Posts Tagged ‘thriller’

Snake: The Official Book Trailer

Posted: February 6, 2014 in Novel, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, Writing
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Snake

I swear, this is the last Snake-themed article for a while. Honestly, even the Snake is getting tired of all the articles about him (and if you can figure that one out, then you win a prize). And I’m going to try to keep this short, so don’t click away yet.

Today I had some time on my hands, so I took some photos I’d scoured off the internet, a song I’d always associated with the Snake for some reason, and compiled them all using iMovie into a very scary video for a book trailer. A book trailer for Snake, to be exact. It’s probably my longest and most complex book trailer yet, using a variety of techniques I learned from a class I took a couple of semesters ago. Honestly, I had not used iMovie in a while, so it took a while to figure out how to do some things I’d forgotten. But I guess it was like riding a bike, because before I knew it I was making the video and had it done in almost an hour.

The video uses images I associate with the character of the Snake, who has an extreme love for scary movies and knows quite a bit about famous fictional serial killers and a few real ones (gee, I wonder who that sounds like?). And the song I use is “Before I’m Dead” by metal band Kidney Thieves. For some reason it’s a song I’ve always thought should be put at the beginning of a movie adaptation of Snake. Since I don’t think that’ll be happening any time soon, I’m using it in this trailer.

Oh, and the people in this video whom I identify as characters in Snake are actors from some shows I’ve seen. They came the closest to how I imagined the characters in Snake, so I used their images. I hope nobody minds that!

So without further ado, here’s the official Snake book trailer. Tell me what you think when you’ve watched it. I love feedback (I think I’ve mentioned that before).

Oh, and good news: I’ve sent Snake to the copyright office. Hopefully they won’t take their sweet time processing it. I hate it when that happens!

Snake: The Second Cover

Posted: February 4, 2014 in Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Looks like I get to do a post again with a snake at the top again. You may remember my previous post about the cover for Snake that I created (if not, you can read it here). I got some feedback on it, and most of the people who commented on Facebook said that they wanted more of the painted Lilith’s face and less of her legs. Well, I kind of went with the choice to hide her face because it meant that I could hide her bare breasts. The last thing I wanted was someone to flag Snake as abusive or offensive because of a little T&A.

But I decided that my friends had some very valid points. So I changed the design of the book cover to Aspen, and made the color for the background burnt sienna. The result got better reviews than the first cover. Okay, one guy thought it was “too racy”, but to be fair he’s Orthodox Jewish, so I guess to him a sleeveless shirt on a young lady might be crossing lines. Still, I see his point: Lilith by John Collier, while definitely a work of art in the style of the old Renaissance masters, is pretty sexual. Given the references to the Genesis story though, I think it’s important to keep the theme there, and that’s part of why I chose the painting (along with the obvious snake wrapped around her Britney Spears-style and the red hair which is also upon the head of an important character in this book).

So to recap here’s the previous cover I created:

Snake

And here’s the second version:

Snake

Is it much racier? Yes, it really is. Might it get me in trouble? Possibly. Am I going to change it? At this point, I’d have to say no. I kind of like it, the painting entered the public domain ten years ago, so there’s no copyright issues, and it looks like something I might pick up and at least consider at Barnes & Noble. And I hope people who come across this book on the Internet won’t be embarrassed by the naked woman on it to buy it. Then again, that is what made Kindle and Fifty Shades of Grey such great bedfellows: nobody felt embarrassed reading the book on a tablet on a train or bus. We’ll see.

And yes, that “bedfellows’ thing was intentional. I wasn’t going to do it, but I put it in anyway.

Anyway, unless anybody gives me some objection or some feedback that makes me change my mind, I think I’ll go with this cover. Tomorrow I’ll send it off to the copyright office and possibly start on a book trailer if I have the time. I already have a song I’m going to use, and several images I plan to put into a rather interesting slideshow. I’ll post it here when I’m done.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I’m heading to bed soon. Goodnight, Followers of Fear.

