIS BEAUTIFUL COVER WHEN I WAKE UP EVERY MORNING OMG LOOK AT THAT ART AND THAT PHOTOSHOP MASTERY I LOOOOOOOOOVE IT SO GONNA BUY IT

*calmly brings book to counter*

OR

2) Ugh. This cover. Like, seriously. I could do better in Microsoft Paint. All they’ve done is cut out a guy and slapped him on a way-too-dark photo of a city that looks like it has been taken with an iPod. Ugh. So so ugly, I don’t care how good the writing is, I’m so not having that go on my bookshelf. Just. Ew.

*calmly places book back on shelf*

So, of course, a beautiful cover is crucial to attracting readers to your book, the same way a disgusting smell is crucial to attracting flies to a rotting carcass ❤️!

I’m not sure that was a good metaphor.

Whatever. Here are my best book covers. And remember, if you ever write a book, get the “write” cover designer (OMG THAT BEAUTIFUL PUN RIGHT THERE AHAHAHAHAHAH IM SO FUNNY HHAH- ok that wasn’t funny).

1) 9780316068680_1681X2544

Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce.

What can I say? I really admire true art, and this is definitely my number one book cover. The way the two sisters are joined together, and the way the second sister is joined to the wolf is truly beautiful. I like the palette as well, with the red, the black and the white. The red and the wolf all suggest blood and darker, supernatural things. Mainly, vampire and werewolves. Personally, I would have changed the author name to white to accentuate the white skin, and the title to black, just to keep with the theme. Continue reading

Guest Post: #WeNeedDiverseRomance…Now

The Crossfire series

The Hardwired series

The Submission series

The Seductive Nights series

Ava and Gideon

Erica and Blake

Monica and Jonathan

Michelle and Jack

Complex and intelligent characters written by talented writers, with interesting storylines, compelling back stories, and of course, loads of panty-melting, fabulous, raunchy, dirty sex.

And not a single one of those books contain diverse main characters.

In fact, despite all of the books I mentioned taking place in large cities like New York and Los Angeles, I believe the only diversity in any of those books is found in the secondary characters, the outliers. The characters that add some spice and perhaps a side storyline or two, but nothing too memorable and certainly nothing noteworthy.

No brown girl falling for a white guy. No black guy falling for a Asian girl. No black girl falling for a brown guy. No white girl falling for a black guy.

In cities teeming with all types of people – paraplegic, Indian, Chinese, Muslim, amputee, Sikh, transgender, Japanese, overweight, Spanish, atheist, Black, lesbian, Buddhist – all of the couples and almost all of the secondary characters are white. Continue reading

Avalon by Anya Seton

Avalon by Anya Seton(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)

This saga of yearning and mystery travels across oceans and continents to Iceland, Greenland, and North America during the time in history when Anglo-Saxons battled Vikings and the Norsemen discovered America. The marked contrasts between powerful royalty, landless peasants, Viking warriors and noble knights are expertly brought to life in this gripping tale of the French prince named Rumon. Shipwrecked off the Cornish coast on his quest to find King Arthur’s legendary Avalon, Rumon meets a lonely girl named Merewyn and their lives soon become intertwined. Rumon brings Merewyn to England, but once there he is so dazzled by Queen Alrida’s beauty that it makes him a virtual prisoner to her will. In this riveting romance, Anya Seton once again proves her mastery of historical detail and ability to craft a compelling tale that includes real and colorful personalities such as St. Dunstan and Eric the Red.

As I do often, I picked up Avalon in a store because it had really cool cover art. Also, the setting I thought was pretty interesting.

Now, this book is categorized as historical romance. Normally I don’t read romance stories, but I do read historical ones, and when I got it I didn’t even know it was defined as romance anyways; its cover art looked cool as already stated, and the side panels on the interior of the book showed it had a setting I enjoyed, although if you get the book, I’d recommend you don’t read much of those, as they tell virtually the entire plot bar the end. I saw where these mischievous panels were going and just started reading the book instead.

This book took up a lot of my time initially. I was engaged in the time period, the characters, all of it.The plot does not span a small time-span; it follows two characters, Rumon and Merewyn, over the course of decades — from the late 10th century through the 11th — and weaves through many locations, such as southern Britain, Iceland, Greenland, and even a small portion of the Americas. It takes all these different historical events and characters of those times, and uses Rumon and Merewyn to fling you along and through them.

