Author Interview – Winterview!

Jan10

Thank you to my colleague, author K. J Harrowick for taking the time to interview and post this. Good luck with the Winterview series and for making our winter a little less cold and dark.

Perhaps there is no better time to stay home and warm, snuggling with a good book. Hang in there, everyone: Summer is Coming.

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Alon Shalev is the author of the 2013 Eric Hoffer YA Book Award winner, At The Walls of Galbrieth, and five other Wycaan Master books all released by Tourmaline Books.

More about Alon Shalev can be found at http://www.alon-shalev.com.

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Publishing by Popular Vote

Dec15

A few months ago, I wrote about the new publishing model and shared that I have entered Kingfisher: Slave to Honor, my latest novel into the mix.

Kingfisher Cover

Briefly, Inkitt is a publisher who, through a range of analytics, bases their decision whether to publish by judging people’s responses to a novel. They define themselves as “the first reader-powered book publisher.” One hundred people downloaded the novel in an amazingly short period and some have read and left reviews. If you are one of these: THANK YOU!

Whether you have read it or not, in less than five minutes, you can help me secure a book contract:

If you downloaded the book:

Please read (or skim through if you are pushed for time), answer their questions, and leave an honest review.
There is a button to vote. Please vote!

If you have not downloaded the book but follow my work, please click here and vote for the book.

Kingfisher: Slave to Honor is not a Young Adult novel. It is medieval fantasy and has an edgy sliver of grimdark running through it. If you purchased the Wycaan Master series for your children, this one’s for you.

Thank you for taking a few minutes to help me realize my dream of getting Kingfisher a publishing deal. It means a lot.

Warmly,

Alon / elfwriter

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Alon Shalev is the author of the 2013 Eric Hoffer YA Book Award winner, At The Walls of Galbrieth, and five other Wycaan Master books all released by Tourmaline Books. The link above takes you to the Kindle versions. For all other eReaders, please click here.

More at http://www.alonshalev.com and on Twitter (@elfwriter).

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The Gift of Escape

Dec10

T’is the season of goodwill, so first, happy holidays and may you and yours enjoy a new year of good health, love and friendship, and the realization of whatever goals you dream of. Thank you for supporting my writing and for your wonderful feedback and encouraging messages. I treasure each and every one of you.

This eNewsletter started out as a shameless plug to entice you to buy paperback copies of the Wycaan Master series as gifts for your dear ones, especially young adults. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, I am happy to try and meet, to sign and inscribe a personal message.

But as I wrote it, this message became something quite different.

Asif reading series

2017 has been a tough year for most people, but I want to focus on those who are coming-of-age, It is difficult for any young person to be oblivious to what is happening in this country or abroad. The world is a darker, more violent place, where selfish self-interest seems to cast a depressing shadow over all.

Where can a young person look for inspiration and respite? I am not advocating for them being cocooned and oblivious to those who cry out for help or to ignore the injustices around them. But in a world of 24-hour news on every platform, the millennial and Gen Z are growing up fast…too fast. This is about gender, color and sexual preference. This involves everyone. My sons are white and straight (as far as I know), but their friends transcend these definitions.

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Think back to a time you lost yourself in a book series. Did you ride the dragons with Eragon and Brom? Accompany Frodo and Sam into Mordor? Whatever the novels that come to mind, think back and remember how it consumed you for a precious few weeks or months. Recall the heroes and companions along the way and what they taught you.

When I wrote the Wycaan Master series, I did so with a strong impulse to impart certain values to my sons. I wanted them to value friendship, honor, to be aware of the responsibility and abuse of leadership. I desired that they be aware of inequality and intolerance. I learned early on that lecturing them is the least effective method and I harnessed their love of stories to share what I wanted to convey.

These values are as relevant today as they were back then and they are under assault now with a greater intensity than I could have imagined when we sat under the majestic redwoods in 2011 and first summoned the Wycaan Masters.

