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Dina James

Chronicler of the Paranormal

Shiny New Cover and Spooky Sale

Hi, again, everyone!

(Wow, two posts in two months. I’m starting to scare myself with all this visibility!)

Remember last time I told you about the previous version of the cover of my upcoming sci-fi novel, The Silverthorn Protocol, being potentially AI-generated so my cover artist and I pulled it before publication? I promised I’d share the new cover when it was ready, and today is that day.

It may seem like it was a quick turnaround, and it really was given that redoing a cover wasn’t on the agenda for either me or artist/editor/handler Skyla this late in the year, but that doesn’t mean it was easy. Time was spent on both our parts sourcing new (non-AI-generated) images and mulling over concepts. Skyla sent me some links to the stock image sites she prefers and had me pick out what I liked from some truly amazing galleries. After taking an evening narrowing my choices down (and there were SO MANY BEAUTIFUL IMAGES I WANTED ALL OF THEM IT WAS SO HARD I DON’T SEE HOW SHE MAKES THESE DECISIONS ALL THE TIME), I sent her a list of links to the ones I thought best illustrated the novel’s premise and said, “Do your thing.”

My darklings…it’s magic. Witchcraft. Sorcery. I have no idea how she knows what I want and makes it happen, but she does. The cover I’m about to show you is exactly what I had in mind when I sent her my top choices.

Look at this beautiful thing. I thought the previous cover was exactly what I wanted. I was wrong, and the universe (no pun intended) knew it. This is what I really wanted. This right here:

Every time I look at it I see something new that delights me, and I know it’s going to look amazing on my shelf when I get the hard copy version. I plan a paperback release soon after the ebook (still looking at mid-November, but given circumstances that might need to be pushed back a bit — I’ll keep you posted), then possibly a hardcover depending on sales/interest.

And there you are.

Oh, wait! I promised you a spooky sale, didn’t I? Well, turns out, one of my books was chosen for a month-long Halloween sale over on Kobo.

Legends of the Destrati: The Complete Collection is part of Kobo’s Paranormal Buy One Get One sale through the 31st!

If you like vampires, hellhounds, werewolves, ghosts, general spookiness and other paranormal things that go bump in the night, there’s something over there for you! Scroll through the categories in the various carousels (I’m under the “Pull an all nighter” category, because mine is a collection that might indeed keep you up all night. You’ve been warned!) and see what bites you. (Be careful; some bites may cause zombification, vampirism, or lycanthropy.)

In addition to the US, readers in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and Canada are all eligible for this sale. If the above link doesn’t open for you, click the flag icon at the top of the page and choose which country works for you!

That’s all for now, my darklings. Enjoy your October, no matter how you observe!

Until next time.

-Dina

P.S. I’ve got a shiny little thing in the works involving a pink dress (don’t ask), a challenge (look, it was 2020, okay?), and making good on a promise. Patrons will get it first, but I’ll make it available to all not long after they get to see it. Watch this space.

I Have A Shiny Thing

… and if you’re a Patron, you can see it!

If you’re not a Patron, either remedy that immediately for as little as $1, or don’t fret! You’ll see the pretty thing in May when it’s made available to the public. Special thanks to Skyla Dawn Cameron of Indigo Chick Designs for her out-of-this-world (see what I did there) graphic artistry!

cover reveal image with a portion of the upcoming cover for Silverthorn Protocol shown as a teaser

You can preorder it here at the Evil Empire. Eventually I will have it available for preorder elsewhere as well, but this is all for now.

Planned release for this novel is November 14, 2023

All Wounds Is Here!

It’s October, and the spooky season is here! Black cats, pumpkins, hellhounds, demons, werewolves, and candy corn.

What? I love candy corn!

About those other things? I got you covered.

All Wounds is here!

The first book in the Stranger Things series has been polished up, reformatted for the screens of you kids and your newfangled technology (get off my lawn), and is available for your reading pleasure wherever you purchase your books. It is also available in paperback and hardcover from the Evil Empire known as Amaz*n.

Here is the back cover teaser:

It’s said that when opportunity knocks on your door, you have only one chance to take it.

No one said what you’re supposed to do when it kicks it.

All Rebecca MacDonnell wants to do is get through high school with grades good enough to win a prestigious scholarship so that she can finally leave her miserable life behind. One evening, after a particularly bad day, she finds out that people other than her aging grandmother need her help, and desperately so.

Well, not “people,” exactly. Vampires, werewolves, demons, ghosts, goblins, and other things thought only imaginary all need help sometime, and Rebecca was born with the unique ability to heal ethereal beings. She is about to turn seventeen, the age at which her talent will manifest in its entirety, and become a true Healer…if she lives through the event. A war between various ethereal factions is brewing, and Healers are a valuable commodity to any side. Those who wish to harness Rebecca’s manifesting healing powers for their own purposes must get to her before her seventeenth birthday.

