A snippet from J.L. Logosz & Vera Valentine’s spicy science fiction romance, Planet Oster: Fertility Fusion (The Holiday Hedonism Series).
Quotes
Author: .
Wrong Genre Covers
This suggestion came to us from Rachel Corsini, who asked us for Peter Pan as chick lit. Tweet us and if Rachel likes your suggestion, she’ll make on in a future issue of the newsletter.
Quotes
A snippet from Rohan’s psychological science fiction short story, Ex-Mech. Read it for free here.
Mushroom Stew and Rosemary Taters to Pair with The Hobbit
Fiction To Sink Your Teeth Into, a feature from author and professional chef Rohan O’Duill!
This month I opened up suggestions for recipe pairings to the Twitterverse, and by far the biggest response was for LOTR with mushrooms and taters.
While Tolkien listed off a lot of foods from the Shire, he tended not to get into recipes. I have taken a little liberty with the tomatoes as they were not mentioned, but with land borders to warmer places, I am sure they could have got their hands on them.
Serves 2/3
Wrong Genre Covers
This month’s suggestion comes from Twitter, where a reader asked us for The Gruffalo as dystopian sci-fi. Tweet us and if Rachel likes your suggestion, she’ll make on in a future issue.
Book Report Corner
by Zilla N.
Vita Nostra is by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko, translated from the original Russian by Julia Meitov Hersey.
You need to read it.
Immediately.
Stop reading this newsletter, go to your library website, and reserve a copy. Download an app and buy it on your phone. Don’t hesitate. I’m not asking the impossible.
This book is stunning. It defies explanation in its celestial beauty, its cosmic horror, its deep, dark reality. Vita Nostra is the object, and other books are shadows on the cave wall.
I’m not doing a very good job explaining it. How can you explain a new state of being, an alteration of the mind which leaves you forever changed, a word reverberating?
Let me try again. It’s a book about a magical boarding school, but not like that. It’s a book about the corruption of academia, twisted by power without empathy. It’s a book about the joy and isolation of knowledge. It’s a book about the creation of words. It’s a book that knows that it is a book, and that revels in this knowledge, and you will revel too. It’s a book that will haunt your dreams, and you’ll be grateful, because that means another moment exploring its world.
Read Vita Nostra. You don’t have time to wait.
Cover Design Workshop
Your book cover is your most powerful marketing tool for your writing.
Discover how to judge a book by its cover! How do great covers get made? Learn which questions to ask, which design pitfalls to avoid, and how your cover can bring your story to life.
This free workshop is aimed at both self-publishing authors and those working with a publisher. Attendees will have the option to submit a cover concept for their manuscript along with a 250-word description of their writing for critique. Facilitated by author and book designer, Rachel Rosen. Register to attend on Aug 12, 7 PM EST.
#FlipPit
This Thursday May 26th, there will be a pitching event like no other.
The first of its kind.
It’s time to turn the tables…
#FlipPit is a twitter event where literary agents and presses pitch to authors.
Rules:
- Agents and presses can make their pitches between 8am and 8pm EST
- Agents and presses can post up to 3 pitches during this time.
- Agents and presses write their pitch as a tweet thread with three tweets:
- First tweet is for your manuscript wish list
- Second tweet is to tell everyone a bit about yourself
- Third tweet is to tell authors how they can query you.
- We suggest that agents and presses pin their tweet thread so it’s easy for authors to figure out how to get in touch.
- Agents and presses must be open to queries to participate.
- Likes are for authors only, but RT and QT are encouraged to support agents and presses in the community. Acquiring is hard and lonely, and agents and presses need love too!
- We have confirmed that a range of authors will be participating covering a wide variety of genres. These include speculative fiction, science fiction, and epistololoary blingblingroman. Maybe more!
It’s time for agents and presses to find their perfect literary match. The authors are ready to hit like.