DSCN0193 Taking a journey through a book series remains a memorable and powerful experience for people of all ages. It offers the reader an opportunity to step back for a while, to soar to a new land, bond with characters who take on great challenges in the name of the very values we want to believe in. It is a chance to dream, to be by yourself but never alone.

So, as we enter the season of gift giving, perhaps consider giving a present of an epic fantasy series. Whether it is the Wycaan Master books or others, it will be appreciated long after the holidays lights are extinguished and the Starbucks’ Peppermint Mocha removed from its menu!

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Here is a review on Amazon by someone who calls herself Mother-of-Four:

My almost 12 year old son read this book for his summer book review project (prior to 6th grade). This is his review:

Seanchai, an elf is living in a world in which human rule, dwarves hide in the mountains and elves are slaves. Seanchai is trying to recreate a great alliance between men, elves and dwarves in the land of Odessiya. The emperor does not want Seanchai to recreate the alliance and sends out men to attack Seanchai and his companions. Seanchai takes safe harbor with a woman named Mhari who teaches him the ways of Wycaan’s. Mhari is the last of the Wycaan’s. They are great masters of magic and great storytellers. His friends are captured at the walls of Galbrieth. Seanchai and Mhari go and save them and take down the garrison. In this book, Seanchai successfully recreates part of the alliance. In the next book, he will hopefully bring the dwarves to join the alliance.

At the Walls of Galbrieth teaches you about the good and bad things in life. I think Seanchai is an interesting character, because he always has to choose between his friends and his destiny but no matter what anyone tells him he always chooses his friends. I like this book because each and every one of its characters have their own secrets. I like this book because it fills you with curiosity and you never know what will happen next. This medieval fantasy story is filled with action, suspense, and adventure, it is entertaining and interesting, and it teaches about friendship, and loyalty. I couldn’t put it down.

This is why I write!

Happy Holidays and thank you for your support,

Alon

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Alon Shalev is the author of the 2013 Eric Hoffer YA Book Award winner, At The Walls of Galbrieth, and five other Wycaan Master books all published by Tourmaline Books. The link above takes you to the Kindle versions. For all other eReaders, please click here.

Learn more about Alon Shalev and his novels here and download a free copy of his latest novel as a publisher gauges interest – . Help secure a book contract by reading and leaving an honest review.

Kingfisher Cover

Summer Reading Binge – August Only!

Aug4

It’s that time of year again: Tourmaline Books has reduced the entire Wycaan Master series to just $0.99 for each book throughout August.

This a great time to introduce a young person to Seanchai and his friends. I wrote these books for my sons who were 11 and 8 when the first came out. They were 16 and 13 when the final book was published.

This is how it all began – deep in a redwood forest in 2011.

Reading Book 6 in the summer of 2015. End of an era.

While At The Walls Of Galbrieth won the Young Adult category of the Eric Hoffer Book Award, I am not sure what proportion of readers are in the 11-18 age range. Perhaps they are less likely to interact with an author on social media. Still, I am delighted every time I hear of a teen who has enjoyed the series.

Please click on the book cover to buy your 99c copy of each book and, if I might request, please leave a review on Amazon when you finish. It’s a huge help for me.

Thank you for your support. Enjoy the summer.
Alon

Dragons But Not Unicorns?

May22

So there I was minding my own business, having merrily written 40,0000 words of a Magical Realism (“low fantasy –a sub-genre of fantasy fiction involving “nonrational happenings that are without causality or rationality because they occur in the rational world where such things are not supposed to occur.” – Brian Stableford – The A to Z of Fantasy Literature – I had to look it up a while ago).

I was quite happy imagining a Game of Thrones type book (I know, very different from the Wycaan Master series) and then one of my characters has to make an innocent quip: “Dragons don’t exist, do they?”

Before I could press save and turn off the laptop, before I could say – well, burn me to a cinder – there he (or she) was flying around, flapping those great wings, swinging that long spiked tail

“There goes my genre shift,” I thought as the next chapter appeared on my screen.

