The website and blog of author Kirsten M. Corby
If you’re interested in my work, you’ll like this video by the estimable Beau of the Fifth Column
This video comes to me today in a low place. I needed this. Encouragement. Support. Thank you, Beau.
It’s short, and it’s impactful. Do watch it. Fuel for the journey.
The Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off has reached its finals: the blogger/reviewers have chosen their 10 finalists, and all will read all to determine the winner. Read about it here.
My book is not among them. In fact it was cut during the first round of eliminations.
Ouch. That hurt. But I have to admit that I seriously overestimated my chances on this thing. There are many, many authors entered in the Blog-Off that are far more experienced than me.
The mini-reviw of my book on Team Weatherwax is here. The reviewer (not sure who) said Daughter of Atlas has “pacing issues.” Ugh. That’s hard to hear. But no else who’s ever read or reviewed it (that I know of) has ever said that, so I guess it’s a matter of opinion.
My biggest disappointment from being cut so early, though, is that DoA didn’t get a cocktail made to memorialize it by Book Wol of Tome & Tankard. I was so looking forward to that. There is a general cocktail for all the early losers here.
One thing I have noticed, is that most (I think eight out of ten) of the finalist books have more “painterly” covers than your usual indie-published books, with their Photoshopped covers. It looks like the authors paid to have artists actually paint cover paintings for their books, or at least composit them in a more illustrative style than the usual photorealistic , CGI’d indie covers we are used to. It makes the books more “professional” looking, that is, more like commercially published books. It probably contributes a positive halo effect to the books. They are appropriate to the genre, fantasy, and are what readers expect to see.
(Not that I am displeased by the cover of my book, or having second thoughts. I love the cover of DoA, and I have always received positive feedback from it. But it is something to keep in mind for future works.)
Author and YouTube book vlogger Quinn Buckland gave DoA a stellar review here. Check it out. Thanks Quinn!
My interview by Michael Baker of the Thousand Scars Muse blog is here. I did see a small sales spike from that, thank you Michael.
And I have a new review on GoodReads from XDesoto, here.
Well, there’s always next time. My forthcoming book is science fiction, so I can’t enter SPFBO with that, but I will return to fantasy and to my series Atlantis Fallen in the future, so hopefully one day I will be able to enter the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off again.
Does anyone know if there is a similar contest for indie sci-fi?
Finally, let me extend my thanks to Mark Lawrence, who founded the Blog-Off, and to all the bloggers and reviewers, who are putting in an incredible amount of work on their own time, for love of reading and the genre, and also to all my fellow authors. Good luck to all the finalists!
Several of the authors, myself included, are running a 99c price promo. Check it out:
Author Ann Woodley created this video. Thanks, Ann!
Participating author Andrea Domanski put together this list of the participating authors.
M. D. Presley put together a tournament bracket for the blog-off, so readers can follow along, here. Hah, that should be fun!
The SPFBO has a Facebook page, which seems like a good place to stay up on the action.
I only learned about SPFBO in the final rounds of the last contest, so I’m really not sure how all this is going to play out. We will experience it together. Fingers crossed!
I’ve decided to do something fun with my book Daughter of Atlas. I hope you’ll follow along.
I’ve entered into the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off 4, a big book review tournament for, as noted, indie-published fantasy novels. It was created by indie author Mark Lawrence. Eight bloggers or teams of bloggers will review 300 books. Each team will choose one semi-finalist to be read and reviewed by all the blog teams. The final winner wins, well, the title of SPFBO 4 winner, fame and hopefully fortune.
My book was assigned to Team Weatherwax, and Tome & Tankard is the actual blog that will review my book. Wish me luck!
You can follow SPFBO 4 on Facebook if you’d like to stay apprised of the contest.
And here’s a Goodreads list of all the competing books. And a list of the books for Team Weatherwax here.
I’m very happy and excited to be a part of this, and I’d like to thank Mark Lawrence, all the bloggers, and also all the authors for taking part in this wonderful opportunity for the indie book community.
The contest will begin in August. I’ll keep you apprised.
So, one of the members of my writer’s workshop, Desiree Rowland, just started a new Word Press blog, wherein she will talk about her own writing, and the work of other women in the sf/fantasy field. (Hopefully me one day.)
Here it is: https://womeninscifiandfantasy.wordpress.com/
Go and pay her a visit, with my compliments.
The writing software Penstra has a short profile of me up today: here’s the link:
Penstra is a web-based writing software. I haven’t studied it in detail yet, but it seems to have a lot of features. I do know the basic level is free. So check it out.
So, this is cool. Charlie Brown, my editor for the Dirty Magick: New Orleans anthology that I recently placed a story in, has organized a blog tour to celebrate the publication of the book.
The first stop is at book review blog Mythical Books, with a guest post by editor Charlie, and excerpts from several of the stories in the anthology, including my story, “The Sacred Marriage of Etienne McCray.”
There is also a giveaway of five paperback copies (US only) and five Kindle copies of Dirty Magick: New Orleans. You can follow me on Twitter @kmcorby in the Rafflecopter there for an extra chance to win!
I’ll follow along with the blog tour as it progresses. I’m writing a guest post in the tour later on in the month, and I’ll link to that blog when it goes live.
This is my first blog tour ever. I’m psyched!
Atlantis Fallen 