A Prophecy Forgotten Available in South Africa

I've just discovered that A Prophecy Forgotten is available in South Africa on Jump Shopping. (You can find out more about Jump Shopting at http://www.jump.co.za/.) For those of you in South Africa, please visit http://www.jump.co.za/Product/A-Prophecy-Forgotten-M-Weston-7376910.htm to purchase A Prophecy Forgotten.

A Prophecy Forgotten Making a Splash on Digital Blogs

This is an example of how doing something new can create a bit of buzz over the Internet. My publisher, ArcheBooks Publishing, Inc. decided to use new text to speech technology to create an audio book of A Prophecy Forgotten. After we released the audio book, ArcheBooks and my publicist sent out separate press releases about Archebooks's new audio book. The press releases did not necessarily tout ArcheBooks creating an audio book. Many publishers create audio books--nothing newsworthy there. They instead focused on the technology that ArcheBooks used to create the audio book. As a result of these press releases, many blogs about text to speech and audio books have included articles about the audio version of A Prophecy Forgotten.

For example, on September 17th, the Text to Speech Blog posted an article about how my publisher used Neospeech to create the audio book. Also, on September, 21st, the Art Audio Books Blog also discussed the new audio version of A Prophecy Forgotten.

Tons of publishers create audio books, but ArcheBooks decided to do something newsworthy by trying something new, resulting in increased publicity for Archebooks, me, and A Prophecy Forgotten. Click here for more information about A Prophecy Forgotten in audio. Also, stay tuned. I'm going to be producing a separate audio book of A Prophecy Forgotten in audio read by yours truly pretty soon.

Tags: audio books, Neospeech, Text to Speech, A Prophecy Forgotten, ArcheBooks

Dragon*Con Installment 4: Making New Fans

& Meeting Old Ones

Each time I sell a copy of A Prophecy Forgotten: Book I of the Elysian Chronicles, I create a potential fan, and I received enough fan e-mail and letters to know that the chances of making a fan are pretty high. I had two awesome experiences with fans at Dragon*Con.

First, I sold a book to a boy on either Friday or Saturday of Dragon*Con. He came back to my author booth on Monday and said, “Is the author here?” I said yes, and we started to talk. He told me that he came all the way down to the dealer room just to tell me that he absolutely loved the book—he had read most of it in only two or three days!

Second, a woman approached my table and asked me if I lived in Naples. It turned out that her father had read my book in one sitting and invited me to speak to his classroom! Her mom actually works for my dad. She bought a book from me and let her husband read it, then passed it on to her daughter—the woman who approached my table.


Small, small world…

Tags: DragonCon, Dragon*Con, A Prophecy Forgotten, The Elysian Chronicles

Dragon*Con Installment 2: How Far Would You Go…

…To Sell Your Book?

Would you dress up like your heroine and walk down the streets of Atlanta throwing candy attached to your first chapter brochure at the crowd? How about handing out free e-books? And what if your character just happened to be a cherubian (a guardian angel) dressed in a black breastplate and tunic, black boots, and a maroon kilt?

Ah yes, the desire to promote my books has overcome my inhibitions. My friend, Rachel, and I dressed up as Gabriella and joined the Dragon*Con Parade with Sandy Lender, and we marched down the streets of Atlanta in full costume. I threw candy attached to the first chapter of A Prophecy Forgotten: Book I of the Elysian Chronicles to the crowds, and when we ran out of candy, we asked the crowds who liked to read, and handed those who answered cd’s. I have no idea if it worked or not… I had a great time marching behind all the people dressed as Harry Potter.

Rachel, Me, and Sandy in costume, ready to astound future fans....

Rachel & me, covering both sides of the street.

Here are a few things I learned about making costumes and marching in a parade.

1. Making your own wings takes forever—especially when you craft them with chicken wire, cover them with plaster, paint them, and feather them.
2. Plaster wings are stinking heavy. I had to attach them with a metal harness that attached over my shoulders. My collarbones will never feel the same.
3. No one makes plastic breastplates made for women. I had to buy a Roman breastplate (see below), cut it, and paint it.
4. Marching down the streets of Atlanta in heeled boots is painful.
5. If you make really good wings, everyone will want to take your picture.

Below, I have some more pictures…

The breastplates before I got a hold of them (tee hee)

Here are the be breastplates for scale... (Go Yanks!)

I took feathers from about 5 feather dusters and divided them by size and color.

This is the skeleton--the wires I used to shape the wings.

Tags: DragonCon, Dragon*Con, A Prophecy Forgotten, The Elysian Chronicles, Cherubian, Harry Potter

I'm featured on Another Blog!

Hey everyone! I just wanted to let you know that my author friend, Sandy Lender, author of Choices Meant for Gods, is featuring the first chapter of A Prophecy Forgotten: Book I of the Elysian Chronicles on one of her blogs: www.fromthestart.wordpress.com. She's also got my bio posted, so check it out!

