Book Review: Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper

Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper by J.L. Bryan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm not a big fan of the paranormal genre, but I saw this on a free giveaway and thought I'd give it a try. I'm sure glad I did because it was a cracking read.
A young woman who has had horrible experiences with paranormal entities becomes a ghost trapper, ridding old houses of their spectral inhabitants. Her assistant isn't very useful, and there's a new guy on the team she doesn't trust. Also, it turns out fixing the problem only makes the problem worse. It's all told in a breezy, fun style that only occasionally gets horrific. It sure is atmospheric, though. The author really catches the flavor of the South without getting too much into Southern Noir. This is horror light, although it's never lighthearted.
I could have used some more depth to the characters and detail about all the occult stuff, but since this is the first in a long series I suppose we get more of that later. If you want an enjoyable, easy read that will keep you guessing and flipping pages, try this out.

View all my reviews

What makes a great character

A recent tweet led me to an interesting two-part article about "What makes a great character". This is on the blog Yummy Men, Kick Ass Chicks, a paranormal romance blog. In this article, several paranormal romance authors talk about what makes a character compelling. While I have no interest in their genre, good writing is good writing and I found the advice worthwhile. Check out part one and part two.

The Reader's Digest version: characters are interesting when they are multifaceted and flawed. Pretty much all the authors said this. They also said a whole lot more, so if you're a writer, or simply interested in how your favorite characters are made, check these posts out.

Guest Midlister: Jennifer Cloud

Today we have a guest post from one of my fellow midlist authors at Damnation Books, publishers of my historical horror story. So without further ado. . .

My name is Jennifer Cloud. I’m a genre writer. I dabble in suspense, horror, and the paranormal. I’ve had more than a dozen short stories published, many novellas, and many novels. So far I’ve had two agents, both AAR members and successful. Neither was able to do much for me. Most of my work is in electronic format. My most recent title is Magic Rising, released by Damnation Books.

Writing is a difficult business. The marriage of art and business is not an easy one. To be a good writer, you have to write what you love but sometimes that isn't what sells.

The normal route for a writer is to write a novel. (Keep in mind this is write, rewrite, edit, trash it, start over, rewrite, bang your head against the desk, hope you've written something good, then start over again.) Next an author searches for an agent. Once they've bagged one, most authors relax expecting a book deal in the near future.

That isn't what always happens. Marketing departments decide what gets published. With large publishers, an acquisitions editor may fall in love with a work only to have marketing kill the proposal. It’s back to the business side. Is the genre oversaturated? How did the last novel perform that happened to be similar to yours? Who are you? What will make people buy your book over the dozen or so similar titles on the shelf? If you get the deal, will you sell enough copies to please your publisher or will you be dropped?

We've all heard the nightmares: acquisitions editors fired and books left in limbo, contracts canceled, major publishers becoming electronic only, authors not being picked up at box stores thus hurting their sales and chances of future book deals.

Of course this has also opened up the playing field for the smaller publisher. Smaller publishers can take a chance on an author or subject simply because they love the work. Technology has made it easier for the little guys to compete with the big publishers. Prices for ebook readers have dropped and people have become more accepting of the technological advances.

Do your homework before signing with any publisher. Small publishers generally have lower sales numbers, smaller marketing dollars, smaller staffs, and can fold without notice. Some publishers can actually be a mark against you. I won't mention names, but listing a credit from a known scam operation will not get you noticed.

I landed my first agent years ago. I won't go into the details but we parted ways. At the time, I didn't understand how my agent could love my work and not find a house for it. I ended up on my own again. Meanwhile, the publishing landscape was changing. I fell in love with ebooks. For me, there was a wider selection with plot lines that seemed to hold no limits. I strived to be published by one of the big boys but any chance of reaching a person would do. I went with a small electronic/POD house.

I found I wasn't alone. I did my homework, networked and met a wonderful woman who had been dropped by her major publishing house. Why? Midlist crunch and a strike had her novels sitting in boxes with no chance of being sold. On paper, she sold nothing and was gone. She's now a POD/electronic author. She isn't alone. Many talents would go unheard if it wasn't for the small press.

I've met authors who thought electronic/POD books were nothing more than an outlet for the talentless. Times change. Even the larger houses are using POD and electronic mediums. Acceptance still isn't complete but at least I know there are readers out there who enjoy my work.

