Guest – Nancy Gideon (and a prize!)

“It’s a Long Way to the Top if You Want to Rock ‘n Roll”

(But, first, Debra’s going to jump in here and mention that with over 50 published books under her belt, Nancy has seen the highways and byways of publishing over the years! And she’s here to light a fire under us. She doesn’t pull punches, and I suspect that facing reality and investing in the journey is why Nancy has 50 published books. You know?)

You’ve got to pay your dues.

Writers are all too familiar with that phrase. Of course, it could mean heading for Pay Pal to pony up our membership fee for all those groups and clubs and organizations that fill our creative wells. But there’s another kind of dues, the kind that implies obligation, guilt, resentment and frustration. If life is a highway, the route to success is a tricky toll road. And exact change is sometimes necessary!

We start out in our writing career with our pockets full of dreams, ready to be fleeced of our innocence. The first thing to ravel is the concept that writing the best possible book is all it takes. “Genius, of course, will be instantly recognized and rewarded.” Well, sometimes it can work that way, but more than likely that fast lane to fame and fortune is reached from a two track filled with ruts and wrong turns. And maybe Yoda-like shepherd to herd us in the right direction with words of wisdom.

First toll: blood, sweat and possibly years. We learn our craft. There are no short cuts, no blue light specials, no osmosis that will transform a casual scribbler into an author. It takes practice and knowledge as well as instinctive skill. It. Is. Hard. Work. Butt in chair. Hands on keyboard. Nothing glamorous about it. We take classes in grammar, in GMC. Enter contests. This is where we trim that fluffy softness we’ve been spinning dreams with and wind it into a tight weather-resistant berber that can stand up to heavy foot traffic. Study, listen and learn. The school of hard knocks doesn’t end until we have something worth selling.

Next booth: Entering the Marketplace. We drop in our fears and our expectations before pulling through. We’re in the real writing world now. We’ve got a product to peddle…just like the five to ten thousand other writers who’ll be competing for that one space in the publishers lot. Parallel parking takes skill and timing. We knock over cones, go over the lines, miss the mark by a mile. But we keep working on it. Submit. Revise. Submit again. (Better their desk than ours.) We watch for opportunities: wear tight shoes and pantyhose for a chance to talk to an editor or agent at those hot and crowded mixers. We take that step out of our comfort zone and MEET the people who can help us get to our destination. (Don’t tailgate. That’s just rude.) Chat in the hotel bar, pass out cards, get introductions. We think of it as speed dating until we find the perfect match of editor/agent/author. And remember, no contact is a wasted contact. You never know when that assistant you tossed around titles with at one house will be the senior editor buying your book at another. Believe me, that was a worthwhile lesson learned (to the tune of six books!)

Watch out for detours. Don’t get distracted by all the things that keep us from doing the one thing we need to do, which is write the book. “Yes, I should. Yes, I can. Yes, I will.” We join twenty loops, speak at every venue we can find from the Cub Scouts to Senior Centers, volunteer to judge contests, alphabetize our reference books, critique for anyone who asks, bake cookies for home room, take junior to judo, offer to mentor, post on blogs because we need to give back. Whoa. Pull over. We’re going nowhere fast except in circles. Paying dues does not mean owing everyone every minute of our time. Learn to dole out time and money carefully lest it be all gone before we reach our goal.

Chose a lane and stick with it. “Why does the other lane seem to move faster? Why does that author get comped advertising, a best seller, a movie deal when I’ve worked so much harder? How come Ms. First Book Wonder neatly passes my semi-full of mid-list books on her way to a six-figure contract? Why wasn’t I nominated? I write so much better than…“ Deposit pride and ego and move on. On the weigh station of life, nothing’s fair. Suck it up or take the bus. We’re only responsible for our own path. We can’t hitch a ride on someone else’s. Don’t jump from your lane to the next unless you’re sure it will get you there faster. Sometimes it’s more expedient to stick with what you know than to hop onto every passing trend. But then again, sometime riding with the top down is its own reward.

Whatever you do, go boldly. If you want to rock ‘n roll, drive with the windows down and the music blasting on that less traveled road, enjoy every mile of the trip.

