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Category Archives: Self-Promotion

The Wand that Rocks the Cradle—Author Interview with Joanna Hoyt

29 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by Oren Litwin in Lagrange Books, Self-Promotion

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Tags

author interview, interview, Kickstarter, short story anthology

Thanks for checking out The Wand that Rocks the Cradle! Periodically, we will be publishing author interviews or essays to help you get to know them better. Today, we are joined by author Joanna Hoyt, who contributed the short story “Legacy.'”

***

If you had to tell someone, “If you like this person’s stories, you would like mine too,” who would you pick?

That’s a hard question.  I think my short stories share some common features with the writings of Elizabeth Goudge, Edith Pargeter, and Ursula Le Guin…but when I say this, a rather loud voice in the back of my mind says “Well! Giving ourselves airs, aren’t we?” and a quieter voice suggests that Le Guin and Goudge might not have approved of each other, though I am not at all sure they might not have liked each other.  But if someone liked all three of those authors, I think they’d find something to like in my stories as well.

What attracted you to writing?

The same thing that attracted me to breathing, I think.  I craved stories as far back as I can remember—I wanted to hear them, read them, tell them. I wrote my first story when I was three. After illustrating the first page I realized I had completely misunderstood my main character…

(Read more…)

The Wand that Rocks the Cradle: a Kickstarter Campaign

28 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by Oren Litwin in Lagrange Books, Self-Promotion

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anthology, Kickstarter, publishing, short story anthology

Families are full of magic. To celebrate that magic, Lagrange Books is proud to present The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, our forthcoming anthology of fantasy short stories from a fantastic group of authors.

Pre-order with our Kickstarter campaign to access exclusive rewards, including five bonus stories only available to Kickstarter backers! You can even get your own story critiqued by the anthology’s editor, get a full edit from anthology author Joanna Hoyt, or a custom flash fiction from anthology author WO Hemsath!

Check out all this and more!

Coming this Sunday: First Look at “The Wand that Rocks the Cradle”!

24 Wednesday Apr 2019

Posted by Oren Litwin in Lagrange Books, Self-Promotion

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Family, Fantasy, Kickstarter, pre-order, short stories, short story anthology

I’m so excited, I can hardly wait—the Kickstarter for The Wand that Rocks the Cradle: Magical Stories of Family is going live this Sunday!

We’re going to have all kinds of great content over the next month: interviews with contributing authors, dramatic readings of story excerpts, and more.

If you enjoy fantasy, and you also enjoy stories exploring family, and you definitely enjoy fantasy stories exploring family… then don’t miss The Wand that Rocks the Cradle! You can pre-order starting on Sunday, and get all kinds of cool backer rewards too.

Looking forward!

Coming Soon: “The Wand that Rocks the Cradle”

14 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by Oren Litwin in Lagrange Books, Self-Promotion

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

anthology, coming soon, Family, Fantasy, Kickstarter

Sorry for the radio silence recently! You’ll be happy to know that it’s because:

  1. I’ve been mailing out the paperback books to Kickstarter backers of The Odds Are Against Us,  and, of more general interest,
  2. We’re getting ready to launch another Kickstarter for the next anthology!

This one is the “Family” fantasy anthology which we announced back in December. I am pleased to reveal that the anthology’s title will be The Wand that Rocks the Cradle: Magical Stories of Family.

We have a great lineup of authors for you, and the stories will take your breath away. You’ll be able to pre-order your copy soon, along with all kinds of fun bonuses; so if you want to know when the Kickstarter goes live, sign up here and be sure to check “Fantasy Fiction.”

Editing this collection is so much fun! I can’t wait to get it into your hands.

“The Odds Are Against Us” Gets Some Love

12 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by Oren Litwin in Self-Promotion

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anthology, james reasoner, review, short story anthology

Our recent anthology, The Odds Are Against Us, just got a glowing review from James Reasoner, an incredibly prolific author of Western fiction. (Seriously, he’s written over three hundred and fifty books!)

He writes: I backed the Kickstarter for this anthology, and now that it’s been published and I’ve read it, I’m glad I did. It’s an excellent collection of military fiction, some with contemporary settings, some historical. I’ve always liked war stories, and these are very well done. My favorites are…

Oops! I guess we ran out of room on the blog or something. Oh well, I guess you’ll have to click on over to Reasoner’s blog to read his favorites, huh?

And don’t forget to buy your copy!

OAAU Final Cover

New Release: The Odds Are Against Us

22 Friday Feb 2019

Posted by Oren Litwin in Self-Promotion, War, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

anthology, Kindle Unlimited, Military, new book, new fiction, new release, short stories

I’m pleased to say that Liberty Island Media, our publisher, has just released The Odds Are Against Us for Kindle! Check it out!

