Holy! Moly! It’s been a loooooong time since I last posted. I’d say it’s because I had nothing to say, but that’s only half true. I had something to say a couple weeks ago, but I forgot. Well…now I have three things to say! I’ll go in chronological order.
All Dark Places is a horror anthology released by Dragon Soul Press. Within this book is the debut of my horror pseudonym – Anna Sinjin. I won’t go into how I chose that name except to say that it is, in fact, part of my real name. There are five short horror stories, mine is the second – The Cursed Mirror by Anna Sinjin.
I was pretty excited to participate in this anthology. One, because it was my first anthology. Two, because it was with an actual publishing house. And three, because it was horror, and horror is my true love. They were pretty nice to work with, and I’m currently working on another short story for another anthology of theirs. It’s romance this time. Hopefully, it’ll be accepted as well, but who knows. If nothing else, I got my horror name out there and have met some amazing people.
Ruxandra Tudorica made the front cover, while the back cover for the paperback was created by someone else whose name I don’t know. In any case, it’s a wonderful cover with just the right amount of fun mixed in with the horror. The formatting is awesome, the stories are awesome. Everything is AWESOME! If you don’t know by now, “awesome” is one of my favorite words (and I also love the Everything Is Awesome song from the Lego Movie, so…yeah). I’ll talk more about Rux later in this post because I didn’t work with her on this (the publishers did), but I did work with her on my third piece of news.
E-book – $3.99
Paperback – $14.99
Psyche (Myths of Olympus series)
I made a MAJOR update to Psyche from the Myths of Olympus series. Between the time it was published and this year, I’ve made some serious advancements in my editing and formatting knowledge. It was brought to my attention that I hate commas…or had just gotten supremely lazy with them because I tend to ignore a lot of grammar rules in my off-time. I also learned that the formatting I was using was ONLY for submitting manuscripts to agents. Cue The Scream. So I stopped everything I was doing and went through the book, editing and formatting like a fiend till it was as close to perfect as I could get it.
Another thing that pushed me to fix all the errors was that I had a new cover!! Isn’t it lovely? Lily Dormishev created it for me. I am SO in love with it!! I gave her a general idea of the book, along with another cover she had done that had started this obsession in the first place, to let her know the style I really liked. She went from there to create a work of art! I’m constantly drooling over her work and forcibly holding myself back from buying her covers. I should stand up as I say this and go on with, “Hello, I’m Katie, and I’m a cover addict.” Cue the sobbing into my hands as I sit back down. There are perhaps a handful of covers I’m itching to buy, but I can’t because I already have too many projects lined up that I’ll probably be busy writing for the next decade (yay!). Honestly though, I’m really not sure how long I’ll be able to hold out. Maybe another year at the most? I need to write faster. I’m going to horde my Christmas money for future covers.
Anyway, go to Lily’s site if you want to check out more of her work or order a commission yourself – Lily Dormishev. Even if you aren’t a writer and have no need of book covers, you should still check it out just for some serious eye candy.
Soooo, after I finished fixing Psyche and saw this awesome cover Lily made for me, I went a little crazy. Her prices are so reasonable…I couldn’t help it! I had a gorgeous new cover, fresh editing, fresh formatting…I needed a paperback as well.
Did you know a paperback another set of completely different formatting? Yep. And there’s a lot more to do for it too. I posted about my formatting woes till it got to the point where someone suggested I make “format” my new F word. I actually liked that idea quite a bit, so if you hear me say something like, “What the format!” you’ll know I’m cursing in my own unique way…and I’m probably extremely ticked off because I don’t usually drop the F bomb.
I’m going to skip all those details, but I will say, after much hassle, the e-book and paperback are available to buy on Amazon.
E-book – $2.99
Paperback – $10.99
Shadow’s Strength (Daughter of Nyx Book 2)
This has been two years in the making! I cannot believe it’s finally happening. Book 2 of the Daughter of Nyx series is finally being released! It’s currently available for pre-order as an e-book on Amazon. Paperbacks won’t be available until the third and final book of the series is out. Only then will I start to bring them out as paperbacks. I already have the appointment made with the designer, so there’s no way I can be tempted to bring them out sooner.
Who’s the designer? The lovely Ruxandra Tudorica who also did the cover for the first book, Night’s Treasure! While the first book was a premade that was tweaked to better match my preferences, this cover was a pure custom job. I seriously like how the covers are coming along and can’t wait for the third one and then the paperbacks as well. It’s so exciting! Rux is awesome to work with. Friendly yet professional and awesomely talented. Her works speaks for itself. If you’re interested in more of her work (or to commission her yourself), you can head on over to her website – MethyssART.
By the way, quick note on Night’s Treasure since I mentioned it earlier. It needs some major editing and formatting (just like Psyche did). It’s on my To Do list, and I’ll be working on it slowly as a side project, but don’t expect it to be finished within a week or anything. I mention this in case you take a look at the book and decide it’s worthless because the formatting is wrong and my commas are disastrous. Please don’t hate me for past comma crimes!
E-book – $4.99
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That was a long post, I know. Kudos to you if you made it this far. I promise not to wait till I have a mountain of news before posting again. In fact, I should have some news in December so expect something that month. There’s the short romance story I’m working on for another Dragon Soul Press anthology and then there’s my next novel project. Preferably, I’ll be able to give updates one at a time instead of both at once.
Anna Sinjin ~Author~ 