Today, I hit a new milestone for Apocalypse Later: I participated in my first author signing event, Authorpalooza at
Dog-Eared Pages in Phoenix. I sold as many books as you can count on neither hand, but I had a blast anyway, catching up with wonderful authors I already knew and discovering wonderful authors I didn't, learning all the way. Here's where it begins and I can build from here.
Dog-Eared Pages is a real discovery of a used bookstore nestled away in a strip mall in northeast Phoenix. The address is 16428 N 32nd St, Phoenix, AZ 85032. To make it even more awesome than any used bookstore is to begin with, it's run by an author,
Anna Questerly, whose historical trilogy for young adults,
The Minstrel's Tale, I bought a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed.
I found myself sat indoors out of the Arizona sun on what became known as the 'accent table', given that it housed one strange Englishman in a kilt and one lovely French lady,
Vijaya Schartz, who writes novels that refuse to be categorised.
I loved how she described her sales pitch: her main series is 'science fiction with sex' to potential male buyers, but 'romance with science fiction' to the female equivalent. Really, she writes science fiction and romance all in the same book, unless she's writing historical, romance and fantasy, all in the same book. Why be pigeonholed?
The same could be said for Vijaya herself. Beyond writing over twenty novels, she acted on stage and television, sang in cabaret and exhibited paintings. She earned a place on the French national gymnastics team, obtained a black belt in Aikido in Hawaii and studied yoga in an ashram in India. In her spare time she has hosted a radio show and run most of the local author organisations. She certainly keeps herself busy.
While her covers range from hard science fiction to traditional romance, it's her
Chronicles of Kassouk series, beginning with
White Tiger, that stand out the most, with their elegant font and their striking images of the eyes of big cats. It's always these that people hone in on first.
I didn't check, but Vijaya may have written the oldest book being signed, as the earliest of her many novels dates back to around the year 2000. The author I've seen around the longest, though, is
Kris Tualla, who we first bumped into at the Glendale Chocolate Affaire, a great place to meet local mystery and romance authors.
She writes several series of historical romance and suspense and is doing her best to put her setting on the romantic map. 'Norway is the new Scotland' she proclaims, having written a whole slew of novels about the Hansens, set as far apart as the 14th and 19th centuries. She's currently filling in the gaps in between.
Her newest books are
A Discreet Gentleman of Mystery, the fifth in her
Discreet Gentleman series, and the novella
In the Norseman's House.
Emmy-nominated journalist turned contemporary romance author
Morgan Kearns is a regular at local book events too. Her website suggests that she's approached 'random young hotties' to ask them to pose for her book covers, but I didn't get a second glance today. I'm only three words short of joining that company!
As the baseball jersey she wore today highlights, many of her romances tie to sports, which her
Deadlines & Diamonds series suggests is apparently a popular combination. I'm not big on those wacky American sports, though, so I'm more likely to pick up her vampire playboy series,
The Gossip of Mysterious Lane.
Sharing Morgan's table was a bubbly lady going by two names.
Under her real name of
Sharon Arthur Moore, the one she taught under for 39 years, she writes historical fiction, women's fiction and culinary mysteries, a delightful genre if ever I've encountered one. I adore the title
Mission Impastable, the opener for her
Dinner is Served mystery series. It's followed up by
Prime Rib and Punishment.
She uses the exotic pseudonym
Angelica French for her steamier erotic romance novels, like
Streetwalker and
Sex for Sale, which feature Carrie, a prostitute who hates sex, and Harlan, who runs a bordello.
Another author I've seen before is
Ethan Russell Erway, who I found at Phoenix Comicon last year, drawn in by the excellent covers of his two adventure novels for children. They centre around the character Michael Belmont, who I've heard described as 'Indiana Jones meets Harry Potter'.
He also writes science fiction, with his
Bleeding Star Chronicles currently in its fifth volume, all of which are collected together in an anthology. I hope his steampunk series, beginning with the novella,
Blowing Off Steam, makes it into print sometime soon, but we may need to wait for the whole series to complete first.
V S Nelson was a new name to me today, but she's been keeping busy turning out epic fantasies the size of doorstops. They're easily recognisable as the purple books, which works well, and they mix up genres in a similar way to Vijaya Schartz.
