The Borderlands: War – Cover Reveal

It's that time again ...

The Borderlands: War out soon!

A Writing Update

It's been a while since I've posted an update on my writing progress, and apparently, some of you would like to know more about how the sequels are coming along. So, here's an update and a bit of a schedule of what I intend to release this year.

A sneak peek of the cover design for The Earl's Daughter – Subscribe to my newsletter to see it in full

'The Viscount's Son' has a new cover

I'm excited to announce that my first publication, The Viscount's Son, now has a shiny new cover:

Another cover design by Taire Morrigan.

'The Borderlands: Journey' - Prologue

Tomorrow I will be officially launching the first book of 'The Borderlands' trilogy.

We've had the cover reveal -

And now it's time for an excerpt. Below I have the prologue for you, which is quite different from the style of the rest of the story, but it sets the scene for the events that follow. I hope you enjoy it! It's not too late to get a free copy of the kindle book. Just sign up to my mailing list (in the side bar) and I will send you a kindle copy, free.

The Borderlands: Journey - Prologue

The traitor waited at the meeting place atop the mountain. Snow glimmered in the moonlight like dull diamonds. He blew warmth into his hands, rubbing them together as he paced. Time was scant.

“You’ve come, then.”

The voice came from behind, and the traitor jumped and spun. A man, cloaked and cowled, approached.

“What choice did I have?” The traitor’s voice wavered in the thin air.

The cloaked man laughed; his golden eyes just visible beneath the dark hood. “You had a choice. We all have choices.”

The traitor shut his eyes and clenched his teeth. “It’s freezing.”

“Perhaps you harbor doubt. This place is harsh.” The man gestured to the deep valleys and rapids. To the south an avalanche fell; its rumble came to them like lazy thunder.

The traitor eyed it all, and nodded. “I want to come back.”

“Then tell me where she is.” The man’s hiss echoed off the rock.

A shadow fell across the traitor’s brow. When he spoke, vapour billowed from his mouth. “You promise I will return? With all that I need?”

The hooded man inclined his head. “All shall be done.”

“And you won’t hurt her? I mean, she doesn’t even know …” 

The wind blew and lifted snow with it, cold and sharp as steel. The traitor fell to the ground; a great force pinned him down, embedding his face in the snow and thrusting it in. He tried to scream, but could only choke. Icy pain sunk into his teeth, his oesophagus, his stomach, every cell burnt with freeze.  

“I am not a patient man.” He could just hear the words, muffled, through the snow about his ears. “You need not be concerned with the girl.”

Finally, the pressure stopped and the traitor found he could lift his face to vomit out the snow. Tears streamed along his cheeks and froze in thin lines of ice that snapped when he grimaced. In the moonlight his hands were blue. A dark ribbon of blood now lay before him on the snow.  He managed to stand, teeth chattering. The hooded man stood as still as the mountain before him, eyes glowing.

“Now, tell me – where is she?”  His voice, a whisper in the wind.

The traitor closed his eyes and his forehead furrowed all the more, but the words formed and spilled out with the mist from his breath – treacherous words. “Scotland,” he croaked. “Glasgow. That’s all I know.”

He opened his eyes, but the hooded man had gone. He squinted into the night sky. A creature flew over the mountain, its silhouette just visible in the moonlight.

'The Borderlands: Journey' Cover Reveal

After two years of dreaming up, writing and editing the story, I am finally ready to publish my next novel - The Borderlands - Book One: Journey.  It will be published next weekend and you'll be able to purchase the kindle edition at Amazon. Members of my mailing list will be eligible to get a free copy of the book (and it's not too late to sign up).

This is a post to reveal the book's cover so without further ado - here it is!

The cover art is so much better than what I originally dreamt up. For that I can thank the artist Taire Morrigan (her art is seriously worth a look), who overcame a number of obstacles and a fussy author to create a beautiful graphical representation of a key thread in the story - Dale and her quest to find the mystical Borderlands.

