Bio:
Alma Alexander's life so far has prepared her very well for her chosen career. She was born in a country which no longer exists on the maps, has lived and worked in seven countries on four continents (and in cyberspace!), has climbed mountains, dived in coral reefs, flown small planes, swum with dolphins, touched two-thousand-year-old tiles in a gate out of Babylon. She is a novelist, anthologist and short story writer who currently shares her life between the Pacific Northwest of the USA (where she lives with her husband and two cats) and the wonderful fantasy worlds of her own imagination. You can find out more about Alma on her website, her Facebook page or her blog (http://anghara.livejournal.com).
1. Tell
us how you came to be an Author with Dark Quest.
Before The Were Chronicles books, my current series
with Palomino Press (the YA arm of DQ), I edited a short story anthology called
“River” under the DQ umbrella, so they were known to me – and when the new
Palomino Press imprint opened its doors and announced it was seeking books, I
happened to have the right material on hand. How I crossed paths with DQ in the
first place involves a complicated story of science fiction conventions, mutual
friends, and shared background and interests. We all just happened to be in the
right place and the right time together.
2. What
do you enjoy most about being a DQ Author?
Having people I consider friends who are involved
with my books – it isn’t a huge faceless conglomerate where there’s a
“department” that does the work. Here, it’s people.
3. What
have your experiences been like working toward being published?
It’s always been a tough ask. These days writers are
told that more avenues are open – and to a point that’s true; there was a
relentless contraction in the BIG publishers which ate imprints here there and
everywhere until it was irrelevant where you submitted it was all being
controlled by the head office anyway and the people in charge there were rarely
editors any more but rather marketers who often looked at each acquisition with
an eye to the bottom line rather than any other merits. But these days more and
more quality smaller presses are springing up again – it’s as though the market
ecosystem needs all the new young growth and cannot survive with only five
great old trees in what is otherwise a desert – and other things are happening,
like writing co-ops (consisting of a group of writers who have banded together
in order to help one another with the logistics of creating books – places like
Book View Café). I’ve run the gamut of the publishing experience – been published
by the Big Six, in the States and internationally; been published by small(er)
presses; put together a few (self-published) collections of short stories
myself and planted them on Amazon and Smashwords. Personally, because I am a
WRITER first and foremost and everything else follows after that, I prefer the
experience of going through an actual publisher or somebody who can help with
the logistics; cover designer, copy
editor, book formatter, publicist – these are all jobs I’ll tackle if I need to
but I much prefer to see them being done by folks who are BETTER at them than I
am while I go on to write the next book instead…
4. What
would you have done differently?
In what sense? I’d still be writing. Somehow,
somewhere, I would still have been working towards publication. There *IS* no
“differently”.
5. How
has your book been marketed?
DQ deals with distribution and with (some) review
copies. I’ve done plenty off my own bat, regarding “Random”, the first book in
The Were Chronicles, and I hope to be able to do similar things for “Wolf”, the
second book, when it comes out in May. I have a presence on the Internet and
the social media – as many of them as I can handle without falling over – I
blog – I make personal appearances where they can be arranged – I try to keep
myself out there. In the long run, whether or not any of that matters is moot
because there have been writers who have been positive recluses when it comes
to the Internet who are doing quite well, thank you, and there are those who
are everywhere you look but that seems to be the only thing they’re doing and
any actual BOOKS seem to be a sideline. You just don’t know. The power of going
with an entity with an established distribution channel (like DQ) is that you
DO get onto a bookstore’s radar, and the best way to market a book is to make
sure it is available for purchase the moment someone’s interest has been
piqued…
6. Any
advice on how to better market a book?
If I knew the answer to that I’d have people lining
up at my door to offer me their first-born children for the secret. I’d love to
know, myself. Is there a better way? HOW do you harness that beautiful,
powerful word-of-mouth thing? When and where is there a tipping point? Why are
some books instant hits, some languish in the shadows for a while and then
suddenly burst into flame for no apparent reason, and some (no less deserving)
simply languish and NEVER get their day in the sun? If we only knew. In the
meantime, we do what we can with what we have and hope that it is enough to
grab the right kind of attention at the right time…
7. Last
question; If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go, when
would it be, and what would you be wearing?
I’ve travelled quite a lot, actually, already, and
lived in a LOT of different places. But if I could just pop into existence
somewhere, right now, it would probably be the English shires (I wouldn’t say
no to being based in Oxford) in the summer. And I’d be wearing what’s
comfortable and appropriate for that time and place, sitting somewhere in a
shady garden under the spreading boughs of a great English oak, in a wicker
chair, reading, while the lightest of breezes stirs my hair and I occasionally
lift my eyes to where dogs are playing on the sward and smile at them… and am
purely happy.
It begins. Somewhere.
An insignificant trickle of water.
And it
changes. And it grows up, and gathers a history, and finds its way into atlases
and maps, until it finally reaches the sea, and vanishes into its vastness. You
might think it of no importance. That it does not matter. But you follow where
it leads...
Rivers have
always been very important to humankind. They've been explored. They've been
navigated. They've been called gods. They've been blessed and cursed and
venerated and used and enjoyed and exploited and polluted since the beginning
of recorded history. They've been sung about and dreamed about and followed on
epic journeys of discovery. They capitals of empires have risen on the banks of
rivers - and so have a thousand fishing villages, and river landings, and water
mills. There is only one River. Really. And it's all of them.
Every river is different - and yet they're all the
same, vast and full of life and death and mystery and history and adventure and
quiet dreams. Full of life. Full of mystery. Full of stories.
My name is Jazz Marsh.
I am a Random Were, which means I am a Were of no fixed form – like all Random
Were, my family can become any warm-blooded creature which is the last thing
they see before they Turn.
For me, when my time came, that meant… trouble.
I was quite young when I lost my older sister, Celia, and my family never spoke
about her. It was only when I found the secret diaries that she had left behind
that I began to discover the truth behind her life and her death.
I never understood what drove my moody and dangerous older brother until I
began to get an inkling about his part in Celia’s death… and until, driven to
the edge of patience and understanding, he finally had to face his own Turn
problems… and disastrously took matters into his own hands.
One thing is clear.
Everything I thought I knew about Were-kind was wrong.
ABOUT RANDOM:
“You will never read another shapeshifter book like
this. Every surprise will catch you unwary. And, like me, you will find that
others will have to pry it out of your fingers.”
—Tamora Pierce, bestselling author
“Alma Alexander has created a gripping and complicated story of family loyalty
and teenage rebellion. [..] An excellent start to a brave new series.”
—Ysabeau Wilce, award-winning author of the Flora Segunda series
Coming in 2015: WOLF (Book 2 in The Were Chronicles)
and SHIFTER (Book 3 in The Were Chronicles)
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