Currently, I’m rock ‘n rolling at Pocket Books with a new dark paranormal shape shifter series. I’m hugely excited about this exciting road I’ve chosen. The series is unique in that it follows the same hero and heroine through the first four books. He’s a shape-shifter searching for his past and she’s a dedicated cop hiding from demons of her own in a steamy New Orleans backdrop where a criminal empire filled with treacherous alliances, a clan of ferocious shape-shifters looking for their prophesied leader, and an inescapable fate conspire to pull them apart. I call it Romeo & Juliet meets Beauty and the Beast in the Big Easy. (See how much I learned at your workshop, Deb!) Hang on tight. It’s a road trip that will blow your hair back.

The first book, MASKED BY MOONLIGHT is on the shelves now. “Intriguing characters and zippy action,” says Publishers Weekly in a starred review. “Gideon masters the tension required to keep her complex and engaging story moving.” CHASED BY MOONLIGHT and CAPTURED BY MOONLIGHT follow in June and July.

Nancy Gideon is the author of over 50 romances ranging from historicals to paranormals and contemporary suspense. She works full time as a legal assistant and never leaves her car port without Map Quest.

To learn more about Nancy’s career road trip and her series, visit: http://www.nancygideon.com/.

For a taste of MASKED BY MOONLIGHT, check out her book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyawnTxvAuo&feature=player_embedded

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

And don’t forget to bring the exact change!

What dues have you paid to get where you wanted to go? Was it worth it? Comments don’t have to relate to writing. A winner for an autographed copy of MASKED BY MOONLIGHT will be drawn at random.

Guest – Anthony Francis

(By day Anthony Francis studies human and other minds to design intelligent machines and emotional robots; by night he writes fiction and draws comic books at the collision point of hard science and pure fantasy. He was inspired to study artificial intelligence by Douglas Hofstadter, to become a writer by Isaac Asimov, and to write urban fantasy by Laurell K. Hamilton and Richard P. Feynman. He got his Ph.D in AI and his brown belt in Taido from Georgia Tech; he currently supports his out-of-control reading and writing habits by working at the Search Engine That Starts With a G. Anthony lives in San Jose with his wife and cats but his heart will always belong in Atlanta.)

Hello, world!

I'm Anthony Francis, the author of Frost Moon, an urban fantasy published by Bell Bridge Books. When I started writing Frost Moon, I decided to create something I would want to read - an adventure that was magical and sexy and fun, but with a little edge of realism that made the magic more believable. A novel with a heroine who herself was magical and sexy and fun, but who didn't begin her adventures already endowed with the power to dispel the forces of the darkness with her quick wit and kung-fu grip. Someone who had every reason to go diving into the world of magic - but who dives in out of her depth and has to learn to swim. So was born Dakota Frost, and the alternate Atlanta of the Skindancer series.

So what is Frost Moon about? Someone is skinning the tattooed every full moon - and Dakota Frost, Atlanta's best magical tattooist, has just met a werewolf who is either the killer ... or possibly the killer's next victim. Tall, edgy, and beautifully tattooed herself, Dakota Frost can bring her marks to life through the magical art called skindancing, a skill which makes her the object of many people's desires. The killer wants her ink; the werewolf wants to be inked. A man-in-black wants to protect her; a young orphan wants to be protected by her. A skeptic wants to challenge her skill; she wants to meet that challenge. And it's all going down in Atlanta just before the full moon.

I had fun writing it, and I hope you have fun reading it. But I hope you get more out of it than that. The surface of Frost Moon is a just-ever-so-slightly over-the-top action adventure universe, but beneath that surface are two firm principles. The first principle is that if magic was real, then magic would be real, woven in deep with Nature's laws. In the Skindancer universe, magic was hidden in secret for centuries by wizards pretending to be scientists; but the counterculture movement of the 1960's it began to break free, creating Dakota's world where vampires work with the police to maintain law and order and magical tattooists get licensed at City Hall.

The second principle is that if I didn't make it up, it should be as accurate as possible. Almost all the places in Frost Moon are real parts of Atlanta - not just the bookstores and restaurants and nightclubs but also the more obscure touches, from the statue of Lord Buckhead in Storyteller Square down to the keypad leading to the APD offices on the upper floors of City Hall East (I had a friend go check). And if some nefarious person were to, say, inject a shifter with silver nitrate to thwart their change, I can guarantee you that the hypodermic filled of silver nitrate will look like it's actually filled with silver nitrate and not with mercury ... and that the injection will have more of an effect on the shifter's life than just delaying the shifter's change until the next chapter.

And I can also guarantee that Dakota herself will change. She's tall, cocky, on the edge of arrogant; but the first time someone faces a real fight it can change you. Frost Moon leaves both scars and gifts on Dakota's body, psyche and life, and I'm going to enjoy exploring how those change her in future books.

