Release Week for Unclean

The big day arrived yesterday, and Unclean (The Hexborn Chronicles Book 2) is finally live on Amazon Kindle! Check out the blurb and these early reviews!

Sometimes love comes after marriage. Sometimes peace requires a war.

 
Shiloh was born cursed, but she was raised to fight. And a fight is just what she and Silas have on their hands. The new queen is out for blood. Her allies in the church begin a purge as brutal as it is efficient. Soon, Silas sits locked in the Dark Tower, and Shiloh labors under the cruel eye of the most powerful priest in the realm . . . a man with evil ambitions of his own.

Not content to wait for help that might never come, Shiloh is determined to save herself, Silas, and the innocents who surround her. New friends help her to form a daring plan while Silas works desperately to wield influence at court from inside his prison cell. But even if Shiloh prevails, she has no idea what comes next.

Can Shiloh harness her magic in a new way to protect herself, her husband, and the people of Bryn? Can she face a future that is not the one she would have chosen? And will Silas still be by her side? 

Don't miss this sequel to the award-winning Hexborn!

Here is an Amazon Review from one of my ARC (Advance Review Copy) readers :

"Unclean" is a wonderful sequel to Hexborn, Manay's venture into fantasy adventure. Well placed for fans of Robin McKinley's The Blue Sword or The Hero and the Crown, the book deviates from the Cromwell-Tudor theme to a unique plot line filled with suspense, double cross, and heroic deeds. (And while Elizabeth was always rumored to be a witch, Shiloh actually has magical powers.)

Manay spends sufficient time establishing her characters, including a truly horrid villain, yet manages to keep the plot and action moving so the reader does not lose interest. One of the strongest references I can give in support is the morning after receiving the advance copy, I spent the day yawning at work since I stayed up all night reading. And, I still wish the third book was already available.

Grab your copy on Kindle or in paperback and see what all the fuss is about!

How to Get Free Local Press for Your Book

All authors know how difficult it is to market books. It takes enormous amounts of time and money. But there is one relatively easy way to get some free exposure for your work--getting an article in your town's local newspaper by sending them a press release.

Now, it helps if you live in a relatively small town. You Manhattanites may be out of luck. I live in a suburban city of about 100k, and I have no trouble getting the paper to print an article every time I have a book come out or win an award. You can check out two of the articles here and here.

How do I do it? By writing an effective press release.

The key to an effective press release is to write it as if it were a proper article, complete with a relevant and interesting headline and your own quotes to drum up interest. It must be well-written and concise with no errors. You want the reporter to be able to cut and paste it right into the newspaper. The less work the reporter has to do, the more likely your article is to get printed.

Here is the text of the press release for my Hexborn Kindle Scout campaign in 2018. Note how similar it is to the finished article linked above.

Award-winning Livermore author A.M. Manay tries something brand new with her latest novel, Hexborn. Manay creates an imaginary world whose characters contend with both magical and political peril and whose geography is based on our own San Francisco Bay Area.

“Unlike my previous paranormal series, which had a contemporary, urban setting, Hexbornis a more traditional ‘sword and sorcery’ fantasy. But the characters in this magical realm face problems familiar to us all: chronic illness, school bullies, difficult bosses, jealous exes, greedy enemies,” Manay shares.

The author is also trying something new on the publishing side, having entered Hexborn in the Kindle Scout competition.

Manay explains, “Kindle Scout is a process used by Amazon to choose titles for its in-house publishing imprint, Kindle Press. It’s akin to crowdsourcing, in that readers get the chance to influence the direction of the publishing industry by choosing books to nominate for publication.”

Following a thirty-day voting period, editors at Kindle Scout choose which books to publish and provide free copies to readers who nominated each winning book. Readers can learn more at http://bit.ly/hexbornscoutor http://www.ammanay.net. Hexborn will be live on Kindle Scout through March 9th.

Always include a picture of the book cover and a head shot of yourself. Depending on space constraints, those may or may not get printed.

I also include a blurb, bio, and social media links. Those don't typically get printed, but you want whoever is writing the article to have those things in front of them without having to go looking.

Finally, you want to address your release to someone by name-- no "to whom it may concern." Find out who is in charge of the arts and entertainment section and address your email to that person with the press release attached. And make sure you proofread your email! You don't want to make a careless error and have your message wind up deleted.

There you have it. It takes about a half hour of work and earns you free local publicity. It's certainly worth a try. Best of luck, and happy writing!