Websites for Writers: The Lionel Fanthorpe Appreciation Page

I wrote a 1,000 words today!

Big deal. Even if I had written twice that it would be nothing compared to the average workday of Lionel Fanthorpe.

Never heard of him? Neither had I until a few months ago when I went to a writing convention and picked up the odd little paperback pictured here by "Bron Fane", one of Fanthorpe's numerous pen names. Turns out he's the most prolific science fiction author ever, with more than 180 novels. He's also written dozens of nonfiction books, countless short stories, and God knows what else.

God should know, because he's an Anglican minister too.

The Lionel Fanthorpe Appreciation Page celebrates the career of a truly dedicated writer. Back in the 1950s, Badger Books flooded the market with cheap novels to tap into the burgeoning paperback market. They only offered writers 25 pounds a pop, and while that bought far more back than than it does today, it was still a crap wage. But that didn't dissuade Mr. Fanthorpe. He calculated that if he wrote a novel a week, he'd make a hundred quid a month--not much but better than the dole.

So that's exactly what he did. He had no time for complex plots, deep characterization, or elaborate ideas, he simply drew from his wide reading in the occult and paranormal to make wild tales of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

Badger Books provided him a reel-to-reel recorder, and covering himself with a blanket to help his concentration, he told the machine whatever came into his head. When he thought he was done, he'd send the recording off to a typist who would hammer it out and tell him how close he was to the 158-page target. Sometimes he'd discover he only had a few pages left, and suddenly our heroes would solve all their problems with a brilliant plan, or no plan at all, or sometimes the story would simply stop. If he came up short, his amazing talent for padding would come to the fore and characters would yammer on about random topics for a few pages before the plot would continue. Just check out his agonizingly long description of a character brushing her teeth.

The amazing thing is with this rush to production is that Fanthorpe never fell into cliche. Clunkiness often, incoherence sometimes, but never a tired line. What other writer would describe a hand as a "cluster of leathery bananas"?

Because of this Fanthorpe's novels are never boring. I'm not saying they're good literature, but they are certainly fun. So give him a try, and remember that with enough concentration, you too can write a crazily bad yet entertaining novel in a week.

Interview with Su Halfwerk

Hello everyone! After a brief interlude to switch countries (from Spain to England, more on that later) we're back with another interview of an interesting writer. Today our guest is Su Halfwerk, a paranormal writer whose latest release Zuphreen is out from Damnation Books.


Tell us a bit about your new release.
Zuphreen was released by Damnation Books in June. It is a horror-urban fantasy about three unlikely friends who unwittingly unleash the horrors of hell in a vain attempt to boost their grades. Duped by their scheming professor, the friends summon an evil demon and command him to bestow his gifts upon them. But the gifts soon become curses and the friends watch in horror as they slowly turn into monsters. In a desperate race against time, the students must undo the curses before the demon's gifts destroy them forever. How far will they go to lift these curses? How deep will they sink to save themselves?
You can find the book here: http://www.damnationbooks.com/book.php?isbn=9781615721290


What inspires you to write about the paranormal?
I believe that the paranormal genre is the best to describe and summarize fiction. Of course, there are other genres that are fictional, but the rules are bent differently in the paranormal world. If bent romantically, then it’s paranormal romance, and if thrown into the darkest tunnel of fiction, then we cross over to horror. There’s something magical and freeing about this the paranormal.


What projects are you working on now?
I’m working on the story of a special type of hero. He’s after the man who killed his wife and daughter and scarred his son for life. But the hero’s powers come with a very frustrating sexual restriction, and he still has to maintain a good front for his glamorous day job. I’m also working on a mini-series that has few known concepts in common between them.


Besides writing, you also design book trailers. What goes into making an effective trailer?
That’s a very interesting question, Sean. A book trailer is a tool to engage the visual and auditory senses to garner interest in the book. A mash of music, photos, and sentences doesn’t always work. Having a closely-knit piece of artwork that teases the soon-to-be reader into (at least) checking the book’s price, is something different altogether.
When I work on a trailer, I start by deciding on the important scenes without giving away too much. Next step is the development of the text that will accompany the images. It shouldn’t be lengthy or telling too much, it should complement the images and not distract from them. After that, I search for the music and sound effects that goes with both text and images. Finally, the fun part, the joining of all elements into one whole entity. I work on the synchronization of the pieces together, music reaching crescendo just as a certain word of significance appears suddenly, or a musical note dwindling at the end of a sad line and even sadder image. I run the trailer by at least three people to get a feel of what emotions it invokes in them. If I get 80% of those emotions right, then I’m happy.


