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The Craft of the Crystal Series (2/4)

Dayo Benson

Hello all,

So here’s part two of my series about the craft. Today I’m talking about the SOT Tenets, the SOT’s use of force in recruiting certain members, and DNA/Genes. Fun stuff, eh!

SOT/DSV religion Tenets

Here’s the full version of the Tenets:

There is no such thing as good or evil, no such thing as absolute right or wrong. There is only energy and agenda. Forces of will and reason. Everything is relative.

The conscious mind, the subconscious mind and the superconscious mind work together to create each individual’s own reality.

Evolution did not happen, neither did creation. Life cannot be tied down to a sole event, but is the result of a summation of processes that we may never comprehend.

Love is a figment of the imagination, as is hatred. We desire sex, and we desire revenge. These things should not be labeled as something noble: love; or something wrong: hatred.

Equity, liberty and fraternity are the building blocks of civilization. Psychological cleansing is the pathway to enlightenment. The superconscious mind puts us in touch with divine infinite divine infinite intelligence by which mankind, too, may aspire to divinity.

Basically, it’s a bunch of mumbo jumbo that I made up. It’s the SOT’s statement of faith if you like. I did some reading about occult beliefs, and all the things I read made no sense to me. It just sounded deep, while simultaneously sounding like nonsense. It’s all just mystical and ‘spiritual’ and ‘we are all divine’, ‘we believe in the wind and the rain’, ‘we are God’. Just reading that stuff freaked me out. Seriously, ha ha. I think the devil likes to deceive people into thinking they’re deep and wise when really they don’t have a clue what they’re on about (British slang there). That’s one hallmark of the devil: confusion. He likes to confuse people. And he likes to sound all philosophical, when really there’s nothing to him. He’s just a deceiver.

Use of Force

Ah, this was another sore point for some readers; the SOT’s use of force to recruit Crystal. I usually get two main questions:

  1. If that’s how secret societies and cults work what’s stopping them from just grabbing anyone off the streets and making them join?
  2. Even if they can do that, Christians are off-limits right? They can’t force a Christian to join can they?

In answer to the first question, I don’t believe cults can just target anybody they want. I believe there’s usually a method to their madness. There is definitely a method to the SOT’s madness. They target Crystal because she was promised to them by a blood covenant her grandfather made, offering four generations to the cult. So, it wasn’t just a random thing. I hope that answers question 1. (This is all explained in Searchlight, by the way).

In answer to the second question, the devil can try to get what he thinks belongs to him, but if you’re saved you can rebuke him and he will flee. In Searchlight and some of Surrender, Crystal is religious, but not a Christian (like many churchgoing young people). She has moments of crying out to God, but He’s not really her God. He’s her parents’ God. She knows there’s power in the Name of Jesus, but her turning point doesn’t come until her parents kidnap her from the Victoria’s secret show In Surrender and she is prayed for. Things are still bad, and the SOT still try to manipulate her, but now that she has woken up to her authority in Christ they are powerless. This is illustrated by the fact that she is now able to leave the SOT.

Taking this further, let’s forget about cults for a moment and think of the horrific persecution that Christians have faced both in the past and present day (yes, there are parts of the world in which Christians suffer gross persecution today, because of their faith). The SOT and other occult people in the Crystal series are constantly trying to get Crystal to renounce her faith. Doesn’t the devil harass Christians, or does he only harass non-Christians? Do bad things happen only to bad people or do bad things happen to good people too? I personally do not believe that being a Christian means the devil won’t try to get at you, or that you won’t go through hard times. Or that you won’t face persecution. Therefore, Christians were not off-limits in the Crystal series. The SOT targeted whoever they felt belonged to them, Christian or not.

Another way in which the SOT used force was in ensuring that people within the organization don’t leave. In Searchlight, the only people who had ever managed to leave the SOT were Pastor John (from the Beauty for Ashes series), Jace, Dan and Simone Rivers. They only managed to get out with God’s help. No one else had ever been able to leave. In fact, Luke, the leader of the SOT, made sure every member committed some kind of crime (often murder) so that they would be afraid to leave for fear of being exposed. Isn’t that the way the devil works? He makes us feel like we’re too bad to change, he wants us to believe we can’t leave him. He throws our mistakes in our face all the time.

