|
October Book giveaways – Individual names will be drawn for: one of two autographed copies of Butterfly Swords by Jeannie Lin or a copy of the graphic novel of Heaven Sword & Heaven Sabre, vol. 1 by Jin Yong. Winners will be drawn October 1. September Book giveaways – Individual names will be drawn for: a free digital download of “The Taming of Mei Lin” from eHarlequin, Cindy Pon’s Silver Phoenix, hardcover edition, or an autographed copy of Stephanie Draven’s debut from Harlequin Nocturne, Poisoned Kisses. Winners will be drawn on September 15. Party favors – Official Butterfly Swords charms are going out to all newsletter subscribers. Sign up to receive the insider track on Butterfly Swords and receive a custom designed charm. Hint: I will be designing one of these for each of my books and supplies are limited. So collect them all. Be a Part of the Launch Crew!One entry for each activity. Your name stays in for the entire celebration. 1. Sign up to receive the monthly newsletter If you’d like to sign up for the newsletter, use this link.
2. Blog or Tweet about Butterfly Swords – If blogging, comment here with a link to the blog page. The topic is up to you. 3. Online badge – Post the Butterfly Swords badge on your webpage or blog which links back to http://www.butterfly-swords.com. 4. Bookmarks & Postcards - I got this idea when a couple of friends from California asked to have some bookmarks to distribute to bookstores. If you’d like a stack to give to your friendly neighborhood bookseller or library or book fair, please comment and I’ll mail them to you ASAP. 5. Blog Tour Trivia Contest – I’ll be blogging all over the interwebs in September and October. Fill out the BINGO form for additional entries. Banners for Websites and BlogsPlease link back to “http://www.butterfly-swords.com. HTML for links is coming soon! Static versions:
Animated Versions:
SadFiled in: Asian fantasy | blog | promotion | publishing Tags: asian covers | cindy pon | silver phoenix
|
JUN 30 2010 8:47 pm
| No book excited me more last year than Cindy Pon’s debut, Silver Phoenix. I rushed out and bought the hard cover. I told everyone I knew about it. Plastered it all over my blog. One fan even wrote me after reading the book because she thought Cindy Pon was my pen name since I’d gabbed about the book so much! (I redirected said fan to the right place) The morning I sold, I literally ran to my computer and typed an excited e-mail to Cindy. I felt like a giddy schoolgirl running through the playground to a friend who was a grade higher than me. “Cindy, Cindy! I sold!” Silver Phoenix is lush and gorgeous and the original cover reflected the mood of the book perfectly:
Then I saw the cover of the sequel today:
And I saw how they want to rework Silver Phoenix:
The covers are dark and urban in appearance. The clothing modern. The faces hidden. To me, they look like so much of what’s out there in YA land. Black covers. Dark brooding mood. I’m going to be emotional and unedited for a moment: They took away everything that was bold and special about Phoenix. They made it look modern and non-descript and non-Asian. The reasoning is that it will reach new readers this way. By hiding. By HIDING. I lied about the unedited part. I’m a writer. Everything I post is edited. I thought very carefully about this post, because I do admit, I know next to nothing about the publishing industry. I don’t know about marketing books since I’m so new in this game. And I make it a habit not to rant too much about things I don’t know about. But I am a reader. A consumer of books. And yes, I am biased. I write historical romances set in the Tang Dynasty. I love wuxia fiction. I started writing what I write because there weren’t many books like Silver Phoenix in the English-speaking market. So I’m going to speak as a fan. Perhaps sales were low and the publisher had a responsibility to try to change that. I get it. This is a business. But what principle of marketing says that the way to success is to downplay your strengths? Cindy Pon writes fantasy. The selling point of fantasy is the worldbuilding. What principle of marketing dictates that you should NOT differentiate yourself from the crowd? That you should look like every other product on the market? Maybe people will think they’re buying Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, but really they’re picking up the generic store brand instead. And that brings me to my biggest confusion. What makes the powers that be believe that READERS WANT TO BE FOOLED? That readers will pick up a book expecting one thing, and will actually be happy when it’s not that at all? That’s one of the main complaints I read in reviews. I expected a different book. So what happens when a reader picks up Cindy’s next book expecting a dark urban fantasy and gets a sweeping and epic adventure instead? Maybe 2009 was just a tough year. Maybe people just stopped buying hardcovers except for huge big name authors with established readerships. Debut authors need to build a readership and it takes more than one book. That’s what everyone keeps telling me right now. The best way to sell more books is to write the next book. Well, Cindy did that. Fury of the Phoenix is coming out in April and Silver Phoenix‘s paperback release is in February. If the publisher had stuck with the same look and feel, then they’d be building the brand and message. More sales on the second book, renewed interest in the first. But the way they’ve done it now muddles the message. I don’t know what to think. If I wasn’t constantly checking up on Cindy’s blog, if I had walked by the bookshelves come April, 2011, I would have missed this sequel. Consistent messaging. Building a brand. Increasing loyal readership. Aren’t these written into a big book somewhere? I’m going to read Fury of the Phoenix in April. I’m going to tell everyone I know and I’m going to plaster it all over my lonely blog. I’m going to do it with love and not sadness or anger because I’m getting that out now. I’ve wanted to read this book since I finished the final sentence of the last one. I hope the marketeers are right. I hope this new look nets a bunch of new readers who are happy to discover Cindy’s work. I hope all her current readers know to look for this book in April and buy it. Because I know the general reading public isn’t online and stalking authors the way I do. They’re walking into the bookstore and browsing shelves. I hope the marketeers are right about this move, but I hope they’re wrong that an Asian cover doesn’t sell books.
