Do you want to win a copy of Legends of Marithia: Prophecies Awakening (Extended & Uncut 2nd Edition)?

1st Prize is a paperback (dead tree) edition:

If you are in Australia and win, you will receive a signed copy. International friends ca…n enter and have a winning copy sent to their house.

It will be sent immediately when the novel is completing it’s publishing process.

2nd Prize is an eBook edition (Kindle or MOBI), to be sent as soon as the ebook edition is ready.

What do you need to do?

Guess the word count of the novel (From the first chapter title, all the way to “to be continued”) and enter through the comments section. The closest entry wins! If two people guess the correct entry, it will be the first entrant who wins 1st Prize.

One entry per person, enter via commenting.

Competition closes Saturday 12th of May, 5:00pm (eastern standard time)

The preview of the book is up for those who would like to read the first two chapters.

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Greetings to all Marithia fans who may have been wondering what has been going on with the Legends of Marithia series and where it is going from here. Well, let me tell you, I have certainly been busy.

I originally published my first book (Legends of Marithia: Prophecies Awakening) through iUniverse and when I look back, I realise that this was a monumental mistake in my writing career. I paid to have my book published and in turn, I have never recouped what I invested from my first book. To make matters worse, when I wanted to do something as simple as change the cover, that was going to cost me hundreds of dollars. iUniverse certainly made plenty of money out of me and continued to do so with every sale of my book.

Late last year, I published the sequel, Legends of Marithia: Darkness Rising by myself. I bought a professionally designed cover from a fantastic artist, Claudia Lucia McKinney (phatpuppyart), had a great map drawn by Holly J Fox, had superb proofreaders on board and took on the journey of publishing through Amazon Createspace. In all honesty, I couldn’t be happier with the results.

Like a stain on my writing career, I was never truly happy with the publishing process and the version of Prophecies Awakening that was released. I was targeting a book which I thought could be easily adapted to film, and as I was then afraid of how the content would be received… I cut out many details and scenes which I later regretted. Some of my then proofreaders did not handle some content well, and I made the mistake of cutting content, which is something that I should never have done.

Also, I have grown as a writer and felt that I could better tell the story in a new edition. I wanted to maintain the story which so many readers knew and loved, but retell it in a way that stayed faithful to the story, and deliver so much more to my fan base. And so, the idea for Legends of Marithia: Prophecies Awakening (Uncut and Extended Edition) was born.

I put aside plotting and getting ready for Book 3, blogging, and updating Marithipedia, to focus on this project as my utmost priority.

I have spent the last five months rewriting the entire story, and adding back the scenes which have been eating away at me and begging to be included. I have enlisted some amazing proofreaders who not only knew Legends of Marithia very well and could help ensure that my retelling is true and honest to the original, but would help ensure that what is published is of the highest quality and the best reading experience I can make it.

The result, is a new edition which I am proud to be publishing and bringing to light.

The release of the new edition is imminent, but I have put up a 2 chapter preview for those who I know will not want to wait to be able to check it out.

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I am penning this article as I have seen some blatantly ridiculous evidence of some indie authors taking something that “inspired” them and turning that inspiration into one of the following categories of books:

1) A “cash in” book on a current trend. ie. The endless vampire teen romance books aimed at targeting Twihards (No offense to Twihards, just an example). This is the least of all evils as although it can be mind numbingly similar, at least it’s not plain plagiarism

2) A “blended” book of two or more movies/books. The awesome idea of grabbing two stories of someone else’s work and combining them into a story of “their own”

3) A “shapesift” book. Taking a well known and successful story, and shapeshifting the main character into someone else, but rewriting the same story as “their own”

On top of this, a lot of these books get self published with no or minimal editing/proofreading/beta reading. As an indie author, I feel that indie books should go through the same thorough process that commercial books do, but I digress.

What happens is that the market that myself and other indie authors are publishing in, are flooded with these books… and the majority of them sell at 99 cents.

Now, don’t get me wrong as there are some amazing indie books out there. The gems that are hiding under the rubble of mediocrity are what we all want to find and read.

Staying on topic, I recently picked up a few indie books… written by what I can safely say are nice people to chat with. The opening of the books sounded promising as there were some genuinely great ideas within them.

Suddenly I found myself feeling a sense of Deja Vu… my instincts were confirmed when I read scenes that were pretty much identical to worldwide best sellers. I wanted to read more of them, but the experience was ruined.

Why do people do this? Why are writers thinking that it’s a great idea and that it’s “okay” to take someone else’s hard work and just change some details to make it their own?