DNA/Genes

This one is deep. I read some stuff about reptilian DNA and the elite and those who are ‘truly in charge of this world’. Who knows whether this stuff is all just conspiracy, or if it’s true. Whether or not it’s true, some people truly believe in it, and it was handy for emphasizing the hierarchy of the occult in the Crystal series. Some practitioners, no matter how good at the craft they are, are limited in how far they can go because they don’t have the right genes. I thought it was a nice touch since it got me thinking of Hitler and how obsessed he was with genes. Hitler’s Lebensborn program encouraged people with certain traits to mate so that they could produce more people with those traits. I also wanted to a true sense of some people being elite and others not measuring up, as a contrast to Christianity. In Christianity we are all the elite, and we are all ‘nothing’ at the same time. We’re all a royal priesthood, kings and priests, and we’re all also servants. I love that. I don’t know if this elite system based on genes is truly a trait of the occult, but they do seem to be very concerned with bloodlines.

Hope all this isn’t too freaky for you. Do you now understand why I stopped doing research? I really don’t want to know. Most of the cult stuff in the Crystal series is my imagination, although I did try to base it on certain basic principles.

Have a good Sunday xx

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The Craft of the Crystal Series (1/4)

Dayo Benson

What-Would-You-Do-With-A-magic-wand.jpgHi Everyone,

This post is Part 1 of a four-part series I’m writing about the craft of the Crystal series.

I get a lot of emails from readers asking me how I know so much about the occult and the ‘craft’. And asking whether I know from personal experience or from extensive research.

I’d like to just say I know very little about the occult, and I’d like to keep things that way 🙂 I did begin to do some research as I wrote Searchlight (Crystal 1), but I got to a point where I didn’t want to know. I was sickened, disgusted, and quite frankly disturbed. So, I made the decision to use my imagination. I’m a Christian. I don’t know enough about God and the Bible. The last thing I want is knowledge about the devil and the occult. Apart from the basic knowledge required to know your enemy so that he doesn’t get the better of you, and so that you can keep him under your feet, I’m not at all interested in deeper knowledge. So, I used the principles of what I know about the occult and what the Bible teaches about our enemy, to create the craft and the laws of the occult in the Crystal series. I also mixed in some things I’ve heard about the occult from other people and I took a lot of creative liberties. After all it’s fiction. The aim was just to show that greater is He within us than He that is in the world (1 John 4:4), not provide a manual on how to get into the occult.

Over this series of blog posts I’ll cover the following points:

  • Terminology
  • Promiscuity
  • Vanity
  • Force
  • SOT Tenets
  • DNA/Genes
  • Centrality of death
  • Energy release
  • Sacrifices
  • Incense
  • SOT Hierarchy vs. other craft within the world of the Crystal series
  • Craft of different nations
  • Robe color
  • Ascension

And I’ll try to explain my reasoning behind them all. Hopefully, these posts will answer all your questions, and whenever someone emails me in future to ask me how I know so much about the occult I can just send them links to these posts 🙂

Terminology

i.e. Craft instead of magic, Practitioners instead of witches and wizards, Kingdom of Enlightenment instead of Kingdom of Darkness, etc.

The occult people in the Crystal series are wealthy. Many of them are celebrities. They consider themselves elite people. Their interpretation of the occult is different to the ‘average’ occultist. They consider themselves more refined. They reject the common stereotypes that most people have about people within the occult. None of them are knobbly cackling old women stirring smoking cauldrons. That’s the media’s depiction of the occult. The craft of the Crystal series is much different. It’s a rich man’s craft. On the outside, the practitioners look so glamorous and their lives look like so much fun. Only when you get in and look closer do you realise that the price they pay for their fame, wealth and success is extremely high. So, I wanted to use different terms to drive home the fact that they reject the common stereotypes about the occult. However, whether you call yourself a witch or a practitioner, whether you call what you do ‘craft’ or ‘magic’, it’s still evil. Rich or poor. ‘Elite’ or ‘normal.’

Promiscuity

Most of the negative feedback I get about the Crystal series is because of all the ‘sexual innuendo’ and promiscuity. However, there is nothing in the Crystal series that the average young adult doesn’t see or hear in their day to day life, or on TV. I wanted to emphasize the evilness of some of the characters, as there’s no point having evil people in the books if they don’t do anything evil, or anything that readers would consider to be wrong. I preferred to highlight their sexual depravity over showing them killing and doing dark rituals all the time. I didn’t want to show Alejandro, Shola, and certain other characters doing rituals, or killing.  For me, emphasizing their promiscuity was a way of showing how depraved they are without the books getting too gory. I wanted to keep the actual ‘on-screen’ gore and killing to a minimum. There are some pretty dark scenes, especially in the earlier books, but I wanted to limit the number of dark scenes.

