Book Thieves with Georgeann Swiger

Today I'm delighted to introduce you to YA author Georgeann Swiger. Her debut paranormal romance, ADORNED, has just hit the shelves. But today's conversation isn't about angels, it's about thieves.

Over to Georgeann...

Book piracy is a growing menace to authors and publishers. However, I’ve discovered something just as disturbing--bloggers putting a positive spin on book piracy. These bloggers claim there are many “gray” areas with this issue. Yet, the gray areas they mention are only gray to the people benefiting from this practice. As an author, I don’t see anything gray about it. Book piracy is as clear as the waters of the Caribbean.

“It’s NOT stealing.” The bloggers who preach this line of thinking really wave around their muskets over this. Yeah, so technically, according to laws in the U.S., it’s infringement. However, to the author who spends months or years writing a novel, then spends months editing, and then spends many more months promoting the book, piracy sure feels like stealing. It’s funny how a lot of spending is done by the authors and publishers, but these takers feel entitled to get something for nothing. In my view, book piracy is the same as shoplifting. These people lurk around cyberspace and sneaking intellectual property on to their computers without paying for it the same way a shoplifter goes into a bookstore, sneaks a book into his coat and leaves.

“Book piracy is good for authors.” Some bloggers toss around this wet mop like they’re swabbing the starboard side of the boat. “But dear author,” they say. “This gets your book to the masses so you can be discovered. Once readers know how great you are, they’ll be happy to pay for your book.” Well guess what, bestselling authors have their books pirated every day. According to this line of reasoning, readers should be purchasing popular novels, not getting them from some hacker.

“Sometimes ebooks are just too expensive”. W-w-what?! Let me put this into perspective. I’d love to have a yacht, but it costs too much. Is that a good enough reason for me to go out and hijack one off the open waters? If I can’t afford something, I don’t buy it. Period. Here’s a thought. If you don’t have the cash for a $3.99 ebook, start saving. And if you feel $9.99 is too much to pay, use the library or wait until the price comes down.

Just because you put a positive spin on something doesn’t make it right. Bloggers touting the positives of book piracy need to get their heads out of the fog. Book piracy is wrong. Bloggers who defend book piracy need to stop rocking the boat. All they’re doing is help sink authors while throwing a lifeline to a bunch of thieves.   

What are your thoughts on book piracy?

Georgeann Swiger earned her degree in journalism from West Virginia University, and then spent five years as an anchor/reporter at WBOY-TV in Clarksburg, WV. After having children, she left television news to be a stay at home mom. During that time, she discovered creative writing was more fun than writing about real life tragedy. Imagining interesting characters and having them come to life on the page is now her passion. When she’s not writing, she works as a substitute teacher. She lives in Reedsville, West Virginia with her husband, two kids, a beagle dog and a temperamental cat who tries to rule the house.

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When seventeen-year-old Anya finds out she’s actually an angel being trained to protect humanity, she discovers that becoming an angel has nothing to do with wings and haloes. For Anya, becoming an angel has to do with death—her death.

Micah, the angelic soldier ordered to protect her until she transitions from human to angel, promises her death will be a glorious experience as long as she follows his rules. But getting Anya through this life and to the next isn’t as simple as Micah expects. His job becomes even more difficult after he unwittingly performs a miracle that exposes Anya’s hidden angelic light.

With her secret out, Hell’s legions begin targeting her. Unfortunately, Hell’s minions are the least of Micah’s worries. He’s more concerned about the forbidden human emotions he’s developed toward Anya. Even more troubling, is she seems to love him too. And giving in to those feelings, could mean dire consequences for them both.

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A Natter with Indie YA Author: Sara Hubbard

A couple of months ago, I signed with a wonderful indie publisher, Etopia Press. Asides from the thrill and excitement of knowing my first YA title - Obscura Burning - would soon be released (December 7, so excited!), I also got to meet some amazing new authors. Sara Hubbard is one of them. Her recently released book - Blood, She Read - is a fantastic paranormal romance for fans of books like Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Boys. You can read my full review of Sara's lovely debut over here.

First a little about Sara:
Sara Hubbard is the author of young adult books. Her debut novel BLOOD, SHE READ recently released and is a NEORWA Cleveland Rocks winner and a RCRW Duel on the Delta finalist. 

