Fantasy Author Showcase: Michael Alexander Beas

Today I’m pleased to showcase the work of fantasy author, Michael Alexander Beas. 

Upon the death of King Aerostat II, two brothers, Princes Gorgan and Alexander, fight for the keys to the throne of their father’s beloved Blue Kingdom. Through a labyrinth of lies and deceit the Shadow Lord uses Gorgan, the oldest of the two brothers, to unite the pieces of a magical game board called Strump. If successful, a shadow uprising would bring death and destruction upon all the inhabitants of the Blue Kingdom.

The search for truth becomes an enchanted adventure where humans and Mermen, pirates and mice, sorcerers and pixies make alliances to defend their kingdom before it falls into… A World of Shadows.

“Original fantasy on an epic scale, Strump, A World of Shadows introduces a unique and compelling voice to the genre in author Michael Alexander Beas. Sure to win him a host of ardent followers, it is highly recommended.” – www.bookviral.com

Purchase links:

Amazon USA

Amazon UK

Connect with Michael Alexander Beas online:

Blog

Facebook

Twitter

About the author:

Michael Alexander Beas holds an Associate’s Degree in Business Administration and a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management, none of which has anything to do with writing novels. He spent over a dozen years working in banking, telecommunications and commercial insurance. In those industries, he dedicated the bulk of his time selling products and services to customers. He has always enjoyed writing, but busy schedules never gave him the time needed to follow the dream of completing a novel. Then, one day, life gave him the opportunity to fulfill that dream. Beas lives in Waxhaw, N.C. with his family.

Showcase Your Books

If you’re an author of fantasy, science fiction or romance (and all sub-genres), I would like to offer you the opportunity to showcase your books on my blog.

To take advantage of this, all you need to do is send an email to fantasyauthor21@gmail.com with the following:

- An article of no more than 500 words, telling readers about you and your book, your new release, any giveaways or specials you’re offering, your virtual book tour, or anything else regarding your book or journey as an author. (Note that I will proofread it for typos and grammatical errors.)

- It isn’t compulsory, but I recommend that you include a JPG attachment of your book cover, and/or an extract.

- Your back cover blurb.

- Between one to three purchase links.

- Links to your author website and blog.

Once I receive the above information, I will send you an email with the date I’ve scheduled you in for. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to check that all the information is received, so, if some information isn’t included in your request, I will assume you made the conscious choice to omit it and the post will go live without it.

*** If you have more than one book you would like showcased on my blog, please send a separate email for each book, unless it’s a series.

I look forward to receiving your submissions, and hope the extra exposure will make you more sales.

Demon Lord – new book cover showcase

I wanted to re-do all my book covers to improve them, since I didn’t have much time to do the original covers because I published 30 books in two months. I haven’t had time until recently, and admit that some of the negative comments on Amazon about the Demon Lord covers lighted a fire under me to do it sooner rather than later.

I’ve recently uploaded the new covers to Smashwords, and hope these are more appealing than the original covers.

I’d love to hear what everyone thinks of the new covers.

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I still like the original cover for Dark Domain, so haven’t created a new cover for this one.

Don’t forget that the latest book in the series, When Angels Fall, is now available from Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble and Kobo, and you can read a free sample on Smashwords. Enjoy!

TC Southwell Character Showcase

A picture is worth a thousand words. It’s trite, but true. No matter how well an author describes a character with words, there’s always room for misinterpretation, but a picture leaves nothing to the imagination. Even if an author describes his or her character to an artist, there’s still a chance it won’t be exactly what the author had in mind. However, when an author is also an artist, the character he or she depicts should be pretty much a perfect rendition, except where the author lacks sufficient skill. Some of my characters were more of a challenge to draw than others, but for the most part, I managed a fairly good resemblance. Some I enjoyed drawing more than others, too – Bane being my favourite and Chanter the one I struggled with the most. Tarke was also a challenge.

I always like to see pictures of a book’s characters, so I have a clear idea of what the characters look like while I’m reading. Good character descriptions are a must, but a picture is even better.

So I decided to share some of the character sketches I’ve created for my characters. I’d love to know how you pictured the ones you haven’t already seen on the covers.