Also, sexual sin is a form of self-worship and is an abuse of a good gift that God has given us. Excessive sexual sin and perversion can be evidence of demonic influence. That’s why when Alejandro and Shola Cardoso get saved, they change completely in this area. That demonic influence has left their lives. Yay for Jesus 🙂

Vanity

Many of the practitioners in the Crystal series are obsessed with beauty and their physical appearance. Yelissa Neir goes so far as to transmutate (is that the right word?), changing her skin color, hair color, height, body shape, etc. almost daily. The only common thing with each of her disguises is that they’re all beautiful. And I think her beauty adds to her evilness.

Beauty is a requirement for entry into the SOT. Everybody in the SOT, especially those with celebrity careers, is attractive. The Bible talks about the devil being perfect in beauty, and pride is one of his hallmarks. The practitioners in the Crystal series value beauty too, and are prideful and vain. Luke goes so far as to manipulate the genes of his children in order to make sure they’re physically perfect, and are athletic.

So, what do you think? Is there anything in the craft of the Crystal series that you didn’t agree with?

Stay tuned for more 🙂

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Legacy – Publication Date/Cover Reveal

Dayo Benson

legacy.jpgI’m excited to announce that Legacy (Crystal 9) will be out on Monday 27 June. Really…I’m excited. That’s just over a week away! Legacy is the last book in the Crystal series, and I’m really proud of it. I can’t wait for you to read it. Oh, and I love the cover, which my husband designed. He’s a gem.

Here’s the Back Cover blurb for Legacy:

A powerful wizard is destroying America, one city at a time, and it’s up to Crystal and her friends to stop her.
It’s been a year since Luke and the SOT fell, but the battle is far from over. There are deadlier, more ruthless, practitioners out there. Practitioners who want to see the Enlightenment Agenda implemented.

Crystal has faced many challenges, but now she faces the greatest personal test yet. How far will she go to protect the people she loves?
How far she will go to survive?

Judgment Day has arrived.
Juda has spent the past year in jail, awaiting trial for crimes Luke made him commit. Crystal and her family may have shown him mercy, but it is certain that a court of law will give him only justice. With a new practitioner on the loose, Juda is released to fight one more mission with the team. But the success of the mission will mean the end of his freedom.

How will he cope when justice is served?

Legacy is the intensely gripping conclusion to the Crystal series.

***

Over the next week, I’m going to be publishing lots of blog posts (maybe even 1 a day), just giving you my random thoughts about the Crystal series and explaining certain things about the ‘craft’, what research I did, etc. Legacy takes place a year after Powerful Enemies, so I’ll also do posts about what some of the characters have been up to in that time.

Jailbreak (Crystal 8.5) sets Legacy up nicely, so if you haven’t read Jailbreak yet now is the time to do so. Get Jailbreak now at: Amazon US, Amazon UK, iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords, or Barnes and Noble.

And…make sure you’re on my mailing list so that you’ll get an email as soon as Legacy goes live. Sign up Here!!!

So excited 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Out Now: Jailbreak (Crystal 8.5)

Dayo Benson

jail break2Hi again,

Jailbreak (Crystal 8.5) is live! Get your copy for £0.99/$0.99 at:

Amazon US, Amazon UK, iTunes, Kobo, Smashwords

Crystal and Juda have an adventure in Jailbreak that sets Legacy (Crystal 9) up nicely and gives a hint of what Legacy is going to be about. Here’s the synopsis:

Crystal never imagined that marrying Juda would make her a target for practitioners who want him to return to the occult, or that she would be given an ultimatum to leave him or die. Kidnapped from an airport, she must come up with a plan to escape.

Jailed for crimes his father forced him to commit, Juda Lincoln is not in a good place. The last thing he needs, the weekend before his trial begins, is practitioners attempting to break him out of jail. Will anybody believe he had nothing to do with it? And will Crystal stand by him now that the whole world knows who he is and hates him?

Hope you enjoy it 🙂

Have a good weekend.

