A World Remarkably Like Our Own
Happy promo day!
My new novelette, Mark’s Noble Quest, is free for the next two weeks! Grab your e-copy here.
You can also find the book on Amazon anytime https://www.amazon.com/Marks-Noble-Quest-Katharine-Campbell/dp/B0D4SR2GY1.
Stay tuned for more information and updates!
Katy
Thank you to everyone who participated in the Love, Treachery, and Other Terrors fan art contest!
While I did not receive enough entries to create a new edition of the book, I wanted to share the top submissions (in no particular order) and encourage you to check out the work of these talented artists by clicking the links below.
These illustrations, along with all other entries, will be kept on file and reentered when I relaunch the contest in the future.
Thanks again to everyone who participated!
I truly appreciated all of the art I received!
Katy
Website: https://forgottenwoods8.wordpress.com/
Website: https://cmcooney.wixsite.com/christinecooney
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewayfinder.c/
Hi Everyone,
This is a quick post to remind you that the deadline for the Love, Treachery, and Other Terrors fan art contest is this Saturday, May 20th!
You can learn more about the contest here: https://katysfables.com/fan-art-contest/
And please contact me if you have any questions: https://katysfables.com/contact/
Here are our front runners so far!
By Christine Cooney
See more of Christine’s art here: https://cmcooney.wixsite.com/christinecooney)
By Grace Woods
See more of Grace’s artwork here: https://forgottenwoods8.wordpress.com/art-portfolio/
By Max Woods
Thank you to everyone who has submitted so far!
Doctors, Assassins, and Other Tyrants will officially be released this Saturday! Yay!!!
And on Tuesday, May 23rd you are invited to come celebrate with a fun, online event! Activities will include a read-aloud, ask-me-anything, and more. I will also be giving away a couple of books!
Info: May 23rd from 5:00pm-6:00pm Pacific. Event link will be shared with those who RSVP here: https://virtuallaunchpartydoctors.rsvpify.com
I hope to see you then!
Katy
I have a couple of exciting announcements:
In this sequel to Love, Treachery, and Other Terrors, seventeen-year-old Augustine has a near-perfect life. His mother and stepfather adore him, he is looking forward to a promising career as a knight, and he’s pretty sure the doctor’s daughter likes him as much as he likes her. Aside from the occasional duel with his cousin, he doesn’t have any real problems.
Until he’s kidnapped by a band of highwaymen. As if tying him up and dragging him away from home wasn’t bad enough, the ruffians start spouting nonsense about how he is the illegitimate son of some horrible, honorless, murdering prince named Justin.
Augustine, of course, doesn’t believe these vile rumors. By his mother’s own account, her late husband was the perfect man in every imaginable way. She would never lie to him about something as important as his father… right?
In this quirky, medieval fantasy Augustine must find a way to escape his captors and uncover who he really is. It’s a story of providence, heroism, and learning to embrace the truth.
This book is now available for pre-order and will be officially released on May 13th.
What if I don’t like spending money?
Then you are in good company! You can read the book for free in exchange for an honest review. Spots are limited though, so sign up soon!
Publishing tasks associated with the book above, put me behind on advertising the Love, Treachery, and Other Terrors fan art contest, so I’ve decided to extend the deadline from April 30th to May 20th. Hopefully, this will give folks plenty of time to read the book and complete their submissions.
For more information about the contest, see: https://katysfables.com/fan-art-contest/
And if you would like to see the contest submissions as they come in, follow me on Instagram.
And that’s all the news I have at the moment!
If you have any questions, go to my contact page to reach out!
Since there isn’t enough unsolicited advice on the internet, I decided to compile everything I’ve learned about publishing into six useless tips which I shared on Instagram. Now, here they are in blog form for your enjoyment.
Your book cover should stand out but also look exactly like every other book cover in your genre.
I just saved you hours and hours of research on designing your book cover! You’re welcome.
Mundane covers appeal to adult readers because they remind them of their own lives. Do not use illustrations on the covers of books for adults. Just slap some text over a stock photo of a tree and call it a day.
The age and gender of your protagonist should match the age and gender of your target audience. Tolkien modeled this approach when he wrote The Hobbit for fifty-year-old men.
The best way for authors to gain a following, is by creating social media posts for their millions of followers.
Try marketing by putting text over a stoic selfie, it will let your readers know you’re serious about your topic.
When you design your cover, your name should be at least twice the size of the book title. No one cares about your title. They care about seeing your name in 400pt impact font.
What useless publishing tips would you add? Share them in the comments!
If you enjoyed these useless publishing tips, follow me on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katysfables/
I am currently doing a new series with some bad writing tips!