Tags: From the Start, Sandy Lender, Choices Meant For Gods, A Prophecy Forgotten, The Elysian Chronicles

This Week’s Author Events

Tuesday, 07/10/07
What: Writing Workshop on The Art of Storytelling with a Book Signing to follow.
Where: Barnes & Noble, Waterside Shops
When: Workshop: 2-4pm; Book Signing 4-6pm

Join me at Barnes & Noble as I lead a workshop on The Art of Storytelling. We’ve discussed Plot, Character Development, and Description. Now we’ll be discussing the execution of the story. (Please do not bring a guillotine—or a shredder. That’s not what I mean by execution.) Later, I’ll be signing copies of my fantasy novel, A Prophecy Forgotten: Book I of the Elysian Chronicles.


Saturday, 07/14/07
What: Writing Workshop on Making Make-Believe Believable with a Book Signing to follow
Where: Borders, Gulf Coast Town Center
When: Workshop 1-2pm, Book Signing 2-4pm

Join me at Borders as I lead a workshop on Making Make-Believe Believable. I’ll be discussing the art of writing fantasy, science fiction, horror, and paranormal without going overboard. Later, I’ll be signing copies of my fantasy novel, A Prophecy Forgotten: Book I of the Elysian Chronicles.

Tags: M. B. Weston, A Prophecy Forgotten, The Elysian Chronicles

A Prophecy Forgotten Released in Audio

Or, Why This Blog Has Mysteriously Stayed Stagnate

I apologize for not blogging for a while. I had a very good reason. I was working on the audio version of A Prophecy Forgotten: Book I of the Elysian Chronicles with my publisher. It took about every minute of my spare time for two weeks, but it was worth the effort. ArcheBooks has just released A Prophecy Forgotten as its first mBook—an audio version of the book in MP3 format. I’m so excited about this because many people have been asking me about the audio version for a while.

The mBook is available only as a downloadable MP3 file—not as a CD. It takes about 5 minutes to download if you have anything but dial-up, and once you download the file, you can burn the CD’s if you like. (It takes about 9 audio CD’s)

ArcheBooks used a computer program to generate the voice. Using the program has some great benefits—especially when it comes to the MB factor. The computer generated voice takes up less space than an audio generated voice, meaning that more chapters can fit on an iPod or similar MP3 player. The downside is, of course, the voice inflections of the voice, which though mostly natural, sometimes don’t inflect the way they are supposed to. The other problem is the names that I’ve created—mainly that the computer wasn’t able to read all of them. We had to manually change a lot of the names to their phonetic spellings.

You can check out some samples of the prologue and the first chapter of A Prophecy Forgotten at this link: http://www.archebooks.com/BookIDX/Indexes/Fantasy/APF/APFDesc.htm.. The MP3 file of the entire book is available for $14.95 through ArcheBooks.com.

Tags: A Prophecy Forgotten,
The Elysian Chronicles, ArcheBooks Publishing, mBook

For more information on my novel, A Prophecy Forgotten: Book I of the Elysian Chronicles, and my upcoming novel, Out of the Shadows: Book II of the Elysian Chronicles, check out my website at http://www.elysianchronicles.com/.

Weekly Update

This week a few great things happened:

First, I visited both Alva Middle School and Corkscrew Middle School. Both were lots of fun, but both were also long drives. I really enjoyed meeting all the kids and talking about writing, and I’m glad that coffee exists because I had to get up super-early to get to the schools on time. (Especially Alva, which is about an hour away from where I live. I had to get up at 5:30!)

Second, my husband fired me from my cleaning job! Yah-hoo! Well, he didn’t really fire me—demoted me to part time is more like it. He figured out that I’ve been so exhausted from promoting my book and working on the sequel that what I could do in three hours he could do in ne. (He also figured out that if I didn’t clean offices at night, then I would have to do the cooking and cleaning at home, which he has been doing since I’ve been the one working basically two full time jobs.) Anyway, I’m fired! This gives me my nights free and alone to finish A Prophecy Forgotten’s sequel, Out of the Shadows!

For more information on my novel, A Prophecy Forgotten: Book I of the Elysian Chronicles, and my upcoming novel, Out of the Shadows: Book II of the Elysian Chronicles, check out my website at http://www.elysianchronicles.com.

My First Book Signing at Barnes & Noble!

Well, on Wednesday, I got a call from Jessica at Barnes & Noble telling me that they had a slight problem with my book signing. They were down to 12 books total in the store out of the 50 that they had originally purchased, and they didn’t have time to order more. I guess that’s a good problem to have, running out of books because people want to buy them…. Fortunately, I had 100 books at home, so I lent them 50 more that Wednesday night.

Friday, May 4th, was my first book signing at Barnes & Noble—a whirlwind of a day. First, I went to Praise FM, where I was on the radio with Arnie. Then, I tried to race to PJ’s Coffee of New Orleans where the first part of my book signing was supposed to be, but I got stuck in traffic, and had to make a highly illegal u-turn in the median. I reached PJ’s, but with no time to copy my first chapter brochures for Out of the Shadows, so I sent my mom to Kinkos with my credit card, while I sat in PJ’s and signed books.

