Tag Archives: books

Cover Reveal Day!!

We’ve all been waiting eagerly for this day for over a month!! Today you’re going to get the first look at the amazing cover created by Nevi & Dani together — the first that we’ve done together. Up til now, we’ve always had one or the other of us using our different art skills to create a cover for our stories. But then we had the brilliant idea to combine our artistic powers the same way that we do with our writing and the results are so crazy good that we can hardly believe them!!

BO-01 cover reveal 02

 

From the Best-selling Authors of the Parliament of Twilight series comes a new erotic world of Heroes and Villains where the difference between good and evil isn’t as simple as which side you’re on.

 

53 year old Matt Evans never thought he would be drawn back into the world of the Chosen and their staged battles of Good versus Evil. But with the return of his long dormant super powers on the heels of a devastating attack on the Chosen, Matt is forced to come face to face with the lover he left behind.

When Professor Colton Stephens sees Matt again, all of the pain of their past is brought to the surface. Thirty years of secrets and heartbreak must be overcome so that they can work together against the plotting of a Hero who turned into a terrorist.

When that terrorist uses Colton’s powers and proclivities against him, will his bond with Matt be strong enough to keep him out of the grip of Evil, or will Colton fall into the clutches of the first truly evil being in the known history of the Chosen?

 

And now the moment we’ve all been waiting for!!

 

Burnouts Cover 01 eBook

 

Pre-order links are Now Live for

Back Issues (Burn Outs #1)!

** Amazon   **  Smashwords  **  Barnes & Noble   **  KoBo   **  Google Books (play store)  **

 

What the #@$& am I Looking At??

After a busy, busy week around the house, we really need to drop some updates!

Firstly, the first book in the Parliament of Twilight series is back in the top 20 for LGBT Horror.

ep 1 top 20 lgbt horror - 1-19-18

And that’s super, duper exciting after our feature on Queer Sci Fi earlier this week.

In addition to that (and only sort of related to our books but still awesome), Nevi has been working with a new art technique and it’s turned out some amazing results. You can see the first of them on her Deviant Art page.

For those of you who are hoping that we’ll drop some more things for you to spend money on, there is our Patreon page. We’re working on some exclusive content that will (fingers crossed) drop around the end of February and you’ll be the first in the know about our upcoming releases, get sneak peeks at the new covers as they are designed, and exclusive looks between the covers of the Parliament of Twilight books. Also, free eBooks of all our new releases for anyone who donates $5 or more per month.

And I thought there’d be more to talk about, but editing is pretty boring. It’s mostly me staring at words and praying they make sense outside of my head.

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New Venues

We’ve been hard at work this weekend, doing some updates to the website. You’ll find the biggest changes over on our “About the Parliament of Twilight” page.  We’ve changed that up quite a bit to better explain the world and format of the books.

EBOOK episode 1 full wrap cover VER2Our re-launch of the Parliament of Twilight: Episode 1 with the shiny new cover has been going well. Most of the sites where we have profiles and where we sell the books have been updated. We’re just waiting for the distribution channels at Smashwords to send it out to Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and a few other sites. By the end of the week, the new cover should be everywhere!

In addition to our website, I’ve spent a good long time cleaning up and making our Patreon site beautiful. It’s looking really nice, with a banner from the new cover and some pretty cool rewards for our donors. We’re working on some exclusive content that should start going up sometime in late February/early March. For as little as $1 a month, you can get access to this content (and feel good about supporting a pair of hard working indie authors and their cats!)

We’ve also launched our books on a new platform, the Google Play store! All 4 Parliament of Twilight books are currently available for download to your Android device. Hopefully, this will bring us to a whole new set of people eager for what we have to offer!

 

Evolution

For those of you who have been following along since we began publishing the Parliament of Twilight books in early 2013, you’ve seen quite the evolution of our book covers. You know that I have always designed the covers. And those first covers were drawn by my writing partner Nevi and put into cover templates I “designed”.

They were lovely but the large paintings didn’t translate well to thumbnails and they certainly didn’t appeal to audiences who were willing to throw money at us.

 

So, I went to work redesigning the covers to meet the expectations of our intended market. And they were….. well…..

They were what they were. Not bad, but desperately trying to cater to a very specific audience in the M/M Romance genre while still making a valiant attempt to keep the horror element that runs through the world was hard. Sort of got it, but not really.

Our long time fans (all three of you) will also recall that the books themselves had a fatal flaw. We were writing stories meant to eventually overlap, but each story line was taking place at three different places on the time line. With overlapping secondary characters. It was getting impossible for us as the authors to keep the stories straight and I don’t even know how the handful of readers we had would have managed if our original plan of 3 or 4 books in each story arc had played out.

We did the only thing we thought we could. We re-branded, changing our label name from Wandering Stars Press (which was also the name of a comic book company anyway and was really messing up our  Google search results) to Hermit & Star Books. And we took the stories that we already had, fit them onto a single time line and began writing the missing pieces to thread them together and give more life to the secondary characters who were the backbone of the over all plot.

