Considering a Pen Name?

If you're a new writer in the process of putting together your author platform, you may find this video of interest. Please leave a comment with your thoughts and questions.

Cannibal Island - The Golden Disk - On Sale Now!

If you crave a turn-of-the-century Steampunk adventure with murder, mystery, and sabotage on the open sea, take advantage of the Back to School Savings being offered now on Cannibal Island - The Golden Disk - Book One. 

Available now at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and wherever digital editions are sold.

Price reduction may not last long. Download it today and save.

Lost in the Bayou gets a Great Review

A big shout out to Meghan over at Owl Read It for her stellar review of Lost in the Bayou. Thanks so much. 

If you have a moment, please visit her and see what she wrote. 

OWL READ IT.

Cannibal Island in Print WINNER

Here's the announcement of the lucky winner of the Cannibal Island Limited Edition printed copy.

Check the Raffelcopter graphic below and see who it is. Meanwhile, I need the winner to send me a message on Facebook with their email address so we can get the delivery address.

Just go to Author Cornell DeVille on Facebook and you'll find me hanging around there. 

Congratulations!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Authors need a press kit

In todays teeming internet and digital media world, there is a continual search for interesting things to write about. Bloggers are always on the lookout for new material. As a newly published author, you and your book fall into that "new meat" category.

There's an anxiously waiting market for that information, and you need to have something to send when requests come flying into your email. At this point in your career, you might be wondering what to send so you project a professional appearance. Well, read on to learn all about it.

In order to provide the best information to the press and the bloggers who are going to write about you, you need to create a press kit that contains, among other things, a basic bio, some information about your work, and a great photo of your beautiful likeness. Providing this information will make it easier for others to write about you, and it gives you a quick and easy way to respond to requests for information.

Saundra Mitchell has put together a great article on this very subject. I've included a link to it at the end of this post. She tells us that...

There are 5 basic elements in a press kit:
 1) Your biography
2) Contact information
3) Your photo
4) A synopsis of your most current work
5) Representative art for your most current work

And she describes each one of those items in detail. Rather than reinvent the wheel and recreate what she's done such a wonderful job in putting together, here's a LINK to her article.

Quotable Tuesday

It's Tuesday, and it's the day my publisher likes for us to post quotes from one of our books. Today I've selected an excerpt from my steampunk adventure, Cannibal Island. As we join Richie Armstrong and Angus Callahan in the library of the Armstrong Estate, Angus is relating the story...

Angus patted the monkey’s head and leaned back in his chair. “You see, it was more than a fog bank. It was an island. An uncharted one. Had we known in advance that an island existed in that location, we could have dropped anchor and perhaps prevented what happened next. Nevertheless, we didn’t realize it was anything more substantial than a cloud of mist—until the ship ran aground. Several crewmembers were thrown overboard because of the sudden stop when our keel hit the rocky reef. Those of us fortunate enough to have remained on deck began tossing lines into the water. But it was of no use.”

“Why not?” I interrupted. “Surely they could swim to the ship and get back aboard.”

“There wasn’t time. In the darkness, with the fog covering the sea like a thick blanket, we couldn’t see the sharks. But we could quite easily hear the frantic splashing and the terrible screams of our mates as they lost a leg or an arm to those ravenous beasts. Fortunately, it didn’t last long. In a short time, the screaming stopped and became nothing more than a fading memory.”

Back Cover Blurb Finished ...

Whew! It wasn't easy. I never realized that a back cover blurb could be so difficult to come up with, especially if you're trying to grab the reader's attention and encourage them to read the book, all the while keeping it under 150 words. No easy task.

But, since we're talking about the old back cover blurb, I thought I would post it here for you. Hopefully, you'll be interested, intrigued, and curious. Let's see...

It’s the turn of the century, and dirigibles are the modern mode of travel. One of them is shadowing The Seahorse as it sails toward a fog-shrouded island off the coast of Peru, bringing young Richie Armstrong ever nearer to the legendary Incan treasure—and the mysterious Golden Disk.

A strange chain of events has convinced Richie that the airship is being piloted by his archrival—the greedy, oily-haired Hans Von Hisle. Although Richie has in his possession the only known map to the location of the island, would Hans even need a map to spot the island from his lofty perch among the clouds?

It’s a race against time. If Hans reaches the island first, Richie knows the Golden Disk and the precious possibility it holds for changing his past will be lost forever. But there's something else on the island—something that may change his future. And they're bloodthirsty.


Now, after reading that, if your interest is piqued, and you just simply have to read the book, it's currently available in digital format at AMAZON and at BARNES & NOBLE.

My publisher is also doing a promotional Limited Edition Print version that will be coming soon. So keep watching this blog for an opportunity to win a signed copy of a new steampunk adventure—Cannibal Island.