Heya! If you have a book series you’re writing, and/or art for it that you’d like to share, feel free to post about it here. We’ll have fun talking about our writing. Make sure to source your art, always!
I’m writing my own series, it’s a dark urban fantasy. Adult novel, dystopian. It got considerably more violent than intended, and it’s first person. I regret not making it third person. It’s also sci-fi in a way, but strictly biology–I try to explain my fantasy species via biology and how my magic system works.
Des M. Astor is my pen name ^^ Can do a search and find the goodies!
There, hopped over to here XD Also you made me paranoid when you said you couldn’t find it. So just look for The Book of Witches by Margaret Fisher (all my books are under that name, because it’s me lol ).
Oh ok see I didn’t have the author name, that was the problem. I’ll go look again…
…Yep! Found it. Yeah so I was just going by title. My author name is “Des M. Astor” but my books aren’t out yet. My compendium is on my website though, I’ll probably share it later on this thread when I think to. I’m actually not sure if we’re allowed to do that
But yeah, as we were saying before, you’re right paranormal is just werewolves and vampires I think. I got a lot of inspiration from “Night World” by L. J. Smith. Personally, I like really in depth fantasy in an urban setting. Starting off maybe paranormal or low fantasy, but then advancing more and more. I wish it was taken more seriously in literature and movies. I know “Bright” didn’t do well at all. But the Percy Jackson book series (not the movies) I think is considered urban fantasy and did very well.
I’m hoping the genre expands, and goes past vampires/werewolves (but keeps them!) to more things too. And yeah I wish the upcoming Vampire the Masquerade had multiplayer It’s too bad there’s no fantasy MMO in the city setting.
I loved L.J. Smith’s books! <3 I read the entire Night World series when I was younger. It was one of my influences too (the whole secret society of non-human people hiding amongst normal humans with their own cultures and such). I ironically got my degree in cultural anthropology with a concentration in mythology/folklore, so that really helps me with world-building, languages and making my fae (and other non-human) cultures. I’m by far no Tolkien, but I have the written language for Witani (the race of witches) done, both the alphabet and the syllabary (over 400 glyphs/runes/letters, whatver you prefer to call them), and a probably over a hundred words of the spoken language. Elves (Lin’nani in my books) feature heavily (because they’re the de facto leaders of the fae races and made the alliance that created the first Witani) and I have their alphabet done too.
Oh wow that’s super awesome! SQUEE Someone else that appreciates the night world series! I got it on audiobook recently and listened to my favorites: Huntress and The Chosen. I think my guilty pleasure when I get better at drawing art will be to do fanart of those couples.
BUT UGH STRANGE FATE! That won’t ever come out, it feels like. Which… is ok. I read the description and… did not like it. I HATE THE LOVE TRIANGLE TROPE SO MUCH. But yeah that sounds super neat! It’s funny how we use our degrees in writing
i’m armchair afficiando of mythology and folklore. for example, i discovered that many myths are only considered myths because the universities of holy roman germany made a mistake regarding the timeline of greek language. its amazing the degree of damage that caused ancient history, akin to the butterfly effect.
ever hear of rephaim? a word used in ancient hebrew texts to describe, among other things, the dead, the unresurrectable, the inhabitants of sheol, giants, the offspring of fallen angels and human women. both alive and dead, walking on the earth, larger than life, and who, when humans could no longer sustain them (we’re about to find out how humans sustained them) began to kill each other and drink the blood. et.al, vampires. so vamps, preceeded ancient europe in lore and had a full on war of the vampires
Wow…those two were my favorites of the series too lol It’s always awesome to find someone with similar tastes beyond a mutual appreciation for elves, vampires, and elf vampires XD (Elf vampires are actually a thing in my series. The most rare kind of vampire due to the degree of difficulty a vampire would have getting their hands (or fangs rather) on an elf and then investing the time it would take to turn them (vampire creation is a bit more complicated in the magical blood series. It isn’t fiction’s usual method of drain victim, give them a little of the ‘parent’s’ blood= new baby vampire) (though I use that method for my blood dawn series…vampires in that series though are alive, so it’s more science-fantasy). Vampires in the magical blood series are undead (so I get to play with both kinds of vampires, more fun for me as a writer XD
That’s pretty interesting! I create my own lore for my series, and mine are a completely living species (living vampires have always fascinated me, they’re my favorite lore). But that does look pretty neat in terms of mythology in general. I haven’t heard of it myself, and admittedly I need to do more research into mythos in general, but I like pulling strings and crafting my own stuff so it’s mine if that makes sense.