A lot happens in the plot, and it has a unique structure somewhat because of what it spans. I never felt like it was just slogging me through back- or sidestory too much, but for me it was very suspenseful, occasionally wishing Rumon would move a little faster because a lot depends on it and I am way into this plot.

I don’t want to spoil ending, but the book does a good job at not going where you think it will go. It stubbornly sticks with this until the end, and even though it probably isn’t where you thought it would end up, I can’t fault the book for that. I instead believe that it gives a suitable ending, that fulfills, just not in the way you were hoping.

Also, the ending sets up the events that happen after the considerable span of the book. In this way, I think the book, albeit an old one at this point (published first in ’65), does a masterful job of placing a personal story and plot inside the major history, without conflicting, and in fact using both to support each other. So I’d like to give my compliments to the author, who wrote that book so long ago.

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Guest Post: The Growing LGBT Fiction Market And What It Means For Indie Authors

One of my earliest memories of the growing acceptance of People Like Me happened about 20 years ago at Barnes & Noble. There our authors were—on the shelves of a mainstream suburban bookstore, arranged just as nicely as the nearby rows of history and self-help books. I paced this special wall of GAY & LESBIAN books carefully, judging if it was some kind of bait for a trap-door. But the only person who approached me was a staff member reminding me that it was near closing.

That was my first purchase of a gay novel from a non-gay bookstore and I felt as though my receipt was a political statement. My sale counted; it would create an order for a replacement copy for another gay customer to buy, and keep our GAY & LESBIAN literature in circulation.

Looking back, it was also a turning point in how I saw myself, a validation that I’ve never forgotten. Life in The City still called, for I couldn’t imagine living as a gay man in the conservative suburb where I grew up. But the fact that I found myself represented at that mainstream bookstore gave me a little more hope for my future, that maybe The City wasn’t the only place I might eventually find acceptance. I don’t even remember fearfully looking over my shoulder on the way to the parking lot: representation without repercussion.

Much has changed in the world since then, including the term GAY & LESBIAN itself. Buying alternative books first went from in-store to online, offering privacy in the transaction but not the product. All books then still had covers, titles, and artwork that might make a reader think twice about pulling out her purchase on the train to work. But today, with e-readers, there is privacy both in the transaction and the product—that gentle, elderly lady two train seats away could be reading Emma or erotica. The e-reader offers endless options, and privacy for it all.

At one time, the friendly question, “What are you reading?” would have prompted someone to tip the book backward to show the cover. With a Nook, someone will tip the device forward and show the words. How do you judge a book, and a reader, without a cover? You don’t.

And therein lies the potential in the LGBT market—it’s not solely about the intended reader, but the read. Movies and television shows have expanded their casts to include more “diversity” not as sidekicks but as central characters, reflecting the everyday interactions many people have with LGBT folk in real life. Our stories, and lives, are in the news almost daily and our marriages are celebrated in the Sunday New York Times.

This niche market, GAY & LESBIAN, has grown to include bisexual, transgender, intersex, questioning, and ally voices—visibility that transcends gender, age, class, race, and sexual orientation itself. I have received responses to Gaybash from heterosexual women in their 70s as well as from gay men in their 30s and 40s. All drawn to the same book with primary characters who are gay, all finding something in the story that speaks to them.

Readers crave authenticity from fresh voices—of lived experiences, of fantasy, of tragedy, of science fiction. While there are some technical barriers to entry in the formatting of an e-book, these barriers are nothing compared to the sentinels who decided what did and did not get published, and largely still do. But sharing a personal journey has never been easier and blogs abound, just a few search words away. Though there are still biases in how traditional media covers e-books, e-publishing has expanded to the point that it’s no longer “suicide” to DIY. And with the wide reach of social media, I can’t predict precisely who my readers—and champions—will be. What fun!

This is an exciting time for indie authors, particularly those who don’t see themselves, and their lives, represented on today’s bestseller lists. The marketing of LGBTIQA e-books, whether fiction or nonfiction, proves that the hard work comes after the writing. But to tell your story, personally and honestly, and have it “out there” for others to read and absorb is a feeling of true liberation.

