Be sure to check out the new podcast interview done by fellow author Gail Martin/Ghost in the Machine, which is (wow! cool) featured on the front page of redroom.com - for this week. If you miss the feature week, it can be found on this website, and also, on my author page at redroom.
originally posted by Wayne
Great interview Janny. Are you and Gail getting together at DragonCon and doing another?
Wayne - I don't know - Her audio setup at DragonCon was so muddy it didn't work as a link…the interview you just experienced was done later, by phone, so the sound is much cleaner…if Gail asks, again, of course, I'd accept.
I am really happy she got this exposure for her efforts!
originally posted by Mark Stephen Kominski
Enjoyed the interview and insights, Janny. Interesting that you felt the original cover of Mistwraith would give potential readers the wrong impression…
Mark - I didn't think so at the time. The painting was right - it was the type treatment made it look Dragonlancy - and I didn't think the package was ugly, either.
Where I first got the sense of it may be a bad steer, was the lack of reviews within the field - game related fantasy was not considered "original enough" - and this book looking like game related fantasy may, just may, have colored a prejudice.
I don't know for sure, but it got overlooked within the fantasy venue for reviews in the USA, for some reason.
originally posted by Mark Stephen Kominski
I was a pretty ardent shopper of the SciFi/Fantasy shelves at the time (no kids or mortgage at that point, my wife and I would get lost for hours in book stores…), and I don't even remember seeing it on the shelves, much less a review (which, agreed, I could have easily missed). The first time I ran across Curse was *gasp* in the clearance bin of Atlantic Books in Rehoboth, Delaware while at the beach. Needless to say, I snarfed it up.
*Picks up a copy of The Soul Forge and compares it with Curse*
Now that you mention it, the white-gold design of the box around the title DOES look very similar to the design around the lance in Dragonlance. I suspect most here would agree with the age old adage about book judgments and covers, but if you were seeking to distance yourself (a la the interview), I now see where that design would frustrate…
Mark - well at least that Clearance bin copy found you! (One of the advantages of a hardback - returns get overstock sold to a reader, whereas, a paperback just gets stripped and wasted.)