If we were in the film industry and someone took Harry Potter, changed his name to “Robert Batfry”… made his character a vampire and then re-filmed similar scenes to Harry Potter, threw in some of their own scenes and then released it… I think we all know what would happen and it wouldn’t be pretty.

So, to get back on point… what should we do and what should we *not* do with inspiration?

Here are things you *should* do:

* Watch plenty of movies in your chosen genre to assist with visualisation. While watching the films, think about how you would write a scene to describe it to a reader.

* Watch plenty of movies focusing on emotionally charged stories. This helps to build your EQ, but also acts as a great way to learn from how others capture emotions and create scenes and scenarios that would make readers

* Research writing techniques and read the blogs of your favourite authors

* Read plenty of books by good authors that you admire, and stories which you find yourself sinking into. Learn from their techniques, let their chapters inspire you. Feel free to pay homage to a famous work, but tread carefully.

* If you haven’t already, enlist a team of proofreaders for your books and truly *listen* to their feedback. Let your readers inspire you.

And here are some things you should *not* do:

* Write a book solely for the purpose of the genre being popular and hoping to cash in – The story ends up having no “soul”, and the likelihood of your indie book being a “cash in” is little to none (sorry to burst your bubble)

*Plagiarise someone else’s work. There is a solid line between inspiration and plagiarism. If a scene was mostly written by someone else and you change a few details, that is plagiarism.

I am sure that you all have things that you can add to the Do’s and Don’ts, so feel free to comment

Until next time, happy writing!

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I have been hard at work on a side project for the Legends of Marithia series and had sent off my books for critic review. Imagine my surprise when I received two critic reviews of my latest instalment in one day

Without further ado, here are the reviews, feel free to check them out. If you haven’t already, you can order Legends of Marithia 2 on all eBook stores and on Paperback here

Michy’s Book Reviews

“This is book two in a series of epic fantasy novels, incorporating some of the best fantasy elements of humans, elves, dragons and other mythical and mystical beings. Fortunately, one doesn’t have to read book one of the series in order to understand and enjoy book two, but I do think it would likely help. I picked this up for review and haven’t read book one yet, but I do feel I’m missing a little bit by not knowing all the characters and back story well. However, it’s absolutely not necessary for the enjoyment of the story.” (read more)

SF Books

“After the climactic battle in the Elven Woods the two Marithian prophecies lie dangerously close to being swallowed by the darkness as Marithia suffers under the powers of the Blood Red Moon. Our hero Vartan, prophesied to save Marithia, lays comatose, broken and poisoned but sheltered under the protection of the mythical dragon while the evil Vampiress Kassina – prophesised to bring about Armageddon – has been returned to her Demon Lord Shindar.” (read more)

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Good evening to all marithian readers and fantasy lovers alike

It brings me great pleasure to announce that the paperback of Legends of Marithia: Darkness Rising is released and available for purchase. I have made some special touches to darkness rising and look forward to everyone’s thoughts on the next instalment of the Legends of Marithia series.

Also, I am beginning to build “Marithipedia”, which will be an online reader’s guide to Marithia, it’s characters, history, etc. You will see it begin to be built on this very website and I encourage any reader to be able to provide feedback, requests, input, etc on any aspect of my worlds. If there’s something you are burning to ask me to expand on or write about, let me know.

Keep your eyes peeled and I look forward to providing more content, building up Marithia as it stands before Book 3 begins to be formally plotted, and then it will be time to pen the third instalment. Marithipedia will be updated as I go along, and you will be able to see the additions here “live”.

I will do my best to leave out any “spoiler” information.

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It has been almost exactly two years since I published Legends of Marithia : Prophecies Awakening, and many of you may have noticed me fly off the radar on my blog as well as on other forums, etc. It has been a hectic two years with a lot happening, but finally…

Book 2 in the Legends of Marithia series is released!

You would have seen me post a preview and the cover of Darkness Rising:

 

Currently, I am awaiting the proof copies for the print version to be available on Amazon, but it is now available on Kindle, and also on Smashwords on all major eBook formats and DRM free for those who wish to use between multiple devices and they have longer previews than what I have on my website.

This time, I opted to publish my book myself and cut out the publisher, which will result in lower prices for you, the reader.

My first book was priced at a list of $7 for ebook by the publisher… I have listed Legends 2 for $2.99USD, which is considerably lower, and is a larger book. Enjoy

The book is also listed on Goodreads in Kindle format for anyone wishing to add it.

I appreciate all of the support from readers of Legends of Marithia: Prophecies Awakening, and the proofreaders who spent a lot of time on many versions of the book.

Enjoy the second instalment in the journey, I look you all taking the journey deeper into Marithia.

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