It’s the same feeling I had when I purchased that book so long ago at Barnes & Noble. Except now, the words are mine.


 

David TestDavid Collins lives and works in Chicago. Gaybash is his first novel.

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Guest Post: All History is Fiction

Don’t Knock Historical Fiction – All History is Fiction!

As a writer of historical fiction, I’m sometimes asked how much “real history” I put in my books. My stock answer is: ALL history is fiction. This sometimes baffles people, but most often irritates them. Please allow me to explain.

What is “Real History”?

History is simply an account of what happened, which is passed down to us through the ages from various writers, although it may have started as oral history. That’s right, writers, some of whom called themselves “historians”. Most were simply citizens recording what they had either personally experienced, or just what they thought about events that had occurred during, or even before, their time. In every single case, they were biased.

Science tells us that there are two types of bias: the bias that comes from an observer’s personal viewpoint, and the deliberate bias that comes from motivation.

The Bias of Viewpoint

As to the first, any physicist will tell you that the individual experience – background, education, personal experiences, and so on – of the observer will color and perhaps even influence the event being witnessed. More importantly, was the observer actually at the event he/she is describing? Did they see the action, or hear the words spoken? In almost all cases, they are recreating an event from documents and verbal testimony of “eyewitnesses”, who (if they were really at the scene, unlike many who claim to have been) may have been extremely limited in what they actually witnessed. Could any one person have witnessed an entire battle, let alone the complete beginning of the birth of the Abramic faith or the French Revolution? So the writer is simply putting together a conglomeration of conflicting testimonies, doing their best to make all as reasonable as possible.

In the best of cases, those witnesses were not trained observers or recorders, anyhow. Such second-hand accounts are sketchy at best. Think of the Warren Commission Report. If we cannot even know exactly what went on with an event in 1963 that was witnessed by thousands in person and on television by millions of people, how can we know what went on during events hundreds and thousands of years ago?

As to “primary documents”, have you ever written a memo about a corporate event you were involved in, or a letter to a friend relating some incident in your life? Just between you and me, were you totally honest about what happened? Did you paint yourself in the glaring light of “truth”, or perhaps embellish your role just a tiny bit? Did you ever once make the other guy the hero? Yeah, well, all of those olden-time folks who wrote their memoirs, or letters to friends, or whatever, did exactly the same. It’s human nature.

Deliberate Bias

For the second bias, the old saying: “The victors get to write history”, has a lot more meaning than the surface value. In some cases, many of the ancient monarchs hired historians to write of their exploits. That becomes little more than propaganda. In many cases, such as Shakespeare’s “Richard III”, it was politically and financially expedient for him to explain events in a way that would be pleasing to the sitting monarch, Elizabeth Tudor. Is that an accurate portrayal of history?

What Can a Writer Do?

So, my view of writing historical fiction is to go with what the “historians” tell us as much as possible. If several historians agree, then a writer should not violate that information. However, I must realize that they were no more “there” than I was, and that my version of what happened, within the bounds of known data and logic, is just as valid as theirs. Maybe more so: at least I label mine as fiction on the cover.

People love to read about certain historical figures, no matter how many books or movies exist to depict them. In fact, the more famous (or infamous), the more they will be portrayed, whether legendary (Hercules, King Arthur, Robin Hood) or real (Alexander, Hitler, Henry VIII). The trick is to find a unique approach, a different story, that will give the reader a fresh outlook on the character and the society they impacted. In many cases, historical fiction novels rely on the presence of real, famous people to draw the reader into the fictional characters.

A Final Word

In any case, recognize that the validity of the history described by the story is only as real as the writer could or chose to make it real. To a greater or lesser extent, all history is fiction.


 

Don MakerDon Maker is a credentialed English teacher in Northern California. He has had the good fortune to wander extensively across the globe, and is a featured travel writer for Yahoo Voices. He is the author of “Zenobia”, an historical fiction novel, and “Miranda’s Magic”, a young adult magical-realism novel. A board member of the California Writers Club, Mt. Diablo Branch, Don is currently preparing “The Grindstone” for publication.

You can find him on Twitter and Yahoo Voices as well as on his website where he talks about everything from education to sports.