AGE CATEGORIES (Let everyone know what age group you work with)
#PB = Picture Book
#C = Children’s
#CB = Chapter Book
#MG = Middle Grade
#YA = Young Adult
#NA = New Adult
#A = Adult
GENRES (Let everyone know what genres you represent)
#AC = Action/Adventure
#CF = Christian Fiction
#CON = Contemporary
#CLIFI = ⌛ Climate fiction
#E = 🍆 Erotica
#F = 🧙♀️ Fantasy
#FIC = General Fiction
#FLF = Flash Fiction
#EBR = 💌 Epistololoary Blingblingroman
#GF = Gothic Fiction
#GN = Graphic Novel
#H = 🤡 Horror
#HA = 🤪 Humour
#HF = Historical Fiction
#HR = Historical Romance
#LF = Literary Fiction
#M = 🧐 Mystery
#MAG = Magazine
#MEM = Memoir
#NVA = Novella
#NF = 😴 Non-fiction
#P = Paranormal
#PM = Poetry Collection
#POEM = Poem
#PR = 🧛 Paranormal Romance
#R = 😘 Romance
#RS = Romantic Suspense
#SF = 👾 SciFi
#SHR = Short Story
#SHRT = Short Story Collection
#SPF = 👽 Speculative Fiction
#T = 💣 Thriller
#UF = Urban Fantasy
#UP = Upmarket
#W = Western
#WF = Woman’s Fiction
Additional hashtags (optional):
#BVM = Black Voices Matter
#DIS = Disability subject matter
#FP = Fat Positive
#IMM = Immigrant
#IRMC = Interracial/Multicultural subject matter
#LGBT = LGBTQIA+ subject matter
#MH = Mental Health subject matter
#ND = Neurodiverse subject matter
#OWN = Own Voices
#POC = Author is a Person of Color
#TV = Trans Voices
Our Core Message
The writing community and the publishing industry often seem to be at odds with one another. #FlipPit is a reminder that we are all part of the same team and working towards the same goal. Writing can be a wonderful and enjoyable experience. Let’s focus on all the positive things that brought us together.
But Wait—There’s More!
Announcing the Twitterary Literary Awards
To go along with #flippit on the 26th of May, we will hold the first ever Twitterary Literary Awards.
The agent and press who has the most interaction with the #writingcommunity during flippit will be bestowed with this coveted award.
It all started as a joke …
It all started as a joke. Zilla posted a reverse Manuscript Wishlist tweet, inviting agents to query her instead of the reverse.
The Night Beats community piled in on the joke, and pretty soon we’d invented our own (fictional) Twitter Pitch Party, #FlipPit. We wrote some copy, Madame made a graphic, and Rohan tweeted out the event.
The only problem was…everyone loved the idea. Writers thought it was a great way to find new agents and presses to query. An agent said they’d love an event to get their manuscript wishlist seen by authors. We had somehow accidentally stumbled on a winner.
Back to the drawing board (writing board?) and we turned the rules for #FlipPit into something a bit less absurd. Though hopefully still with a taste of the original fun!
See our next post for the real rules for #FlipPit. We hope that the writing community enjoys this version of #FlipPit as much as we loved making it!
Giveaway
Nicole Northwood is running a pre-order campaign for her new book (under pen name Nicole Bea) Beneath the Starlit Sea. If you pre-order the eBook and send proof of purchase to her on Instagram or Twitter, she will mail you a copy of an exclusive print with a secret letter written on the back.
Beneath the Starlit Sea is a new adult / adult fantasy romance comparable to The Witcher, with lush worlds, sweet scenes between the main character and her love interest, and a fox who helps save the day.
Sorceress Illyse prefers to isolate herself from the age-old conflict between her coven and the humans of Sjökanten, but not at the expense of her own life. Captured by the king’s men, she is threatened with the ultimate demise for sorceresses—being forever imprisoned in ore—unless she manages to put an end to the gruesome murders of human citizens at the hands of a mysterious sea creature.
Bound by an iron band that limits her power, Illyse, and her fox familiar, join with Garit Darling, a medical practitioner and an enigma unto himself. Together, they delve deep into forgotten lore and forbidden romantic entanglements, despite a ban on relationships between sorceresses and humans. However, when it is discovered that Garit’s past is more closely tied to their investigation than either initially realizes, soon their passion and distraction from the crimes may just be at the cost of Illyse’s potential freedom… and Garit’s life.
Copies can be pre-ordered here.