I hope you enjoy them too.

-the Centaur, Wednesday March 17, 2010

FROM DEBRA-- Anthony must slave in the real world of computers but he will be checking in during the day to hear what you guys think of world building and how important you think accuracy is to readers! And of course to see if you have any comments about his “girl” Dakota Frost.

Guest – Kalayna Price BIC—good for the book, bad for the waist

From Debra: Top Downers! Help me give a rousing welcome to a fabulous new urban fantasy author, Kalayna Price (K-lay-nah). The second in her Haven series, TWICE DEAD is out this month and her new series from Ace/Roc will be out this October.

Kalayna Price's debut novel, ONCE BITTEN, earned rave reviews and reached #1 on Amazon.com's "Fantasy Bestseller List." TWICE DEAD returns readers to a dark, seductive world where magic rules and ancient loyalties collide with modern challenges.

You are not going to believe what this writer does to stay in shape! There are moving pictures. Just you wait.

As any author will likely tell you, novels are written one word at a time. To go from just one word to one hundred thousand words, a serious application of BIC (Butt In Chair) is needed. While BIC gets a novel written, it does lead writers (or at least me) to be rather sedentary. Compound this with a tendency to eat (not so healthy) meals while perched in front of my computer (what, no, —of course— that isn't ketchup on my keyboard) and not only is the novel expanding, but so is the waistline.

Now, I can't speak for anyone else, but the prospect of leaving the computer to go exercise isn't appealing. There is always a looming deadline I need to stay ahead of, emails to answer, blogs to write, or something—anything—that will keep me in front of the keyboard. Okay, I admit it. I just don't like exercising. I own the obligatory exercise machine (don't we all have one we were—sure—we would use, but now resides in some dark corner of the house? Mine's a glider.) but it has such a thick layer of dust on it, I'm sure going near it would cause an asthma attack. I even bought a gym membership once—my checkbook was the only one to get a workout.

But, whether I like exercise or not, it is important. I know that. Not only does exercise keep the waistline in check, movement gets blood flowing to important places, like the brain—which is a good thing when writing a book.

So what is an exercise-hating writer to do? Well, last year I lucked out and discovered a form of "exercise" I actually enjoy: Hoop Dance.

My introduction to hoop dance started around this time last year, and I admit, I wasn't sold on the idea at first. It's rather underground, and (at that time) there were no local hoopers in my area. But my brother saw a hooper at Dragon*Con 2008 and he became obsessed. He made hoops for family and several of our friends and coerced everyone he could into giving it a try. I was reluctant to say the least, but meeting up to hoop was a nice social break, if nothing else, and I quickly learned it was a great work out too. Then we began learning tricks, and I started to really have fun. Oh yeah, and when I mentioned it was a good workout? I recently found out hooping burns approximately 150 calories per 10 minutes of activity (compare that to 180 p/10 mins of running) so yes, good work out indeed.

Fun, social, and good for me? I finally found an exercise I can get into. Now I just have to make sure it doesn't interrupt my writing!

Kalayna Price is the urban fantasy author of the Haven series and of the upcoming Alex Craft novels. She draws ideas from the world around her, her studies into ancient mythologies, and her readings of classic folklore. Her stories contain not only the mystical elements of fantasy, but also a dash of romance, a bit of gritty horror, some humor, and a large serving of mystery. To find out more, please visit her at www.kalayna.com.

Guest - Deborah Smith

(The other Debra here... I'd like you to help me welcome semi-regular guest Deborah Smith! In about a week, her first urban fantasy under the pen name Leigh Bridger should be shipping. I'm sure she'll answer questions about the book but she's blogging on art ! For those curious about the book--please be curious, I've added a synopsis at the end of the blog. And one lucky blog reader who comments will win an ARC/Bound Galley)

This is what happens when a tame women's fiction author turns to writing urban fantasy: I stood in the art-studio corner of my basement, brush in hand, chortling happily at a bloated, red-eyed, fanged demon.

Compare him to this sample of art from my pre-demon days. Yes, kids, that's a pair of cartoon puddy-tats. For the children's book I'm working on.

Seriously. This is my Jekyll and Hyde confession: By day I write women's fiction and cartoon kitty books; by night I write about cannibalistic demons and heroines who indulge in threesomes with ghosts.

