Tag Archives: book expo america

Book Expo America 2015: The Goth Takeover

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Yesterday I attended Book Expo America—North America’s annual get-together of book industry insiders, held this year at New York’s Javits Convention Center—to wander the aisles and check to see the placement of my Saga of Pandora Zwieback novels, Blood Feud and Blood Reign, at the booth run by the IBPA: the International Book Publishers Association—a worldwide organization that StarWarp Concepts belongs to, dedicated to spreading the good word about indie publishing companies large and small.

So what were my impressions of BEA 2015? Find out by heading over to the StarWarp Concepts blog for my book festival report, and reading all about it!

BEA2015-PanBooks

The next three stops on the StarWarp Concepts 2015 convention tour are the Brooklyn Book Festival (September 20), the Collingswood Book Festival (October 3), and the “holy crap, it’s full’a zombies!” Walker Stalker Con (December 4–6). Hope to see you there!

Welcome, BookCon 2014 Attendees!

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pan_comic_0Thanks for stopping by the StarWarp Concepts booth today, and for your interest in my Goth adventuress, Pandora Zwieback. If you’re here because you spoke with me, then click on the cover you see to the left and download the Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0 digital comic that I showed you. Not only is it an introduction to Pan and her world, hosted by Pan herself, but it contains two sample chapters from her first novel, Blood Feud. Give it a read.

 

 

 

blood_feudThe Saga of Pandora Zwieback is the young adult, dark-urban-fantasy novel series that I write. It’s the story of a 16-year-old Goth girl who’s spent the last decade being treated for mental health problems because she can see monsters. It’s only after she meets a shape-shifting monster hunter named Sebastienne “Annie” Mazarin, in the first critically acclaimed novel, Blood Feud, that Pan discovers she’s never been ill—her so-called “monstervision” is actually a supernatural gift that allows her to see into Gothopolis, the not-so-mythical shadow world that exists right alongside the human world. But before Pan can learn more about what she can do, she and her parents are drawn into a conflict between warring vampire clans that are searching for the key to an ultimate weapon (or so the legend goes)—a key that just so happens to have been delivered to the horror-themed museum owned by Pan’s father.

“Blood Feud is far and away one of the best young adult supernatural fantasy novels released in the last few years. Pan is exactly the kind of teen heroine that readers should be standing up and cheering for.”—Melissa Voelker, HorrorNews.net

 

“One of those fabulous books that manages to straddle the young adult/adult fiction divide, catering equally for teens and more, ahem, ‘mature’ readers alike with a light touch that makes it a joy to read.”—Kell Smurthwaite, BCF Book Reviews

 

blood_reign-coverPan’s debut adventure continues in the second novel, Blood Reign (on sale this July), in which she and Annie face challenges from not just vampires but legions of monsters led by a fallen angel—who happens to be one of Annie’s ex-lovers! Blood Feud ended on such a shocking cliffhanger that Pan fans (I call them “Panatics”) have eagerly been looking forward to see how it gets resolved. Feel free to join their growing ranks—we love adding new members to Zwieback Nation.

 

 

pan_annualAlong with Blood Feud, on sale right now is The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1, which features two brand-new adventures (written by me) of Pan and her friends that are separate from the novels: a full-color comic story drawn by Eliseu Gouveia (The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0), in which Pan and her boyfriend, Javier, run into one of his ex-girlfriends…whom Pan can see is really a mythological siren that can enrapture men with her voice; and a short story that pits Pan, Annie, and Javier against a trio of Elegant Gothic Lolita vampires—in a shopping mall! An additional backup tale, “After Hours,” is provided by DC Comics writer Sholly Fisch (Scooby-Doo! Team-Up, Action Comics, Batman: The Brave and the Bold) and drawn by comic-art legend Ernie Colon (Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld).

Give the site a look-over—we’ve got plenty of free stuff you can download, and a gallery called “The 13 Days of Pan-demonium”: 13 unique drawings of Pan and Annie by a host of talented artists. And when you’re done, don’t forget to Like Pan’s Facebook page, so you can keep up-to-date with all the latest news.