Where can we find you online?

· My website is: www.su-halfwerk.com

· You can catch my tweets here: http://twitter.com/SuHalfwerk

· Or read my Facebook wall posts here: www.facebook.com/Su.Halfwerk

· I blog about anything and everything over here: http://www.suhalfwerk.blogspot.com/

Thanks for being here!
Sean, thank you for the interview. I look forward to visiting again :-).

New horror from Damnation Books

At the stroke of midnight on June 1, Damnation Books released its third catalog of horror ebooks and POD publications.

Barely a year old, Damnation Books has already made a name for itself in dark fiction, showcasing many new and veteran writers. They're also planning to rerelease out-of-print novels by long-established authors such as Kathryn Meyer Griffith.

This season's selection has a wide range of books, from historical to contemporary, grim to humorous. As a historical writer myself (both in fiction and nonfiction) I like that there are so many historical pieces. I got myself Vasilov's Demon, set during the Russian Revolution, and Dead of Night, which includes undead bushwhackers. Having used bushwhackers in my own (unpublished) horror novel, I'm interested to see how author C.M. Saunders handles them. I also bought the modern psychological thriller Desiree and the quirky Painter's Green.

All books are discounted for a limited time, so head on over to Damnation Books to get some great deals on great stories. While you're over there check out my own horror short--Dannevirke.

Interview with paranormal author Yolanda Sfetsos

Today here at Midlist Writer we're interviewing Yolanda Sfetsos, a talented author with several titles to her credit. Like many writers, she works in a variety of genres but her stories have a common thread of the paranormal.

1) Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you write.

Well, my name is Yolanda and I live in a suburb of Sydney, Australia, with my husband, daughter, and cat. I spend most of my time writing stories, thinking about ideas, developing them, researching, and revising them to an inch of their lives.

I write in a variety of genres, but every one of my stories has an element of the paranormal. There’s always something otherworldly lurking in the shadows. I enjoy stepping into those shadows, and delving into dark-edged stories with characters who find themselves caught up in this darkness.

Of course, I don’t spend all of my time in front of the computer, so when I manage to step away, I enjoy spending time with my family. I also love going for daily walks, working out, watching movies, TV shows, and anime. As well as reading, I love to read!


2) What inspired you to write BOUNDLESS: Book Three of the Alyce Kerr, Faith Healer Trilogy?

The inspiration for this story--which happens to be the last one in Alyce’s trilogy--was the other two stories. Seriously, the more time I spent in Alyce’s dark world, the more I wanted to write it. It was almost like all I needed was a paragraph to get my creative juices flowing.


3) What attracts you to write about the paranormal?

Oh, I love everything paranormal/supernatural. Even when I come up with a storyline that seems normal, something paranormal eventually turns up. I can’t help it. My ears perk up whenever I hear about new paranormal books, movies, or shows.

I think it all started when I was pretty young. I was one of those kids who didn’t turn away from a scary movie; it intrigued me. I also happened to be that teenage girl who loved horror movies, and enjoyed labeling herself as a ‘horror freak’. I encouraged my friends to go and watch scary movies all the time.

It’s an attraction I haven’t been able to fight. I can’t help wondering about what lies beyond our world, and choose to let my imagination go wild with the possibilities.


4) Where can we find you online?

This is where you can find me:

Website: http://www.yolandasfetsos.com/
Blog: http://ysfetsos.blogspot.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/yolandasfetsos
Newsletter: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yolandasfetsos/
LiveJournal: http://yolandasfetsos.livejournal.com/
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/yolandasfetsos

I also blog on the 18th of every month at the RomErotica Writers Blog.

Thanks so much for having me over here today, Sean!

Queen of the Midlist: Interview with Kathryn Meyer Griffith

Today we're suspending our usual Monday installment of Websites for Writers to interview longtime midlister Kathryn Meyer Griffith. Her latest horror novel, A Time of Demons, is just out from Damnation Books today. Websites for Writers will be back next week.

