Saturday 21 December 2013

Interview with Eva Caye: Author of the To Be Sinclair series

It’s time to put down the wrapping paper, stop writing Christmas cards and take a break. If you’re like me an a bit fed up of having the festive season rammed down your throat then you’ve come to the right place. Today we speak to author Eva Caye, who wrote the To Be Sinclair series - with no mention of Christmas in sight! Enjoy!

1) Can you please start by telling us a little about yourself? Where are you from and how did you get into writing?

I'm a Midwesterner and have been writing since high school, but it was primarily a hobby, attending writers workshops and conferences when I could.  As an avid science fiction and fantasy reader, sometimes the stories would just pop up and demand to be written.  I have a few boxes scattered around the house with archaeological layers of stories from the past 30 years.

I only grew into a serious author because of a crisis with my long-standing depression.  I consider my 'rebirth' to have occurred in June 2010.  Lying in bed in a darkened room, I figured I was already dead, my body unable to tolerate 'real life'.  Although it may not seem like much of an inspiration to others, the thought occurred to me that, since the 'old me' was dead but I still had possession of a body, I could build my life anew.

As a result, I decided to figure out what I would do if I won the lottery, if absolutely anything was possible.  I have always wanted to be a scientist, so I began having conversations between the person I was and the person I wanted to be. The dialogues grew so thick, I got out of bed and began writing them down!  I developed them into characters, since I still do not have much energy beyond running my brain and a computer and the first four books of the To Be Sinclair series roared out of my imagination.

It was perhaps my third book when I began to feel like I had some kind of wormhole in my mind to a future parallel dimension.  Although I've never been a visual person, I was seeing my characters in actual scenes and I still consider myself their scribe, not their goddess. How so?  When you decide you don't like what you've written and rewrite it but go to bed and the characters act out the scene over and over again until you get up at god-awful o'clock to change it back, you realize you don't have a lot of control over the story!
2) How many books have you published to date and what genres are they?

I currently have eight books in the To Be Sinclair series, primarily science fiction romances, but they all have different tenors or timbres to them.  Book two, Majesty, is perhaps 95% science fiction and book three, Fealty perhaps 95% romance, but the others are roughly 50% sci-fi to romance.

The big question my series answers is, “What will the greatest ruling family in the history of the galaxy be like?”  Dignity and Majesty detail the romance and first years of marriage of the Emperor and Empress of the Sinclair Demesnes, a four-planet polity, and the other books are about individual children, which is why they have different psychological flavours to them. On my website http://www.evacaye.com I have brief psychological profiles of the main characters of each book, to give you a feel of what to expect of their stories.

I laughingly refer to Evan's Ladies as book 6.5, between Loyalty and Nobility, because it consists of four novellas/novelettes. The books are companion novels, with Dignity/Majesty, Fealty/Royalty, Dynasty/Loyalty and my most recent book Nobility to be paired with my work-in-progress, Morality.  I have also finished 2/3 and 1/2 of two prequels, set some 150 years in our future but some 500 years in the past as compared to the series.  I consider those novels to be science fiction, though; there are relationships that develop but they are not the focus of the stories.  

In my books, I talk around the sex more than anything, except that I have appended a short story/novella or two to the first six books as erotic Easter eggs! I have a warning page in front of them and not all of them are explicit but I thought it would be the best way to warn the science fiction readers who may not appreciate stronger sexual situations, yet give the romance readers a li'l somethin' more!  I've had a lot of people say they would have paid $2.99 for those stories alone!
3) Can you tell us a little more about your latest book? What is the story and what inspired you to write it?

Nobility is about Prince Matthieu Sinclair, the Heir Second to his grandfather Emperor Victor and his father Prince Zhaiden.  This is very much a new adult novel, in that Matthieu begins at age 20, having finished his Service training cycles, and moves through two years of Imperial duties, tours of Service, secret missions, a diplomatic mission that breaks his heart, and above all, the search for a lady who could handle being his Empress someday.  

I do not plan any other novels after its companion novel, the finale to the series, Morality. First, because I have to finish my prequels; second, because I have other projects I want to get to; and third, because the finale is breaking my heart to write. Nine books covering three generations is surely sufficient, wouldn't you say?
4) Are you an independent published or a traditional one? What made you decide to take that route and would you recommend it?

