https://www.amazon.com/Betrayal-Bloodlines-after-life-lessons-ebook/dp/B07NCF6V1H
Vita Post Mortem Academy
Recap of The Light of Supremazia Kindle Scout Campaign
I may not have won Kindle Scout, but I learned a heck of a lot about blogging and marketing. This blog post is recapping my 30 day campaign:
Launch on #KindleScout and a #CoverReveal
Using Real People as #Fictional #Characters – #ArtisticLicense and #TBT
The Proper #Setting for a #MagicalRealism #Book
Made Up Words, the #Language of a #Fiction #Novel
Who would you want as your #art #teacher?
#MondayBlog – Mapping Out Your Novel’s #Fantasy #World
#BookTrailer #BookMarketing and #KindleScout
My #cat Baby Thor is #marketing my #book
What Influences Your #Setting Descriptions?
Write in Your Own Voice
Technology in Literature
#BookMarketing for my #KindleScout Campaign
3 Qualities of a Great #English #Teacher
Ensuring the Proper Sequence of Events for Your #Book
Managing Your Social Media Presence – #twitter #facebook #youtube #pinterest #wordpress #tumblr
A Cast of #Actors for Your #Book
#BookMarketing and #TagsForLikes.com and #Einstein
New York, the City I Love
That Time I Elbowed Jimmy Fallon
GhostFeed and Wikispirit
My Kindle Scout Experience
Introducing The Light of Supremazia on Amazon
GhostFeed and Wikispirit
Its fun inventing things for my novel. I love putting a fantasy twist on existing items. Here are two of my favorite from my book, The Light of Supremazia. It’s trending as HOT on Kindle Scout! Three days left to vote for it on Kindle Scout! CLICK HERE!!!
GhostFeed is a social, content-driven news and media site reporting all things relating to the spirit-seeing world. It has updates on the latest spirit gossip and nostalgic lists of spirit-seeing pasts.
Wikispirits is a collaborative encyclopedia about all things spirit related. Want to know who was the first principal of Vita Post Mortem Academy? Look it up on Wikispirits.
Vote for The Light of Supremazia on Kindle Scout here!
What do you invent for your fantasy novels?
A Cast of #Actors for Your #Book
I think coming up with a cast for your book is a great exercise. Just like pinning ideas on a pinterest page, it helps you determine qualities of your characters and brainstorm traits you didn’t think about.
I put together a cast for my book currently posted on Kindle Scout, The Light of Supremazia! It’s about kids who can see spirits and attend a high school run by famous dead people.
Jules Winklevoss would be played by Kiernan Shipka, also known as Sally Draper from the Mad Men series. Just like Jules Winklevoss, she can be tough, brave, snotty, and vulnerable at the same time.
Jules has two best friends at Vita Post Mortem Academy. Dahlia Langdon is the shy and awkward friend who grew up in a prestigious, broken family. She would be played by Ariel Winter from Modern Family.
Jules’s other best friend, Logan Klomp, is a know-it-all, lovesick half-Asian dude who doesn’t care about fitting in. He would be played by Nickelodeon’s Ryan Potter.
Jules’s equally brazen, but less approachable, sister, Sharpee Winklevoss would be played by Emma Watson. Honestly, I picked Emma because she looks a bit like Kiernan, and of course I loved her as Hermione.
Sharpee’s best (and only) friend is Chase Hastings, a rich kid, living in his older brother Ryder Hastings the Third‘s perfect shadow. Chase and Ryder would be played by Nash Overstreet (from the band Hot Chelle Rae) and Chord Overstreet (Glee).
Vote for The Light of Supremazia on Kindle Scout!
What exercises do you use to understand your #characters better? Share with #author @alanasiegel (click to tweet)
#MondayBlog – Mapping Out Your Novel’s #Fantasy #World
When reading fantasy novels, the world created needs to make sense. The reader needs to be able to picture where the action takes place. Here are examples from my favorite books.
Hogwarts – J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series
Camp Half-Blood – Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series
A Game of Thrones – George R.R. Martin’s series
Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien’s series
Vita Post Mortem Academy – my (after)life lessons series
To vote for Vita Post Mortem Academy to be published by Amazon, click on The Light of Supremazia Kindle Scout page book #1 in the (after)life lessons series.
How do you map out your novel’s #fantasy world? See what author @alanasiegel thinks (Click to tweet)
Maps from your favorite #fantasy #books – check out @alanasiegel ‘s post (Click to tweet)
The Proper #Setting for a #MagicalRealism #Book
What is magical realism?
Magical realism takes place in a world like the one we know, but there is one thing that makes it unreal. Perhaps there are lurking vampires, or the main character is cursed, or you can buy magic spells from the store on the corner. The trick with magical realism is the reader has to believe the world really does exist. The master of magical realism herself, JK Rowling, made us all have hope that our letter for Hogwarts would one day come in the mail. We believed wizards existed in our world. (believed in the past tense? Some of us still believe).
A World for Your Book Within the Existing World
Writing magical realism might sound easy since most of the decisions about the world are already decided, but I think its the opposite. Similar to using real people in a fictional story (as I wrote about in my last post), there is a ton of fact-checking that needs to be completed in order to convince your readers the world within our world is real.
Question #1: Where do you build your world?
The proper setting is tough. How many times did you read about Harry taking the Hogwarts Express and wonder where the final location really was? Or read about Percy Jackson heading out to Montauk toward Camp Halfblood and try to picture it in your head?
Vita Post Mortem Academy
When writing my magical realism novel, The Light of Supremazia, my editor and I went back and forth on the school’s location. The world around Vita Post Mortem Academy was exactly like the one we know today, except there needed to be a remote section of the woods, North of San Francisco, where a creepy institution run by spirits was located. We had a discussion about whether redwood trees grew in the area and if it was anywhere near Bodie, a real life ghost town. In the end, we realized that if you couldn’t see spirits, you wouldn’t notice much more than a massive institution surrounded by an endless necropolis.
Can you picture this edifice as your high school?
Vita Post Mortem Academy:
To see more pictures of The Light of Supremazia’s setting, check out the (after)life lessons pinterest page.
Is the #setting for #magicalrealism more difficult 2 #write than building a new world? @alanasiegel thinks so (Click to tweet)
Author @alanasiegel thinks #MagicalRealism #writing needs serious fact-checking. What do you think? (Click to tweet)
Vote author @alanasiegel for #TheLightOfSupremazia #KindleScout campaign here #amwriting (Click to tweet) #YALit
Optimist Superheroes 