You've been a published author for 26 years. How have you seen the market change for midlist authors in that time?
Boy, have I seen it change! When I first started sending out manuscripts (in the days of the dinosaurs), typed on an electric typewriter with lots of spots of White-Out and then carefully stacked into copy paper boxes that I’d send expensively by snail-mail with self-stamped and addressed return manila envelopes also inside, it’d take anywhere from eight to twelve months to get an answer from a publisher; and then we’d go back and forth for another couple months before they’d give me a contract. Then I waited up to a year or more for it to hit the bookshelves and another year after that before I got a royalty statement. They’d take money off the top for returns. Never could figure out those darn royalty statements! Ech. I think of this every time I hit the send button and rocket my computerized manuscript right to my publisher or editor or when I get the edits in a neat file for me to use Track Changes on. No muss, no fuss. It’s so much easier now and I save all that postage, too.

And years ago the midlist author was respected, even courted by their publisher. I remember on my first Zebra book in 1991, VAMPIRE BLOOD, my editor found out my husband loved another of their author’s work (William Johnstone) and just to be nice he sent us the whole paperback series (14 books!) so my husband could have them. Sheesh. What editor would do that now for a midlist author? None. Truth is I don’t think there is a midlist anymore or midlist authors. They’ve gone the way of the dodo bird. Which is why I’ve published my last three (soon to be five) novels with E & paperback publishers. The bigger publishers don’t want you unless you’re a bestseller now. They don’t want to really edit your books or take any time to promote or build your career. It makes it truly hard to get published and make real money at it anymore. (As if I ever did! My best financial payouts were my Leisure and Zebra days from 1984-1994 and so far I haven’t come near those totals again. Maybe someday after all the E & paperback books for my older novels – *see below – come out I will.)

In recent years you've shifted more towards ebooks. What spurred that decision?
As I said, it’s really difficult to get published with the big guys anymore…even me…and I have 13 books to my name and more coming. I don’t know what the big guys want anymore but it isn’t me. In 2007, on a lark sort of, dejected and ready to give up writing forever, I decided to send a book, EGYPTIAN HEART, (that had been turned down by every big publisher in the galaxy) to THE WILD ROSE PRESS, a new E & paperback publisher who were really kind to me. Really loved the book. I knew the book needed a good editing and after their editor got done with it (she did a detailed, fantastic job, too, I thought) I felt it was a much better book. The cover, surprisingly, was beautiful and they’d actually asked for my input for it and on everything else, editing and all, during the editing process. Unheard of from my experiences with Zebra, Leisure and Avalon Books (my previous publishers that I did two hardcover murder mysteries for).

I remember my first novel from Leisure in 1984, EVIL STALKS THE NIGHT, was edited by some male editor and I never even saw the book during editing until it was printed and in my hands after the release date. The editor did a terrible job all in all and had actually put in three pages of his own without consulting me! They were awful and my readers to this day ask me about them!

And the covers of my Leisure and Zebra books were completely out of my hands. They made a cover for you and if it was horrible or you hated it…too bad. A few of my books, I felt, had awful covers. BLOOD FORGE. 1989. Yeck! THE LAST VAMPIRE. 1992. Awful! My experience so far with five e-books, on the other hand, have been, on the whole, excellent. I love my covers for EGYPTIAN HEART, BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons and THE WOMAN IN CRIMSON. But the cover artist worked with me on each of them. They wanted what I envisioned on the cover. Amazing. Can’t wait to see all the new covers of all my older books that are being re-released in E & paperbacks.

So far there hasn’t been a lot of money in my e-books…but I see, feel, a change coming. Three years ago being e-published was looked down on from the publishing industry; now I think it’s beginning to become more respectable. All those little greedy machines out there clamoring for food! E-READS told me that this last year alone they’ve seen a 200-300% rise in their sales and they’re still rising! I’m catching the wave.

Tell us a bit about your two upcoming releases.
From DAMNATION BOOKS: BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons (new) out May 31, 2010. THE WOMAN IN CRIMSON (new) in September 2010 from ETERNAL PRESS.

BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons is an apocalyptic saga about traveling brother and sister musicians, Cassandra and Johnny Graystone, and their friends, who must fight evil demons, with the help of angels, in the end days (sort of like the Left Behind series or Buffy The Vampire Slayer). The sister is developing supernatural powers to aid them in the final war as they seek out and convince others with similar powers to join them.