Dayo xx

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Update/Crystal 8.5 Book

Dayo Benson

jail break2Hi Guys,

I’m really sorry I’ve been so silent since releasing Powerful Enemies. I have a good excuse though: I’ve been working hard on making Legacy (Crystal 9) as good as I can 🙂

When I released Powerful Enemies, I suddenly felt this pressure to make Legacy, the final book of the Crystal series, even more awesome than Powerful Enemies. I started getting feedback about Powerful Enemies the day I released it (some of you guys read so fast!), and the feedback was so good that I did a typical writer thing: I got worried that none of my subsequent books will ever measure up. Ha! We writers are so weird. I absolutely loved the feedback, in fact I was moved by a lot of the emails I received, and I am really happy at the positive reception the book received. In fact, I ended up on my knees thanking God about it all. But, I started thinking that Legacy wasn’t good enough. So I tore it apart and rewrote the whole thing. It was only about 40,000 words, but now it’s about 97,000 words. It’s more than doubled in length.

To be honest the book was seriously lacking. And the crazy thing is, what I added was so obvious, but I didn’t think of it until I started praying about how to take the book to the next level. I hate it when fiction writers say God speaks to them and they write what He says word for word. That might happen to some people, but I’d feel really presumptuous to say that. So, I ain’t saying that at all. But I am saying I get totally awesome ideas when I pray. I love that that happens to me 🙂

(Random info: my 2-year-old daughter, Esther, is singing ‘mummy finger, mummy finger where are you?’ at the top of her voice right now. I think she deliberately picks moments when I’m trying to concentrate on something, lol. My own fault for trying to write a blog post at 8pm. She’s so adorable).

Anyway, I’m so excited for you guys to read Legacy. I’ve had it back from my beta readers so it’s going to my editor next week. I still can’t give a date for when it’ll be out because it just depends on how long my editor takes. Sometimes she has a lot going on and it takes her a little longer than usual.

So, how about I give you a little adventure to read while you wait for Legacy?

I’ve had a few readers email me about whether there’ll be an 8.5 book and I said no. But I’ve changed my mind now. I cut out a whole chunk of stuff from the beginning of Legacy because I thought it made the opening too long. So, guess what? I jazzed up the bits I cut out and I’m going to release it as an 8.5 book. In fact, I’ve already published it but it’s not live anywhere yet (apart from Smashwords.com who are super-efficient). I’ll email my mailing list once it goes live (that will probably be tomorrow morning – UK time).

Crystal 8.5 is called Jailbreak. Here’s the synopsis:

Crystal never imagined that marrying Juda would make her a target for practitioners who want him to return to the occult, or that she would be given an ultimatum to leave him or die. Kidnapped from an airport, she must come up with a plan to escape.

Jailed for crimes his father forced him to commit, Juda Lincoln is not in a good place. The last thing he needs, the weekend before his trial begins, is practitioners attempting to break him out of jail. Will anybody believe he had nothing to do with it? And will Crystal stand by him now that the whole world knows who he is and hates him?

I’ve had such a blast writing about the Crystal series, but at the moment I’m cleansing my palate with some sweet romance. I’ve been editing Pressure–remember Pressure? The Pure Passion Series book that I never released? Anyway, I’m actually enjoying it. No practitioners, no supernatural stuff, just a guy and a girl falling in love and learning to trust God with their baggage. Not that I don’t love Crystal & Juda, and Alejandro & Max etc. But it’s nice to work on something less ‘serious’ and ‘intense’. More about Pressure another time 🙂

Click Here to sign up for my mailing list so that you’ll get an email once Jailbreak, Legacy, and any book I release, goes live.

God bless.

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Out Now: Powerful Enemies (Crystal 8)

Dayo Benson

Powerful EnemiesIt’s finally out folks. I’m so excited. Having read the book one last time myself last week, I realized there’s a lot of fire in it, ha ha. Just thought you’d like that random fact. So expect fire, angels, a kidnap and even Jesus (yay!) Plus, you finally get an answer to the will they/won’t they relationship between Crystal and Juda.

From the back cover:

Love shouldn’t be so hard…

Juda’s secret has the potential to change everything. Crystal knows that whichever choice she makes, it won’t be easy. She must decide whether the pain of his secret is greater than the pain of letting him go. Either way there will be pain.

Freedom should be a right…

But Luke doesn’t think so. As violence, destruction, and death take over the nation, the powers-that-be turn to Crystal and her team for help. But is this battle too big for them?

The past two years have presented challenge after challenge for Crystal. However, she is determined to see things through to the bitter end. Luke is powerful, but there is One more powerful than he. Right now, He is their only hope.

