I’m interviewing Marva Dasef today, whose MG fantasy,
MIDNIGHT OIL, launches this month through Muse It Up Publishing.
Marva, you write in
an astounding variety of genres. Tell us
about them – and if you have a favorite, which is it?
I seem to be settling on MG/YA fantasy, although you’re
correct about my wayward genre hopping. I’ve published memoir, mystery, science
fiction, and bits of romance and horror. I started my serious fiction career
with short stories. That allowed me to try out a lot before finding the best
fit. And by best fit, I mean two ways. First, that the style feels comfortable
and natural to me, and second, publishers are more likely to accept a
particular genre.
Beginning from Tales
of a Texas Boy, the nostalgic semi-memoir stories about my father’s boyhood
in West Texas during the Depression, I preferred humor to pathos. Even in my
adult scifi, I wanted some Star Wars-like comic relief. Essentially, I can’t
take anything too seriously.
I like my halfway between Tween and YA fantasies. I couldn’t
write a contemporary YA if someone held a gun to my head. I don’t have enough
contact with modern teens to write with authority. With fantasy, anything goes,
so I can make up wild solutions to the problems my characters are facing.
Trapped on an invisible island? No problem. Kat can ask a bird to carry a
message. Attacked by a polar bear? No problem. A killer whale can come to the
rescue. In real situations, a writer is restricted to real solutions. How
boring is that?
You’ve also worked
with a few publishing companies, as well as published on your own. Can you tell
us about the ups and downs?
My first two books were put out by a small publisher. I
found the support severely lacking. Being new to the game, I didn’t know how
much they were letting me down. I’m not talking about the post-publishing
process, but when I should have had editing, it wasn’t provided. When the cover
was selected, it didn’t fit the story.
I found that my latest publisher is really great on the
production side. I got many editing rounds with both a content editor and a
line editor. My cover was produced from scratch by great cover artists. Also,
MuseItUp authors are like family with lots of help publicizing each others’
works, and generally supporting every author’s efforts.
The downside to having a publisher is that the retail price
has to be higher than a self-published book. I offer most of my self-pub
material for 99 cents. The price on my professionally published work is higher,
but there are more people who need to be paid.
The market for
children’s e-books is up and coming. I saw several e-readers come into my 5th
grade classroom after Christmas. How do
you market to catch the young e-book reader’s eye?
I’m trying to take advantage of groups that support YA
writers (and by YA, I include everything from grade school and up) such as the
Society of Childrens Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). I try to associate
with other YA writers. Much of that is done through the mutual support system
like this blog tour for Midnight Oil. I will be hosting my hosts as their books
are published, as I have in the past.
Besides your Witches
of Galdorheim series, what else do you have cooking right now?
I am sneakily reworking some of my self-pubbed work and
submitting it for publication. For example, I have expanded one of my
middle-eastern fantasies, which started life with the micro-press that
published my first two books, and it will be released under a new title by my
current publisher, MuseItUp.
Is there anything
you’d like to tell us about your newest book, Midnight Oil?
How about the promo info? But before that, I want to tell your readers to leave a
comment to win a free ebook copy of either Bad Spelling (book 1) or Midnight
Oil (book 2).
MIDNIGHT OIL - Book 2
of the Witches of Galdorheim
Shipwrecked on a legendary island, how can a witch rescue
her boyfriend if she can’t even phone home?
Kat discovers that an evil forest spirit has kidnapped her
brand-new boyfriend. She sets out with her brother, Rune, from her Arctic
island home on a mission to rescue the boy. Things go wrong from the start. Kat
is thrown overboard during a violent storm, while her brother and his
girlfriend are captured by a mutant island tribe. The mutants hold the
girlfriend hostage, demanding that the teens recover the only thing that can
make the mutants human again–the magical Midnight Oil.
Mustering every bit of her Wiccan magic, Kat rises to the
challenge. She invokes her magical skills, learns to fly an ultralight, meets a
legendary sea serpent, rescues her boyfriend, and helps a friendly air spirit
win the battle against her spiteful sibling. On top of it all, she’s able to
recover the Midnight Oil and help the hapless mutants in the nick of time.
Book Links: