Repost.Us

Showing posts with label Young Adult Paranormal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Young Adult Paranormal. Show all posts

Thursday, April 24, 2014

THE SHEPHERD returns, a new cover art poll! #CoverWhore #YA #Paranormal #ASMSG


Its me again, playing around with my cover art. Will it ever end? Probably not. 

Cast your vote now for the new face of THE SHEPHERD


Skate punks, kleptomaniacs, clairvoyant visions and reincarnation...

THE SHEPHERD is unlike any other Young Adult novel you have ever read.

Mike Evans here. Sixteen year old skate punk squatting in a white-trash trailer park with my loser drunk Dad. Seems I lost most of my friends when Dad lost our home in foreclosure. Only Anita stuck by me. Worse, I keep having strange clairvoyant visions of things that always come true.

Then I almost ran over Nadia in my Geo. A passing truck finished the job – left a crumpled heap of skin and bone on the road. I fixed her. Me.

Now this fourteen year old girl won’t leave me alone. I sorta let her sneak in my window when she needs a place to crash.

I have a double life: daytime at school, Anita, skating, and then my nights with Nadia. She's my secret friend, gives me money and listens to my problems when nobody else will.

My world is spinning out of control. Old friends have turned enemy, my grisly visions of death won’t quit, and Anita’s intentions make my head spin. Even with all that, I’ve got bigger stuff to worry about.

Nadia’s hiding something.

˃˃˃ "I could not put this book down. All I keep thinking about is what could possibly happen next. I felt as if I was back in high school with them!"

˃˃˃ "It's almost a love triangle of epic proportions or so you think....Travis blew me away with this book, I never saw what was coming."

˃˃˃ "Amazing, I loved Mike and Anita. The characters that I didn't feel could redeem themselves did in ways I never thought possible. I loved the ending and so not what I thought would happen. I love the element of surprise."

Sharp, witty, dark and gritty, The Shepherd is a must read YA paranormal thriller. Get your copy now!




Sunday, December 15, 2013

PORTALS by Maer Wilson ~ Book Launch & GIVEAWAY #UrbanFantasy #ASMSG @MaerWilson



LAUNCH & RAFFLECOPTER GIVEAWAY 

(Book 2 of The Thulukan Chronicles)

by Maer Wilson

An Urban Fantasy Novel




Blurb:


For supernatural detectives Thulu and La Fi, “normal” is a relative term. La Fi is a medium, Thulu is a finder, and their usual clients are already dead.

But when their friend Reo is shot, and a group of stranded angels show up at their house for help to find a missing child, things are striking too close to home.

And now the portals that let the magical races return to Earth have started opening on their own.

With trips off-world, a kidnapped psychic and changes to their own abilities, Thulu and La Fi are hit with a lot more than they usually handle. Of course, their magical friends are there to help, but even they may not be enough to save an increasingly unstable Earth. 

Portals is the sequel to Relics and is Book 2 in The Thulukan Chronicles.




Excerpt:

That night Parker had popped in to wake us at two in the morning to tell us our best friend, Reo, had been shot. The young ghost was distraught and panicked.

“They're on the back porch! You have to go help.”

“Where is he?” I asked groggily, as I jumped out of bed. 

Thulu was instantly awake beside me, although he didn’t seem any more alert than I did.

“Back porch.” Parker enunciated each word in slight exasperation. “Go, please!”

Thulu looked at me, and I told him what Parker had said. Thulu can read lips, but even with a night light the room was too dark. 

Thulu threw off the sheet and we both ran from the room. I was briefly glad we’d been wearing PJs.

Heart pounding, I took a few precious seconds to check on our three year old son, Carter. His night light showed him blissfully unaware of anything. Whatever happy dreams he was having made him smile slightly in his sleep. I sighed in relief that he wasn’t having another of his nightmares.

Downstairs, Thulu had turned on the kitchen and porch lights. In spite of the panic moments before, none of the three people on the porch seemed frantic when I joined them. 

Thulu looked relieved, Reo was on the floor, but seemed stoic, and Sloane knelt beside him, brow furrowed only slightly in concentration as he dealt with the wound. 

My heart rate slowed down and my own fear started to slowly dissipate. My heart gradually dropped from my throat back to its accustomed place in my chest. Still my hands were shaking, and I felt the slight chill from outside. The porch was screened in, and the late August day had been hot, but the night brought a cool breeze that made its way along my arms. 

The scent of flowers from the backyard didn’t quite mask the smell of the blood that pooled on the porch floor around Reo. Sloane, his partner and an elf, had already removed Reo’s jacket and shirt. A bullet lay on the floor, and I could see the shoulder wound was already healing and closing up. In a few moments, only the blood would remain as evidence that he’d been shot. 

Reo's face was white. The strain showed around his brown eyes and his handsome face had the sheen of sweat on it.  His short brown hair that was usually spiked, lay damp and flat against his head, but he gave me a shaky smile.

“Bastard ruined my favorite jacket.”








Maer’s Bio:

After a successful career being other people, and later teaching others the many tricks of that trade, Maer Wilson has decided to be herself for a while. Turns out she's a writer. She's always loved stories, especially fantasy, mystery and sci fi. Maer was born in the Year of the Dragon and has a dragon-themed room in her home, but sadly no dragons in the back yard. When she's not writing, Maer plays online video games, teaches college and reads. She also co-hosts the literary podcast, MythBehaving and writes for two gaming fansites. Maer lives in the high desert of Southern Nevada with her two dogs, a chihuahua and a poodle. Portals is Book 2 in The Thulukan Chronicles. You can find all books and novelettes in The Thulukan Chronicles at Amazon. You can visit Maer’s website at http://maerwilson.com/.




