Karly Kirkpatrick is the co-owner of DarkSide Publishing (www.darksidepublishing.com), an indie epublishing label and author of Into the Shadows, available now, and Bloody Little Secrets, coming soon. She writes about her Adventures in Epublishing on her blog, www.karlykirkpatrick.com. In addition to being a grad student in the Writing and Publishing program at DePaul University, Chicago, Karly is also a member of SCBWI, a high school German teacher, and mother of an almost-four-year old.
Vampires Suck
(and other myths about writing trends)
I’d like to thank Sarah for hosting me and the other DarkSide Publishing authors this week and for highlighting indie authors. It’s great to have support from our fellow book fans and we’re thrilled to be able to tell others about the different types of literature available.
Instead of focusing on the hows and whys of indie publishing, I’d like to focus more on the artistic side of indie writing.
As a traditional publishing hopeful from 2008-2010, I was really interested in trends. Who of you out there currently pursuing traditional publishing aren’t thinking about what agents and editors are looking for, what hot and what’s not? It’s completely normal. One thing that makes it difficult for people who love to read and write trends is that publishing houses are limited to what they can buy.
They may not buy your vampire novel, even though it’s fantastic, because they already support two other vampire series at their publishing house. With a limited number of publishing houses out there, if they all already have vampire series going, your book probably won’t get published. Again, not because it’s not great, just because they already have something like it.
But that doesn’t mean people won’t want to read it.
When planning what I was writing in the past, I tried to stray from vampires, because even though I love them, I was convinced that any agent or editor that received my query would roll their eyes and throw it straight in the bin. It seemed like a waste to write something that I was pretty sure would never make it out of the pile.
But after I went indie, I reconsidered this thought process. As an indie author, I have to be aware of the market, but I’m still free to write whatever I want and write it however I want. And while there are tons of vampire books available, I was pretty confident I could sell one, because people who love vampire books, like myself, are always keeping an eye out for a new one. I’ve already received comments from people on Facebook and book blogs saying that they don’t even care what my book is about, if it has vampires, they want it.
I really think that’s the beauty of indie publishing. If you love vampires, you can write about them all you want, because there is an audience waiting for you out there. Same with any other topic or theme. The trick is to make it your own.
My vampire novel, Bloody Little Secrets, is my take on vampires. When I read other vampire books, I appreciate what other authors do, but in the back of my head I’m thinking…oh, I might have tried it this way. And now I can. I like my vampires a little bloodier and a little funnier than ones I’ve read. And I like action. Gotta have some good fight scenes. And I can’t handle drawn out romances. So that’s what I wrote. As my writing prof at DePaul University (the amazing author Hannah Pittard) said, it’s like The Bourne Identity with a teenaged vampire girl in a pink dress. I couldn’t have said it more awesomely myself.
So whether you’re into vampires, angels, zombie-unicorns or whatever, there is no fear that you can’t write what you want in Indie-land. You can focus on writing the story that you love, with or without the concern of current trends. The choice is completely yours. Just make sure it’s well written, and it will find its audience.
Paivi Anderson has it all: friends, a spot on the varsity basketball team, wonderful parents, and quite possibly, her first boyfriend. It was everything a freshman in high school could ask for. Her perfect life begins to crumble when she discovers her name on a list distributed by a power-hungry presidential candidate. How could anyone think of Paivi as an Enemy of the State? Could it be because of her special powers? No one was supposed to know about them, but the mysterious messages in her tater tots say otherwise. In INTO THE SHADOWS, Paivi quickly learns who her friends are and is forced into a reality she didn't see coming.
17-year-old Vicky Hernandez has a big problem. She's dead. Or not quite. After discovering she's been turned into a vampire, she tries to settle into a quiet suburb of Chicago and return to a normal life. If only she could stop wanting to bite her boyfriend. Not to mention she is dying to find out who turned her, and why. She doesn't have to wait long before they come to her.