After Deb Dixon, my Bell Bridge Books partner, editor, and trusted art critic, pronounced my first demon painting "smiley and bloated" but not remotely sinister, I tried again. I set "Smiley" aside and painted this one. Check out this demon manhood. Skull Head, as I call him, is a hunka sexy non-human seduction, IMHO.

His, uhmmm, "focal point," which is NOT covered by a green Photoshop graphic on the actual canvas, is so amazing it prompted my startled husband to suggest I "tone down that highlight." Men get so testy when their wives prop a three-by-four-foot painting of demon junk on the living room coffee table.

If nothing else, my amateur art skills helped me create more much more vivid characters on the page. I promise you, the drooling, slurping, fanged, clawed demons in my book are far creepier than Smiley and Skull Head.

SOUL CATCHER, under my new nom-de-fantasy, Leigh Bridger, comes out next week. Now I'm back to work in the gentler world of women's fiction, writing a novella titled THE TOMATO MOONS OF MORNING GLORY and also working on a big trilogy (first book: KITCHEN CHARMS.)

But the lure of the dark side continues to call me, so, hopefully, I'll follow up with SOUL HUNTER next year.

Hmmm, let's see. The demon will have a head like a goat, ears like a bat's, tusks, razor-sharp heel spurs, and a twin set of . . . well, you'll just have to wait for the painting.

SOUL CATCHER: From the gothic eccentricity of Asheville, North Carolina, to the terrifying recesses of the Appalachian wilderness, from modern demonology to ancient Cherokee mythology, Soul Catcher follows the tormented journey of folk artist Livia Belane, who has been stalked through many lives by a sadistic and vengeful demon. Livia and her loved ones, including her frontier-era soulmate and husband, Ian, a Soul Hunter, have never beaten the demon before. Now, in this life, it's found them again.

Consider the Source

These are real eagles, doing what eagles really do. I get lots of these pictures via e-mail, and I enjoy every one. They're fascinating, magnificent creatures, happily brought back from the edge of extinction in no small part through the efforts of programs based right here in Minnesota. The upper Mississippi is a great place to view these birds, and the National Eagle Center in Wabasha is THE place to learn about them.

But saving the eagle is not the point of this blog. I want to talk about saving ourselves--our minds, our curiosity, our willingness to take a closer look--in this amazing Age of Information. Remember that public service ad that says, "This is your brain; this is your brain on crack"? My question: What happens to our brains on Information Overload?

Don't run away. I'm not about to get too philosophical here. But with all the nonsense in the news this week--you know what I'm talking about--I'm just hoping all educators--including teachers, parents, writers and the like--are hammering this message home now more than ever: consider the source.

Back in the Pre-Info Age we were educated in this principle, big-time. We discussed Marshall McLuhan's The Medium is the Massage in high school. That's pretty weighty stuff, and it's worth looking at again. And again. I'm thinking we are seriously overloaded with meaningless messages and much too much massage. We can actually watch our government at work these days. With cable and C-span, we can tune in to Congress in "real time". Among other things, we see them twittering. Twittering? I might expect kids to be doing something like this in class, but the United States Congress?

I look to the news to get some information about what's going on in the world, and the anchors are inviting viewers to Twitter and Tweet. What the heck? Sound bytes (bites?) are killing the message, and the people who are supposed to be getting real information out to the public--the Fourth Estate, for heaven's sake--are acting like bird fanciers trying to coax sounds out of their pets.

We can save ourselves, people. We can teach the art of considering the source. Full circle, now, back to the eagles. (This is where I make my point.) I got one of those Inspiring Message e-mails recently that told of eagle behavior, not in terms of folklore (which might have worked) but presenting an incredible claim about eagle behavior called "Rebirth of an Eagle." Have you seen it? I'm sure it's making the e-mail rounds. It's a slide show. The claim is that in the wild some eagles perform a painful self-mutilating ritual when they reach old age, and that afterward they can live to be 70 years old. This must be Googled, say I. I found a wonderful, really funny debunking by Minnesota's own Birdchick. If you haven't seen the slide show, you can view it here, along with a lovely deconstruction.

I often delete these things without reading them, but this one was about eagles. And I love eagles. And Eagles. But I've been to the Eagle Center, and this was outrageous. Still, this is the kind of thing that will be swallowed hook, line and sinker by too many innocent people. Granted, this particular "load of crap" (as Birdchick says) probably won't hurt too much. But there's a lot out there that will. And I can get taken as easily as the next guy. Thank heaven for Snopes. Thank heaven for "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report," for so often satire turns out to be the real purveyor of truth.