Now I was baptized in the fires of Smaug (actually I’m Jewish but Smaug as a Mohel performing a circumcision is frankly too disturbing), my sons flew in their imagination on the backs of Saphira and Christopher Paolini’s other dragons.

But there is something about dragons that has kept them alive in our culture that is fascinating. The Chinese have a historic connection that goes back to, well it makes you wonder. In my homeland, Sir George had to slay one to become the patron saint of the Brits, and the dragon is possibly the most common and, dare I say, respected mythical animal in the fantasy genre.

So what is wrong with unicorns, for example? Why have they not become as popular? They can fight, heal, and even create powerful wands (which J.K. Rowlings wizard am I talking about?), but they have not caught our imagination like dragons.

Laying myself at the mercy of Google, I discovered that the dragon myth grew separately in China, Europe, and even the Americas and Australia. The Aussies have a number of animals including the Goanna that lend themselves to the myth. The Nile crocodiles were apparently much bigger than the one we know today and walked in an elevated gait. Whales and dinosaurs also add to the potential creation of the myth.

But perhaps the most fascinating theory is suggested on the Smithsonian blog. I couldn’t find the author to attribute – my apologies – but these are his/her words:

In his book An Instinct for Dragons, anthropologist David E. Jones argues that belief in dragons is so widespread among ancient cultures because evolution embedded an innate fear of predators in the human mind. Just as monkeys have been shown to exhibit a fear of snakes and large cats, Jones hypothesizes that the trait of fearing large predators—such as pythons, birds of prey and elephants—has been selected for in hominids. In more recent times, he argues, these universal fears have been frequently combined in folklore and created the myth of the dragon.

Whatever created it, the myth of the dragon has deepened with the growth in popularity of the genre. Eragon’s relationship with Saphira and the history in the Inheritance Series is far more complex than Tolkien’s Smaug, or those Harry Potter had to deal with. George R.R. Martin skirts around the existence of dragons in his early books. His description of the crypts of Winterfell, and later when Aria is in the bowels of the capital, are almost a reverent tribute to these once majestic beasts.

It is a relationship that has captured the imagination of a generation. My sons, for whom Paolini was so influential, have devoured many books with dragons, without any sign of tiring. For them and others, I found this interesting artistic reflection of the sizes of the various dragons that Paolini creates – Enjoy.

Have a great week.

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More at http://www.alonshalev.com and on Twitter (@elfwriter).

A Son’s Journey Begins…

Mar29

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

Not my usual elfwriter blog post, but…

In a few precious months, my oldest son will graduate high school and leave home. Sure, I could tell you with pride that he will participate in a social justice gap year program prior to going to university, but for the moment, I am just stuck on the idea that he is leaving home. A car advert – father watches son drive very nice car away from the home to… – had me in tears on an airplane.

My son recently read a book that intrigued him and he could not put down. Then he asked if I would buy him a hardcover copy that he could take with him, perhaps share with friends, or reread when he feels the need.

In case you are wondering, the book is called Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart by Dr. James Doty, and this got me thinking. All his life I have tried to instill a desire in my son to read. Of course, the more I pushed, the more he rebelled … just like when his darn father was as a kid. But there were times when we bonded over books.

I remember Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance series, as we stood in line at midnight in Borders waiting for the next book, and the delight when the bookseller, seeing him literally falling asleep on his feet as he swayed and leaned against me, snuck the only autographed copy into his hands. He sleepily declared he would stay up all night reading it, before falling asleep in the car and then in his bed, tightly hugging the book.

My son holding his autographed copy.

Then there were the Harry Potter series, a rite-of-passage for many parents and children. I am thrilled that we were a family during this exciting moment in time.

And, of course, there was his crucial role in the writing of the Wycaan Master series. He was the inspiration that led me to write the series and for six summers he listened and offered sound feedback around the campfire in the ancient redwood forests.

