Category: Getting Published

Hell’s Gate and Forging the Blade, Second Edition, Are Now Available on Amazon!

Posted C. LaVielle2 CommentsPosted in Forging the Blade, Getting Published, Hell's Gate, Mainly by Moonlight

You have no idea how happy I am to announce that Hell’s Gate, the book I’ve been working on for the past three years, and a much better version of Forging the Blade are now nestled snugly beside the second book, Mainly by Moonlight, on Amazon. They are ready to read in either paperback or eBook format. It was a long, head-banging process. If someone had told me how difficult and confusing it is to set up a series with a second edition as one of the titles for Amazon books, I would never have believed them. Fortunately, KDP has patient and knowledgeable techs. Hell’s Gate is a popular title with authors, so be sure to also type in C. LaVielle, and if you want the second edition of Forging the Blade, be sure to get the 2021 edition. I have author copies of all three books if you’re in town and want to buy them from me. But if you buy them on Amazon… Read More »

FORGING THE BLADE is now available in paperback from Amazon!

Posted C. LaVielle3 CommentsPosted in Forging the Blade, Getting Published, Tarot, Writing, Young Adult Fantasy

Yay!!! Happy dance. Yes Yes Yes.  Air punches. My baby is finally out in paperback. The cover was what was holding things up. Two months ago the first proof came back and the cover was too dark. The beautiful teal blue at the base was a murky blue grey. After two weeks and another round of proofs, CreateSpace’s phone consultants finally were kind enough to tell me that CreateSpace can’t/won’t make changes to my pdf file. I needed to make the changes. This is an important piece of info for anyone uploading their book to CreateSpace. They do not want responsibility for changing your files. All CreateSpace does, and all you are paying them to do, is create a book from the file that you give them. So I emailed my illustrator, Ture Ekroos, and asked if there was anything she could do. There was and she did it and sent the new file to my graphic designer, who built up the cover from the new… Read More »

FORGING THE BLADE is now available on Kindle!

Posted C. LaVielleLeave a commentPosted in Forging the Blade, Getting Published, Tarot, Writing, Young Adult Fantasy

I’m so excited to have this out in time for a cozy holiday read or last minute gift. Enjoy.      The paperback version will be out soon on Amazon and at a Portland bookstore near you. I’ll let you know who has them when they’re actually in the store.

Self-Publishing: The Back Cover: More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About ISBNs and Copyrights

Posted C. LaVielle4 CommentsPosted in Forging the Blade, Getting Published, Writing, Young Adult Fantasy

The front cover of a book is all glam. It’s what catches the reader’s eye and pique’s their curiosity. The back cover, however, is all business. On a trade paperback, which is what Forging the Blade will be, the most noticeable element is the blurb, one of the most difficult things an author ever writes. It usually begins as rewrite after rewrite of query letters to agents and is later distilled down to its essence for the book cover. In a few, screaming sentences it must tell enough about the book to convince someone that they really want to read it; but it must never give away the ending and or get tangled up in too much plot. Trust me, it’s an excruciating exercise. I can’t even begin to count the number of rewrites my cover blurb went through. I chose to include a tarot card to give color and interest. This is where I learned about copyrights. Even though the most popular tarot decks were first… Read More »

Self-publishing: The Front Cover

Posted C. LaVielle6 CommentsPosted in Getting Published, Writing

Of course we all know we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, and of course we all do. We can’t help it. We pick up a book and there’s the cover, giving us a picture, a glimpse, into the pages and pages of the story that we are considering spending hours of our limited time reading. We grasp at every clue we can to decide whether that time and money will be well spent. A good cover is really important. It’s actually in CreateSpace’s list of  factors that determine how well a book sells. I considered having a friend, who is a graphic designer, put together a collage type cover for me and she came up with some marvelous designs. The problem was that she couldn’t find a picture that came close to what my main character looks like, and since YA fantasy is totally character driven, it’s important to give the reader an image to take with them into the story. I was… Read More »

FORGING the BLADE Will Be Out Soon!

Posted C. LaVielle11 CommentsPosted in Getting Published

Over a year ago I received my seventy-fifth and last “Sorry, this isn’t for us.” letter from an agent. There is an old saying that defines insanity as “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.” Granted, I had been constantly rewriting the manuscript and the present version is very different from the first, but the concept and plot haven’t really changed. It’s an adventure story about a sixteen-year-old who gets trapped in a parallel universe and her struggle to return home. It is also a Fool’s journey through the tarot major arcana, beginning with The Fool, Chapter 0, and ending with The World, Chapter 21. The agents saw nothing new and therefore exciting about the story and weren’t sold on the concept of using the tarot major arcana to create the plot-line and so they decided it wasn’t worth selling. But whenever I give anyone the “elevator pitch” for the book, their eyes light up and they say something like “I’d… Read More »

A Powerful Convergence

Posted C. LaVielle7 CommentsPosted in Getting Published, Gifts from the Multiverse, Goddess, Synchronicity

When we think of a convergence, we usually envision two or three shining planets coming together in the velvet black night sky and astrologers urgently discussing what such a striking event might mean. But that’s not the kind of convergence I’ll be musing about here. This post is about the convergence of choices/events; how one thing leads to another which leads to another which leads to a point in time where they all converge and, with lots of help from the gods, something amazing happens. These convergences occur all the time. They are the small and large miracles of our lives and most of them go unnoticed. But there was one recent convergence that the whole world noticed. On January 17th Kaleb Whitby had a miraculous escape from certain death. In the dark, cold predawn his pickup was completely squashed between two big rigs during a freeway pile up on I-84 near Baker City, Oregon. He crawled out of the wreckage with only a few… Read More »

A Lesson from My Computer

Posted C. LaVielle7 CommentsPosted in Getting Published, Writing

If you want to make even the most seasoned writer tremble whisper the words “query letter” in his ear. The dreaded query letter is the inescapable bane of every writer’s existence—at least every writer that is looking for an agent. There are blogs with ominous names like Query Shark whose sole purpose is to help writers navigate these dangerous waters. Not only is the required format rigidly precise, it is also subject to change at a moment’s notice. Author Sean M. Chandler comments that he knows several agents who won’t read a query letter if the writer’s contact information appears at the start of the query. According to some agents, it’s now supposed to appear at the end of the letter below the closing. I was also told several years ago that in a pitch or query the writer should always reveal how the story ends. Now we’re supposed to keep the agent guessing. The list of conflicting information goes on and on, but the… Read More »

The Good Fairies of the Publishing World

Posted C. LaVielle12 CommentsPosted in Book Review, Getting Published, Tarot, Writing, Young Adult Fantasy

I was just reminded in no uncertain terms that to become successful in almost any endeavor, it’s not just what you know, but who you know. Back in December I wrote a post about possible reasons why over 44 agents have rejected my manuscript and ended with the thought that I might have to self publish it. A friend of mine, Kier Salmon, immediately e-mailed me. “Talk to me before you do anything,” she said. “I work in the business and it’s easy to get burned.” The next day I got another e-mail from her telling me that Linn Prentis, the agent she works for, loves tarot decks and wants to see the manuscript. I was thrilled to the tips of my keyboard tapping fingers. I waited until after the holidays and then e-mailed it to them as an attachment. And waited… And waited. Last week I finally found the reply in my in-box. It was a rejection letter, but of a very different sort.… Read More »