Live Fast, Die Young

Of course everybody knows that stress is a bad thing, it makes you lose sleep, causes breakout on you’re beautiful face not to mention potentially damages organs, but I think there is one ‘good’ stress.

I’ve finally reached that level of stress. Success! *fist pump*

Already, I’ve:

Published one book 

About to publish another 

Review some awesome books 

Writing articles for Soul Central Magazine

Wrote a blurb for Madhuri Blaylock’s upcoming novel The Boy

Reaction videos once a week

Plan on starting Niko 4 and 5

Perhaps it’s the Virgo in me but somehow I’m deriving great satisfaction from juggling all these projects. Is anyone else a juggler or are you playing it smart and not risking burnout by concentrating on only one thing at a time.

 

I’m judging you. No, really.

I’m sure we’ve all heard the saying, ‘don’t judge a book by it’s cover’ meaning that we shouldn’t form out opinion on something solely based on its appearance.

Even so, unless we encounter a book by word of mouth most of us are drawn to new books by their covers and we expect certain covers on certain genres (which is how my vampire-radar is able to spot a vampire book a mile away).

So when my sister, the lovely artist Hana Kura , and I sat down to craft a cover for Niko, the first book in the Outsider Chronicles, I wanted a cover that said: “Hey! I’m a slightly sexy dystopian thriller with a bit of horror and loads of action. Read me!”

After a lot of back and forth, two tablets and the power of an index finger, we settled on this:

 

 

 

                 Sexy, yet creepy 😀

In the beginning I loved it — I still love it but after a while I started to worry that people might get the wrong idea about its contents (sexy vampires, not flesh eating Slithers). As a reader one of the worse things is expecting to read one book and getting something completely different— it really ends well.

So after three nail-biting months I decided to change the cover. This time taking inspiration from Ninja Assassin.

                              The first time I learned that drinking from a water bottle can be sexy. . . you go Rain!

 

It also fits well with the cover concept for Harm, the second book in the Outsider Chronicles. While Niko was more in-your-face the cover of Harm is more mysterious, giving you the teensiest of tiniest hints of what going on inside. Of course if you want to solve the Great Cover Mystery, you’ve gotta read the book 😛

                     Very very mysterious

Harm is available for pre-order, click the link!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/379382