Sara was born in Australia to British parents, but has lived in Nova Scotia, Canada for the majority of her life. She began writing when she was ten years old; and her poetry earned her a spot as a young author in a local competition. After that, she moved on to writing short stories about a group of crime-fighting preteens called the Super Sleuths. She loved the time she spent writing, but took a detour from it when she began junior high. She quickly became distracted and preoccupied by all things social, like hanging out with friends and dating boys... And she spent an awful lot of time on the phone.

After high school she completed a degree in business, a graduate diploma in human resources and recently completed her degree in nursing. She didn't return to writing until about four years ago, after the birth of her two children. When she's not procrastinating, she spends her time mothering her two children, writing, and working as an RN in the military.

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But chatting to Sara in 140 character increments on Twitter just wasn't enough, so I asked her to sit down and answer a few of my questions about her life as an author and avid reader.

1. Tell a little about yourself, what you do when you’re not writing, what are your aspirations for the future?

I am a registered nurse with the military. Currently, I am doing a rotation in a local emergency room. It’s a little chaotic there and a little bit stressful, but very satisfying. In the future, I hope to lessen my hours as a nurse and spend more time writing. I love nursing, but writing is my passion. 

2. When and why did you start writing?

I wrote as a child, but I kind of moved away from it as a teen and as a young adult. I didn't return to it until after the birth of my two children. Becoming a mother was a huge adjustment for me since I hadn't spent much time around babies before--like ever. And I had a bout of depression as well after giving birth to my first. Writing helped me to escape from the stress of my life and allowed me to take some time for myself. Since I began writing again, about five years ago, I've never been happier or more relaxed. 

3. If you could only read one book over and over again for the rest of your

life, what would it be and why?

Oh, gosh. I have a lot of favorites. I've read the Twilight books multiple times and my most recent fave is Beautiful Disaster by Jaime McGuire. But if I have to pick one book, it would be a classic. Pride & Prejudice. Cliché, I know, but I love the story. 

4. Give us some back story about Blood, She Read, where and when did you write it?

I began writing Blood, She Read in the spring of 2011. I was in my third year of nursing and I found I couldn't get my main character, Petra, out of my head. I wrote it during the day, sometimes in class, and late at night. I had major writer's block when I reached the 20,000 word mark and it took several months before I got back on track. Then, I wrote the remainder of the book in like five or six weeks. 

5. What inspired your story? 

A vivid imagination? In my head, I kept seeing this scene of a young girl with a gift, watching through the stair rails as a man came to her house and begged her mother to let the girl read his fortune. I imagined his wife being sick and him wanting answers. Obviously this doesn’t happen in Blood, She Read, but the idea for the book kind of morphed from this one scene.

6. What was your favorite part of Blood, She Read to write?

There is this one scene in the book where Petra is covered in a concrete-like concoction meant to heal her and her mother whacks her with a mallet to get the stuff off once she’s healed. It was kind of twisted, kind of fun, and I smiled the entire time I wrote it. It really spoke to the perverse nature of her mother.

7. Your book's going to be made into a movie, who would you cast in the main roles?

Oh my God!!! My book is going to be in a movie! LOL. Wouldn’t that be awesome? For Petra, I would absolutely cast Emma Stone. For Finn, I would cast Ben Barnes, and for Tommy, I’m thinking Kellan Lutz with a Mohawk.

 

(Not a bad looking cast, Sara. When is this movie being released?)

8. Are you a Pantser or Plotter? Why?

Complete plotter. I hate rewrites, and I find the more you plot, the less you have to edit. Also, if I know what is coming next it helps to prevent writer’s block which is seriously awful.

9. Do you have any tricks to your trade, bottomless coffee, a magic pen, a special muse?

Hmm. I don’t know. I drink a lot of Diet Pepsi. But I think the best thing I ever did for my writing was to join a writer’s group. I belong to Romance Writers of America and my local chapter is Romance Writers of Atlantic Canada. They’re amazing and always willing to help and teach me in every way they can.

10. If you could be any fictional character for a day, who would it be and why?

Great question. I can think of many characters I’d like to be, but I think I would choose Sookie Stackhouse from the Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse novels (True Blood on HBO is based on them). I am in love with Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsguard) and I want to have his vampire babies. :) Plus, how cool would it be to live in a world where fairies, werewolves, and vampires lived?

