Author Guest Blog & Contest with Kelley Armstrong!

One of my author guests this week (yes there will be more than one!) needs no introduction!

Kelley Armstrong is well known in the genre and if I have to tell you who she is, well maybe you are reading the wrong blog? Of course if you are a fan you will be eagerly awaiting the release of the 12th Women of the Otherworld book, Spellbound, which comes out this week!

Kelley has been a guest here on Amberkatze's Book Blog a few times and this time Kelley has written a guest blog explaining how her books are changing. Some maybe upset to hear about at least one of the changes but I am sure, like me, you will all be excited about the others that will coming along over the next couple of years!

I hope you all enjoy the guest blog and also enter the contest for the chance to win one of Kelley's latest releases, Spellbound or The Gathering.

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The Books They Are A’Changing

I’ve been making a lot of career changes lately. I don’t think I realized how many until readers started pointing them out. The big one is that I’m ending the Otherworld with 13 in 2012 and starting a new adult series (Omens & Shadows) in 2013. That year will also see the first book in a new middle-grade Norse fantasy trilogy (The Blackwell Pages) that I’m co-writing with Melissa Marr. Even my YA series has undergone a bit of an upheaval with a change in narrators this year.

All this has prompted an outpouring of confusion and concern from my readers. There seems to be a feeling that I have the gift of clairvoyance, and I’m making changes in anticipation of upcoming market shifts. Readers ask if I’m ending the Otherworld because Urban Fantasy is crashing. They ask if I’m starting middle-grade because that’s the “hot new thing.” They ask if I’m changing YA characters because the market is shifting away from werewolves and other common supernatural types. No, no and no.

While I’d like to claim the gift of prescience, these changes are driven purely by my flighty muse. My YA world is simply expanding. I don’t like writing long series with a restricted character set, so I’m adding new characters to the mix and adding complexity to the world. As for my venture into middle-grade fiction, blame my kids. I started in YA when my daughter was in that age bracket. Now I have two pre-teen sons and I want to write books “for them” . . . and I love Norse mythology, but it has no place in my other worlds. As for the Otherworld, I’ve long planned to end at book 13—it’s just a coincidence that it came as I was making other changes, too.

I’ve always argued strongly against “chasing the market.” That can seem ironic coming from an author who is part of two very big market trends—urban fantasy and paranormal YA. But when I was writing Bitten in the nineties, UF as we know it today didn’t exist. It was purely dumb luck that, when it came out, writers like Laurell K Hamilton, Jim Butcher and Charlaine Harris had created a niche for it.

When I started The Summoning in 2005, Twilight was just finding an audience and I figured, not having vampires in mine, I’d never be a read-alike for that series. Both times, I wrote what I wanted and that’s what I encourage all aspiring authors to do. Market trends come and go. Instead, focus on pleasing yourself—and your muse—first and hope that the market—or some small corner of it—will follow.

So my books, they are a’changing, but I’m still telling stories and still loving it, and that’s the important thing. With these changes to keep my muse challenged and happy, I hope I’ll be able to say that for many years to come.







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Contest Time


Kelley is giving away a copy of one of her latest releases. The winner will get to choose from receiving a copy of The Gathering or Spellbound!


How To Enter


What supernatural power would you like to have?


No idea = No Entry


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The contest will stay open until Sunday 31st of July 2011 4pm CET and the winner will be picked by a randomizer. Entrants should check back to see if they have won. I do not hunt down winners and will pick new winners for any prizes not claimed within 7 days.