The
Sekhmet's Guardians series are paranormal, romance, adventure, historical, you name it. Just don't blink or there will be another doorstop ready to go.
Braving the Arizona sun with a charming accent was
Camelia Miron Skiba, who apparently writes multicultural romance. I never knew how many subgenres there were.
Her
Dacian Legends series have covers that leap out, all black and white with a single other colour sneaking in to catch us unawares.
Hidden Heart looks rather enticing too.
I was on something of a budget today, but I couldn't resist picking up a book from
Fran Orenstein, a lady who may just write in a different genre for each day of the week, or at least for a differently aged audience.
Her titles are well picked ones that leap out:
Death in D Minor,
The Mystery of the Green Goblin or
The Spice Trader's Daughter. Best of all may just be
Fat Girls from Outer Space, which isn't what you think; it's a contemporary novel for tweens.
It was
The Book of Mysteries that I snapped up, a collection of three fantasy adventure novels for young adults (
The Wizard's Revenge,
The Gargoyles of Gothica and
The Centaurs of Spyr), because anything that revolves around a disappearing bookshop run by a magician has to be in one of my signed bookcases. The fact that the cover looks rather like a cyclops
grichle was just icing on the cake.
Fran was nestled inside Dog-Eared Pages, just on the other side of the Bargain Books area, with a couple of other authors.
Science fiction author
Alan Black's mother explained in one anecdote why Amazon reviews are so important. I've been told before that if a book reaches the 50 review mark, which is much harder to do than it sounds like it should be, Amazon will promote that book. When
Metal Boxes reached that target, Black became the Amazon Author of the Week, and promptly sold 4,200 books during that period. That's like Easter, Christmas and Wookiee Life Day all at once.
Black's science fiction novels sound like throwbacks to the great stories I grew up reading, courtesy of my mother's home library. They're described as 'young adult science fiction military action adventure', but to me they sound like Heinlein's juveniles, which I recently re-read in entirety.
Chewing Rocks is his other sci-fi yarn, but he also writes general fiction (the
Ozark Mountain series, with Bernice Knight) and comedy (
Chasing Harpo, about an orangutan on the lam).
Last, but certainly not least, was
Kiki Swanson (who is not to be conflated with KiKi Swinson, who Google seems to want me to look at it instead).
Swanson is a former Presbyterian church leader who writes fictionalised versions of real historical stories. If I didn't have to get back to my own table to try to sell my own books, I could happily have talked to Kiki for the rest of the day.
Perhaps her books, like
My Will Be Done and
Yes, I Can!, could be best described as stories, as they sound like wells in which to dive and experience, the most enlightening of books to read.
And that wraps up Authorpalooza, except for that strange Englishman, the only author attempting to sell non-fiction today and clearly not finding the right audience. Just to make this post complete, I should mention my two books about film. The covers are at the top of the page.
Huh? An A-Z of Why Classic American Bad Movies Were Made looks at 26 different reasons why people thought it might be a bright idea to make movies and explains through 26 different movies why they weren't quite so bright after all.
Velvet Glove Cast in Iron: The Films of Tura Satana runs through every feature film and every episode of a TV show credited at IMDb that Tura Satana, the star of
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! appeared in.
Many thanks to my better half, Dee Astell of
Countess Chaos Creations, who took all the photos.
I've linked to each of the author's pages above, but here's a list for easy reference with fresh links.
Dog-Eared Pages:
http://www.dogearedpagesusedbooks.com/
Countess Chaos Creations:
https://www.facebook.com/CountessChaosTheChronicler
Alan Black:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Alan-Black-Paperback-Writer/259372705810
Ethan Russell Elway:
http://www.ethanrussellerway.com/
Angelica French:
http://www.angelicafrench.blogspot.com/
Morgan Kearns:
http://www.morgankearns.com/
Sharon Arthur Moore:
http://www.sharonamoore.com/
V S Nelson:
http://www.authorvsnelson.com/
Fran Orenstein:
http://www.franorenstein.com/
Anna Questerly:
http://www.annaquesterly.com/
Vijaya Schartz:
http://www.vijayaschartz.com/
Camilia Miron Skiba:
http://authorcameliamironskiba.com/
Kiki Swanson:
http://www.kikiswansonbooks.com/
Kris Tualla:
http://www.kristualla.com/