Review: Silver Phoenix – A spectacular visual adventureFiled in: Asian fantasy | book reviews | new releases Tags: adventure fiction | Asian setting | cindy pon | review | silver phoenix | wuxia
|
MAY 18 2009 6:00 am
|
As Ai Ling sets out on a journey to find her father and bring him home, she meets up with two brothers, Chen Yong and Li Rong. Chen Yong is of mixed blood, part Xian and part foreigner, and he’s on a quest of his own to discover the history of his parents, kept secret all these years. The three travel together, encountering demons and mystical creatures, while Ai Ling’s powers grow. With each new obstacle, it becomes clearer and clearer that there are powerful forces working against them and that somehow, Ai Ling and Chen Yong’s fates have been twined together by events that happened before they were born. Silver Phoenix is a spectacularly vivid journey. The Kingdom of Xia parallels medieval China where the lines of the spirit world have become blurred. Ms. Pon’s descriptions are colorful and imaginative. Her characters hitch a ride on a dragon and fly to the land of the Immortals where she pulls from Chinese mythology and iconography to create a view of the heavens never seen before. The demons are suitable grotesque and originally depicted. In the tradition of Asian heroic fiction, the villians and allies that Ai Ling meets along the way are complex beings. No one is truly good, no one is truly evil. The arch villian Zhong Ye has a touch of humanity that cannot be denied. The seemingly benign Immortals lead the heros into disaster. What starts out as a fun, fanciful journey through Xia, full of exotic food and magical adventure, evolves by the end into a rich emotional exploration of the depths of honor, spiritual debt, and destiny. I can see where the bittersweet nature of the story at times may be unsettling to Western readers who are used to happy endings, but I found it refreshing that once Ai Ling is back in her home, we truly get a sense of her growth through the epic journey we have experienced with her and feel her yearning for the adventures yet to come. Cindy Pon and Silver Phoenix do justice to the wuxia tradition. To find the book on Amazon, go here. Visit Cindy Pon’s page. There’s a release contest and a lucky winner will receive an original Cindy Pon brush painting as well as a signed copy of the book.
Wedding feverFiled in: events | friends and family | miscellaneous | slice of life Tags: cindy pon | family | silver phoenix | travel | weddings
|
APR 28 2009 5:35 am
| First: They say it’s difficult to sell a mainstream novel set in Asia, but here’s Silver Phoenix! Release party and contest for Cindy Pon’s debut book over at her blog.
This is definitely the year of the wedding for me. I’ve heard this is pretty common for couples to fall into it like dominos one after another. In my case, it seemed like my wedding was the kicker. Shortly after we got engaged, a whole bunch of other people, friends and family, also announced engagements. I suppose once the wedding buzz starts, all the gals started gushing and all the guys started getting nervous, and so on and so forth in a chain reaction. This year three of my friends are getting married (or are already married now). Two of these were couples in epic relationships that finally took the next step. I was sad to have to miss their weddings since I had moved out of state. Two of my family members – cousin Kimmy and Little Sis are also tying the knot. Happy, hectic times! It’s good to see that happy news can be contagious too.
Asian fantasy is hitting the YA market!Filed in: Asian fantasy | book reviews | publishing | writing Tags: adventure | Asian settings | cindy pon | silver phoenix | wuxia | YA
|
APR 26 2009 4:25 am
|
“Silver Phoenix: Beyond the Kingdom of Xia” is a heroic Asian fantasy about Ai Ling (yes, I did wince at the name similarity to Ai Li) a girl with extraordinary gifts who embarks upon a journey to find her missing father. I’m going to start stalking bookstores for this. I’m sure I’ll find other similarities since this story is set in the same wuxia (martial arts heroic fiction) genre, but I’m hoping (selfishly) that this indicates there’s a market for what I write. Even though this book is YA, it seems like there must be a lot of crossover potential. I’m certainly going to read it! And if Asian fantasy can penetrate the YA market…oh, the possibilities! Cindy has a fabulous trailer for it on her website. Check it out! She also has a release party going on until June 8th. Follow this link.
|
Recent Posts
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
(NOTE: You must include mailing address to receive the souvenir charm)
Back to weddings: I’ve barely unpacked and thrown my clothes into the washer and already I have to get ready for another trip. My cousin Kimmy is getting married this weekend in San Diego and I’ll take any excuse to go to California — oh, and we’re a close family and all that too, of course! 