Only two vampires and a rogue werewolf stand between Rebecca and those determined to make her serve them, and the fact that Rebecca has no clue what she’s doing doesn’t exactly help matters.

Neither does being seriously attracted to more than one of those just trying to protect her.

For a soon-to-be seventeen-year-old Healer-in-training, that’s a lot to handle.

Especially on top of her homework.

This version has a special Halloween story in the back that was previously unavailable beyond website download. There’s pumpkins and candy aplenty in it, as well as werewolves and hellhounds. and maybe an Egyptian deity or two.

Here are the various places you can acquire it. Clicky click click

The second book, Time Heals, will be out next month on November 15, also spiffed up and shiny!

In other news, here is the gorgeous cover for Death Knell, the third (and final?) book in the series due for release December 20.

That’s all the news I have for you at the moment!

As always, please get your COVID bivalent boosters if you’re able, keep wearing your masks, and get your flu shots. Winter is approaching in the Northern Hemisphere and there’s a bad moon on the rise. (You’re welcome.)

Best,
Dina

All The Shiny Things

If you receive my newsletter, you won’t find anything new in this post (because I am shamelessly copying and pasting this for it). It will be link-and-graphics-heavy, so prepare yourself!

So, remember those shiny things I promised you earlier this year?

I keep my promises.

Also, I am finally giving in to peer pressure (let’s call it what it is, shall we? CYBERBULLYING) and releasing my previously published work in formats you kids and your newfangled technology use these days. (Get off my lawn.)

I have also been cyberbullied into more things. A lot more things. Like finishing the last book of the Stranger Things series.

I know. I KNOW.

I know I said I wasn’t going to. And I WASN’T. But THEY MADE ME. *points to the miscreants at the Alchemy Red After Hours Saturday Write-In*

I was just there for moral support of other writers. REAL WRITERS, WHO WRITE, UNLIKE ME. But they bullied me into finishing a thing, then said “hey, what about this other thing,” then said “hey, don’t you have this other OTHER thing,” and before I knew it I was a writer again. I actually talk about that in an audio interview over at Skyla Dawn Cameron’s Patreon page (if you aren’t her Patron and can’t access it now, she plans on making it available to the public around the middle of September).

Now I have finished books and have been pressured into giving them to you. Myself. Which is technically self-publishing — the thing I have said in the past NOT to do, that I didn’t want to do, wasn’t interested in doing, and was too much work to deal with. Yeah. That.

So what changed my mind? A few things. A lot of things. Mostly the current dumpster fire that is commercial publishing. I have a lot of projects and have done the querying thing. I even had a few full requests and some interesting exchanges with agents and editors from respected houses, but given the current state of things and the potentially ugly future on the horizon for commercial publication, I have two choices: take my toys and go home (WHICH IS WHAT I WAS DOING) or put things out myself (WHICH I WAS BULLIED INTO).

It turns out, with the right tools and tutorials from friends who know what they’re doing, it’s not nearly as much work as 1) it used to be and 2) I had thought.

Don’t get me wrong. There are still scamming asshats out there preying on unsuspecting writers, but self-publishing has come a very, very long way. It’s gone from the days of predatory author mills to household names leaving their agents and commercial houses to take care of things on their own for a multitude of reasons (usually monetary, but also because of creator rights and content disagreements). Self-publishing still has its own set of issues (including the old stigma of low-quality unedited purple prose and ClipArt covers, not to mention plagiarism and algorithm-gaming), but given the choice between those and the current ones on offer via commercial publishing, I’ll take the caveats of doing it myself (with a lot of help from friends and colleagues). Who knows? Commercial publishing may eventually get its shit together again, but with billionaire tech bros who buy publishing houses “as an investment” and don’t know a fucking thing about how publishing actually works, that’s not likely to be the case anytime soon.

Given all that, here are the current plans my cadre of enablers have pressured me into:

LEGENDS OF THE DESTRATI – These stories were previously released as a serial in e-format and as a complete collection in print, but it was brought to my attention that they could use not only a refurbishment for current devices, but a release across all platforms. That has been done, and is available now wherever you may purchase your reading material.

ALL WOUNDS (Stranger Things series) – Out of commercial print since 2013, this title was offered in 2016 as a special limited edition print run for signings and fundraiser prizes, and also offered at a discounted price in e-format for the 2020 pandemic lockdowns. Now it’s being re-issued, in all formats (including hardcover!), across all platforms. You can pre-order it now for the October 18, 2022 release. This edition will include a bonus short story previously unavailable beyond website download.

TIME HEALS (Stranger Things Series) – Also out of commercial print since 2013, this title was offered in 2016 as a special limited edition print run for signings and fundraiser prizes, and also offered at a discounted price in e-format for the 2020 pandemic lockdowns. Now it’s being re-issued, in all formats (including hardcover!), across all platforms. You can pre-order it now for the November 15, 2022 release. This edition will include a bonus short story previously unavailable beyond website download.