Writing the 1st novel – a family effort!

Reading Book 6 in the summer of 2015. End of an era.

But his request is not about the books that were, but the books that are and will be. So I am asking for your help: what are the books that influenced and guided you when you left your parents’ home?

Here are a few from my time at college that I am thinking of including:

I am particularly interested in books for a young man, but am happy to corollate a list that is more specific for young women as well. Please share the books that influenced you when you were that age in the comments below.

Thank you,

An Apprehensive Father.

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More at http://www.alonshalev.com and on Twitter (@elfwriter).

Stuck Between A Forest and a Big Corporation.

Jan22

Tourmaline Books has agreed to upload the ebook versions of the Wycaan Master series to Smashwords making it available for all tablets and ebook platforms. Up until now, you could only buy the electronic version of the novels through Amazon and read them on a Kindle app.

This decision was made as a concession to me rather than based upon any viable business strategy. Amazon offers a wonderful deal for the publisher and author to go exclusive with them – higher royalties, opportunities for exposure through various marketing campaigns, and, of course, the name of the biggest book store in the world. Varying sources have Amazon dominating over 70% of the book market.

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There is a love/hate relationship between Amazon and the publishing world and there are plenty of articles covering this. Balancing this, as mentioned, Amazon has offered a business model that helps smaller publishers and independent author. One of my fellow writers once said – If you succeed with Amazon then you will think they are great. If you are not succeeding, well, it is nice to have someone to blame.

I have written extensively about my passion for ebooks. It is easier to read for those of us who have acquiesced to reading glasses, easy to carry a library around when traveling, and being instantly able to buy the next book in the series. It also helps those who cannot pay $25 for a hardcover.

But more than this, it is a decision about humanity’s future on this planet. Hopefully, you believe in climate change, but even those who don’t usually acknowledge that we need lots of trees in order to … well breathe.

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I am not dissing the tree book. I collect signed hardcovers of my favorite authors and these books adorn every corner of our house. For a guy who suffers from dust allergies, this is quite a compromise and I love having them there.

Amazon has been nothing but good for me. It has highlighted my books on several occasions, twice leading to a huge surge in sales. However, I am wary of any monopoly. Having lived for two decades respectively in two small countries, I enjoy that there is plenty of competition in the US, that companies are forced to offer high levels of product and customer service, and that the consumer always has a choice.

I do worry that Amazon has considerable power when you are part of the exclusive program, though I do not subscribe to the many stories that circulate. One of my friends, a member of the California Writer’s Club (CWC) and a successful Amazon author, once said that Amazon has rules, and everyone who signs on, agrees to them. In her opinion, those who break the rules and are discovered are the ones who are bitter, as it is difficult to make your case. I’m not sure if this is different from any other business transaction.

Having said all this, I do love Smashwords. Its founder, Mark Coker, is a Bay Area legend and visionary in the book community, and unselfishly offers himself to speak at book clubs, conferences, writers groups, and CWC events. The link above takes you to articles he has written for The Huffington Post).

The technology is simple (for the low tech individual like me I mean, not the engineers who designed it, I’m sure) – the author/publisher submits a ‘clean’ manuscript, which is put through their “meat grinder” which produces ebooks compatible with all the industry ebook platforms. Given that Smashwords is from the Bay Area, I am sure it produces only gluten-free editions!

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Whether the decision to work with Smashwords will make Tourmaline Books more money or not remains to be seen, but I appreciate their flexibility to allow me to continue to expand my ebook market and make an environmental decision that supports diversity within the market. I deeply appreciate they respect my values.

The future is bright for ebooks. It needs to be. As far as we know, Earth is the only planet with literature.

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For those of you interested in my books and read with eReaders other than Kindle, the Wycaan Master series can be downloaded by clicking on the relevant book title:

At The Walls Of Galbrieth – winner of the 2013 Eric Hoffer YA Book Award,

The First Decree

Ashbar – Wycaan Master Book 3

Sacrificial Flame

From Ashes They Rose

Calhei No More.

