L.M. Ironside's Blog

April 28th, party people.



Info here.

Hey, everybody! For my fellow indie authors, I thought you might like this interview on Alex Hurst's blog. It's part of his "Illustrious" series, where he talks to illustrators who work with indie authors on their book covers.

Tidewater: A Novel of Pocahontas and the Jamestown Colony's cover image is there, among many other glorious paintings!

http://alex-hurst.com/2014/06/22/illu...

Lane is already contracted to do the cover for my late September release, the still-untitled novel about Zenobia -- some of you remember my indecision between the two preliminary sketches.

And I plan to keep hiring him for my historical fiction covers (and the other genres I plan to *eventually* branch into, one day in the distant future when I've got more wiggle room in my schedule... those genres that sell well with illustrated covers, like sci-fi.)

Here's Lane's site: http://lanebrownart.com

Hooray, it's finally out! And it's on Goodreads, too! In fact it's so new on Goodreads that I can't link it in the usual way, so I have to use an old-school html link: right hyeah.

So far the non-Kindle files are stuck in the mysterious ether of the Interwebs, processing. But the Kindle version is good to go (on all Kindle stores, I think.) The non-Kindles should be resolved sometime today, and the print version is also in the works and coming as soon as I can proof the copy. :)

Hope you like it!

I don't have a release date finalized yet (it'll be sometime in July, though) because I'm still hacking away at this 160,000-word beast with my editor. But as soon as I know, I'll add it to Goodreads so this pretty cover can start appearing in people's "Wants To Read" feeds! :D

[image error]

I don't have a release date finalized yet (it'll be sometime in July, though) because I'm still hacking away at this 160,000-word beast with my editor. But as soon as I know, I'll add it to Goodreads so this pretty cover can start appearing in people's "Wants To Read" feeds! :D

[image error]

Guys! Help me out! I need to decide which pair of sketches will become the cover and bonus illustration for the Zenobia novel, which should be out around mid-September. They're both so nice I can't decide!



This is A/B

And this is C/D:

Hey, everybody! Recently I did a really fun interview for the New Books Network: Historical Fiction podcast. I'll soon be joining NBN as a co-host in Historical Fiction, interviewing other authors about books that have been published within the last few years. I'm excited! I think it will be really fun.

The episode about The Sekhmet Bed served as a bit of an introduction to me for regular listeners, but it's full of fun discussion about Egyptology, my books, and my experiences with self-publishing. Check it out if you're curious about any of the above!

http://newbooksinhistoricalfiction.co...

I just ran into the break room and yelled, "A POTENT COMBINATION OF EXTREME SLEEP DEPRIVATION AND THREE SHOTS OF ESPRESSO!"

This is my last week with a day job. After May 31, I'm writing full-time (hopefully forever, if all works out well.)

After today, I'm pretty sure my co-workers are not going to miss me one bit.

I made this banner for my (personal, private, real-last-name) Facebook page. One of these days (very soon) I'll get around to actually making an open FB author page, but I haven't had time yet and definitely won't have the time to maintain it with interesting posts until after June 1, when I'm writing full-time.

But in the meantime, I thought you guys would get a kick out of this.

This probably makes me an old-school purist, possibly of the annoying sort, but I LOVE an illustrated/painted cover for historical fiction. First of all, it's hard to find accurate costumes and it's tough to style your models appropriately to get a photograph that feels true to your time and setting. But mostly, I just yearn for the days when all book covers featured gorgeous original illustrations, works of art worthy of being appreciated all by themselves, outside the context of the book they are helping to sell...and I want my covers to have pretty paintings associated with them, too.

A lot of genres sell better with photographic covers; that's just the trend; it's what makes the book seem current and "not dated." I'm very happy to see that a beautiful illustrated cover can still sell historical fiction, and I hope it remains that way forever.

That being said, check out the cover I commissioned for my early summer release, Tidewater. It's due out in June (probably mid-June.) I am so excited to see how this book sells with this beautiful cover! The art is by Lane Brown. I'll be commissioning him to do several forthcoming historical novels, and will probably (eventually) have him update the covers for The She-King Series to match the rest of my covers in his style.


The wraparound illustration for the paperback edition...


And the ebook cover!