What came out of this re-do was the ensemble cast that we all know and love today. The stories made sense, the time line was smoothed out, and we were writing at a record pace. But the new books needed new covers. So I put myself through the process of learning a new set of tools. Something more than a photo editor and GIMP.

And they turned out beautifully. With amazing characters on dynamic backgrounds. The response from our readers was awesome. We’re not NYT best-sellers, but we’re regularly in the top 50 for LGBT Horror, so that’s something. And we make a few sales every month, earning enough for a cup of coffee or two.

But there was something off about the Episode 1 cover. Something that made it look out of place next to the other ones.

It was the first. I have learned many, many more tricks to making amazing renders, the program I use (DAZ Studio 3D) has been updated several times. I’ve found hours of tutorials for making my final products amazing.

After dealing with this for almost 3 years (Episode 1 released in late Feb 2015), I finally broke down and did what I swore I wasn’t going to do. I risked the endless cycle of fixing and redoing my past work to take it that elusive place called Perfection. I sat down and redid the cover from scratch. New character design for Jacob. New background. Updating the font and graphics to match the other books.

Then this …

episode 1 full wrap cover

Which wasn’t BAD, but it certainly wasn’t good either. It became something else. Something new and amazing. It became this…..

Copy of episode 1 full wrap cover VER2

 

And I am so much, much happier. I am in love with this cover. So much in love.

And  by the end of the weekend, this new amazingness should be posted on every site where our books are sold.

Get in on this Pre-order

After over a year of re-writes, edits, full-stop plot holes, and feral chupacabra attacks, Parliament of Twilight: Episode 4 is ready for the public!

ep 4 cover Kindle smaller
The men of the Parliament will be forced to discover what they are made of whilst facing Demons and the truth of the internal workings of the Parliament of Twilight itself. 

 

Officially releasing in eBook on December 18th, you can now pre-order it on either Amazon or Smashwords. Also, if you are a paperback lover, Amazon has it available now.  (And for our fans who are outside the US, you want these links for the ebook or the paperback.)

In addition to the excitement of the pre-order, we are also running a giveaway from now until the release date on the 18th. Easy to enter, easy to win spiffy prizes.

And now, back to the writer cave to work on the preparations for Episode 5! Hoping that we will be seeing the release on 5 around April or May 2018. *fingers crossed*

PS- how could I forget the free stuff? If you want to get a copy of Parliament of Twilight: Episode 1 (as well as a few other really cool books) hop over to this post on Facebook and sign up for the Queeromance Ink newsletter. Details on how to get this super cool Paranormal LGBT pack of free stuff is in the post, but trust me. It’s easy and all you need is an email.

 

Please Pardon Our Dust

After a very long year of emotional and dramatic events (not the least of which was our roommate’s Myke’s near death experience), I have begun to really dig into our publishing business. The first step is going to be an overhaul of our website, which has already begun and will continue over the next couple weeks as I sort out what’s what. Please have patience as pages appear and disappear, links might be broken, and I could be weeping in the corner.

Just leave a bit of chocolate and walk away slowly. I’m sure I’ll be fine. Probably.

We are deeply entrenched in the final editing stages for the next Parliament of Twilight book. Actually, there are 3 coming down the pipes in the next 9 to 10 months. Episode 4 is about to visit with its new editor, so that’s not long in the future. Five is in the early stages of editing, and we’re nearly done with the almost final draft of 6. Now that we’re not bogged down by depression, drama, illness (by the way, Nevi is back on her feet after a month of pure hell sickness), and other distracting shenanigans, we have hours more every day that we can devote to our work that were lost.

We are hoping to have a Patreon account up and running by the end of the month, because as independent authors, we could always use a little boost in the wallet. And as readers, you could always use a little exclusive content.

As we move forward, there are projects other than the Parliament of Twilight we are hoping to be able to share. Nevi and I have both started (and even almost nearly finished) solo projects. There is a space opera trilogy we’ve been working on together. There are a few stand alone projects we are keeping on the back burner (maybe to be brought out during NaNoWriMo to give us a break from the high intensity Parliament drama.) In other words, we expect to be kept busy with lots and lots of writing stuff for the foreseeable future.

Keep your eyes on the blog for announcements, maybe a few excerpts from upcoming releases, and some randomness from Nevi and I when we can sneak away from the sweatshop of words that our living room has become!

~~Dani H.

The Questions that Matter #5: What’s on the Shelf?

Today we got our first submission for the Questions that Matter via email!  Thanks for the interesting question, Tracey!

I’ve found everything that you wrote, but what do you read?  What authors inspire you?

So, I’m only going to answer for myself this time, and guess at what Nevi likes.  (But after being together for 17 years, I think I’m pretty much the expert on everything Nevi, so you can trust that my answers are pretty accurate!)

So, Nevi is very much inspired by Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Edgar Allen Poe.  She loves horror novels (not so much movies) and high intensity psychological thrillers.  Recently, we both fell in love with Neal Shusterman (the Unwind books, to be exact) and she’s looking forward quite a bit to reading all of his catalog.  She also reads tons of manga.  Just literal tons of it.  It’s all over the house and she loves it so much.  It combines art with words to tell stories in an amazing way (and was the natural progression from her previous obsession with comic books.)