However you read the Wycaan Master series, I thank you for your readership and fellowship.

Happy 2017,

Alon

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Alon Shalev is the author of the 2013 Eric Hoffer YA Book Award winner, At The Walls of Galbrieth, and five other Wycaan Master books all released by Tourmaline Books. Calhei No More is the final novel in the series and was released in November 2016.

More at http://www.alonshalev.com and on Twitter (@elfwriter).

Chicken Soup and Pre Order Details

Oct30

Thank you to everyone for your good wishes following my update last week – Book 6: What Happened? One of the wonderful consequences of being an author is that you build not only a following of readers, but a community of friends. I know you think it is the painkillers talking, but I do believe what I write … though I do love these painkillers!

Calhei No More remains on schedule and I can now share the Pre Order page for the ebook. Traditionally, a final book costs more than the rest of the series, but Tourmaline Books agreed to initially sell Calhei No More for $2.99, same as the others.

Calhei No More_full res2 (4)

While I remain an advocate for ‘Chicken Soup Cures All’, I am willing to conduct an experiment on myself (for the good of science of course), and see if a growing list of pre orders can make a patient heal better. Mrs. Elfwriter would probably allow for a less complaining and more tolerable patient as the goal. She really is an incredible woman and has taken on all the extra work my injury entails with good humor and love.

Finally, I want to share a question I received from a reader in Texas. M asked if one can begin reading Book 4 – Sacrificial Flame – without reading the first trilogy? The answer is yes. Each book is a stand-alone, but the second trilogy might be a better place to start for the older teenager and those seeking more complex issues and subplots. Not that an author should ever have a favorite, but if one did, then Sacrificial Flame would be it.

Sac Flame 2

Thank you again for all your good wishes. I will keep taking the meds, drinking the chicken soup, and checking the pre orders for Calhei No More. I appreciate each and every one of you.

Alon

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Alon Shalev is the author of the 2013 Eric Hoffer YA Book Award, At The Walls of Galbrieth, (still at 99c) and five more novels in the Wycaan Master Series – all released by Tourmaline Books. Calhei No More, the final book will be released November 2016 in the series. It will all end on the Plains of Shindellia.

Shalev is also the author of three social justice-themed novels including Unwanted Heroes. He swears there is a connection. More at http://www.alonshalev.com and on Twitter (@elfwriter). Hang out with Alon on Google+

What’s Behind a Book Title + Cover Revealed

Aug29

This week, Tourmaline Books announced the title to the sixth Wycaan Master book, perhaps the final one in the series: Calhei No More.

Anyone who has read the previous books in the series knows that calhei means children, specifically elven children (do you need to brush up on your elvish?).

Calhei No More_full res2 (4)

Update from Publisher – New Book’s Cover

There was considerable back and forth regarding the title. A previous book had an elven word in the title and the publishers were not keen on this as it might be a barrier to people purchasing it. While Ashbar failed to become a New York Times bestseller, I don’t think the title was to blame.

Still, this makes perfect marketing sense, but I always thought that by the time you bought Book 3 or Book 6, you would have read the preceding novels – or in the case of Book 6, read Sacrificial Flame (#4) and From Ashes They Rose (#5), which many adults started at – and know the basic elven words.

Without giving too much away, the title reflects the rise to prominence of the next generation of characters, but there is much more behind what will be brandished across the cover of the book.

When I wrote Book 1, my sons were 11 and 7. For those not acquainted with the story, I wrote At The Walls Of Galbrieth while on a family vacation in an ancient redwood forest in Northern California and read them a few chapters each night around the campfire or snuggled in our tent. For the next five years I had the next manuscript ready for them and they were the first to hear the story … and my first critics.

Writing the 1st novel – a family effort!

