GuestPost: M. Anthony Phillips

How to pick the right topics and audience

I’m a new novelist with three books under my belt. Picking a subject to write about to me has to not only be something that is passionate to you, but also is marketable in an ever changing audience. My genre of choice is fiction because I love a great story. When I was a kid I used to stay up late at night with my father watching old movies. The experience stayed with me, not just because it helped shape who I am, but also because it gave my father and I a chance to bond.

I guess you can say every fictional story has an audience, but if you’re just doing a story just because a particular genre is the latest thing, and you’re not really passionate about the story, then it could come off as not being believable. What defines you as a person? What cartoons, or movies did you watch as a child? Do you find yourself saying “That would make a great story?”

It’s okay to jump in on the latest thing—children’s books are very popular, so if you do, become educated—buy a book and read it to your kids to see their reaction. If it doesn’t warm your heart, then maybe it’s not the one. Picking the genre you want to become a genuine author in is the easy part. The hard part is finding a core audience and how to market them.

If you choose to self publish your book, which is usually what happens to first time authors unless you’re a famous celebrity, send out a press release to announce your book. Do an online book tour that will reach a variety of readers, send out postcards to family and friends, post an add on your facebook page, start a website, and there are many other strategies as well. Eventually you’ll start to develop a hardcore following that will become avid supporters of your books.

M. Anthony Phillips is a native of St. Louis and studied writing and history at Harris Stowe University. M. Anthony is an avid historian and reader of fine literature of fiction and non-fictional books. This is M. Anthony’s third novel with a sequel to follow with hopes of becoming a full time novelist. M. Anthony resides in St. Louis and Los Angeles where he loves acting as a SAG member, practicing martial arts, writing screenplays, and living the life of a modern day renaissance man.

Isabella: Protector of the Last Dragon by M. Anthony Phillips

About Isabella: Protector of the Last Dragon:

An ancient Chinese celestial dragon–unearthed in the frozen mountains of Mongolia, miraculously survives and looks to locate a twelve year old girl whose the key to fighting the demons that chased him out of his kingdom, and to find his female mate.

Source: Info in the About Isabella: Protector of the Last Dragon was taken from the promotional tour information.

Guest Post: LOU ARONICA

There’s a strategy that poker players use known as “going all in.” I’m not a poker player, so I’m working from second-hand knowledge here, but I’m under the impression that this strategy involves putting all of your chips in the pot with the goal of winning big or getting knocked out of the game. One of the reasons I don’t play cards is that this gambling concept is largely lost on me. Even if I had only two dollars left to bet, I’d raise by the minimum in order to forestall the end of my run.

However, with my new novel, Blue, the notion of going all in suddenly resonates with me. I’ve been in the book world for a long time, having stints as Deputy Publisher of Bantam Books and then Publisher of Berkley and Avon, and I published my first book as an author in 2003. I’ve invested at least a bit of myself – and sometimes a great deal of myself – in every book with which I was ever associated. Blue, though, takes this level of commitment to entirely new heights. For one thing, Blue took me six years to write. The longest I’ve ever taken to write a nonfiction book is a year and a half, and the longest it had ever taken me to write a novel before this was nine months. With Blue, though, the story came to me in layers, and each layer required a substantial revision of the entire text. More significantly, though, I invested a tremendous amount of myself in this novel. Many of the things that matter the most to me form major themes in Blue. The relationship between fathers and daughters. The consequences of divorce. The necessity of and power of imagination. The quantum possibilities (if you’ll excuse the term) of belief. While none of the major plot points in this novel correlate to my life, I am all over the page in Blue in a way I’ve never been before.

I knew from the start that my investment in this novel was greater than my investment in any of my previous books. For the longest time, I just accepted this as the case, but after finishing Blue, I felt the need to ask myself, “Why this one above all that came before?” With my nonfiction, the answer was simple. I write all of my nonfiction in collaboration with others, so by definition those experiences could not be as all-encompassing as my experience with Blue. What of the other fiction, though? It took me some time to understand this, but eventually I realized that my feelings about Blue stemmed from a confluence of events: I was finally ready to talk about many of the things most important to me, and I finally had learned enough about writing fiction to adequately dramatize these things on the page. I think the primary reason I feel so connected to this novel is that I feel that I finally have enough command of my skills to convey what I really want to convey. (And yes, I do realize that I’m opening myself to all kinds of criticism and even ridicule for saying that, but that’s an essential part of “going all in,” isn’t it?)

I have always loved writing, but I’m unashamed to say that I’ve loved writing Blue the most. This was the first time I’ve moved all of my chips to the middle of the table. I certainly hope fate isn’t holding four aces.

Blue by Lou Aronica

About Blue:

Chris Astor is a man in his early forties who is going through the toughest stretch of his life. Becky is Chris’s fourteen-year-old daughter, a girl who has overcome enormous challenges to become a vibrant, vital young woman – and now faces her greatest obstacle yet. Miea is the young queen of a fantasy land that Becky and Chris created when Becky was little, a fantasy land that has developed a life of its own and now finds itself in terrible, maybe fatal trouble. Together, Chris, Becky, and Miea need to uncover a secret. The secret to why their worlds have joined at this moment. The secret to their purpose. The secret to the future. It is a secret that, when discovered, will redefine imagination for all of them. Blue is a novel of trial and hope, invention and rediscovery. It might very well take you someplace you never knew existed.

Source: Info in the About Blue was taken from the blog tour information from the promoters.

More info about Lou Aronica.

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