Wow that’s so awesome XD It’s so hard to decide between Rashel x Quinn and Jez x Morgead. If I ever drew these characters… yep, I’d make them a bit more gothic, because I can. There’s like no fan art out there of them! None that I like at all, anyway. It’s so sad that the series is overshadowed by Vampire Diaries -.-
That sounds really cool and interesting actually! Love those concepts. Also, again, love living vampires and science fantasy! I have undead vampires in my lore as well, but they came about due to an unnatural ancient ritual, with a twist–they get the most nutrition from living vampires as opposed to humans (the diet of living vampires). Tricky tricky.
Yeah it’s crazy how similar our tastes are, that’s super neat!
Edit: Wow look at how rare updated threads are here in this forum. It’s an eerie ghost town… spooky.
theres several thousand years of history now called mythology because of a single mistake in a german university. another one that just flips me out is what essentially sounds like a human being abducted by an extra terrestrial, where he witnesses a super massive black hole in what is called an active galaxy today. i dont think the milky way has been active galaxy for a very long time, so i doubt he was even in our galaxy when he saw it. active galaxies have super massive black holes at their centers and are in the process of swallowing a star, resulting in ascending and descending pillars of radioactive jets that stretch out from the top and bottom of the black hole for thousands of light years in length. it scares the heck out of him to witness it so closely.
In about a week I’m actually sending out a new novel manuscript to beta readers, which is super exciting for me! It’s a fantasy/adventure, swashbuckling type tale that’s sitting around 140,000 words; it’s also the first half of a duology.
I wrote the original 360ish page manuscript back in 2011 and have kept it in a drawer until now. I only just recently finished a top to bottom rewrite which blew out the page count and split the story into two books.
Eager for the next steps, but also thoroughly exhausted at the moment.
That’s super awesome! Love me some good fantasy. Good luck with the beta reader feedback! I love hearing about manuscripts that were abandoned or something but then are brought back and fixed up. I did something similar with one of mine, and ended up splitting it up too.
Hope that all goes well for you Are you going self-pub or querying?
I like this thread! Giving me some things to go looking for to read in my off time lol.
I’m trying to get myself set up as an Independent Author. Right now, I’m writing up my first Novel and it’s a Dark Fantasy Horror. It starts off pretty nice, simple, almost fairy tale like before it starts to devolve into something horrific. I’m aiming for a very Germanic/Nordic theme with it and I’m hoping to have Book 1 done at the end of January, and Book 2 at the end of April, and aim for a 3-4 month release cycle.
Otherwise I DO have a lot of writing out there - mostly short stories and such - but it’s under a pen name and I reaaaally shouldn’t share it. Lets just say It makes me some money when I release at least and it pays the bills.
Edit: Oh I did forget to mention I do have Non-Fiction works too! I got an ebook on certain gig jobs (because that’s how I made my living for a while), and I’m currently writing a Roleplaying Guide for people interested on the Moon Guard Realm forums lol.
Gods give me the strength to resist actually writing the final book myself as a fanfiction, because I re-listened to the two audiobooks I adore (The Chosen & Huntress) and just… aaaa fell in love with those two couples again. I want to write a high action fantasy of the wild powers saving the world. Or… failing. Which would be a twist. Or a middle ground. Soooo tempted.
This sounds exciting! I love dark fantasy! I also LOVE the Nordic theme. Feel free to share when you do! Though yeah it’s fair to not want to share a pen name. I have 2 pen names, one was a project that we’ll say is for adults and not good to share here (seeing if it sold. Then I learned I know nothing about marketing that content. So… I’ve abandoned the project, at least for now), and one is my true pen name for my urban fantasy series.
