The Eve Genome by Joanne Brothwell Guest Post & Giveaway

The Eve Genome by Joanne Brothwell

Release Day: October 24, 2013

Synopsis: Adriana Sinclair is an evolutionary mystery. Her blood type matches nothing in modern medicine. When a failed blood transfusion kills her twin sister, Adriana discovers she's a throwback to an original human that scientists have coined the "Mitochondrial Eve." Adriana is shocked to learn her strange blood type is her family's most protected secret. Working with spotty clues and partial facts, Adriana is determined to find the truth. Still reeling from her sister's death and the subsequent realization of her family's secret, Adriana struggles to put her life back in order and focus on her college studies. She finds comfort in Kalan, the new guy whose striking albino features and friendly manner keep her distracted from the wreck her life has become. Kalan is exactly what she needs right now, even if he does seem a bit too interested in Adriana's mysterious bloodline...

Meet The Author:

Joanne Brothwell lives in the country on the Canadian prairie where her stories are inspired by the dead things that appear at her doorstep on a daily basis.Of course, her two pets, a retired police dog with titanium fangs and a feral barn cat missing two toes, make the safety of surrounding wildlife, at best, uncertain. 

Nicknames are something Joanne has in abundance; most notably “Grumpy Bunny” (her husband), and “Princess with a Sailor’s Mouth” (her friends). She’s known to daydream, and ever since grade school has been accused of having a poor attention span. The truth is, Joanne has an alternate reality inside her head, where characters speak to her, sometimes so loudly (and incessantly) she just can’t hear anything else!

Joanne is thrilled to see her alternate universe finally become real with the publication of her novel, Stealing Breath, and her prequel novella, Vicarious. Now, with the sequel Silencing Breath on the way, you can be rest assured you will see much more of Joanne’s writing in the future, as those characters in her head, having tasted the sweet freedom of release, simply refuse to be silenced.

Guest Post:

The pros and cons of being a writer

by Joanne Brothwell

It is fun to express creativity. It is crucial for me to have a creative outlet, a way to get the fire that burns inside of me out in a healthy, productive way. If I don’t have an expressive outlet, things can get very ugly. As in, Wicked witch of the West, ugly. In order to avoid such nastiness, I have always needed something to do to flex my artsy muscle. Early in life I wrote poems (lots of angsty teen stuff), painted pictures (always some sort of “deep” abstract art) or made something crafty (yes, tried scrapbooking. Hated it).

Then, four years ago, I discovered writing. Or, rather, I rediscovered it (the angsty poems, remember?) It was literally an almost cliché thing that happened (one night, I had a dream about a sparkly vampire… no wait. That wasn’t me) where I had a story idea in my head that I thought would make a great novel. I’ve come to discover that almost everyone in the world has a story in their head that they believe would make a great novel, but the difference between them and me is that I went ahead and wrote it.

I realized the absolute joy of creating fictional worlds and being an omnipotent god to my little characters, forcing them to bend to my will and torturing them, just for shits and giggles. I could make them as sexy and smouldering or dumb and dumpy as I wanted. I could decide how people would behave (or misbehave) and make them say things that I would never in a million years dream of saying, and in a way, live vicariously through my characters. It’s kind of like living in an amazing, made-just-for-me movie, but one that never has to end, unless I want it to.

Wow. I just realized how flaky I sound! Jeez. In real life I’m all substancy and thought-provoking and stuff, honest!

Now that I’ve mentioned the joys of writing, I should probably mention the drawbacks. Well, to start with, there’s the whole editing thing. Remember how I said I could make my characters do and say whatever I wanted? Yeah, well that doesn’t last long. As soon as you have an editor assigned to your manuscript, you can kiss your control goodbye. And if you get a nasty, bull-headed one, you’ll be missing most of your hair by the time they’re done with you.

Then there’s the promotion thing. Tooting your own horn feels…. Icky. We are told from an early age not to brag and show off, and then bam! We have to convince the world that our story is so cool and fun and entertaining that people should part with their hard-earned cash to read it. And um, that works, like, not at all.

Promotion is by far the absolute worst part of being a writer. Not only is it foreign for us artsy types, but if we’re also the typical introverted artiste, then we’re doubly screwed. Me and podiums don’t get along. We have a hate-hate relationship. ‘Nuff said.

Now that I’m two years into this whole self-promotion gig, I’ve learned a few things. Don’t spend money. If you have to spend money on anything, you aren’t going to see a return on your investment. Most of the things that “work” to sell your books are free anyway. So rather than spend your hard-earned cash on a crazy expensive “book blast” or advertisement, turn instead to the social media stuff that’s free and fairly easy to use, once you get the hang of it. Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Tumblr, Google+ and Pinterest are my favorites.

Now that I’ve gotten to bitch and complain, let’s get back to the benefits of being a writer.

Something I wouldn’t have predicted is how much I enjoy being an indie author and publisher. After my first two traditionally published novels, Stealing Breath and Silencing Breath, I grew cynical and jaded about traditional publishing. I was doing a whole lot of work and seeing very meagre results. So I decided to try the Kindle platform to sell my self-published works. First, I uploaded The Forest of the Forsaken to Kindle and waited to see what happened. Predictably, nothing happened. So I used the kindle free promotion days and tweeted the crap out of it, and asked several free promotion sites to put it up on their websites. In five free days I had 11,000 downloads. I didn’t make a dime, but who cares? That was eleven thousand people that had my electronic book in their hands! From that moment on, I’ve never turned back.

These days, I’ve taken on all aspects of the publishing process. I write, format and upload the ebook to Kindle as well as design the cover. What I love about cover art is the control I have over what represents my novel to the world. The added benefit is my inner artsy fartsy gets an additional creative outlet. Amazingly, I can make an awesome-looking cover for dirt cheap using fotolia for affordable, professional images and picmonkey for simple, inexpensive photo editing.

I’m not saying I’ll never return to traditional publishing, but for now, I’m really hitting my groove with the kindle program. I’ve never been happier. I’m excited about writing and I’m far more committed to word count than I was before, because at the end of the day, if I don’t write and produce new content to upload to amazon, then I’m the one who loses out on the potential royalties. The other thing that has changed since my switch to indie publishing is that I’m far more invested in self-promotion. I choose platforms that work for me (blogging, facebook and twitter) and I go hard, focusing all my energy into connecting with people and engaging potential readers. Now, rather than draining my bank account and causing me endless stress, I’m happily tweeting away for free and managing to sell books while I’m fast asleep, dreaming of sparkly vampire.

Wait. That wasn’t me. 

Giveaway: 

Joanne was awesome enough to provide an e-book for giveaway! So for one lucky commenter you will get an e-copy of The Eve Genome. To enter all you have to do is leave a comment below about the book or her guest post, and don't forget to leave your email so I can contact you if you win!