Release Day - The Bird with the Broken Wing

 It's 6.30am and I have just finished my first cup of coffee (There will be more after the celebratory bottle of champers was consumed last night). I'm too excited to sleep. My debut novel is released and I'm like a kid on Christmas morning. Fifteen years of hard work and this dream is realised. I'm still so amazed. A big thank you, thank you, thank you!! to everyone who has believed in me. You've kept driving me to prove you right (or wrong if that's the case). And it's available at the bargain price of $5.99. Catcha

ABOUT THE BOOK...

THE BIRD WITH THE BROKEN WING

When mortals make mistakes they’re forgiven.

When angels make mistakes they’re forsaken.

Angels may not reveal themselves to mortals.

But when the mortal Rachael’s watching over is hurting, how can she stay hidden in the shadows?

Guardian angel Rachael becomes trapped with the mortal she’s been assigned to watch over. Unable to watch him suffer, she decides the only way to free him of his inner demons is to break the rules about becoming involved, revealing her true identity, and applying divine intervention. But what choice does she have? Without her help, his soul will be trapped forever. Then a stranger appears, giving Rachael reason to wonder if his is the only soul in need of saving...

BUY THE BOOK...

Format                 e-book

Length                  Novel

Publisher            Etopia Press

Price                     $5.99 US

Genre                   Young Adult Fantasy

Available online at:

Amazon.com        Barnes and Noble       OmniLit        Kobo Books    Amazon.co.uk

 

Note that www.etopia-press.net etopia is rebuilding its website but you can still buy me book from the great sites listed above

If you love reading...

8 days till release of my debut YA paranormal novel The Bird With The BrokenWing!!! Send me an email if you need me to nag you and send you a personal invite on the day. You may get a free autographed postcard for your troubles.

Anyway,  I've been doing research for the release and I've come across some wonderful reading/book review sites worth a mention. Check them out if you love reading. You can sign up to their newsletters, enter contests, read reviews. There is a whole other world of books out there. In Australia we'd be lucky to get 10% of what's on offer on the bookshelves. These sites are also great if you're a YA writer looking for a place to get your book reviewed.

Bitten By Books 

I love the artwork on the Bitten by Books website. As far as content goes it covers reviews, giveaways, author services, and their community forum The Blood Bank. This website is totally geared towards fans of paranormal and is one of my personal faves.

Teen Reads

The great thing about this site is their Ultimate Reading List. Close to 400 titles that they believe are perfect choices for reading and discussing. They looked at the student reading list for schools and decided there were better books than what was listed. They review all genres of YA books.

Dark Fairie Tales

Another website aimed at paranormal YA fiction. With over 2,600 followers it's proof that paranormal fiction is a sought after genre! Loads of reviews, interviews, totally sexy covers and giveaways. Another of my personal faves.

Book Hounds

Almost 3,000 followers to this site. Features all genres of YA and adult reading. Authors can submit books for review, interviews, reviews, giveaways. A huge fan of dogs so it's got to be a good friend to readers and writers alike.

Dog

While we're on the subject of dogs, here is my pooch Teeka. Whenever I need a break from writing and I need to think through a plot, Teeka is ever willing to come for a walk with me. I clear my head. She clears her bladder. What a team.

Quote of the week: "Some day I shall be President." Abraham Lincoln.

Go forth and chase your dreams. I did and look where it got me.

Till next time.
D L Richardson

Commonly asked publishing questions

Ever since I announced to my family and friends that I was getting a book published the two most often asked questions have been:

Does the author do the artwork?

No. Publishers have a team of illustrators and artists just as they have a team of writers and editors. Besides, I could never have created anything as beautiful as the cover art for TBWTBW, by Eithne O Hanlon because I use words to tell the story and Eithne uses images. She's done an amazing job and I am forever grateful to her.

Did you have to pay to get your book published?

No. Etopia Press is a publisher of ebooks and I get paid royalties. And no, I don’t have to pay for editing or artwork either. This is the real deal. BTW - Authors who self publish have to do everything at their own cost.  I once had a guy go on and on about how he wanted to write a book one day and how he’d self publish it so he had total control of the project. I have to say that working with everyone at Etopia Press has been one of the most enjoyable and fulfilling moments of my life.

The length of a novel

The average movie runs between one and half and two hours. The average song length is three to four minutes. Obviously, research has gone into figuring out how long the human attention span is - I'd say it's somewhere between a gold fish and a cat - to determine when an audience tunes out.

