As my cover artist is getting closer to the final draft, I’m starting to think about promotion.
A lot of the recommended steps aren’t doable. Local bookstores don’t promote books printed through Amazon (I checked) and I’ve had little luck with book review sites in the past. Cover copy, however, is entirely in my control.
My original plan was to do it third person. However I’ve noticed a fair number of fantasy novels go with first-person so I tried it. The results:
Travel back to Georgia in 1973, as Lt. Maria Esposito experiences — Southern Discomfort.
“For the past three years I’ve been a wanted fugitive, constantly on the run, never letting anyone get close. Now torrential floods have trapped me in tiny Pharisee Georgia, where the FBI is investigating a terrorist bombing. My only hope is to keep a low profile until the rain ends.
That makes it a bad scene when the victim’s widow, an unearthly beauty named Olwen McAlister, declares I’m the one person who can bring the killer to justice. The sheriff takes her “visions” about me seriously; if I don’t answer yes to her request for help, I’m in trouble.
I should have said no. Suddenly I’m the target of hostile ravens, a homicidal horse, and a living shadow warning me to leave town or die. Cats everywhere are yowling with rage. I’m seeing things my Grandma Sophia would have called malocchia, evil magic. They can’t be — magic isn’t real — but I have no other explanation.
If I stick around either the shadow kills me or the FBI sends me to prison for life. Trouble is, something bad is coming down the pike; if I don’t stay to fight it, lots of innocent people will die.
I don’t give a damn. I can’t afford to give a damn. That’s what I keep telling myself.
I have a sinking feeling I’m not going to listen.”
Southern Discomfort is a standalone intrusion/urban/Southern fantasy novel. It includes multiple POV characters, several woman protagonists and multiple POC. The spaniel lives. The villain does kill a cat. It will appeal to fans of Alex Bledsoe, Tom Dietz, Luanne Bennett and Charles DeLint’s Jack the Giant Killer.
The pluses: it centers my main character and gets inside her head. I think it’s a good hook (yes, I’m obviously biased).
The negative: nobody can tell the book is about elves in Georgia, though my choice of comps in the last paragraph should tip people off. However I tried writing a version that focused more on the big-picture, the premise, the overall plot … it wasn’t gripping. Writing from Maria’s POV gives it much more emotion and (I think) makes it more engaging.
Before too long, I hope to find out if I’m right.
Cover (t) by Samantha Collins. I don’t know the second artist. All rights to images remain with current holders.