My sons will be 17 and 13 years old respectively when Calhei No More comes out in the fall. They tower over me now and wrestle me with ease, but they still occasionally snuggle even if the three of us would never fit together in that old tent anymore.

Finishing the Wycaan Master series is a watershed for me and I will write about this in the future, but for now it is inextricably linked to my sons growing up and a very personal aspect of our relationship.

Reading Book 6 in the summer of 2015. End of an era.

My work takes me away from them and I hope they have not grown to resent it. I am passionately driven by the need to fight for a just world and that every person on this planet deserves the same inalienable human rights. When home, I assail them with stories and videos and hope they will not grow to resent the importance of the work I do. I address this a number of times in Calhei No More… you’ll see.

But they will always have the memories of the Wycaan Master series long after they pass into adulthood.

Tourmaline Books have also agreed to set the publication date for October 15, my father’s 92^nd birthday. Calhei No More is about our relationship with our children and with our parents. The cycle continues, but the Wycaan Master series will reach its climatic end on October 15.

Happy Birthday to my human Ahdahr. Ninety-two years old. I am convinced there is some elven blood in him … my kids’ll tell you that it would explain a lot!

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Alon Shalev is the author of the 2013 Eric Hoffer YA Book Award winner, At The Walls of Galbrieth, The First Decree, Ashbar – Wycaan Master Book 3, Sacrificial Flame, and the latest: From Ashes They Rose, all released by Tourmaline Books.

Shalev is also the author of three social justice-themed novels including The Accidental Activist and Unwanted Heroes. He swears there is a connection. More at http://www.alonshalev.com and on Twitter (@elfwriter). Hang out with Alon on Goodreads.

New Book Cover Revealed: Countdown Begins

Aug16

This week, Tourmaline Books released the cover for Calhei No More, the sixth and probably final book of the award-winning Wycaan Master series. In addition, they made a surprise announcement. Scroll down to find out what.

The cover shows Abel, the Mushroom Man, who first appeared in From Ashes They Rose, and became a popular figure. Guess he earned his place on the cover both for his role in the novel and launching a new hobby for the author – almost every dish I’ve cooked since has had common or exotic mushrooms in it.

A big Thank You to our long-suffering cover artist, William J. Kenney. Art is an incredible talent that the unskilled like me view as magic. But William also possesses the talent to take my jumble of verbal images and produce a work of art.

As a way to encourage readers to finish the previous five novels (and the surprising number who began reading from the fourth – Sacrificial Flame), each novel is being offered in ebook form for just 99 cents each. For my past views on such moves, feel free to check here.

I can’t say how long this will continue. The launch date for Calhei No More is October 15. If you do take advantage of this offer, please take a moment at the end of each book and leave a review on Amazon. It has a huge influence on rankings.

Just to showcase William’s talent, here are the other book covers. If you plan to take advantage of the 99 cent sale, please click on their covers.

Thank you for all your support along the way. It is exciting to soon share the climax of the Wycaan Masters. As always, I love to hear from you. Please leave any comments, I do try and respond in a timely fashion.

Good reading,

Alon

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Alon Shalev is the author of the 2013 Eric Hoffer YA Book Award winner, At The Walls of Galbrieth, and four more novels in the Wycaan Master Series – all released by Tourmaline Books. From Ashes They Rose, is the latest in the series.

Elfwriter

A Fantasy Author

Tag Archives: Wycaan Master series

Author Interview – Winterview!

Publishing by Popular Vote

The Gift of Escape

Stuck Between A Forest and a Big Corporation.

Chicken Soup and Pre Order Details

What’s Behind a Book Title + Cover Revealed

New Book Cover Revealed: Countdown Begins

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Please click on the book cover to buy your 99c copy of each book and, if I might request, please leave a review on Amazon when you finish. It’s a huge help for me.

Thank you for your support. Enjoy the summer. Alon

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Thank you for your support. Enjoy the summer.
Alon