Buy Now @ Amazon UK, Amazon US, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes.

Apologies to all my Nook readers. I published to Barnes and Noble the same time as all the other stores, but it’s still not up yet. Should be there soon though.

There’s one book left in this series (phew!). It’s tentatively titled ‘Legacy’. I’m off to start editing it now because I’ve already had an email asking when it’s going to be out, and I know that more of such emails will be coming over the next few days.

Happy reading guys, God bless, and remember: we serve an awesome God 🙂

Dayo xx

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Cover Reveal: Powerful Enemies (Crystal 8)

Dayo Benson

Powerful Enemies

Hi Guys,

Here’s the cover for Powerful Enemies. Powerful Enemies is still in pre-flight checks, but it’ll be out on Monday (22nd Feb). I can’t wait to hit publish. If it’s ready before then I will definitely publish it sooner. Make sure you’re signed up for my mailing list HERE so that you get a notification as soon as it’s out xx

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Coming VERY Soon – Powerful Enemies (Crystal 8)

Dayo Benson

 

Hi Everyone,

I’m so excited, Powerful Enemies is almost here. I am literally going to read through it one last time and then hit publish. But before you get too excited and start doing a happy dance, you should know that I am a very slower reader when I am reading one of my own books. I really want to catch any final issues, and I am quite obsessive about my final read through. I’m starting the read-through tonight. It’ll probably take me a few days, judging by how long it took me with Sleeper, but then Powerful Enemies is a longer book, so we’ll see how it goes.

I can’t wait for you to read this book. Here’s why:

1. Juda confesses to Crystal’s parents

I don’t want to say too much about this just in case people read this and haven’t read books 6 and 7 and don’t know Juda’s secret. But, Juda confesses, and I actually had some tears in my eyes while I wrote that scene. Thankfully, I was alone–nobody to give me strange looks.

2. Jesus is finally an on-screen character

Quite frankly, I’m sick of even typing about the devil and typing his names. It’s necessary when writing from a ‘practitioner’s’ viewpoint, but it quickly began to annoy me. I got to write about Jesus and angels quite a lot in this book and it was truly humbling and awesome for me, ha ha.

3. There’s a Wedding!!!

I’m not telling you who. There are lots of couples in the Crystal series. I know everyone wants to see it happen for Crystal and Juda, but there’s Alejandro and Anabelle, Jamie and Carsten, and even Kyran and Trixie. Trixie could have a miraculous conversion in this book…you never know…

Here’s two random pictures of gorgeous wedding dresses.

      

And a picture of me when I got married six years ago this April, ahhh.

I felt like a total queen, lol. And it was a big wedding. I think we had like 700 people. No way was my church letting me show any ‘back’ or ‘cleavage’, hence the shrug. I love my church. And I love my dad (he’s the pastor; yes, I’m a preacher’s kid 🙂 ).

Anyway…

4. Shola Cardoso is a POV character

In Powerful Enemies you get four viewpoints, Crystal’s, Juda’s, Shola’s and Luke’s. Shola’s POV was fun to write. A new female villain is introduced and it was fun to write about her twisted ‘feminist’ philosophies and how she tries to get Shola to buy into them.

The whole point of the Crystal Series is to remind people that we’re in a battle, and we’re not fighting against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6). It’s easy to forget that life is a journey, a probation, and a battle (as well as a gift and a privilege from God). I just want to get people to think.

By the way, you guys wanted a longer book, and you’ve got one in Powerful Enemies. It’s the longest book of the series, almost double the length of Insurrection and Secrets.

 

From the Back Cover

Love shouldn’t be so hard…

Juda’s secret has the potential to change everything. Crystal knows that whichever choice she makes, it won’t be easy. She must decide whether the pain of his secret is greater than the pain of letting him go. Either way there will be pain.

Freedom should be a right…

But Luke doesn’t think so. As violence, destruction, and death take over the nation, the powers-that-be turn to Crystal and her team for help. But is this battle too big for them?

The past two years have presented challenge after challenge for Crystal. However, she is determined to see things through to the bitter end. Luke is powerful, but there is One more powerful than he. Right now, He is their only hope.