And as for myself?  Well, I have a special love for Anne Rice and Stephen King as well.  But my real hero of literature is Laura Antoniou.  She’s amazing.  Just wow.  Her Marketplace books changed everything when I read the Slave back in high school.  (And did I mention that Nevi and I have a short story in her upcoming Anthology, No SafeWords 2?  *squeal*flail*hyperventilate* Really, it’s true.  I’m so stoked for it to come out later this year!!)

Anyway, back to my collection of books.  I adore Anne Bishop, Richelle Mead, and was heavily influenced by Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear books.    I’ve just finished reading the Steampunk London series (by Bec McMaster) earlier today and I was not disappointed! I’ve had to fight not to tear through it one after another! I like to drag out the series I love for a little longer if I’m able. I get a little sad when I’m done with a good story and have to leave those characters behind. I know, i know. I can re-read them anytime (and this is a series I will come back to time and again) but it’s never as good as the first time.

Starting the Dark Swan series (Richelle Mead) and working my way through the Unwind books (Neal Shusterman).  Looking forward to breaking into Cecilia Tan’s Magic University books soon.  And after that? Who knows.  I have a huge collection of to-be-read books and try not to think too hard about what’s coming up next.  It hurts my brain.

So, yeah.  I rambled a bit but I hope that you enjoyed my answers!  And if anyone else has any questions for this blog series, please don’t be shy about hitting me up on Facebook or via email (hermitstarbooks@outlook.com)

Just a Thought About Writing This Thing

After discovering in horror that the POT: Ep 3 was going to fall short of our minimum goal of 50K (like, massively short. Like 14K short!!), we decided to extend it, using the first scenes we have written of Ep 4.

I was worried, but now Ep 3 doesn’t end on the exact same scene that Ghost House did. I happy that we made the change, because if we had released a book that had the same ending as the book that didn’t work right, I would have been mortified. We are re-writing the series and I want it to be treated differently. Every volume doesn’t need to end on a massive cliff hanger (though some of them do!).

We are intentionally treating the new series like each volume is a new episode in a TV show (hence why we call them “Episodes” rather than “volumes” or “books”). Sometimes you don’t get all the answers in one episode. Sometimes you go an entire episode without seeing one of the characters. Sometimes it takes several episodes to resolve something.

That’s the idea we have as we’re building this series. Every scene is important to the end game. Every character has a role to play. And every Episode builds on the last one, making something that’s really much more awesome than I could have ever hoped for.

🙂

The Questions that Matter, #4: It’s Hard. So Very Hard.

So, here we are with what is now the fourth in our still pretty new Questions that Matter blog series.  And if you aren’t aware of where it came from, here’s the quick history (for the last time).

We had a release party on Facebook for our newest book, The Parliament of Twilight Episode 2 and it was lots of fun!  We didn’t have many attendees (only 10 brave souls, if I’m being honest) but that was probably because I up and decided on Saturday to host an event on Tuesday.  I’d read a marketing article that said events were a great way to reach people with the new Facebook page algorithms making everything all wonky.  So, I thought, why not give it a try?

Anyone who is interested can still go and answer the two poll questions that I’ve posted to gather a bit of info about what to do for the next one.  Remember, Episode 3 will be here before we know it!

One of the things we did at the party was answer questions from readers.  That was so much fun for me!  I loved doing it when we did our blog tour back in 2013 (while we were still baby authors!) and it was just as awesome as I hoped talking to people and answering questions about our process and characters.

And now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to the last question that came from the release party which is also, ironically, the first question that was asked.  It was our #1 fangirl and editing genius Seth. (and as usual, this was copied directly from Facebook.)

First question! From Seth. Do you (either or both) have a character that is the hardest for you to write and why?

Funny thing is, Nevi and I were just talking about this the other day in the car!

I personally find that Julian the hardest to write. There are plenty of characters that I write who are complicated and sometimes just plain unpleasant, but with Julian it’s really different. He scares me a little because I’m never quite sure how he’s going to react to situations. With most of the others, I sort of already know what they will do or say in most situations. But Julian has this dangerous undercurrent to him that keeps me on my toes.

I’ll track down Nevi and get her to answer this too! Thanks for the question, Seth!

I was never able to convince Nev to answer this one, but she’s super shy, so you know.

Did you have some questions that you never got answered?  Don’t be shy!   You can message me, Dani Hermit, through our Facebook page or via email at hermitstarbooks@outlook.com with the subject “The Questions that Matter submission” and I will post the answers in our blog!

Unplug with a Good Old Fashioned Book

Are you feeling overwhelmed with the rush of modern technology?  Turn off your gadgets for  a few hours and tuck in with a good old-fashioned paperback!  Get a fresh batch from Lulu.com for 10% off cover price.

Check out the paperbacks for the Parliament of Twilight books — Episode 1 & 2 are available as well as the special illustrated edition of Episode 1.

Today and tomorrow only, get 10% off all print books with code UNPLUG10.