Local Press for Unclean

I'm pleased as punch to be mentioned in my town's local paper this week. Check out this article in the Independent about the forthcoming launch of my novel Unclean.
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The Geography of the Hexborn Chronicles

I feel like it's not really a high fantasy novel unless there is a map. Not that I'm one to ever look at it while I'm reading--I'm not much of a visual person. But I did want to have one as I was writing the Hexborn Chronicles. They say to write what you know, so I based the geography on the region where I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. I did a rough pencil sketch then hired designer Taran Lopez to make my vision beautiful.

I put the capital city where San Francisco would be located, naturally. My own town I placed in the Flats, as we are in a valley here. The San Joachin Valley became the Range. Napa and Sonoma, naturally, became the Vine. The Sierras became the Teeth. You get the idea.

You see in the map shaded areas labeled with skulls. Those are the Deadlands, places damaged by dark magic during the recent Sibling's War. Just as the war's curses marked Shiloh's body, so too did they mark the land where large battles took place, leaving them blackened and barren. In Hexborn, Shiloh discovers a way to heal portions of those lands. In Unclean, you'll see how she takes it further.

Do you look at the maps in books you are reading? Why or why not?

Inspirations for the Hexborn Chronicles

People often ask me where I get my ideas. Honestly, I'm not really sure about many of them, but there are a few I can trace back. Today, I'm sharing with you some of the inspirations behind my Hexborn Chronicles Series.

Some ideas I get from history. For example, the court in Hexborn is loosely based on that of Henry VIII. I went on a Philippa Gregory binge some years ago, and I found the people in and around the Tudor dynasty endlessly fascinating. As you may recall, Henry parted ways with the Pope because he wanted a divorce from his first wife in order to marry Anne Boleyn, partly due to his lack of a male heir. In Hexborn, King Rischar has taken over the church and cast his own wife aside for similar reasons. The Tudor line rose to power at the end of the War of the Roses, another fascinating time period in British history, in which cousins were fighting over the throne. So, I thought, what if you took royal adultery and a religious reformation, added a dash of wizards, and set it following a civil war between a brother and sister rather than between cousins? That's what inspired the political situation in the world of Hexborn.

The political situation in Unclean, book two of the series, is inspired partly by the Inquisition. When Mary became queen of England after the death of her father, Henry VIII, she married the king of Spain, bought back the Catholic Church, and started rounding up enemies and Protestants, Spanish style. In Unclean, Esta takes the throne and restores the Patriarch to power over the faith in Bryn. The church, in turn, helps her round up her own enemies along with Reformers and heretics.

As for main character Shiloh's and her hexborn condition, I think that idea began when I was thinking about Harry Potter and what would have happened if Bellatrix Lestrange had had a child. I mean, obviously, the Death Eater would be a terrible mother. But I wondered if all that dark magic she cast might affect the baby the way Voldemort's evil magic warped his appearance. What if magic could affect a baby the way some medicines can, leaving the child with a permanent disability? That question was the seed for Shiloh's character and her affliction.

As you can see, I'm influenced by history and by other fiction. You never know what will spark an idea. I hope you are interested enough to grab a copy of one of my books. Unclean will be out next week, and it is currently available for pre-order. Hexborn is on sale for two more weeks at the bargain price of $0.99. Happy reading!

Reblog: What Watching Too Much TV Taught Me About Writing

Check out my guest post on Melanie Ansley's blog here. The infographic below will give you a taste.

The Unclean Trailer

I wanted to write today about the trailer I've created for Unclean, the Hexborn sequel being released on February 19th. I did things a little differently this time. I've recently gotten my first Mac (the new Mackbook Air, which I love), so this time I played around with a template in iMovie. Take a look, and let me know what you think.

I thought I'd tell you a little about some of the images I chose. I chose these two to represent the deepening of the relationship between Shiloh and Silas that takes place over the course of the book. I don't know that I would call it a proper romance, but their bond certainly changes character.

Here is a depiction of our primary villain, Fenroh. He's a priest in the Elder's Order, fanatical supporters of the Patriarch. He's also the Patriarch's illegitimate son. He merited a brief and unflattering mention in Hexborn. Silas characterized him as "unstable." You will get to see just how right he was in the first third of Unclean.

This one is meant to represent Shiloh's biological father, Keegan, the chief of the Feralfolk. As you know from Hexborn, Shiloh and Silas both have a violent history with him. You will get to find out more about the complexity of that history over the course of Unclean.

Anyway, I hope the trailer makes you excited to read the next chapter of Shiloh's adventure. Order your copy here, and happy reading!