Bane, the demon lord from my Demon Lord series

(Download Book 1 for free)

 

Mirra, the healer from my Demon Lord series

Sabre, the cyber from my The Cyber Chronicles series

(Download Book 1 for free)

 

Tassin, the Queen of Arlin, from my The Cyber Chronicles series

Blade, the master assassin, from my The Queen’s Blade series

(Download Book 1 for free)

Chanter, a Mujar, from my The Broken World series

(Download Book 1 for free)

Tarke, aka The Shrike, from the Slave Empire series

(Download Book 1 for free)

 

Writing Updates

As many of you already know, I’m a channeller and therefore I can only write when I have a channel to follow. This also means that I can’t choose which series I’m going to write next. However, I know my fans are all waiting for the next book in their favourite series, so here’s a brief update on what’s potting writing-wise in my life right now…

I’ve written Demon Lord, Book 9, but I’m not happy with some of it, so have decided to leave it for a while and then, when it’s no longer so fresh in my mind, I’ll go back and cut out the boring bits and expand on the good parts.

I’ve written about 40, 000 words of Slave Empire, Book 4, but I started to struggle with it, which means I strayed from the channel, trying to make it fit the title, so I’ll go back to that in a while too, and try to find the channel for it again.

I started to write The Cyber Chronicles, Book 10, and got bored after a page, which means there’s no channel for that right now, although I’m still trying to find one.

At the moment, I’ve been side tracked from writing in order to re-edit previous books in preparation for publishing them as paperbacks, and creating images for use in my book trailers, which I hope you will enjoy. I intend to return to writing as soon as that’s all out of the way, at which time I’ll probably continue with Slave Empire. Nothing is a certainty, however, as I also have a strong channel for the Demon Lord series at the moment.

The Queen’s Blade Book Trailer

I’ve recently had some trailers created for some of my series and am pleased to share the first trailer with you, for The Queen’s Blade series.

For those who haven’t read the series yet, you can find all the books at the following distributors:

Smashwords
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Sony
Kobo
Kobo Books coupon page
iBooks Store

Book 1 is free, so grab your copy today!

10 Things to Avoid in Your Writing

1. Avoid using flowery language to make yourself look clever.

This can be confusing for readers and is unlikely to have the desired effect. Instead, write the way you’d speak to someone in real life – not using informal English, but natural and flowing.

2. Avoid using generic descriptions.

Readers need to be able to visualise what they’re reading. Using nouns like ‘home’ or ‘tree’ don’t give the same visuals as words like ‘flat’, ‘double storey’, ‘log cabin’ or ‘great oak’.

3. Avoid using character names too often in dialogue.

When speaking to each other, most people don’t use the other person’s name that often. Most of the time, people only use another person’s name in real life to greet the person, to get that person’s attention, as an exclamation of shock or surprise, and perhaps every now and then. It’s unrealistic and annoying to read a conversation between two characters in which they address each other by name in almost every dialogue section.

4. Avoid using redundant descriptions.

For example, if the music is blaring, it’s a given that it’s loud, so if you write ‘it blared loudly’, the word ‘loudly’ is redundant.

5. Avoid swapping point of view (POV) in the same scene.

While many find it acceptable to write in God Mode these days, I don’t like this POV, as it can confuse readers too easily. Rather, choose a character from whose POV to write from in each scene, and stick to that character’s thoughts and observations for the duration of the scene.

6. Avoid info dumps in narrative.

Obviously, you need to share a certain amount of information with your readers. However, in cases where the information is long-winded and detailed, try to split this up across a few scenes, or add it in dialogue rather than narrative. In narrative, it can feel like an info dump that might bore readers (after all, they want the story more than the information). When you add the information to dialogue – say, one character explaining how something works to another character – you can add character interactions and give readers an indication of those characters’ personalities and relationships with each other at the same time, thereby making the information-giving more entertaining.

7. Avoid using clichés.

Avoid it like the plague. Seriously. Clichés are boring and unoriginal. Rather, use more interesting comparisons that you thought up yourself. This will entertain your readers a heck of a lot more than a well-known cliché, and they’ll be more likely to remember you for it if the comparison is good[V1] .

8. Avoid plagiarism in any form.

This might sound obvious, but many writers don’t realise that using song lyrics and quoting other authors’ work in their writing is considered plagiarism just as much as putting your name on another author’s manuscript. It’s okay to refer to songs by title, but, if you really want to include lyrics, rather make up your own. If you desperately want to use existing lyrics (I don’t recommend it), get written permission from the copyright-holder.

9. Avoid passive voice.

There are times when passive voice works better than active voice, but, most of the time, it just slows down the story’s pace and can often lend confusion. For example, rather than write ‘the food of the cat’, write ‘the cat’s food’.

10. Avoid using the same sentence structure too closely together.

While there are only so many ways to structure a sentence, avoid using the same structure too often too closely together. It makes the writing feel repetitive and boring, and takes the reader’s attention from the story. An example of this is: Slowly, he opened the door a crack. Cautiously, he peeked through the crack and looked down the path. Amazingly, no one was there.