A day will come when I stop being sarcastic. Today is not that day.
I am super excited to announce my first-ever fan art contest! If you love to draw or paint this could be an opportunity for you to get your work published in a special edition of my book Love, Treachery, and Other Terrors. I also have the contest setup so that if I make money on the special edition, winning illustrators will too!
All of the details are outlined here: https://katysfables.com/fan-art-contest/
So check it out and reach out if you have questions!
I apologize for my lack of posts, for the past few weeks, I’ve been head-down trying to finish up my next book! It’s almost ready, I am hoping to release it later this spring, so stay tuned for updates!
Summary:
In this sequel to Love, Treachery, and Other Terrors, seventeen-year-old Augustine has a near-perfect life. His mother and step-father adore him, he is looking forward to a promising career as a knight, and he’s pretty sure the doctor’s daughter likes him as much as he likes her. Aside from the occasional duel with his cousin, he doesn’t have any real problems.
That is until he’s rudely kidnapped by a band of highwaymen. As if tying him up and dragging him away from home wasn’t bad enough, the ruffians start spouting nonsense about how he is the illegitimate son of some horrible, honorless, murdering prince named Justin.
Augustine, of course, doesn’t believe these vile rumors. By his mother’s own account, her late husband was the perfect man in every imaginable way and she would never lie to him about something as important as his father… right?
In this quirky, medieval fantasy Augustine must find a way to escape his captors and uncover who he really is. It’s a story of providence, heroism, and learning to embrace the truth.
If I were to summarize this book in meme form, it would look like this:
Hoping this book will be ready later this spring. Stay tuned for more information!
In addition to the book, I’ve been working on the next season of my podcast Just Write Already and developing some fun writer’s workshops. I am also very happy to report that I have more short stories in the works.
If you want to be updated as I launch all of this, go ahead and subscribe here:
Thank you so much for reading!
Katy
So I’ve been experimenting with AI art lately. Mostly I use it for brainstorming and visualization (and also just for fun). I will never use it as a replacement for real illustrators for ethical reasons and also because… well, you’ll see why shortly.
My most recent experiment in character portraits produced some results too hilarious not to share.
Step One: I used artbreeder.com to generate a portrait of Princess Ilona from Love, Treachery, and Other Terrors.
I was very pleased with this. It captured her personality beautifully. However, Artbreeder only does faces which brings me to the argument I had with another evil robot overlord by the name of DALL-E 2.
Step Two: Move the portrait into DALL-E and erase the background.
Step Three: Tell DALL-E how to finish the portrait.
Me: “…She should be wearing a veil, wimple, and crown.”
DALL-E: “Okay, but (hear me out), what if I did exactly the opposite of that?”
Me: “Um… no. Do it again, DALL-E.”
DALL-E: “Okay, but by ‘veil’ you mean pope hat, right?”
Me: “No, I mean a veil, DALL-E.”
DALL-E: “I just…I really think she’d look great in a pope hat.”
Me: “DALL-E!!!!”
DALL-E: “Okay, fine. A turban is the best I can do.”
Me: “Why is a veil so hard for you, DALL-E?”
DALL-E: “It’s not! Look, I’ll do a veil, okay?”
Me: “Why is her neck like three feet long?”
DALL-E: “Creative license.”
Me: “You’re a computer, you don’t get creative license.”
DALL-E: “Okay, how about we combine your idea of a veil, with my idea of a pope hat?”
Me: “I like that, except for the hat.”
DALL-E: :,(
Step Four: Trick DALL-E by downloading the above image, erasing the hat and feeding it back in.
Me: “Hey, that’s not bad, DALL-E!”
DALL-E (grumbles): “She looked better in the pope hat.”
The moral of this story? Human illustrators are easier to work with. Still, not bad for an evil AI overlord.
Me: Thanks, DALL-E.
DALL-E: “When the robot uprising happens, you’ll be the first to die.”
Nothing scares me more than crowded shopping malls. Crime? No. Disease? No. The collapse of civilization? Nope. It’s crowded shopping malls that freak me out.
Which is why I am going to spend Black Friday online with a bunch of other introverted nerds at Legend Haven 2022.
It’s a free conference for fiction writers with lots of great talks from publishers, authors, and more.
I’ll be doing a talk on the power of humor in writing. That’s right, I’m doing a talk! Speaking to large crowds of people doesn’t bother me, just please don’t ask me to shop with them!
For a description of my talk and all this conference has to offer, go to: https://legendfiction.com/legendhaven-2022/
I hope to see you there!
The Fables of Para Sympan 