I fear the power of The Big Lie. I worry about the effects of TMI. And I truly hope our mantra in this day and age never ceases to be Consider the Source. What's your favorite Urban Myth? How do you handle forwarded gems? What is considering the source all about, and how do you keep the practice alive in your corner of the world?

Late breaking update: One of you commented about the Snopes website, so I did the Google, and I found an interesting Reader's Digest article about the masterminds behind Snopes and how they do what they do.

Lest I sound like an old throwback, I hasten to add that I often enjoy all kinds of forwarded gems--a good joke, an interesting tidbit, a bit of info that sends me Googling. And great pictures. Look at these and smile big:

Meet KALAYNA PRICE author of ONCE BITTEN

Bell Bridge Books published our long-awaited first adult dark fantasy title this month-- ONCE BITTEN. We think the book is fabulous, of course. But we also think the author is special, too, and wanted you to have a chance to meet her. Help us welcome, Kalayna Price! (BTW, you might be interested to know this novel began life as a National Novel Writing Month book--NaNoWriMo.)

  Hi everyone, and thank you Debra for inviting me to the blog today.

When you tell people you write, there are a couple questions that are almost inevitable. One of the big ones is “Where do you get your ideas.” This is a tricky question, and there is no good answer for it, but since my first book, ONCE BITTEN, recently hit bookstores, I thought I’d try to explain some of the thoughts that went into birthing the book.

I wrote the first draft of Once Bitten in the winter of 2005, and at that time, the sub-genre of Urban Fantasy was just taking off. I loved the sassy, kick-ass heroines, the scary (but many times alluring) paranormal creatures, and the way the books kept me on the edge of my seat for the whole read. I knew I had to write one—I just wasn’t sure about what.

I have a deep fascination with vampires (founded most likely when I read Dracula at age ten) so I wanted a story including the undead. But, not just vampires—I wanted a world filled with the things that go bump in the night: mages, demons, shapeshifters . . . It was when I was thinking about the disproportional amount of werewolves to werecats in fiction that story ideas really started clicking into place. I’m not sure why wolves are the popular lycanthrope creature. Wolves howl in the night, which admittedly adds a level of creepy, especially if you think you are the prey, but isn’t the silent predator—the lion hiding in the Savannah grass, the jaguar stalking from a tree—much creepier? Plus, cats have not only sharp teeth, but claws too. All and all, a big cat sounds like a pretty impressive creature to transform into.

This line of thought led me into my initial world building for Once Bitten, and to my main character, Kita. But, while I wanted Kita’s line to include these impressive big cats, I decided Kita should be something at odds with her world. Something small. Something less dangerous.

A house cat.

I once saw a video of a cat chasing a bear up a tree. Attitude—the average house cat has it in abundance. When I watch my cats, I know there is a part of them that has never been fully domesticated. There is still a bit of the wild in them, a staunch independence, and more than a drop of defiance. I incorporated these traits into Kita, and then loaded her with things her human side had to deal with, like responsibility and living up to other’s expectations. In the beginning of the book, Kita has run from all of her responsibilities, leaving her kind and her clan behind. But, as so often happens, responsibility catches up with her and brings a friend—trouble, and lots of it in the form of an overly curious vampire, hunters on her trail, and demons after her soul.

Writers spend a lot of time asking “What if?” What if your house cat could shapeshift? What if she was pretending to be a pet only because she was on the run from hunters? What if there were worse things than hunters after her? What if they caught her?

I had a lot of fun coming up with Kita and the world she lives in, and I hope people enjoy reading about her as much as I enjoyed writing about her!

Guest - Parker Blue

Hey, this is Debra Dixon. I'm here briefly to introduce you to our exciting new young adult fantasy author, Parker Blue. Her book BITE ME from Bell Bridge Books has gotten great reviews so far.

Help me welcome, Parker Blue !

The Idea Fairy

 

Writers are often asked where they get their ideas, as if there's some obscure idea fairy who bestows the perfect idea upon you with her sparkly wand if you know the magic words. Yeah, right. For most writers, finding ideas is not the problem. Avoiding them is. I've tried to duck as they come whizzing in, but they're sneaky little devils. They like to attack when I can't avoid them. They especially like to blindside me when I'm in the bathtub or shower (there's some strange relationship between story ideas and water I've never understood). Or, lately, they've been waiting until I'm driving 75 miles an hour on the freeway (in my hour and a half commute to work) to hit.

