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Rabia Gale

alchemical fantasy

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shattered

shattered

Happy Anniversary, Shattered!

Three years ago, I dipped a toe into the self-publishing waters with Shattered, a collection of three fractured fairy tales.

Shattered: Broken Fairy Tales

Since that time, Shattered has become what I fondly refer to as “my little book that could”. It’s sold the most copies, was the first to recoup the small monetary cost I put into it, and still finds its way into new markets.

Shattered was followed up by another broken fairy tale, Wired, about a cybernetic Rapunzel in a post-apocalyptic setting.

Wired cover

Over a year ago, I published another fairy tale collection, Entangled. I didn’t plan this, but all three retellings ended up exploring some variation on the theme of mothers and daughters.

I was in the midst of a burnout, so poor Entangled slipped through the cracks and got no marketing push. I think I even failed to announce its release on this blog. It didn’t have its own page on my site until a week or so ago.

It does now, complete with excerpts from all three stories.

Entangled: Broken Fairy Tales

Many, many thanks to Robin Cornett, who designed all three covers and came up with the titles for Shattered and Entangled (including the “broken fairy tales” subtitle).

So, what’s next for the broken fairy tales anthologies? I wanted to write retellings with stronger scifi elements, and happily my muse handed me three more ideas. (She’s used to working in threes when it comes to fairy tales.) I’m especially excited by the one featuring space mercenaries.

I have other projects on my plate, but I’m hoping to squeeze these in around them.

In the meantime, Happy Anniversary, Shattered!

and the winners…

… of the Shattered: broken fairy tales giveaway are:

Prue

Kirsten

Matt Megill

*throws glitter and confetti* Congrats, gals and guy. Please email me at rabia [at] rabiagale [dot] com to claim your prize. Thanks for playing!

shattered on smashwords & goodreads

A few housekeeping notices:

Shattered is now on Smashwords (much thanks to the husband, who made that happen). It also has its own Goodreads page, and has been acquiring some lovely reviews there as well as on other sites. As the author, I’m not going to respond to individual reviews (they are for readers after all) but I really appreciate those of you who take the time to leave their thoughts about the book. So: thank you!

Also, the Shattered giveaway ends tomorrow (Tuesday, May 8th) at 10 pm, EST. You still have time to throw your name into the hat!

And, last but not least: I’m serializing Wired, a post-apocalyptic Rapunzel retelling, all week. Part I is here. Check it out. 🙂

self publishing? team publishing!

As many of you know, I have recently self-published a collection of short fiction on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

*straight face*

(Squee!! I have a book–a BOOK–for sale! SQUEE!)

Ahem.

Self-publishing is a bit of a misnomer for what I did. Sure, I wrote the stories and wrestled them into various formats and pushed The Button, but it wouldn’t have happened without the help of several people. I provided the raw material (the stories), and they helped polish that into the product (ebook) that you are now holding in your hands (provided that you have your Kindle or Nook or other e-reader with you RIGHT NOW, because you are, of course, surgically attached to it–and if you aren’t, WHY NOT?).

If you liked my book, these are the people you can also thank. If you hated the book–well, just think how BAD it would’ve been without them. *pause* Yeah, that bad.

So without further ado (goodness, I write long intros. Note to self: brevity is the soul of wit), here are the fine folks who helped turn this ebook into reality:

First off, is writing buddy and best beta reader EVER, Jo Anderton. Jo is the first line of defense between my first drafts and the rest of the hapless world. She’s the one who gently, yet firmly, tells me things like, “Tighten that beginning! You waste too much time on the intro!” (hmm, sounds like a familiar problem…) and “Well. That ending came out of nowhere” and “Wowza. I have NO idea what just happened here”  (okay, maybe she doesn’t say “Wowza”, but something similar in Australian).

You can thank Jo later.

When time came to put the three fairy tales into ebook format, I didn’t want to burden Jo with copyedits (besides, there’s a lot of content coming down the pipeline I need want her to beta ;)). Plus, I wanted fresh eyes on the stories. Enter Liana Mir. Not only did she give my stories the eagle eye, she also turned them back around to me really fast.

Next up, the Cover. *GULP*

I’m still traumatized by my one experience with Photoshop back in college. I did try, though. I downloaded GIMP, but it made me turn pale with horror. I looked into cover designer rates and had to call for the smelling salts.

So I asked my sister-in-law, Robin Cornett (an awesome photographer and web designer–see her credit at the bottom of the page) if she’d be willing to try her hand at an ebook cover. Robin’s a sport, so she said, “Sure!” It was a great experience for me because all I had to do was look at pretty pictures and cool fonts and say “yes” or “no” or “maybe” and she handled the rest. I knew that brokenness and mirrors/glass were big in my stories, but I couldn’t think beyond a boring image of a broken mirror. Robin was the one who came up with the idea of adding a layer of broken glass over a girl’s image. We considered a close-up face shot, but it said “contemporary YA” rather than “fractured fairy tales”. Luckily, we were able to find a shot of a girl in a wedding dress and a tiara which said “fairy tale princess” to me and went from there.

I think she did a lovely job. Don’t you?

Robin also came up with the title and subtitle. If it hadn’t been for her, you might be reading a book called Frosted Fairy Tales or Cold Hands, Cracked Mirror. Catchy–not!

Last but not least is my husband David, who urged me to go the self-publishing route with these stories. He saw that the query-go-round was taking its toll on my productivity and spirit, that I was really attracted to the idea of project-managing the publication of my own e-book, and he encouraged me to go for it. He’s also a programmer, so whenever I got into trouble during the conversion process he went into the XHTML and cleaned things up for me.

And, while I’m giving credit: he also wrote my blurb. He did a better job if it than I did. Thanks, hon!

There you have it. Yes, I self-published, but it was a team effort.

Want a chance to win a copy of SHATTERED? Check this post for giveaway details!

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