BLOG
Author Event: SHADOW OF THE LAST MEN YouTube Live Feed
Today is the day! Don’t miss this live YouTube event! Leave questions for the author below and enter our Rafflecopter giveaway.
J.M. Salyards (born 1982) lives in Maryland with his wife and daughter and dreams of becoming a man of a million words. Mr. Salyards is passionate about writing bold, entertaining fiction.
Shadow of the Last Men is the first volume of The Next Man Saga, a series that introduces his new voice into the arena of mature, speculative art. Drawing on his experiences in the US Air Force and a lifetime of reading, Salyards is an “artistic and effective” author with an “intense and distinctive voice”. He is a proud member of the Xchyler Publishing ‘X Team’.
Editor’s Notes: Finding Your Voice
BY KRISTINA HARRIS
My husband loves to watch daytime court shows, which are, if nothing else, an interesting study in human interactions. The one thing I always cue in on is the way a vast majority of the litigants speak while they are in court: these people, who have no formal training in the law, suddenly get on People’s Court and start spouting out phrases like “then he proceeded to . . .” and “to the extent that . . .”
It doesn’t make them sound smarter or more official, mostly just pompous and ridiculous. In the same vein, many aspiring authors make the mistake of thinking that writing is somehow a formal discipline that should sound something like Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
Voice. Chances are, you’ve heard this term before. Singers and instruments have different voices, which is what makes music so interesting; authors should have different voices too.
It may seem like a no-brainer: if I am writing my own book, surely it’s in my own voice, right? Not necessarily. As an editor, one of the most common mistakes I see is that authors either don’t use a voice, or try to use someone else’s.
How do you know what your voice is? How can you begin to use it in your writing?
First off, relax, and just be yourself. Readers make wonderful consumers in that they actually come into the whole deal believing in you, the writer. They are interested in what you’ve given birth to and want to see it grow and mature.
Now, pin down who you are. Think of some adjectives that describe you as a person and writer. Ask your friends and family to think of some. When you read your writing, do these adjectives come to mind?
Think about who your readers are as well. What are the characteristics that you are trying to appeal to in them?
Finally, the most helpful way that I’ve found to discover your voice is to simply write—not for anyone else, just talk to yourself. Free-write in a personal blog or journal and talk about anything you want: your day, your views on the current political atmosphere of your country, how you didn’t get what you wanted for your birthday—anything that is important to you, so long as it doesn’t feel like “work” writing.
And one last tidbit: I’m not going to say to totally ignore all the grammar and style rules you’ve ever learned (I’m an editor—I’d lose my super secret grammar police membership card if I did that!), but voice can make or break a story, even if it’s technically correct in every other way. So first, learn what your voice is. Once you feel comfortable writing as yourself, then check out advice like Merilyn’s post, to learn how to polish your writing, so your voice can sing.
Kristina has made reading and writing a focal point in her life. No matter how busy she is, she has always found relaxation in books and editing. She started her published career in her high school newspaper by submitting short stories. Now, she has edited three published works: two adult novels and one children’s book, and has written and edited for numerous national specialty magazines.
Kristina holds a degree in business administration, has been a model for a nationally recognized talent agency, and leads the way in her household, managing a husband, three sons, two dogs, two cats, a guinea pig, and a lizard!
Kristina’s first project with The X, Relative Evil by Debra Erfert, was released in July 2014. Her next project, Legends and Lore: An Anthology of Mythic Proportions, will be released in October 2014.
Inside Marketing: Preparing To Launch
BY DIANE JORTNER
This week I was reminded that some old truisms are just plain true.
One daughter reminded the other daughter to Never kiss on the first date—leave the guy wanting more.
- I have learned: the best tweets are questions—which need the reader to click to get the answer.
- I taught my freshman writing students: never start a paper with the thesis statement—hook them with an attention-getter first.
- I read that I should: end chapters in the middle of the action—if you want the reader to turn the page.
- People like a little mystery in their lives. Mystery books end up on the New York Times Bestseller List more than any other.
- Sometimes the best part of a vacation is looking at all the brochures and websites of the places you plan to go.
Launching any genre of book should take advantage of this need to the brain to experience suspense.
An author needs to start building anticipation for his or her upcoming book months in advance of the actual release, possibly in advance of finding a publisher or deciding to self-publish.
First, months before any release date is set, establish a platform with a website, a blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a LinkedIn presence, and Instagram connections. Build friendships though associations on all accounts and in groups of similar interest. Use this time to hint at your Work in Progress, get people to ask questions, and even beta read for you as you read for them.
As the launch day nears, build more excitement with pre-release reviews, trailers, Blog hops and give-a-ways. Tease your target reader into wanting more every day.