**If you’re not on my mailing list already, sign up HERE so that you’ll get an email alert as soon as Powerful Enemies comes out.**

***On another note, I’m thinking of doing character interviews. Who would you like me to interview first? Alejandro, obviously, wants to be interviewed first, but I told him it would depend on what the audience wants 🙂 Leave a comment or email me (dayo@dayobenson.com) with who should be interviewed first and what questions you like to ask them.***

God bless.

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Out Now: Wedding Kidnap

Dayo Benson

Hi Guys,

Compliments of the Season 🙂

Wedding Kidnap (Crystal 7.5), a very short story, is out now. Unfortunately it’s not Christmas for Crystal and Juda. Here’s the back cover blurb:

Wedding KidnapCrystal has barely spoken to Juda since he confessed his secret, but when a practitioner shows up at Paul’s and Simone’s wedding, they are thrown together and have no choice but to put their heads together in order to escape.

People are after Juda, powerful people who are on a mission to remind him of who he is and of his destiny.

Juda has made his choice, but will he be forced to change it?

Amazon UK, Amazon US, Smashwords

I hope you enjoy reading it. Most of all, have a wonderful Christmas. It’s my dad’s birthday today so we’re going over to see him, then we’re hosting friends tonight, then tomorrow we’ll be at my parents’ place pretty much all day along with my brothers and my sis-in-law. Busy times, but wouldn’t have it any other way 🙂

Hope you have a good one.

Dayo xx

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Survey: What do you want to read next?

Dayo Benson

confused cartoon downloadGuys, I’ve been working on my 2016 books, and I just have too many ideas; it’s hard to decide what to do. I’m praying about what projects to focus on in 2016, and I would also like some feedback from you about what you would like to read next. I’ve thrown together a questionnaire, and I would so much appreciate you taking a few minutes to complete it. There are only 9 questions.

Please click here to access the survey.

Thank you in advance for your response 🙂

And thank you for taking Sleeper to no. 1 in its category on Amazon UK and no. 3 in its category on Amazon US. I’m totally overwhelmed 🙂

Quick update, I’m working on editing Powerful Enemies (Crystal 8). It’s a long book, the longest of the series so far, so I know I have to cut it down and sharpen the prose. I also have a 7.5 book called ‘Wedding Kidnap’ which I will be releasing in a week or two. After Powerful Enemies will come Legacy (Crystal 9) and that will be the end for the Crystal Series. I’ve had a blast writing the books and I’m so glad many of you are enjoying them.

After I finished writing the Beauty for Ashes series, I felt a little sad at saying ‘bye’ to those characters, but I was mostly relieved. I was sick of the books because Raw Deal had been on my laptop for six years, as had rough outlines for Red Carpet and Refiner’s fire. I’d read Raw Deal over and over for six years before publishing it. I really wanted to move on to new books and characters. With the Crystal series, the idea was in my mind for a few years before I started writing it last year, but it was pretty vague until I started writing. Because I only started writing the series last year, the series and characters still feel new-ish to me. I feel like I could easily write another ten books about them. But I have other characters in my mind too, whose stories I want to tell, and other ideas I want to explore.

I’m still trying to work out my ‘author brand’ and determine where I fit in the marketplace. My books are all too different from each other. I have both romance and supernatural suspense books; books about adults and YA/NA books; books with white main characters and books with black main characters. At the moment I just categorize my books on a book-by-book basis.

I guess, I just like the freedom of writing about whoever and whatever I want. I’m an independent author, so why not? If I had a publisher there is no way I could write the Beauty for Ashes Series and then follow it with the Pure Passion Series. Neither would I be able to write sweet romance and then follow it with a series about a cult. Only the biggest authors are allowed to genre-hop, and even then, not very much.

Anyway, I’m thinking about my brand so that readers know what to expect from me. A lot of my readers are so sweet and have followed me as I’ve genre-hopped all over the place, but I want to settle down now, enough playing the literary field (ha ha). I want people to know what to expect when they pick up a book by me. Denise Hunter has been my favorite author for a while, probably because she writes sweet romances that relax me. I can’t read anything too suspenseful while I’m writing suspenseful books myself. It’ll be suspense overload. I know what to expect from Denise Hunter. I know what to expect from Francine Rivers. With most authors you know what to expect. I’d be completely shocked if I opened a Denise Hunter book and there were angels in it? If I wanted angels I’d go to Frank Peretti. So, I think brand is important. I’m praying about it. I wonder if my brand can be that I have no brand, and that I’m unpredictable, lol.

Please don’t forget to complete my short survey. Here’s the link again.

Have a great week.