THE WOMAN IN CRIMSON, a contemporary vampire novel, is about Willowwind, a beautiful Civil War era bed and breakfast, run by a loving couple, Adrian and Caroline Stone. It’s also haunted by a long dead Civil War era vampiress who was once a witch, Lilith, who believes the man, Adrian, is her reincarnated soldier/lover Jedidiah, and she’ll do anything to have him, body-heart-and soul, for her own again. But Adrian’s wife, Caroline, along with the help of a psychic and the ghost of her dead father, will do anything to make sure that doesn’t happen.

I also have three e & paperback books available from THE WILD ROSE PRESS….more romantic but still spooky. EGYPTIAN HEART. WINTER’S JOURNEY. THE ICE BRIDGE. And two ghostly short stories, Don’t Look Back, Agnes and In this House.

And the rereleases: THE HEART OF THE ROSE in November 2010 from ETERNAL PRESS. THE LAST VAMPIRE in Oct. 2010…THE CALLING in March 2011…BLOOD FORGE in June 2011 and EVIL STALKS THE NIGHT in September 2011 from DAMNATION BOOKS. E-READS is going to bring out VAMPIRE BLOOD and WITCHES again by the end of 2010 or so they say; no real publication dates yet on those two and they’ve had them since October of last year (and they’re charging me a hefty set-up fee for both while DB and EP don’t charge a penny…I won’t fall for that again). Imagine…ESTN came out from Leisure 26 years ago. Whew. I’m sooo happy they’re all coming out again. I’ve worked really hard to get them all reborn.

What attracts you to write about the paranormal?
It’s what I’ve always loved to read. I recall one day when I was about ten or eleven years old and my grade school class had ordered hardcover books through The Weekly Reader (anyone remember those?) and I had ordered a book on ghosts; no longer remember the name or who it was by. I think it was short stories, though. I can still recall the shivery thrill when the cardboard boxes came in and the class opened them and our teacher distributed the books to the ones who’d bought them. I was in heaven!

Then…my beloved grandmother Mary Fehrt, the first real storyteller I ever knew, used to have my brothers and sisters and I (there were seven of us and we were poor) sit around in her barely lit basement when we spent the weekends (two or three of us at a time) and she’d tell us spooky stories. We also would watch Spook Spectacular with her over root beer floats or home-made ice cream sundaes. She’s the one who told me never to gaze into a mirror in a darkened room because something scary would be in them. And that’s when my love of horror began. But I love and write traditional supernatural horror…the kind about ghosts, vampires and eerie things that go bump in the night. I rely on the characters not gore, sex or curse words. Probably that’s why I’ve never become famous. Ha, ha. Thing is, I also write murder mysteries, romantic horror and time travel. Even once did an historical romance (The Heart of the Rose, 1985)…but it was about a woman perceived to be a witch in 15^th century England during the time of Edward the Fourth. Go figure. No matter what I write a ghost, a vampire or a witch sneaks in somehow.

You've had 14 novels published. How has your writing developed in the course of all those projects?
Now that’s a really hard question as I’ve been writing for 39 years and published for 26 of them. Mainly, I don’t use as many adjectives.  Not as much flowery prose. More dialogue. More show not tell. And my great age has enabled me to write from somewhere else deeper inside myself. I’ve seen, felt more. Oh, yeah, the computer as compared to that darn old typewriter has really helped. I can rewrite so easily. Hey, I taught myself to type (I was an artist, you know, not someone who thought I’d ever need typing – I could kick myself now!). I still type with two fingers. Thank goodness my new publisher could scan in all those old books because they don’t exist on a computer or memory stick anywhere and, hey, I’d be two-fingered typing from now to doomsday. Some of those oldies are close to 400 pages each.

Where can we find you online?

Actually, I have ten social websites and now one official website so I won’t bore everyone with all of them. Here are the best of the lot where you can learn all you’ll ever want to know about me (and perhaps way more than you’d care to):

http://www.myspace.com/kathrynmeyergriffith See all my new covers and self-made book trailers; some with my singer/songwriter brother Jim Meyer’s original songs!

http://www.bebo.com/kathrynmeyerG See all my new covers and self-made book trailers; some with my singer/songwriter brother Jim Meyer’s original songs!
http://kathrynmeyergriffith.intuitwebsites.com/

http://www.authorsden.com/kathrynmeyergriffith

My e-mail: rdgriff (at) htc (dot) net E-mail me…I love feedback!

And Sean, it’s been nice of you to let me ramble on…nice to be here. Signing out, Kathryn Meyer Griffith The Queen of the midlist writers.