Pre-release opportunities. Once you establish a date of publication the intensity can build. Just this month Amazon has started offering advance sales options to all authors on their Kindle Website
Michael Kozlowski of The GoodEReader explains in his news post :
“One advantage of pre-order is that authors can begin promoting the book before launch to help raise awareness. There are various avenues in the Amazon ecosystem to drum up hype, such as your book’s pre-order page on Author Central, Goodreads, your own site, and elsewhere. Also, pre-orders will contribute toward sales rank and other Kindle Store merchandising even before the book is released, which can help more readers discover your book.”
Press releases can be sent out every step on the way to take advantage of all the free publicity they offer. Public Relation companies like PRUrgent.com, PRLog.org, and Newsvine offer hints on writing press releases and are always searching for interesting content to disseminate to other news outlets.
Book trailers are gaining in popularity as readers learn about upcoming release on the go-to multie-media platform, Youtube. Gerard Bianco discusses How to Use Suspense In Creating a Book Trailer for Your Novel. Xchyler Publishing novel trailers use music, fantastic graphics and automation in their videos to build suspense. Notice the Relative Evil trailer in particular, as it even uses pages from the actual text to hook readers into wanting to know more.
Plan an event to celebrate the launch. This can be a physical party, a Facebook party, a Twitter event, or as The X is planning this week for Shadow of the Last Men live YouTube video event. When you or your publisher promotes your release, encourage retweets, shares, and attendance at events.
Bloggers help authors in many ways. As the date of your release approaches, you involvement in all social media needs to increase. Now is the time to cultivate the friendships you have created and ask for reviews, and blog posts with author interviews, cover reveals. This week, The Author Visits kicked off a five-day blog blast in anticipation of the Shadow of the Last Men event on Saturday.
Giveaways draw in new readers. What gets people more excited than FREE STUFF? One way to get people to know more about your book and help with your promotion is to offer incentives. Rafflecopter, the most popular web tool for the purpose, facilitates entries and prize distribution. Authors, publishers or bloggers can offer readers chances to win a vareity of prizes for those who watch trailers, share and re-tweet promotions, buy books, write reviews, and participate in many other ways in the book launch.
Take your time. Building a kissable relationship takes time, and so does building a relationship with your potential readers. Just like figuring out when to place that first kiss is difficult, so can timing be when putting together all the elements in a successful book launch. Your date might not be ready when you are, or Amazon might not release your book the day you anticipate. Or your reader might not have been primed enough to get excited about your novel. So be adjustable and go with the flow. Just be sure to give enough time from actual availability to the formal event so that you know that readers will be able to buy.
And once your book is out, take about two minutes to celebrate, and then start to anticipate your next release. If the sequel is in the works, include the first chapter in your book. (The reader will start looking forward to the next one right away).
Make sure that those who participated in this launch, knows they are appreciated. Send out thank-you notes. If someone wrote a great review based on reading an e-book, consider sending them an autographed paperback. Give back and offer to highlight others in need of publicity.
This week, the curiosity and anticipation is building as Xchyler promotes JM Salyards’ SHADOW OF THE LAST MEN with a new cover, blog hop, trailer, Rafflecopter contest, Twitter push, and YouTube interview with the author on Saturday.
The final Truism I know is Good Things Take Time. Just like your novel was not written in a day, neither can your book launch be planned or executed quickly. Take the time to think it through, plan it out, revise, and execute for the maximum anticipation and exposure.
Social Media Specialist Diane Lee Jortner fell in love with the media as a high school newspaper editor. With BA in Journalism/Public Relations from Bowling Green State University and a MALS in English from Valparaiso University, she brings her fifteen years’ experience teaching English Composition and her extensive personal social networking experience to The X Team.
In the past year, Diane launched Kids #5 and #6 who graduated from college, #6, the youngest from high school, written a YA mystery novel, and started to blog. In her free time, besides reading almost all types of fiction, she likes to travel with her husband and children.
Editor’s Notes: On Writing Women
BY ELIZABETH GILLILAND
As you scroll through our editor’s notes, you may notice something of a trend here at Xchyler Publishing . . . most of us are women. The same could probably be said of most publishing houses and agencies. There are a lot of women in this field. We love to read. We’re passionate about books. And if you ask most of us what we’re looking for in a story, while we might vary on plot or genre, almost all of us would probably list “strong female characters” as one of our absolute must-haves.
. . . But what does that mean, exactly?
No doubt it is due to series like Buffy the Vampire Slayerand The Hunger Games that when we now refer to a female character, she is either ‘strong’ or ‘weak.’ In a way, this is really great; our lives are saturated with kick-butt female role models who aren’t just designed to be sexual icons for men. But in a way I wonder if this hasn’t also skewed our perception of what it actually means to be strong—that a woman can be independent and empowered without whipping out tae kwon do or putting an arrow through someone’s heart. And that we do, in fact, need to see women like this in the literature we’re reading.