(A special shout-out to teen readers and Pandora Zwieback fans who are budding authors, but who may think their work isn’t all that good and worth continuing: Check out this post from May 27, where I talk about my first published work—a science-fiction story I wrote when I was 16. Take a look at that and tell me you can’t do better! 😀 )

And please keep in mind that Pan’s publisher, StarWarp Concepts, is not just a YA fiction house. It also publishes illustrated classics (including J. Sheridan’s Le Fanu’s vampire romance Carmilla and Edgar Rice Burroughs’s A Princess of Mars); graphic novels for superhero fans and adult horror aficionados; digital and print comic books; and artist sketchbooks. Give them a visit and check out all they have to offer.

Again, thanks for stopping by. Hopefully I’ll see you again on September 21, at the Brooklyn Book Festival. Then you can tell me in person how incredible Pan is.  😀  See you there!

BookCon 2014 is Tomorrow!

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BookCon-2014-MapThe first-ever BookCon is this Saturday, May 31, and StarWarp Concepts will be there! Run by ReedPOP (the folks responsible for New York Comic Con), this one-day show is a spinoff of Book Expo America, the publishing industry’s annual tradeshow, and is the first time the doors are being widely opened to the general public. Big-name guests include Stan “The Man” Lee, Holly Black, John Grisham, R. L. Stine, and…Grumpy Cat? Really? Jeez, they’ll give anybody a book deal these days…

Booth #3061 is where you’ll find me and Richard C. White—author of the dark fantasy superhero graphic novel Troubleshooters, Incorporated: Night Stalkings and the digital pirate-fantasy comic The Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Special—promoting The ’Warp; as always, just look for the Pandora Zwieback banner. We’re right between Penguin Group’s Book Country and Publishers Weekly booths, and directly across the aisle from the booth for a novel titled Waiting for the Bomb.

BookCon is being held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, located at 655 W 34th Street, on Manhattan’s West Side. Show-floor hours are 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM. (That’s right, the con is only six hours long, so be sure to get there on time.) For more information, including how to order tickets, head over to the BookCon Web site.

StarWarp Concepts to Attend BookCon 2014

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For years, friends in the book industry have been telling me: “If you want to be a successful publisher, you have to exhibit at BookExpo America.” BEA is the Super Bowl of book festivals; the literary equivalent of New York Comic Con. For book people, it’s the place to be.

Problem is, exhibiting at BEA is insanely expensive—an average 10×10 booth can cost up to $4,000! And recouping that fee onsite is out of the question: publishers are there to tout their books and try to convince librarians and booksellers to order them, not to physically sell copies to them at the expo. And the general public is excluded from attending because it’s a trade show. So without a chance to make money at the expo, I saw no reason to put StarWarp Concepts in one of those sky-high-rent booths.

BookCon_logoBut then came the recent announcement of BookCon.

According to industry magazine Publishers Weekly:

“Reed Exhibitions [which also runs New York Comic Con] has made no secret about its interest in drawing more consumers to BookExpo America. Today the company released new details about its plans for the consumer-focused third day of the trade show, unveiling an event called BookCon that it is describes as a ‘show within a show.’”

Bottom line? Unlike its parent convention, BookExpo America, BookCon is open to the general public. Also unlike BEA, BookCon publishers are allowed to sell their books, and the booths for this one-day event cost less than the same 10×10 space at either BEA or NYCC. So now StarWarp Concepts has a reason to be there.  😉

BookCon takes place on the last day of BEA: Saturday, May 31. Show hours are 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. It’s being held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, 34th Street and 11th Avenue, in Manhattan. Adult tickets are priced at $30; tickets for kids 6–12 are $5. Go here to order.

Question is, Will you be there to greet us? If so, you’ll find us at Booth 3061, right between the booths for Publishers Weekly and Penguin’s online imprint, Book Country.

For more information, visit the BookCon site.