Huge thank you to Sara for taking time away from writing to have a natter with me. Be sure to check out Blood, She Read. I think I need to reread it just so I can picture Ben Barnes as Finn :)

Seventeen-year old Petra Maras lives a charmed life—but only in the magical sense. Her absentee father is a criminal, her mother is emotionally dead, and everyone at her new school knows she comes from a family of witches. All she wants is to be normal, but this is impossible given her family. When a cop approaches her and asks her to use her psychic abilities to help him solve a murder she is unsure if she should say yes. Magic has brought her nothing but grief, but in the end she agrees, thinking it might help make up for all the horrible things she did in her past. She sees the scene of the crime but can’t hear a name or see a face. This proves problematic when the main suspect decides he wants to date her.

Vampires are rising from the dead...again - reviving paranormal

For a long time now I've been hearing - NO VAMPIRE STORIES, which was killing me. I LOVE vampire stories AND I have my own concept twist on vampire and werewolf relationships that I want to write some day. But after Twilight the market got saturated and agents were saying vampire stories are too hard to sell.

But when I saw Holly Black announce on Twitter that she had signed a deal for a vampire novel my response was a fist pump worthy "YES!" (read about it here). Holly Black is one of my favourite authors and for someone with her credibility being prepared to write about bloodsuckers means there's hope that a few more new novels dedicated to the sexist of the undead will emerge.

But while I love vampires, I know more creatures are needed to ensure the genre has a pulse on the bookshelves. I've researched a lot of mythology and there are some great creatures that I would love to see feature more prominently in books: 

1. Gargoyles: Oh how I love Goliath from the The Gargoyles cartoon series. I've actually included a gargoyle in one of my works in progress. They are strong and tough, yet extremely vulnerable at the same time.
2. Centaurs: They are manly and a horse! Plus they have a natural aloofness that just makes you want to get inside their heads. Strong and silent and intriguing.
3. Imps: I want to see the mischief, the fun, not just the dark side of the fae world.
4. Pegasus: Yes unicorns rock, but the winged mythical horses could add a whole new dimension to travel for a MC.

So that's my top four under represented creatures. What creatures would you like to read about?

NOTE: For those of you hanging out for the results of the pitch contest with Mandy Hubbard, please note she is working her way through the HUGE number of entries. Once Mandy has decided the ones she wants to see, she will have a guest blog post to announce them.

Me and My "Girly" Books

So, the other week I was reading Elizabeth Miles' upcoming YA debut, Fury, and was asked by a classmate if it was "one of those girly books". I simply said no and continued reading. Despite my rather casual response,  I actually get really irritated when people say things like that to me. So what if the book I'm reading is "girly"? So what if I like "girly" books? And what even constitutes as a "girly" book?

It's no secret that most of today's YA paranormal romances are geared specifically toward teen girls. As a result, people associate those books with, well, girls. And I think that's where the "problem" lies. Why do we draw certain connections between things and why do they matter to us? I know marketing certain books for a certain audience helps, but I also feel like it alienates readers, too.

So, readers of YATopia, do you think of books as "girly" or "boyish" books? What do you think of this labeling system?

Love Story: My Theme Song for YA PNR

As many of you know, I'm not only a writer of novels, but a writer of songs. Most of you probably know me from my song that HarperTeen is using as the official song for Lauren Oliver's novel, Delirium, or my song inspired by Sea by Heidi R. Kling.

Anyway, I thought I'd debut a "new" (new to you, ancient to me) song here on YATopia and get my music to a different range of readers. Here's a little ditty I wrote/sang/played called "Love Story" and I hope you like it! The lyrics were inspired by Stephenie Meyer's New Moon, but then I realized they pretty much sum up most YA paranormal romance novels, haha.

Happy listening!

Speaking of music, don't forget to check out my Delirium giveaway! HERE

Is Paranormal Done?

With so many books out in the paranormal market, has the genre become so saturated it is no longer hot to buy?

I'm going to tell you why I think the answer is no to that. And bare in mind, I am an unpublished author (hopefully that'll change at some point in my life) and have no real experience in the publishing world or an editor house.

The great thing about the paranormal genre and even urban fantasy, depending on how in depth you want to go, is how much you can bend reality to fit your story. How much you can take one aspect, switch it around, and create something original. Okay, you might decide a vampire is what you really want to have as your main paranormal focus. But what you do with that vampire is completely up to you.

