Victoria A. Jeffrey's authorly doings. . .

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Future Projects

The Lady Moons is finally available for purchase on B&N. Seems they like to take their own sweet time, but anyway,

The Secret Doorway Tales series is going to be drawing to a close pretty soon. I have two more books to write. I'm thinking of a short story to add to the series but that will deal with a different character altogether, not the heroine Anne.

However, I'm gathering ideas and writing notes for the next trilogy of books I plan to write. In fact, I've written notes for these books years ago, actually while I was writing Night Terrors I was gathering notes for these stories. I still haven't come up with a title I like, yet. The working title is still Monolith. It will be adult science fantasy. it will be interesting looking through these old notes and adding them to the new ones.

I have many ideas for books I plan to write in the next three years. There's a series of books I plan to write after the Monolith trilogy, a steam-punk science fiction series that I'm excited about. Then there is the idea for a cat detective set in either the Medieval age or the Renaissance, but I haven't yet decided. Think Brother Cadfael, but a cat detective instead of a human. Then there's the prequel to the Monolith trilogy.

I may even revisit the Secret Doorway Tales series after that but as you can see it will be some years before I get around to it, if I've decided that I actually want to. See? This is the advantage to indie publishing. The only person allowed to make these decisions is me, the author. No one can tell me what to do. No one! Indie publishing - and by that I mean Self publishing - kicks butt!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

New Blog Guest Post!

I have a new guest post over at Someone Else's Kids blog called Navigating the Gray. It's about tackling issues of Black, White and Gray Areas in kid's books. Have a look!

:o)

Friday, February 24, 2012

Buy The Lady Moons!





The Lady Moons is now available for purchase at Amazon.com, for $1.49! It will be available at all other vendors next week!

Enjoy!

Friday, February 17, 2012

Using Wisdom When Using Social Media

As always, every few days the writer's message board I belong to erupts with some sort of teacup controversy. I really need to stay away because it's a huge time-waster!

Anyway, someone posted a thought about how it is important for indie authors to be careful about spouting controversial political or religious views on social media outlets because it can turn readers off. It can offend your readerbase/fans (Dixie Chicks, anyone?)  which will hurt or even destroy a career before it ever gets off the ground.

Too many writers on the boards missed the point of that post and simply went on the attack about "Well I have the right to say or write however I feel about lalalalalala. . ." Yeah, they missed the point. Willfully missed the point, in my opinion.

Of course we all have the right to express ourselves and our opinions but like wise king Solomon said, there is a time for everything under the sun.

There is a time to talk and a time to keep one's mouth shut. If you do not have a career dependent on social media I suppose this does not apply but if your career puts you in the spotlight, running your mouth about anything and everything especially if it is controversial can destroy your chances of success and even if it doesn't and your fans like your controversial style, not very many people can pull this off well. It can also alienate many people from reading your books if you go too far.

Some might ask: "So what?" and I get that. There are some people that you may not want as readers if your books aren't a good fit for them but there are a lot of potential people out there that, while they may not share your views on important issues, could still be potential fans of your work - if you are gracious and sensible about how you communicate your ideas and opinions, in your books - and outside of them. I think professionalism and PR go hand in hand.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The Lady Moons - Sample Chapters!

So, my new novella The Lady Moons is nearly done. The art work is done - hope you got a look at that. Beautiful, isn't it!

I've put up some sample chapters on Scribd for anyone to download so feel free to do so. The Lady Moons will be available for purchase on February 26th at Amazon, B&N and Smashwords.

It will be available for purchase on Apple iBooks, Sony e-bookstore and Kobo e-bookstore in March.

Enjoy!

Monday, February 13, 2012

Artwork For The Lady Moons!



Here is the new book cover for The Lady Moons, done by Claudia McKinney of Phatpuppy Art! Lovely!
Sample chapters should be up and posted over at my Scribd page for download later this week! But for now, enjoy the beautiful book cover art!

The Lady Moons will be released Febraury 26th.

 :o)

Friday, February 10, 2012

Batman Help Me! (Short Animation)

This has nothing to do with my own work but it's one of the things I love: Batman!


This animation short was posted a few years ago, before Batman Begins came out in theaters (great film, by the way! Big Nolan fan here!) but back then it wasn't in 3D - or at least I don't think it was. Last year I found that the original link was changed and the original You Tube channel this video was on was canceled. Here it is again, this time in 3D! I loved it so much and I'm glad I found it again. I hope I can convince the creators to have this series funded on Kickstarter, if they haven't already done that because I've been waiting on part two of this series for years now. Enjoy! Hope you'll love it as much as I do!

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Books I've Acquired Recently

As I've said before, when it comes to free or dirt cheap ebooks, or any book for that matter I don't download them or purchase them unless I know this is a book that I really want to read.

A book that I've been searching for some time now I found yesterday on Amazon in ebook form - Gargantuan and Pantagruel. It's actually a series or collection of stories written by a French Renaissance author, Francois Rabelais. It's about two giants who go on a number of different adventures and there is a lot of satirical humor in these stories. I finally have it on my kindle and I'm excited about reading it! I must say that I even bought some music years ago, songs inspired by Villon and also Rabelais. I love music from the Renaissance and the middle ages. I also ran across some of Sir Isaac Newton's religious writings, specifically is his writings on the prophecies of Daniel - one of my favorite Bible books and I am currently reading The Last King's Amulet by Chris Northern, which is an excellent fantasy story. I'll definitely be getting the sequel to that book!

I think that as a fantasy writer it is important to read the early masters of the craft. Tolkien and Lewis, Howard,* etc. However, there are fantasy writers who came before them and to reach back and read and to become inspired by their works I feel can add depth and to my own work. I would like to add Milton to this list as well but technically he was not a fantasy writer but authors that I admire respected his work.


*Edited Moorcock out. I have never read Moorcock's work and after having read what he thinks of Tolkien and Lewis - who are masterful writers in my opinion, I felt that to include him in this post with such men would be an insult to their work and to them.