DEATH KNELL (Stranger Things series) – The “long-awaited” third installment of the Stranger Things series. I stopped writing this book back in 2013 when my then-publishing house began experiencing some internal calamities, resulting in the reversion of rights to the series. I put the partially-written manuscript away and never planned on finishing it. See above about cyberbulling. You can pre-order it now for the December 20, 2022 release. This edition will include a bonus short story previously unavailable beyond website download.

And those are just what I’ve got planned for the rest of this year. Also in the works are:

THE SILVERTHORN PROTOCOL – my first foray into sci-fi. It’s vampires and werewolves in space. I’m promoting it as “Underworld meets Gray’s Anatomy. In space.” I had fun writing it and already have notes for a sequel, so there’s that. Not sure what I’m going to do with it yet as there’s still some work to be done, but it’s there and something will happen.

MIDNIGHT TEA SHOP (working title) – a paranormal cozy mystery that’s basically a contemporary cast of characters and their doings surrounding a tea shop that’s open past midnight. There’s vampires, hellhounds, mimics (okay ONE mimic), and murder. Also asshole ex-boyfriends and a Karen. Because anything goes in this vanity project. There’s a lot of swearing.

I’ve recently launched a Patreon with multiple tiers, and at the CHECK FOR TRAPS level and above, you will get an occasional snippet of something I’m working on. There’s a Tea Shop snippet up over there now if you want to check it out.

I want to wrap this newsletter up with another shout-out to Skyla Dawn Cameron and her Alchemy Red After Hours write-in sessions. Without those and the other writers participating there, I wouldn’t have started writing again, let alone finished two projects and started two more. Go check out her Patreon and if you haven’t read her books, remedy that immediately. (She also made all of the shiny shiny graphics you see in this post, so if you’re in need of a fantastic graphic designer, she does amazing work. Hire her for all the things!)

So that’s the current state of affairs. There’s going to be a lot happening around here in the next few months, which honestly is kinda weird, given *gestures at everything 2016-present* (looking at you, COVID-19 pandemic).

If you are able to but haven’t already, get your COVID-19 bivalent booster and seasonal flu shot. Keep wearing those masks so I can continue to live and write more stories.

New Shiny Thing!

Remember a couple weeks ago I said things would be spiffing up around here?

2) Speaking of spiffing up, you should be seeing some new shinies around here soon, courtesy of my handler/enabler/Platonic Murder Wife, Skyla Dawn Cameron of IndigoChick Designs. You’ve heard of her before, and if you haven’t, shame on you. Go buy her books and hire her for amazing things.

Well, after *mumblemumble* years of benign neglect, my home on the Interwebs has gotten a much-needed makeover. Check it out! (Seriously, click on my name up there and scroll down the homepage to see the gorgeousness!) And look! *points to sidebar (or below this post if you’re on your phone)* You can now subscribe to my blog, not just the Very Random Newsletter! We live in the future!

The Internet is a weird place (as we all know), and things are constantly changing, updating, coming, and going. For a long time (especially the last couple years, because reasons, am I right?) this space has been mostly ignored, as not only was nothing really happening on the writing front, but there wasn’t much happening, period, except some crafting things, binge watching, Dungeon Mastering, and lots of tea drinking.

I do hang out on Skyla Dawn Cameron’s Discord server on Saturday afternoons for weekly write-in sessions, which you are welcome to join if you subscribe to her Patreon. For only a dollar, you can be in the room where the magic happens, either to work on your own writing project or just hang with some writers who are. The Saturday Night Write-Ins are where a few of us writer types gather for three forty-five-minute writing sprints (with fifteen-minute breaks between them). During the sprints there’s no talking/chatting in the room (though we do have a voice channel to use during the breaks), and we post the progress we have (or haven’t) made during the sprint. We’re coming up on our one year anniversary next month, and can boast 5 completed projects this year alone. (That’s a book a month for the year, people. Accountability works!) If you’ve got a writing project you’d like to work on, a dollar a month is way less than a gym membership, helps feed Skyla’s cats, and gets you writing.

One of those completed projects is mine. I’ve got another a little over a third of the way done, and the bloody enablers over there have me working on a completely new one because one thing led to another and shit happened and it was all their fault. So join us, maybe. All it will cost you is your soul a dollar. Click on the pic below and begin your descent into madness (if you’re not there already).

Those writerly things I mentioned in the previous post? Yeah. Those came out of the weekly write-ins. Because of them (okay, because of Skyla, let’s be honest), Death Knell is no longer “postponed,” but “forthcoming.” If the Stranger Things series is your jam, there’s another book on the way. I’m hoping to have it out as a Halloween treat.

*is handed note*

Apparently it is now May. Huh.

I should…go…now. I need more tea.

-D