Ancient Spells & Crazy Kings

 

Today I'm happy to be hosting Laura Pauling on her amazing blog tour for her new Middle Grade novel: How to Survive Ancient Spells and Crazy Kings! I love a bit of Egyptian mythology, so enjoy Laura's post and enter to win prizes!:

    

Published by Pugalicious Press

When Bianca and Melvin brave the jungle to rescue their grandfather, they stumble upon the ancient Maya city of Etza, where the people haven’t aged in 2,000 years. They must learn to work together as they face loincloth-wearing skeletons from the underworld, a backstabbing princess, and an ancient prophecy that says in three days the city will be destroyed. No problem. They’ll find Zeb and zip right out of there. The fact that a crazy king wants to serve Bianca up to the gods as an appetizer is just a minor technicality. But this ancient evil dude has finally met his match.

Weaving mythology into a story.

How To Survive Ancient Spells and Crazy Kings is a middle grade time travel. I didn’t plan on adding fantastical elements to the story, other than time travel. The characters would go back in time, solve the mystery, and return home alive--hopefully. But while researching the Ancient Maya I learned about some of the driving forces dictating their cultural decisions. The Maya strongly believed in the afterlife. They believed in an underworld. When kings or queens were buried, their tombs were filled with treasured items to help them on their journey in the next world. Kings in particular were driven to sacrifice their own blood. When their earthly lives passed, they desired to rise up into the heavens and become a god. During their sacrifice rituals they would seek answers from their gods and past kings in the rising smoke from bark soaked with their blood. Most commoners didn’t ascend into the sky and become gods. No, they traversed into the depths of the underworld. So when my characters, Bianca and Melvin head down into a deep underground cavern, it was easy for me to connect that to the underworld of the Maya. So guess who they run into? That’s right. The undead. Thanks, Charmaine, for hosting me on the tour!

How To Survive Ancient Spells and Crazy Kings released in November. Pugalicious Press did a fantastic job, and I’m extremely happy with the results. This book would make a fantastic gift for boys or girls who enjoy adventure stories with lots of excitement! You can purchase it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. You can read the first chapter here. Check out the teacher's guide. Thankfully, my journey is just beginning and I’m excited to see where it leads. Click here for the list of blog tour stops! Enter to win these prize packages!

Prize Package One (signed paperbacks)

Prize Package Two (signed paperbacks)

Prize Package Three

 

  Refresh the page if you can't see the Rafflecopter form! a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Why You Need Your Head Shot

MY ZOMBIE DOG has officially launched for the Kindle version and the paperback version will be along soon! To celebrate, you still have about 10 days to win a KINDLE! This is open international, so get your entry in! It's very easy, you can buy the book (love you!) or blog about the book or blog about this competition. You also get an extra entry for tweeting.

Go HERE to find the entry form. HURRY, ends 31st March (Aussie time).

Now about author head shots. Do you have one? Is it professional looking or some family pic that gets blurry if you try and make it any bigger than 5cent coin? It doesn't matter if you're published or not, you need to create an image that you want people to associate with you. 

If you can go and get a professional head shot, then good for you, but if you can get a professional look nowadays even with your iPhone.

Don't want a double chin? check out this professional photographer's advice on how to look your best in that head shot:

It's all about the Jaw from Peter Hurley on Vimeo.

Lighting is also important, outside is good, or use a floodlight shone up and towards you to light up your face. Most indoor lights hang from the ceiling so it tends to leave shadows under your nose and chin.

The smile? There's lots of different opinions, some people swear you need to show teeth and others prefer a more demure smile - you know which looks best on you. If you do go for the closed mouth smile, just part your lips ever-so-slightly so you can blow out a breath while smiling, this stops your lips from looking tense and your smile from looking fake.

My biggest weakness is getting bored with my pic. It's best to keep something familiar because it becomes branding. Here's a pic I had taken last year, now to get those books in the background I had to casually lean my arm on the fireplace shelf, which required squatting to be the right height!

But this is what I usually look like in photos (Zoe is a lap dog wannabe):

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Book Launch - WIN A KINDLE

MY ZOMBIE DOG has officially launched for the Kindle version and as this is the first book I've launched, I'm taking notes of my progress and promotions for this release. As you may know there is a giveaway with this launch, for every person who purchases the book, or simply blogs about the book or the contest, they go into the draw to win a KINDLE! This is open international, so get your entry in!

If you would like to enter, simply go to the last post to find the entry form HERE.

I've posted about creating a professional book cover, and when the competition is over I'll share all the data on how I formatted my ebook.

In the meantime, I've signed up for the following reading challenge - how could I resist? 

And I'll leave you with the book trailer for MY ZOMBIE DOG (I'll tell you how to make those soon too - promise):

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WIN A KINDLE FIRE

March 1st is the big release date for MY ZOMBIE DOG and I'm promoting the book by giving away a free Kindle! (If the winner is a lucky US resident, they will win the Kindle Fire, for everywhere else the prize changes to a Kindle Keyboard 3G - due to Amazon shipping rules).

There's two ways to enter:

Buy MY ZOMBIE BOOK by clicking here and then fill in the entry form below. You will be asked for your receipt number from Amazon (it will be on the receipt Amazon email you - keep a copy of your receipt as proof of purchase if you win). Also, Tweet this competition with a link to this page and you get a second entry! You'll be asked for your tweet link, but if you're not sure how to do that, just use the hashtag #zombiedog in your tweet so it's easy to find.

or

Blog about this competition or about MY ZOMBIE DOG (you can review, talk about or interview) and then fill in the entry form below. You will be asked for your blog post link in the entry form. If you'd like an interview for your post, you can email me at charmaineclancy@gmail.com. Also, Tweet this competition with a link to this page and you get a second entry! You'll be asked for your tweet link, but if you're not sure how to do that, just use the hashtag #zombiedog in your tweet so it's easy to find.

Too easy! This competition runs from now until 31st March 2012.

You can only have one entry for blogging but if you blog and buy the book, you'll get two entries (plus another if you tweet about it!). Each entrant has the possibility of earning up to 3 entries.

Already own the Kindle Fire (I'm jealous!), it'd make a fantastic present to someone you love!

Why I'm doing this:

I love you guys and it's the blogasphere that has helped me to get serious about writing and learning the importance of a professional approach.

Also because of this book:

MY ZOMBIE DOG

On Zane’s 14th birthday he had to bury a dog. The next morning it’s in his room, tail wagging.

This is not the dog he wanted. No, Zane longed for a cool Collie or Shepard. Now he’s stuck with this scraggy, smelly undersized mutt. As if the dog wasn’t embarrassing enough, his mum wants to name it ‘Fluffy’. No way. Zane figures it dug itself out of the ground, so its name is Fossil. 

Fossil's a mean dog and will snap and bite at people... but why are those people bitten turning sluggish and craving strange food items like brains? Can Zane rid himself of this mutt and save his town from a zombie outbreak?

Now... Enter, and GOOD LUCK!

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