Snake: The Cover

Posted: February 3, 2014 in Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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The photo up above is NOT the cover. I just wanted one more photo of a snake before I unveiled it. Actually, the cover is right below this paragraph, and I must say it’s some of my best work yet in covers. Take a look:

Snake

Yes, that woman is naked on the cover. The actual painting is called Lilith by the English painter John Collier. I chose it for three main reasons. One was that it represents a Genesis theme, and references to Genesis do appear in Snake (three guesses what they are, the first two don’t count). The second reason is that a lot of authors I admire have famous paintings on their book covers and I wanted to do something similar with Snake and with any sequels I might write. Or maybe I wanted to draw audiences in by featuring a naked woman on the cover because nothing sells like sex. I confuse the two often. No, it’s the one about authors I admire. Never mind.

The third reason is that the only other option I had for a cover was a photo of a mask similar to what the Snake wears in the novel, but that was too disturbing to put on the cover. I decided to go with the less-disturbing Lilith instead.

Well, that’s the cover. I plan to back my files up in the morning and then send them off to the copyright office. Hopefully for once the US Copyright Office will make good on that promise of a processing time of two-and-a-half months (I doubt it).

And while I have your attention, I would like to announce a tentative release date for Snake. Assuming that nothing gets in the way of this book coming out by that time, I would like to announce that Snake will be coming out June 10, 2014, my twenty-first birthday and exactly two years to the day I started work on this novel. If it needs to be pushed back, I’ll do that, but I’d like to release it on that day. Not only will it feel right to release it that day, but it’ll be a great birthday present if a lot of people buy the book the day it comes out.

Well, that’s all for now, Followers of Fear. Please let me know what you think of the cover and of the release date. I’d love to hear from you. For now though, I’m heading to bed. Goodnight!

Snake: The Final Draft Is Done

Posted: February 3, 2014 in Novel, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, Writing
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Oh, I am on the ceiling tonight! Okay, I’m not literally on the ceiling, but you can guess how I’m feeling right now. As the title suggests, I’ve finished the final draft for Snake, which means it’s time to get it ready for publication! So excited right now, and I can’t wait to get started. In fact, I’ll start after this blog post is done.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Snake, it’s a thriller novel I wrote through the latter half of 2012. It follows a young man who becomes a serial killer in order to take down the mafia family who took from him what he considers most precious in life. Referred to by the media as the New York Mafia Killer (most of the novel takes place in New York City), he calls himself the Snake, for reasons that become apparent in the novel. So it’s basically a story of an antihero vigilante with mental problems and methods that would make Batman cringe. Still, it’s a story I enjoyed writing and I think that anyone who’s into these sort of dark thrillers will enjoy the story.

I know Angela Misri did. Angela, for those of you who haven’t been lucky enough to meet her yet, is an author and friend from Toronto whose first book, Jewel of the Thames, is due out next month. She did me a great favor by taking a look at Snake and giving me suggestions on how best to spruce it up before I published it. During the last twenty chapters or so, she was getting back to me every couple of days with revisions and suggestions on the manuscript. I have to say, I’m impressed that she was able to find the time to look over the whole novel with a full schedule of her own. Most of all though, I’m thankful for her help. She gave me amazing feedback on Snake, and I’m so happy to have collaborated with her. I hope that if I ever get around to writing a sequel to Snake, she’ll be willing to look at that as well.

Oh, before I forget. I did another check on the page and word count for Snake. All told, the novel is 370 8.5″ x 11″ pages and a little under 120,000 words. So it’s like a mid-length Harry Potter novel in length. Hope that doesn’t scare off any readers. That would suck! Anyway, I already have a cover picked out and I know who I’ll be acknowledging and who I’ll be dedicating the book to. I’m going to get on compiling the final manuscript together and creating the cover, so I’ll post on Snake again when I have those made up, along with a release date for the book.

One last thing though: I have to thank everyone reading this blog. Your support keeps me going and every time someone reads one of my books, it brings a boost to my mood and makes me want to write more and to improve the quality of my storytelling. Thank you so very much. I hope you’ll continue to support me in the future as I work on my dream of becoming an author.

And before I go to put dinner in the oven, I just want to let you know that if you’re interested in Snake or interested in reading an excerpt from Snake, please click here.

Have a lovely evening, Followers of Fear.

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