I ended up self-publishing in December. However, sadly I know nothing about Marketing… so it’s a difficult journey, and frustrating. I do use Twitter for promotions. I might dip into Bookbub. Facebook I’ve tried boosting posts from my author page, but that didn’t help. Amazon ads too, I’m not quite sure how to do any of that right, and don’t have much to throw at it since my day job payout is low.
My current project is turning one of my books into an audiobook–with my voice and editing. I’m learning a lot with Audacity. People said my voice would be good for it, so I figured why not! Problem is, I have male perspectives, and one of my books is almost entirely male perspective, so I’d need to get money for a masculine voice audio-reader (since I’m a woman with a feminine voice, which works for lady characters… not so much my guys.)
Oh wow, that’s neat! Super cool! And a roleplayer? That’s bloody awesome! I roleplay too. I made a video on youtube as a very basic roleplay guide! I want to get back into making videos sometime soon. I bet that will be a super helpful guide for people! New roleplayers tend to not know much about the intricacies. I’m someone that likes creativity and playing grey-lore races (san’layn for example) which can be done right, but requires a ton of research. Are you doing just the basics, or are you really tearing into the meat (hah, get it, cause worgen) of the roleplay community and backstory creation?
This has been my biggest weakness too. I’ve self-published all five of my books, but I couldn’t even sell candy bars door to door when I was a cute little kid, let alone actively sell books as a grumpy not-cute adult woman XD Same with the audio versions of them. If I ever get the initiative to get back to work on the next book in my main series I might bite the bullet, pay someone to professionally edit it and then give the agent/trad publishing route another try. I’ve had bites from the previous books asking to read the full manuscripts (which is very rare in itself, normally they read your sample of 2-10 pages and just reject it), so I think my lack of editing did me in.
Yeah I ended up getting editing services for my college-of-magic book. I’m afraid to look at it right now I haven’t yet, because my focus is on my sequel, which I’m putting out very soon since the cover is super close to being done. It’s so expensive .-. As is marketing. It’s really tough as an indie author. But I’ve been using Twitter to promote mine, and then I just dipped into reddit with some questions about the best way to low-budget market (like $100 or less). Reviews are a nightmare to get. I’ve gotten good ones… but getting more is rough.
Oh wow you have audio versions of yours too? That’s neat! And also a good sign if people want to read your full manuscript. What’s your blurb for your book series? Maybe that’s the thing not catching? Like what you use to advertise it, like on Twitter (if you do)
Edit: Looking again, your cover looks to be catching, so I don’t think that’s the issue
For audio, I was thinking of pricing mine at like $7.99 which might seem low, buuut I’m doing all of the work myself, so could be helpful. I dunno. I’m no good at this.
The current covers were redone since my original ones weren’t stellar. Usually I’ll go on fiverr since you can find book cover designers at reasonable prices there. For the audiobooks I’ve used ACX since you can set up your published books looking for producers for a royalty share option rather than paying up front.
As for blurbs…The Book of Witches has:
Megan Conroy thinks she has problems; she’s struggling to pass math and with only one year of high school left she still has no idea what she wants to do with her life.
She certainly never thought she’d become a witch.
A near miss from a speeding car triggers an inexplicable rush of power within her, leading to strange, recurring dreams and encounters with even stranger creatures. After being saved from a demon by her classmate Finn, she finally starts getting some answers. Meg, he explains, is now an awakened witch; a person whose dormant magic has been brought out by trauma.
Real witches, she learns, are nothing like the broomstick-riding figures she’s used to from movies. The descendants of an ancient tribe who made an alliance with the Fae, Witani are born with magic and have the ability to see the spirits who oversee the natural world.
She receives another shock looking through study abroad brochures when she finds a picture of the same standing stone from her dreams. This prompts her to choose Scotland as her destination, where the stone is located.
As she’s drawn ever deeper into the secret world of magic and Fae, she wrestles with the dilemma of whether or not to tell her parents about her new life. But it’s not long before she has far more to worry about. Her arrival in Scotland sets a series of events in motion that will change her forever; bringing with it new friends, love, and danger.
It’s too bad there’s no fantasy MMO in the city setting.
Are you going self-pub or querying?