I hear a lot of negative feedback regarding a few 'done' paranormal aspects. Vampires, werewolves, fairies, ghosts, demons, angels... You name it, it'll get a bad rap at some point. Right now I'm seeing a lot of Greek retellings. However, the paranormal aspect might be the same, but the plot should definitely not be.

Just because there are a lot of vampire books, doesn't mean you can't write one and make it your own. You migh want to do something with them that hasn't been done before. You could do the same with fairies and angels etc. And the best thing about the paranormal is that we KNOW it doesn't exsist, and while my next point may be met with some argument, you don't have to stick to the rules in paranormal books. You could switch up your werewolves a bit. You could have an angel who doesn't actually have physical wings. Or, like a book I recently read, the angels could actually be the bad guys.

See, the possibilities are endless. Paranormal/fantasy gives readers a chance to be in a world they can never be in otherwise. We all want to get away from bills, or husbands, or kids for maybe half an hour a day, and what better than into a world so unlike our own? I think a lot of appeal lies behind that. Which is why I don't think we'll have anything to worry about when it comes to the paranormal genre. There's always going to be a demand for it because there always has.

What do you guys think? Is anything so 'overdone' it's taboo?? And why? How can we change this?

Oh, and don't forget to check out my twitter pitch contest going on over at my personal blog, Beyond Words. Hope you join in!!

The Tuesday Twaddle - The Anti Valentine's Day

Firstly, I have a confession to make. I totally forgot it was my turn to post today. Oopsie! AND the YAtopia gang has been doing the whole homage to love and romance, and after a somewhat crappy Valentine’s Day, I’m not really feeling the love. So, I’m breaking ranks with my fellow bloggers (sorry guys) and I’m going turn viciously on the day that is all pink and fluffy.

I’ve always hated St Valentine’s Day. From the moment I hit puberty, I was painfully aware that I was not one of lovelies who was going to be inundated with balloons, cards, messages of undying love, and heart shaped chockies. There were always the groups of squealing girls in school showing off their Valentine's swag and trying to guess what hottie from the boy's school next to us fancied the pants of them.

So I ignored all things teen romance and scorned anything that came close to resembling pink and heart shaped. Let’s be honest, most of those girls probably sent that swag to themselves. I kind of guessed it at the time, and I’m fairly sure of it now. Fourteen year old boys have better things to spend their cash on.

And if there’s one thing we learn from all these gorgeously romantic books that we read (and write), it is that life isn’t supposed to be roses and chocolates. All the best romantic couples from both film and literature had to suffer for their love. Indeed, in most movies the pink and fluffy couples are usually first to bite the big one. It’s the hopelessly mismatched, seemingly doomed relationships that capture our hearts.

They say romance is dead… well I say, yeah they’re so right! In fact, in a lot of the most amazingly romantic stories it helps to be dead. Let’s face it, zombies, vampires, and ghosts make for the best boyfriends/girlfriends, and I believe them to be a product of the imagination of the thirteen year old in all of us, who secretly watched the pink orgy that is Valentine’s Day and quietly seethed.

Werewolves, Vampires, and Love! Oh, My!

Hey, everyone. So sorry for being late. The weather here has been quite cold and snowy, causing schools to close and whatnot, so I'm a bit thrown off. I hope you all are doing well, though, and staying safe and warm. :-)

Today I would like to discuss my genre: young adult paranormal romance. This is quite popular, isn't it? What with that little book called Twilight and all, haha. For me, there's nothing better than a love story that crosses the natural world and into the supernatural. It adds an extra thrill to it, something fantastical that captivates me. People say love overcomes all obstacles and I think that saying is illustrated beautifully in paranormal romance.

But as I mentioned earlier, this is a popular genre, one that is so huge Barnes and Noble made a new section for it in the teen department. To be honest, I'm nervous to break onto the scene and try to make a name for myself. The publishing world is competitive in general, but even more so within genres. Does this mean I'm going to stop writing paranormal romance? Nope. Not a chance. It's a genre I love and want to continue trying my hand at. The genre is always growing and changing, and so am I as a writer, so why not grow together? If anything, the competition is going to push me harder to write better stories. It's going to be tough, as is writing in general, but all the hard work will be worth it in the end. It already has paid off. :-D

So, my fellow writers and readers, what are trends in paranormal romance are you growing tired of? What are things you'd like to see more of? Writers, do you think it's hard to compete in this market?