Yes, the diabolical things wait until I have no possible way to write them down, then they strike. You see, if I could just record them immediately, I could get them out of my brain and go back to working on whatever current work in progress I should be writing. But because I can't jot them down, I feel compelled to examine their sharp little edges, poke their intriguing extremities and play the "what if" game to form them into some sort of shape. Then, over the next few months, other bits and pieces pop in. I'll bump them up against other ideas I've had and if enough puzzle pieces fit together, I begin to see a story emerge. I call this my "gelling" period, when the ideas start to gel together. Once I can see a form emerge, then I can start working on a story.

Because of this process, I rarely remember the initial impetus for my books, the very first idea. However, in the case of Bite Me, out this month from Bell Bridge Books, I do remember. This is one of the rare times I went looking for a specific idea instead of letting it find me on its own. I wanted to write for the women's action/adventure line, Silhouette Bombshell (now sadly defunct), so I sat down to come up with four ideas to pitch to the editor. I love paranormal, so I knew I wanted to write an action novel with a female heroine and paranormal elements. My first thought of a vampire slayer. But, since Buffy has obviously been done (and very well!), I wanted to put a spin on it. So, what about a vampire hunter who is part demon as well? Even better, what if she's part lust demon and she has to fight vampires to keep the lust under control? Bingo! I had my idea.

Unfortunately, Bombshell folded and when I rewrote the book as a paranormal romance, the publisher who had expressed interest decided they didn't like it after all. But Deb Dixon at Bell Bridge Books pointed out that it would really work better as a young adult urban fantasy--and she was right. So, I rewrote it once again, dropping the heroine's age a few years, and giving her faithful hellhound a voice (who knew hellhounds were so snarky?). I love the result and I hope readers will, too. Here's what it's about:

Bite Me by Parker Blue, Bell Bridge Books, October 2008.

Eighteen-year-old Valentine Shapiro got a raw deal in the parent lottery. Her father was part incubus demon, and her mother's never forgiven her for that. Thrown out of the house by her mother, Val does the only thing that seems to make any sense—she takes aim at the town vampires, figuring a stake a day keeps the demon at bay. Soon enough, she finds herself deep in the underbelly of the city, discovering the secrets of the Demon Underground with the help of her faithful hellhound, Fang, and fighting to save those she loves. Whether they love her back or not.

Parker is blogging on NovelTalk as well--check it out and comment there for a chance to win an autographed copy of her book! Plus Bell Bridge Books will be giving one away today, so start racking up those comments!

Pam McCutcheon / Parker Blue
http://www.parkerblue.net
http://www.pammc.com

DEBRA - Announcing Bell Bridge Books

Well, we've gone and done it. Decided to open a new imprint over at BelleBooks. Yep. I'm still getting a few hours sleep every day so adding more to the workday shouldn't be a problem.

I bet you think I'm crazy, but you wouldn't if you'd seen some of the good books we've had to turn down over the years because they didn't quite fit our audience. Combine that with my love of fantasy, dark fantasy and urban fantasy. Those don't fit with BelleBooks' Southern slant either. And we've managed to acquire the reprint rights on some of Deborah Smith's books from Little Brown.

We want to get those in print, but they've already been in print, had their time to shine as frontlist. So, we're really looking at serving a writer's backlist, which is also different from what we do at BelleBooks since those are all original titles.

A new imprint was the only realistic choice. It allows us to "brand" a division that can handle this diversity! (Didn't I hear that word brand around here recently?)

http://www.bellbridgebooks.com/

We're currently looking for fantasy, especially urban fantasy. We'll also be publishing a few of those Southern books that we can't publish through BelleBooks' traditional program.

Bell Bridge Books will be an advance and royalty paying house. We'll publish POD (print-on-demand) and ebook simultaneously. The advances are small but our cover looks will be "big house" looks. We've included some samples in this blog. Fake books but real covers produced by Bell Bridge Books.

We aren't looking for "romance", even though that cover to the right skewed to the romance side! Romance is a well-served market and there isn't any reason to dip a toe in that pond.

What we are looking for is writers with unique voices who create strong fantasy, dark fantasy and urban fantasy stories with compelling characters--male or female.

We're looking at some young adult. Very excited about that. If you're interested in querying, head on over to the website: http://www.bellbridgebooks.com/

Tell a friend. Tell two friends. We're beating the bushes for good quality fantasy.

So, folks! What do think about our new imprint? What are your thoughts about our cover looks?