After receiving a double-handful of rejections from agents and publishers, with most of them saying something along the lines of, “The industry is very subjective,” I decided to go indie. After all, I'm writing for my readers, for literary value, not for people who only look at a book in terms of fads or how much money it will make for them or their company!  

For example, I do not focus on gore, horror, or violence; I titled my books after knightly virtues specifically because I wanted to write uplifting stories of good people trying their best, who are not necessarily striving against a bad evil guy, whose issues are with people who think they are the 'good guys'.  I do have one warlike empire that causes trouble throughout the series, but for the most part, my readers comment frequently on how realistic my characters are, how lifelike their struggles, as if they can feel themselves actually living their lives.  To me, that is an immense compliment.

I recommend indie publishing because traditional publishing has tremendous flaws that have yet to be upgraded to modern times. Why should it take two years for a book to see print, when so many people are working on it?  My editor finished a manuscript, I go over it a few more times, and publish it within a couple of months.  I've also improved every book since (a huge advantage of ebooks), and now four are out with CreateSpace, as print-on-demand.  

That is another disadvantage of traditional publishing: the horrific waste stream.  My books are printed as they are purchased, whereas the average publishing company 'guesses' how many books they might sell, prints 10,000 or 20,000 copies, sends them to bookstores and, if they are not sold within a pitifully short period of time (I've seen quotes of 3 months), their covers are torn off and they are sent back to the publisher.

That leads to a third huge disadvantage of traditional publishers:  accounting for royalties. Why should an author wait three months for a check?  All those returns. With ebooks and POD, if a person buys it, it's because they want it.  I get notified of the sale within a few hours, and I get the royalties directly deposited into my bank account every month.

The advantage of traditional publishing is their marketing teams and avenues, but even then an author is expected to set up his/her own media platform and pound the pavement to sell books.  Unless the publisher thinks you are another J. K. Rowling, you can expect very little help beyond an editor and a cover artist, and you can hire them yourself.
5) Have you got anything new that you are currently working on?

Besides the finale and two prequels, I have been setting my books up at CreateSpace as print-on-demand.  I have simply had so many people say they don't have e-readers that it's worth my time and effort.  The first four are now available on my Amazon Author page, http://www.amazon.com/Eva-Caye/e/B009F50NF8 and I should have the last four ready to go by Christmas.

Other than that, I submit stories to magazines, and even wrote a poem recently for a contest. My two main computer folders are 'Brainstorms' and 'Story Ideas', so I'm not about to run out of parallel dimensions to spy upon.

More about Eva Caye can be found on her blog at: http://evacaye.blogspot.com/
Her books are also available on Amazon and Smashwords.

Saturday 7 December 2013

The Black Eagle Inn Review


A tale told over decades and in a different age, The Black Eagle Inn (by Christoph Fischer) is an interesting and difficult to put down look on life to the post World War Two Germany. The book does get off to quite a slow start but if you stick with it, you are rewarded. 

The book chronicles the fortunes of a family farm and associated restaurant - The Black Eagle Inn - through the war and the difficult years that followed in a nation struggling to rebuild and come to terms with a new identity. While set in this turbulent period of history, the story focuses more on the wars inside The Black Eagle Inn rather than out. Backstabbing, petit politics and mind games are all waged within the same four walls. 

Most of these games are fought between cousins Markus and Lukas, the former being matriarch Anna’s favourite “son”, who stands to inherit the most when she dies. But Lukas’s determination to get a bigger slice of the family estate transforms from silly squabbles between children as he and Markus grow older.
The book cuts deep inside the minds of all the key characters. I have read many books that try to throw completely different characters together that have failed, but The Black Eagle Inn is not among that tally. The author really gets inside his character’s heads and plays out their thought processes to the readers, offering a deep understanding of the events or the emotions that have led them to where they are. 

The author should also be applauded for examining controversial themes of the time, like homosexuality and marriage to foreigners. A lot of books set in post war Europe, I have found, tend to shy away from such themes, which is disappointing. It’s also great to read a book set in Germany as well - most war/ post war novels are usually set in merry old England.