Plus, if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, you can read the book for free!

The paperback edition will be coming soon, and I’ll let you know when it does. We’re very excited to finally get this fantastic book in people’s hands. Enjoy!

If you like the book, please help us out by leaving a reader review on Amazon. It only takes a few sentences to tell people what you liked about the book, and it makes a big difference. Thanks!

“The Odds Are Against Us,” coming soon!

11 Monday Feb 2019

Posted by Oren Litwin in Self-Promotion, Writing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

anthology, coming soon, cover art, short story anthology

I am pleased to report that my first anthology project, The Odds Are Against Us, is nearing publication by Liberty Island Media. We even have shiny new cover art! Behold:

OAAU Final Cover

More details forthcoming as they get nailed down. After we launch, I also plan to do a post comparing the experience of working with a small press versus self-publishing my other anthology, and the pros and cons of each. So stay tuned!

Creating Story Conflicts with Politics

31 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by Oren Litwin in Better Fantasy, Politics for Worldbuilders, Self-Promotion, Writing

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anthology, Fantasy, short stories, short story anthology, writing

(This post is part of Politics for Worldbuilders, an occasional series.)

For a long time now, I’ve been slowly accumulating material in the “Politics for Worldbuilders” series, which will eventually become a book with the same title. I think I’ve managed to cover all the topics necessary, but now I need to revise each section and create writing exercises. In the meantime, here is a concrete example of how I used some of the concepts to write strong fiction.

Recently I edited and published Ye Olde Magick Shoppe, a collection of twelve fantasy short stories. One of the stories is mine, written under the pen name of “Jake Lithua.” It was directly inspired by my studies of politics, and in this post, I’ll be showing you how.

In the story’s world, the Eridari Empire has established colonies in a new land across the ocean, which it has modestly called New Erida. Its plantations there are worked by slaves, captured or bought from the indigenous peoples living in the hills around the colonial cities. Nevertheless, the reach of the colonial troops is limited, and they cannot simply take whatever they want. To access the richest treasures in this new land, colonists need to trade with the locals—a risky proposition, given that these are the same colonists who work the plantations with indigenous slaves!

The parallels with Africa and South America are fairly obvious. Beyond that, however, the setup borrows liberally from James C. Scott’s The Art of Not Being Governed. In particular, Scott notes that urbanized states often took slaves from stateless foraging peoples—but just as often, it was competing stateless groups who were raiding each other, and selling the losers to the city-dwellers.

Moreover, the foraging peoples often had much greater penetration into wild country than did urban powers, which meant that they could gather valuables such as spices, exotic animals, or gems and then sell them. In fact, for most of human history until the past two or three centuries, states and the surrounding stateless peoples lived in a kind of uneasy symbiosis, alternating between war (in both directions!) and trade.

What this meant for the short story was that the protagonist, a young trader venturing into the hills in search of rare magic, immediately finds himself facing justified hostility from the Men of the Hills, who have suffered greatly from the colonial power. But the Men of the Hills were also open to trade, in principle—if the terms were good enough. And the intermittent relations between the colonists and the indigenous people also sets up the main antagonist, who has secretly been doing some trading of his own.

Building the setting from specific political-historical patterns, rather than simply relying on the tired trope of the Noble Savage, helped create compelling conflict with high stakes and surprising twists. You can read the story yourself and decide if the end product was successful (and leave a review if you liked it!). But I think this illustrates how our fiction can be enriched by injecting a bit of political texture. I don’t demand realism for realism’s sake; but having more tools to work with can help us craft new, effective stories. And isn’t that the whole point?

“Ye Olde Magick Shoppe” Paperback is Out!

17 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by Oren Litwin in Self-Promotion

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Amazon, Fantasy, short story anthology

Well, after all the minor annoyances and oddities, the hardcopy edition of Ye Olde Magick Shoppe is now available for purchase!

Amazon has not yet linked the Kindle page to it yet, so reader reviews are not yet shared; but that should happen in a few days.

Enjoy!

Ye Olde Magick Shoppe—Free Today Only!

23 Sunday Dec 2018

Posted by Oren Litwin in Self-Promotion, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

anthology, Fantasy, free, Kindle, magic shop, promotion, publishing, sale, short stories, short story anthology, werewolves, zombies

I’m proud to announce that my anthology of fantasy short stories, Ye Olde Magick Shoppe, is now available for Amazon Kindle!

Even better, until the end of today—Sunday the 23rd—it is totally free for download. Check it out, and please review if you like what you read!

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