The Borderlands: Journey is the first book in a trilogy that tells the story of a journey Dale must take to find the mystical place which is this series' namesake. Here's the blurb -

Dale has never felt a sense of belonging. She despises the bullies and snobs at school, and her family are difficult to like, let alone love. Rhys, a new boy at school seems to take an interest in her. But can she trust him? When the only friend she has ever had, Old Man Gareth, is murdered before her eyes, she is set on a frantic journey and a lonely adventure; the Borderlands beckon. But what are the Borderlands? Will she make it to them? And if she gets there, will she belong?

The novel will be categorised as a contemporary fantasy at Amazon, but I think it's also a coming of age and adventure story. To read more, check out my previous posts here and here. And stay tuned, later in the week I'll reveal a little more of 'Borderlands' to further pique your interest!

I'd love to read your thoughts on the cover!

What makes you choose an ebook?

I do a lot of browsing for ebooks.  This morning as I browsed at Amazon, I suddenly became aware of why I wasn't lured into buying.  So I thought I'd share my little epiphany with you.

What turns me off buying an ebook?

Sometimes I find myself shaking my head in annoyance when I browse for ebooks.  Here's why:

• Bad cover designs - the cover design is what most attracts me, at first anyway.  The reality, for me at least, is that the vast majority of ebook designs are unattractive.  And it's not just the self published varieties.  It is rare that I find an ebook cover design that I like.  For some reason they are much less attractive than their paperback cousins that sit tantalisingly on bookshop shelves; and I don't understand why.  Do authors/publishers think that ebook readers are simply victims of quick fix self-gratification?  Just because online shopping is easy doesn't mean that products are chosen willy-nilly.  On the positive, those that put the time and effort into a quality design have a distinct advantage in a flooded market.

Chip Kidd is a book jacket designer and he is passionate about getting the cover right.  His talk on TED  provides an interesting insight into the process of coming up with the right cover design.  He is a little sceptical about ebooks, but I think authors could learn a lot about the importance of the cover from this talk.

• Bad titles -  go check it out for yourself, there are many bad titles in the ebook universe.  I don't want to give any specific examples as I'm not interested in 'naming and shaming' but after the cover design the title is what attracts me to an ebook, and many are uninspiring.  One of my favourite titles is The War of Don Emmaunel's Nether Parts, it's a long title but interesting and reflects the humour in the novel.  Of course titles can be short too.  Dracula, is a very effective short title.  Another favourite title is The Dark is Rising.  I really enjoyed this novel as a child.  I actually 'invented' this exact title for a novel I had planned then realized (or remembered) that it was already a title!  I still wish I could use it though.
• No blurb - some ebook authors go to all the trouble of writing and publishing their book only to leave out a blurb.  This has me lost for words.
• Reviews - I always look at the reviews before I decide to buy, but I take them with a serious pinch of salt.  I am sceptical of ebooks that have lots of reviews that say little about what actually happens in the novel, especially if they are full of praise but give no specifics.  If I find a scattering of critical reviews that are clearly written by average readers who have actually read the book then it is usually a sure sign the book is not very good.
• The price - Price doesn't really bother me that much.  For unknown and self published authors I have paid up to $5 for an ebook.  For authors that I know and trust I have paid up to $10, and on occasion, more.  But there are some ebooks that have an above $20 tag on them, and that's my limit.  Any more than 20 bucks and I want the real thing on my book shelf.
• The author's page - I always click on it to read more about the author to get a feel for his/her style and genre.  But, you guessed it, many ebook authors have no or limited information.
• Bad writing - the sample is a godsend.  I always read the sample and this will be the deal breaker for me.  Even after I have been attracted to the cover and title, read the blurb and reviews, and been happy with the price, I will often be turned off by the calibre of writing in the sample.  Yes, the story has to grab me, but most often I find I am turned off by poor writing and editing - the bane of the self published market.

So that's about it, all the things that really turn me off buying an ebook.  I had considered being more positive in this post and writing about the things that make me want to buy, but the reality for me is that it's a process of elimination and this is how I choose when I browse the ebook shelves.  

So what makes you choose or not choose an ebook?