I was so excited by the turnout at PJ’s. My friend, Lundy Hedges brought a bunch of kids from her son’s school with books for me to sign, and it was great getting to meet them. A bunch of kids from my youth group and writing group also showed up, as well as some teachers from Barron Collier High School, and some friends of my parents. It was great, and the best part was that I got to introduce everyone to the phenomenal coffee at PJ’s!

Then it was off to Barnes & Noble, where I signed books for three hours. I’m not sure how many books I sold. I know that the store had negative 4 to start with because they never recorded my 50 as being received, so I figure that they had about 46. At the end of the night, we were down to 2 from what we could find, so I might have sold 44 books, which is pretty good for a book signing! A bunch of my friends from the Florida Writers Association, including Sandy Lender (http://www.todaythedragonwins.blogspot.com/) and Tina Murray (http://www.achancetosayyes.blogspot.com/) came as well as my friend, Tracy (www.myspace.com/tmmercury, from Lakeland.

The most exciting part is this: my publisher was there, and he loved the energy, the crowd, the kids, and the sweet T-shirts (that are soon going to go on sale on my website). It inspired him to….

You’re going to have to wait for my next blog to find out my exciting news!!!!!

For more pictures, visit my website at http://www.elysianchronicles.com/May_4th_BookSigning.htm.

Above all, I want to thank everyone who came out to support me. This first book signing was a big deal. I needed a good sell through rate with my books at Barnes & Noble, and I got it—they were almost left with negative 48 books by the time I left! To put it bluntly, they received the first 50 books on Friday, April 14th. Three weeks later, they sold almost 100 books! You guys, all of you, rock! You absolutely rock!

For more information on my debut novel, A Prophecy Forgotten, check out my website at http://www.elysianchronicles.com.

Center Point Youth Group is the Best in the World!

The youth at Center Point Community Church rock! They just rock! Last night at youth group, I told them that A Prophecy Forgotten was available at Barnes & Noble. Later on, I walked outside and saw that about six cars had “A Prophecy Forgotten by MB Weston Now Available at Barnes & Noble” written in the rear windows—including mine. It made me realize how lucky I was to be one of the leaders of such a great youth group. I love you guys!

For more information on my debut novel, A Prophecy Forgotten, check out my website at http://www.elysianchronicles.com.

Don't Blush While Wearing Concealer...

Or, Gulp, How Am I Going to Sell 50 Books???

My friends from middle school and high school, Sasha and Sophia, met me for coffee at Barnes & Noble on Friday. Sophia is an English teacher in San Francisco, and I haven’t seen her in a few years, so it was great to get together. Sophia and Sasha insisted on seeing if A Prophecy Forgotten was in the store, so they dragged me to the customer service desk to ask. I felt quite self-conscious about being an author and asking for a copy of my own book (especially because I was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt from my night of cleaning office buildings), so I kept quiet. “They just received fifty copies,” said the customer service rep. My heart almost came to a complete stop. 50 copies for my May 4th book signing?

(Just an FYI on the publishing industry: Bookstores actually function as consignment shops. They can return any book they buy within a three month period of time, and they usually will return all of those books that aren’t A-List that don’t sell in three months. Returned books look bad in the bookstore computers. I want to look good to the Barnes & Noble computers--like an author with a great sell through. Therefore, I want a 100% sell through for my first book signing, but 75% will be acceptable. That means that by May 4th (well, actually, I’ve got until three months from Friday…), I have to get at least 38 people into Barnes & Noble to buy A Prophecy Forgotten. This is going to be fun, to say the least.)

But on with the story because it’s actually kind of funny. We went searching for A Prophecy Forgotten, but couldn’t find it. We finally asked a very nice man with an employee tag where it was. Again, I kept quiet, feeling foolish. The man said he would check receiving. After about ten minutes of checking receiving, he returned holding 5 copies of A Prophecy Forgotten. Sophia and Sasha each took a copy, and he turned away from us to put the book on the shelves.

About ten steps later, he opened the book and began flipping through it. His eyes fell on the book flap where my picture is prominently displayed. He stopped immediately, turned to us, and pointed at me. I gave him a little laugh. He walked back to us and said, “You’re supposed to tell me you’re the author!”

My face turned hot—extremely hot—and I started laughing. “I was embarrassed,” I tried to explain. I stuck out my hand and said, “Hi, I’m M. B. Weston.” He shook it, and we had a good laugh over it. Still, the only thing I could think about was how red my face must be and how the concealer I’ve been using to hide my acne always shows when my face turns red. He’s staring at my concealer, I kept thinking, which is utter nonsense because no man is going to notice that kind of thing. Aren’t we women funny in how we think sometimes?

Once he left, Sophia, Sasha, and I took pictures by the bookshelves, and then the purchased my book. We allowed Sophia the opportunity to make the first purchase. It’s kind of nice. My best friends have all gotten the first purchase of A Prophecy Forgotten in some way. My other friend, Jill, made the first purchase from me directly—my first sale. Sasha was the first to purchase it off Amazon.com. And Sophia got to buy the first book in the bookstore. It was a perfect night really, except for my face turning red and exposing my concealer

For more information on my debut novel, A Prophecy Forgotten, check out my website at http://www.elysianchronicles.com.