Frankly, I’m kind of tired of reading female characters who can beat up all the guys and have all the best lines and have all the men dropping at their feet because they’re just so fabulously sexy and witty and tough and clever all at the same time. Part of being strong is being allowed to explore what makes us weak, too. I want to be able to relate to the female characters I’m reading about, and I am none of those things all the time. Sometimes, occasionally, but definitely not all the time.
I am sometimes smart and sometimes tough and sometimes funny but also shy and awkward and don’t think of the right thing to say until way after I should have said it, and if men are falling at my feet it is probably due more to a lack of personal hygiene than a surplus of charm. That isn’t to say that you have to bring out all the worst qualities in your female characters, but allow them to have some bad qualities. Allow them to be human.
Then there’s the other end of the spectrum—where the main character is not strong AND tough AND sexy AND funny, but she’s none of those things either, because she’s mostly there to help the male character discover himself and so her character development takes a back seat. To that, I say—writers, write responsibly. If your protagonist isn’t very interesting when you take the man out of the equation, then she isn’t very interesting, period.
(For a great take on writing well-rounded characters of any gender, read Jessica Shen’s blog post, “Introductions, Please.”)
A good example of one of my favorite strong female characters who doesn’t use any weapons aside from her wit and who isn’t solely defined by her love story? Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Pride and Prejudice (did you really think I could make it through a blog post without mentioning P&P at some point?). Now granted, yes, part of why I love her story so much is because of that snobbishly dashing Darcy, but Elizabeth more than holds her own. She’s clever, she’s sharp-tongued, she’s loyal, (even when Charlotte marries that awful Mr. Collins and Lydia is… well, Lydia), she subtly defies convention (like muddying her skirts and walking by herself to get to her sick sister at Netherfield Park), she makes rash judgments (even though, as we quickly learn, her first impressions of people are not always correct—I’m looking at you here, Wickham), and she can be a bit of a snob (though she’s much quicker to find that fault in others than in herself). In short, she is a fully rounded human being who is both weak and strong, with or without a crossbow.
This isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy me some action. There is a time and a place for a girl beating the trash out of somebody who’s supposed to be bigger and tougher than she is, and a time and a place when that is flat-out awesome. But maybe it’s time to broaden our minds a little bit. Let’s not trick ourselves into thinking that the only way for a woman to be strong is to bench press 200 pounds and know the difference between a glock and a Beretta. For every Sidney Bristow, we need a Lorelai Gilmore. For every Buffy, we need a Willow. For every Sarah Connor, we need a Dr. Quinn. There’s room for all of us at the table.
As the Spice Girls so aptly put, If you wanna be my lover/you gotta get with my friends . . . or something like that. Girl power!
Author, editor, and story coach Elizabeth Gilliand currently kicks the trash out of the literature doctural program at Louisiana State University. Her most recent project. Conjectrix by Candace J. Thomas, Book 2 of the Vivatera series, was released in May of 2014. Her next project, Accidental Apprentice by Anika Arrington, is slated for release October 4, 2014.
From Our Catalog: Shadow of the Last Men by J.M. Salyards
FOLLOW SALYARDS ON THE WEB AT:
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Google + | Amazon | Goodreads
BY PENNY FREEMAN
The recurring criticism one hears about works like The Hunger Games is, “Why don’t they take all the money they spend on all that amazing technology and feed the people?” That’s the point, isn’t it? Dystopian books, at their finest, turn the lens onto ourselves and demand answers to questions we don’t want to ask.
Shadow of the Last Men is one such book. Author J. M. Salyards never pulls his punches when he illuminates the road down which our society mindlessly hurtles. The result is stark and brutal, but the light of hope and truth he shines into our darkest places make the journey incomparable.
Salyard allows his dead-on insight into the human condition to drive this book, creating rich, multifaceted and dynamic characters. His protagonists are flawed, his antagonists despicable but still possessed of strong veins of humanity too easily identified in ourselves. He swings from sage and profound to disturbing and violent at such speed, he keeps the reader constantly off-balance.
Salyard’s debut novel must be read and reread to fully appreciate the imagery and artistry of his prose, his mastery of the language, and his ability to layer his message deeply within the many folds of a purely entertaining novel. Based on the post-apocalyptic setting and the paramilitary window dressing, one initially assumes this a “man’s book.” However, I strongly recommend it to anyone who appreciates true literature.
Warning: staring the truth of ourselves in the bare and brazen face may cause serious self-reflection.
Join us September 2-6 on our NEXT MAN SAGA BLOG BLAST and Rafflecopter Giveaway. Share, post, LIKE, tweet for a chance to win a Xchyler t-shirt, a cover poster, or an autographed copy of Shadow of the Last Men by J.M. Salyards.
September 2nd:
September 3rd:
September 4th:
September 5th:
September 6th: