Monday, January 28, 2013

The Space Between: New Adult Romance Cover Reveal!!!



Title: The Space Between
Author: Victoria H. Smith
Expected release date: April 2, 2013
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Age Group: New Adult
Cover Designer: Okay Creations; http://okaycreations.net/site/
Cover reveal organized by: AToMR Tours
Links to find the book:

Add to your GoodReads Shelf:The Space Between 




Book Description:
When Drake started the night at his father’s campaign fundraiser, he never imagined he’d end it being conned into buying drugs on the West Side. Losing high-stakes poker has its consequences, but he’d repeatedly face them just to hear Lacey Douglas sing. Drake sees Lacey light up the stage, and he has to have her. But his intentions for being on her side of town turn out to be the reason he can’t.
Chicago native Lacey has dreams of the opera, but life has its obstacles. Lacey has come to know her hardships as part of living in the real world and accepts them fully. When Lacey meets the intense and invigorating Drake, a fire is lit inside her, unleashing those dreams again.
Two paths that should have never crossed prove to create the exact pairing the other needs. But when their worlds take time to catch up, everything they have is tested. Finding the space between the two sides that challenge them will be hard, but it’s the only place that will keep them together.

The Space Between is a new adult contemporary romance.


About the author:

Victoria H. Smith has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. She puts it to good use writing romance all day. She resides in the Midwest with her Macbook on her lap and a cornfield to her right. She often draws inspiration for her stories from her own life experiences, and the twenty-something characters she writes give her an earful about it.

In her free time, she enjoys extreme couponing, blogging, reading, and sending off a few tweets on Twitter when she can. She writes new adult fiction romance in the sub-genres of science fiction, urban fantasy, and contemporary, but really, anywhere her pen takes her she goes.


Author Links: Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads 



Designing a Book Cover - Tips and Resources

Let's face it: everybody says not to judge a book by its cover, but you and I both know that there is nothing better than picking up a book and loving the design on the front. Conversely, don't we tend to cringe a little bit when we come across a novel cover that doesn't look, well, professional? I'm not going to point out any specific author or go into the nitty gritty details, but even I will admit: I sometimes judge a books by its cover

If you're an Indie Author, the design and style of your novel cover is entirely up to you. That's one of the epic boons of being self-published. You have a ton of control over your creative vision. So...don't blow it! A lot of self-pubbed authors don't know how to go about designing or creating their own covers. Good news, peeps! You can hire a professional cover artist. You probably know this, but maybe you don't know where to find one. Check some of these providers: 


There are a few things to keep in mind when you're designing your novel cover: 
  1. Does it tell a story - specifically, the story of the book?
  2. Is it clean? You don't want a cover that's so busy it could double as a mosaic pattern. 
  3. Is it age-appropriate? No naked people on the cover of a YA novel, folks! 
  4. Will your cover stand out on a shelf and beg people to read it? Would you pick it up and buy it based on appearance alone? If your answer is no, then you're not done with your cover yet. 
  5.  More is less. Simplicity is always good. Think of The Hunger Games. One black background. One Mockingjay. One Title. Bingo! You got yourself a recognizable novel that says everything about the book with just a single, small image. 
Make your novel pop by giving it the cover it deserves! Take your time considering the designs and images. Maybe you don't need an illustration. Maybe you need a cover model. Or perhaps it's the other way around. Don't rush into creating your cover. Like a movie poster or trailer, we do make a snap judgement about the content inside, so make sure the aesthetic is just as polished as the interior. 

Friday, January 25, 2013

XII: Genesis (New Adult Novel Free This Weekend!)

Just an FYI that you can pick up Jason Rowe and Brian Palmer's New Adult thriller, XII: Genesis, for FREE on January 25th-27th right here on Kindle
Here's the synopsis from GoodReads:

A century after the world was predicted to end, it was indeed reborn. Under the leadership of the Overseer of New Earth, minds were united, diseases were cured, and the Earth was healed when population centers minimized mankind’s footprint, and the remainder of the planet was turned over to the will of nature. War was eradicated, the world embraced one religion, and the New Era began.

But darkness rises now, mistaken for a mere shadow cast by the bright light of human progress. It is the time of which the ancients foretold. It is the time when all things must end. It is the time of The Twelve.

Six men and six women representing all creeds and colors are supernaturally gifted, but the unlikeliest of heroes. They are barely adults by the world’s standards, but still they are called.

Only they can stand against the growing darkness – but will they stand together?

XII: Genesis is the first installment of an eight-book series in the Young Adult / New Adult genres. If action excites you, if the supernatural intrigues you, and if love compels you - then you are invited to join The Twelve in their fight against the growing darkness that threatens New Earth.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

What's in a YA Book, Thematically Speaking?

It's been interesting to watch YA books progress over the years and change into what it is today. And what is it? Basically, YA is anything that is suitable for ages 12 and up. It usually focuses on an adolescent or a young adult (High School, people!), and the thematic material you'll find inside a YA book is going to be considerably mild compared to that of an "Adult" book. 
Or is it? 
Young Adult is a lot more "Adult" than it used to be. I've seen books about teenage pregnancy marked as YA. But Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series is also YA. There is a mammoth jump in age appropriateness here - one is a lot closer to adult than the other, yet there they are, both classified as YA (12+). Lately I've been finishing up Pushing the Limits, by Katie McGarry. She is, by the way, an amazing author and a very talented storyteller. But if I had a dollar for every time her male lead dropped the F-Bomb or indulged in a sensual mental fantasy that would be better left unwritten, I'd have a lot of pocket change right now. It's a wonderful story and I ADORE romance, but I'm just pointing out:
YA is becoming more and more "Adult." 

The edginess factor that's popping up in YA books is a growing trend, and yet the bestselling novels are still stories like, The Hunger Games or Tiger's Curse. None of those are sexually graphic or laced with profanity by any stretch. I'm not dissing the use of those elements, either. I'm a writer - I understand that certain characters have to say and do certain things to be real. The male lead in my own novel swears, too! Sensuality is a part of romance. All I'm saying is, I'm seeing the line between YA and Adult literature blur. As an adult, I'm reading YA that can be insanely intense and very graphic. I walked into Barnes & Noble the other day and saw a book in the YA section that would have been better suited for an R-rated Only section of the bookstore. 

My point is, I love Young Adult fiction. Adore it. My shelves are stocked with so much YA that I could start a library in my bedroom. It just worries me that we feel like we have to inject such incredibly graphic stuff into a story to make it realistic. We don't. 
A good story will sing all by itself - and best by itself.  

Friday, January 18, 2013

State of Emergency: Release Day Blitz!!

It's here at last! State of Emergency is now officially released! This New Adult/Young Adult crossover has been waiting a long time to jump into the writing world. Here's the synopsis: 

What would you do if the world as you know it ended in an instant? 
How far would you go to survive? 

Cassidy Hart is your typical High School graduate: A little shy, a little sarcastic, and a little naive. But when an electromagnetic pulse takes down the United States, she's forced to kick into full survival mode when she gets separated from her father. 
Yeah. Things suck. 
But with the help of a handsome soldier named Chris, she just might find her dad without getting into serious trouble.
Emphasis on might. 
Oh. And there's the matter of avoiding getting killed in a world that's quickly turned into an active war zone. 
It's going to change Cassidy's life.
It's going to be a major pain in the butt.


There are so many great bloggers that are participating in the blitz, and you should definitely take the time to visit their websites. The links below will take you to interviews with the author (yours truly!), guest posts and book reviews for State of Emergency
I am so excited for everybody to read State of Emergency! As promised, here is the Prologue to this Dystopian Adventure/Romance: 





                 Prologue

I don’t know how it happened.  Nobody does. There are only theories, empty rhetoric and doomsday prophecies. None of them are right, but none of them are completely wrong, either. They all have a grain of truth. All I know is where I was and what I was doing when it happened.
The day had started out like every other day of my life.  I hit the snooze button on my alarm about five times before dragging myself out of bed. I combed back my unruly red hair, threw on some clothes, and went into the kitchen. As usual, my dad hadn’t gone to the grocery store, so breakfast consisted of burnt toast and a teaspoon of olive oil.
Because fatty acids are supposed to be healthy for you.
And because there’s nothing else to eat in my house except a can of string beans from 1999.
Being nineteen, graduated from high school and unemployed, I didn’t have much to do besides surf the internet looking for interesting stories and reading my stack of books from the library. Lately I had applied for a multitude of different jobs, including a flight attendant, car washer and hotel manager. Needless to say, none of those positions panned out for me.
I’m more of the independent type, getting paid by my dad to help him out with his job as a Los Angeles detective. He’s been letting me poke around in his cases since I was a freshman in high school. I’m good at it, too. Criminal justice, that is. I even wanted a degree in it, but since I’m flat busted broke and stuck in a two-bedroom home with an empty refrigerator, my options are kind of slim.
Anyway, after I looked for a few jobs online, I closed my laptop and started cleaning the house systematically. My dad and I lived in a small house in the middle of the outer suburbs of Los Angeles. Culver City, to be exact. It’s about ten minutes away from Hollywood. The land of spray-on tans and yoga classes.
It’s a nice place to live as long as you don’t drive about five miles in the opposite direction. In that case you’ll end up in the middle of a ghetto. A visit to the grocery store might end up becoming a drive-by shooting.
Unsurprisingly, I’m an introvert.
So that day, that regular, average day, turned out to be a day that not only changed my life – but everybody else’s.
It was the day technology turned on us.
It was the beginning of a major pain in the butt.

Add State of Emergency to your TBR Pile on Goodreads!

Grab it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble! 

State of Emergency is also available in paperback right HERE on Amazon!