Maer’s Links:

Maer’s Website: http://maerwilson.com/
Maer on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/MaerWilson
“Ghost Memory” (A Thulukan Chronicles Story, #1) - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E5W1W2Y/
“Unwanted Ghost” (A Thulukan Chronicles Story, #2) - http://www.amazon.com/Unwanted-Ghost-Thulukan-Chronicles-Story-ebook/dp/B00FYACAZO/

Saturday, November 16, 2013

A journey through cover art metamorphosis ~ THE SHEPHERD #YA #Paranormal #CoverArt #Nov #ASMSG


I initially wrote The Shepherd in Christmas 2011, as a gift to my teenage children.  It is a teenage story, about teens, for teens.  Luckily, the novel is fairly intense and engaging, not for young teens (15+), so adults enjoy it too.

Summer 2012, I began plans to publish. At the time, I did not have a good cover artist, so I went to freelance.com and posted the job for artists to bid. Several bid and gave me a first round of mockups:

Rene Deidrich
Juan Bezzati
Diogo Lando initial mockup
Diogo Lando second mockup

Isaboe Hollis

I finally settled on Diogo Lando as the artist, even though I loved several of the mockups by the other artists.  Diogo has an abstract style, unusual, so I wanted to see what he would do.  This was Diogo's final product:

Diogo Lando final cover art

I soon learned I needed a serious rewrite, so I put The Shepherd aside, and went forward with my Nightlife Series novels, a very adult paranormal romance thriller series.  I posted The Shepherd on wattpad, and left it there, untouched, for a year.

Summer 2013, I had published four Nightlife novels and an Omnibus, and I had finally found the cover artist I wanted for my books, for my style of cover art, Ida Jansson, with Amygdaladesign.

This was Ida's initial set of three covers for a redesign on The Shepherd:


As you might have guessed, this was not the final product.  So, I invited Ida to my blog today to discuss her cover art process, to get to know more about how she does her magic.

Me:  Hello Ida, glad to have you.  Let’s start out with your opinions about the first three cover layout you did on The Shepherd.  Did you like the images I chose and the design concept?

Ida: Hi! Thank you for having me. I loved image 1 and 3, but was not sure about image 2. The concept was exciting and perfect for a cover. I usually recommend not putting too many elements on a cover, so the main character together with the headlights from the car was a great idea.

Me:  What are the stages involved in each of your covers?  What's first, step by step, and then what comes last?

Ida: The process usually starts with gathering as much information as possible from the author. It is important that I get a feeling for what kind of story this is and what the main genre is. Then I start hunting for appropriate stock images, and often download a lot more than I actually end up using because I like to try different options and combinations. Once I have decided what images to use I work to blend them together, using digital painting and different adjustments. This is my favorite part of the process. Then I add the title and author name, usually trying different fonts and combinations.

Me: When you work with an author-publisher, do you prefer to find all the images and come up with your own designs, or do you prefer to have an author like me, giving you all the specifics and the design ideas?  Which kind of author is easier to work with?

Ida: To be honest I prefer to find and choose the stock images myself, because the designer tends to know better what kind of images will work on a cover than the author. I like working from a basic idea that the author gives me (since the author knows the story better than I do), but prefer to work freely with the specifics and details.

Me: This was the second version of a three cover layout, based on changes I requested:

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/89332-help-decide-on-cover-art-ai-travis-luedke-6517376-travis-lu
Me: Now, when I have voters on Goodreads look at these covers, #2 and #3 were the most popular.  But, as you know, I am a picky bastard, and I want it my way, regardless of what anybody thinks.

Me: When I asked you to create 4 MORE COVERS in a completely different style, with grungy layers to give it a more thriller look, what were your thoughts?

Ida: Usually I make 2 versions at the most, so you are definitely an exception! But I do enjoy trying different things, and was intrigued by the thought of trying out using textures for this cover. The typography in cover 4 – 7 is definitely the best in my opinion.

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/89332-help-decide-on-cover-art-ai-travis-luedke-6517376-travis-lu

Me: And so, after all that work, several months later, I decided on a composite cover, combining fonts, background, and a girl from several of the covers.  Which meant you had to redo the cover for my final version.

What did you think of this final cover art?

Ida: Although I do like the final cover, I don’t think it would have been my choice to be honest. I think I would have gone with the girl from cover #3 combined with the typography and background from cover #6. But the important thing is that you, the author, like the cover!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FK37LZO?ie=UTF8&camp=213733&creative=393177&creativeASIN=B00FK37LZO&linkCode=shr&tag=twluedkecom-20&=books&qid=1384188803&sr=1-3&keywords=YA+Paranormal

Add The Shepherd to your Goodreads TBR: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6517376.Travis_Luedke


 Amazon US

Amazon UK


Me: After all that work and hassle, after months of dancing with a seemingly implacable author, was it worth it?

Ida: Sure! I learned a lot from the process, and it is interesting to see how people respond to the covers. I love designing, so it will always be worth it. 

Tune in next week for another post chronicling my Journey through cover art with the Nightlife Series, and how I dragged Ida through hell in redesigning my covers.  :)


________________________________________________________

Amygdala Design was started in October 2012 by Norwegian Graphic Designer Ida Jansson. The company specializes in Book Cover Design for self-publishing authors (“indie authors”) and publishers. Amygdala Design strive to offer the most professional designs and affordable prices on the market. Pre-Made covers are available from $60, and Custom-Made covers from $100. All book covers are available for ebooks and printed books, and the technical specs can be fitted for CreateSpace, Lulu etc.
If you'd like to hire Ida Jansson with http://www.amygdaladesign.net/ click here:


Repost.Us