Most debut novels are a certain length. YA novels are between 35,000 and 70,000 words. Adult books somewhere between 80,000 and  120,000 words. Obviously publishers have done some research into how long a book should ideally be. But is this a guide that even successful authors should stick to?

For example. I've been trying to read Dean Koontz "The Face" for months now and I feel as if I'm on slo-mo. I love Dean Koontz but I'm finding this book is bogged down with intricate detail that as a reader I want to skim over. I don't care about the finer details of a tree or that he can describe rain on multiple levels. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and I'm happy for an author to tell it like it is. On an update, when I got to the ending I was blown away and my faith in Koontz as a great storyteller was affirmed. But what if I'd reached the final page and it had been a let down? Or worse, what if it didn't end and was part of a series. I think this is the reason I prefer standalone books to series.

So back to the perfect length. There are heaps of authors who write snappy first novels, then they become famous and it's like they get a creative licence to tell an incredibly long story that would be more interesting if it was the short version. Maybe I've become a product of the instant society. Or maybe I don't like creative control gone awry. Maybe I need to be stranded  on a deserted island these days in order to appreciate reading again. I like that last choice.

Anyway, the length of a book is detemined by the time it takes to tell the story.

Catcha!

D L

The best book artwork - Eithne O'Hanlon

Here is a look at the cover art for my debut YA paranormal novel The Bird with the Broken Wing. Wow, it's beautiful. The expected release date is very soon. Cover art is by Eithne O'Hanlon and she is amazing. Check out her artwork. http://www.facebook.com/#!/nianluain 

The Bird with the Broken Wing is available as an ebook from Etopia Press. Stay tuned for more details...

DL Richardson on writing YA paranormal fiction

I’m your average good triumphs over evil kind of person. Growing up my favourite books were fairy tales. Brothers Grimm in particular. Rapunzel. Rumpelstiltskin. Stories of bad things happening to good people, only with the happy ending we are deprived of in reality.

In fairy tales, it was always a witch or a monster who was the bad guy. I grew up believing that humans were good and monsters were bad. I never stopped believing in monsters, but I did stop believing they were always the bad guy.

There was never any money growing up so most of the books I read were from the library. When I started earning an income one of the first books I bought was a Dean Koontz novel, “Funhouse” I think it was. This is when I fell in love with horror fiction. Books by Dean Koontz, Stephen King, and Anne Rice began to line my shelves. I was seventeen and pissed off at the world. In the real world, bad things happened to good people and there was no such thing as a happy ending. There was no good triumphing over evil. Justice was Evil’s bitch.

(Note to reader:  picture not of actual house grew up in, just house wish did grow up in as looks more interesting than childhood home)

The world was rotten. I escaped into the world of fiction. I especially loved doomsday books where humanity wiped itself out. If I could have met anybody in my life back then it would have been Stephen King. He was good at wiping the human race off the face of the planet (“The Stand”, “Cell”).  I used to dream that Stephen and I would sit on the top of a hill and watch the world come to an end.

Probably explains why the first novels I ever wrote were horror. The story lines were good (I’m currently reworking one at the moment). But the writing wasn’t. Thank god none of these books were published because reading them today, they weren’t just horror, they were horrorble. lol.

When I really got serious about writing a few years (okay it’s more like ten) ago, the advice I kept hearing was “write what you know”. I thought, I’m a woman who’s not so pissed off at the world anymore, maybe I can write chick-lit. My writing improved but I knew deep down if these books got published I’d have to write a genre I didn’t love.

The advice shouldn’t be “write what you know”, it should be “write what you love”.

So I returned to writing horror fiction. Only now I write for a younger audience though I’m not ruling out writing horror for adults. I hope I can spook you into joining me.

D L Richardson

Current writing project YA speculative fiction novel "Feedback"

I haven't even got a release date for my first YA novel The Bird WithThe Broken Wing and I'm already 10,000 words into my next novel titled Feedback. 

At first draft stage Feedback has a basic plot line and I already know the surprise ending, unlike my first novel The Bird With The Broken Wing, which I didn't know the exact ending until I had rewritten the story a few times and even I came away thinking, "Ah, of course."

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King, Stories by O'Henry and Jeffrey Archer's A Twist in the Tale are all fabulous collections of novellas/short stories with surprise endings. Some of my favourite movies are The Sixth Sense, The Others, Fraility, The Usual Suspects. The list goes on. I love a good twist. And I mean a good twist, something clever. Not the Scooby-Doo type of ending although I remember I loved them when I was five.

A good twist ending needs to come from something the reader isn't expecting, but which makes perfect sense on retrospect. The reader should come away thinking, "Of course, I should have known."