Change of hat for the Wandering Writer

It's that wonderful time again when the Wandering Writer turns into the Marketing Writer.
Just like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I am going to transform myself, to give you some updated and fresh news.

First of all, I have now a new website.
It had been a lot of work, money and time spent tweaking the way I think it is best. Eventually, this is not even the final version, and with time, it will be improved and updated more frequently. Nevertheless, if you want to drop by and give some hints and suggestions, I would be more than grateful.

CHECK THE NEW WEBSITE

Every week I will change the header's picture updating a Quote of the week.

About the trilogy, I have bundled recently into a box set,  I would like to make some remarks. The novella Deadly Deception - Prelude, has been tweaked one more time and edited. Also, the other books have gone through a screening to fix some minor/medium issues with the dialogues. I must say that those reviews which were not so positive gave me a lot to think and gave me the chance to improve and see my novels with the eyes of those readers. Not being an English native speaker is challenging, but on the other hand, I need to tell those stories I kept in my heart, and that's mostly the reason why I published them.

About my next release I have sent it to my editor, and I plan to have it published by next month. The date is still to be decided also based on my ARC team's schedule.
But stay tuned and keep an eye on my Facebook page/blog/website for the news, as soon I will start releasing some sneak peeks and the cover.

So for this time, I guess it is all, but don't hesitate and contact me for whatever question. I am (almost) always open. LOL

Have a great weekend!

To err is human

Oh well. I guess I am not the only one who has passed through this step. I still consider myself a beginner in the publishing industry, and this kind of mistake is easy to make.
What I am talking about is the re-issuing of the second book I have ever published, "The Ghosts of Morgan Street."
In the beginning, I gave the editing work to someone who had great feedback about her turnaround times and quality of work. Particularly the latter impressed me, so without even caring about the price, I chose her.
Now, and only now, I start to reconsider that the job was not done correctly. Particularly after having found a new editor who did a fantastic job with Aquila et Noctua, I decided to give her the task to re-edit the work.
Better later than never.
Anyway, I am considering to go through all the other books, including the trilogy, and see how can I improve them.
Of course, there couldn't be any re-edition without dressing the book for the party with a brand new cover. That was perhaps another problem that could have resulted in poor sales. Using the blessed time of being alone for the whole week in the house, I put myself to work. Then, with the help with the best purchase ever, a drawing tablet, I started to combine, cut, draw, and color, until I could reach a satisfying result.
Of course, you would like to see it, and here it is:

It is nothing fancy; actually, I kept it as simple as possible, making it more compliant with the standard for the genre, psychological thriller.
Any feedback is welcome.
The re-release will come in the following week, so it's a good time to stay tuned and hope for the best.
So another thing I have been learning is the importance of not just choosing a good editor, but the one that can work with the kind of issue that most likely is affecting your writing.
For example, my problem is not being a native speaker and finding a person who is qualified for editing works of people who have English as a second language, is critical.
Every writer has a particular issue, whether it is a problem of plot holes, stilted dialogues, or anything else, finding the right editor is crucial.
Of course, this means also going through a list of wrong editors. So far, I changed four editors before finding the right one. Therefore, if you are in the same situation as I am now, and are wondering whether your editor is the right one, I suggest following more closely what the readers say and how do they react to everything you are publishing. They are, at least from my point of view, the best channel to understand whether what you are doing is right.
That said, I wish you all a great weekend and see you next week.

There is a new release on the horizon!

It’s not me the one who is a quite a prolific writer, the fact is that my editor took quite a long time to edit my previous novel otherwise it would have been released on February, instead of May, and now I have a new release coming up the end of next month.

I have mentioned in another blog post that this would be a historical novel and that it is going to be set in the Imperial Rome during the last period of the emperor Hadrian, just after the third Jewish revolt.
The choice of the title has been quite challenging because I wanted to have an original name, something that can really distinguish my work. Now here are some of my biggest struggles. For the previous series, Deadly Deception, I had to come to the compromise and accept the fact that there were at least twenty books from twenty different author with the same title. This is not generally an issue, as there isn’t a copyright on titles, so I went on with that.
This time I did accurate researches and came out with a title that certainly is unique, do you want to know it?
Of course: “Aquila et Noctua.”

Or “The Eagle and the Owl.” The reason why I put the title in Latin has two reasons, one because the English version was already overused, and so were all the possible variants I could figure out for it. Therefore, as I was in Italy with my sister, it came to me the idea of translating in Latin. besides, that was the language used in Rome, so for these two reasons, I decided to go on with that idea.

I am sure you are wondering what the idea behind the title is. The eagle represents the Roman Empire and its army. Particularly because all starts with the final defeat of the Jews by the massive military campaign planned by emperor Hadrian.

The main character of the novel is a Jew boy, Saul, who is brought to Rome to be sold as a slave. Despite the young age he is gifted not just with grace and beauty, which would make a slave particularly appreciated by any potential buyer, but also with wisdom.

He will be the catalyst of the internal fracture inside the family he will go to serve, and his gifts will bring him into troubles any slave would like to avoid.

Once again the themes of jealousy, revenge, fractured families, will be punt in contrast with the themes of love, hope and forgiveness.
Because of the traits of the main character and his tight bond with the Roman Empire, I came out with the eagle and the owl.

In nature, the eagle and the owl are both mighty predators, but they hold different characteristics, at least in their symbology. Those two qualities were perfect to be highlighted in the title as they incorporate perfectly the main players in this tale.

I am still going to figure out the blurb, and…

What? You want to see the cover?

I guess you’ll need to wait for the cover reveal… a little suspense LOL.

But fear not, it won’t take long, and I will soon make an official cover reveal. I am now planning the marketing strategy, so I am delivering informations day by day.

Stay tuned!