What’s your one line pitch or teaser for the book? Grab a reader’s attention with one line.
Ever wish Harry Potter and Twilight had been given an adult rating?
Tell readers a little about your main character or characters?
The series follows 21-year-old Layla Callaway as she discovers her magical roots and grows to embrace not only her destiny, but a love worth dying for. After losing her mom, Layla journeys from her hometown in Oklahoma to coastal Oregon in search of a mysterious past. She’s a book lover, a coffee addict, and a Pisces, so she’s extremely sensitive, and her immense compassion can be a blessing and a curse. Despite her abundant talent and strength, she lacks confidence and often struggles with anxiety. She’s not looking for love, but then Quin walks in.
22-year-old Quinlan Kavanagh is looking for love, but with one woman in particular, a woman named Layla who haunts his dreams. Raised by a coven in the forests of Oregon, Quin is a practiced wizard with his life in order. He’s a Pisces with a big heart, a fierce protector of his coven and their values, but his refusal to settle for anything other than a dream girl has given him areputation as a heartbreaker. Quin doesn’t concern himself with the gossip of locals, and his patience is about to pay off. Not only is he about to stumble uponthe woman of his dreams. He’s on the brink of discovering an angel.
Where do you like to write? Do you have an office or writing nook?
I started this series in 2006 and wrote the first several books in longhand over multiple spiral notebooks. I thought I killed my poor fingers. Around 400k words later, I transcribed everything into a Notes program in a clunky old desktop in a tiny office full of cigarette smoke. I’ve since quit smoking and upgraded to laptops and Microsoft Word, and I no longer have a home office. I finished the final book in this 1.5-million-word series on my loveseat in my living room. Moving forward, I’m hoping to write out in the world more, while traveling to beautiful places or just sitting in local parks or cafes. I will have to force myself to come out of my hypothetical cave because that’s where I tend to go.
What is one of your best marketing tips for other authors?
Build up a backlist and do your best to stay visible on social media. Life got rough for me for a while, and I subsequently took a year off social media. I don’t regret focusing on my personal life and mental health, but that break took a toll on the progress and momentum I had been building for years. I had already released more than 10 books in the series, so I had a decent backlist that kept me afloat, but it would have been extremely difficult for me to recover if I hadn’t already built that platform. If you can manage it, stay visible. But always, always put your mental and emotional health first.
What websites or tools have you found that offer the best results?
Facebook is my go-to site. I have a tight-knit reader group on FB that I have been cultivating since 2013. I haven’t found another platform that offers a similar way to gather and participate with readers. I recommend Instagram for eye-catching graphics and teasers.
Any advice for aspiring writers?
Write what you love, and when you’re ready to share it with the world, decide what success means to you, then remember that, sear it into your brain, paint it on the wall, tattoo it on your ass. Do whatever you have to do to record it for posterity, because you will sometimes forget. What happens is, we set a really awesome and reasonable idea of success for ourselves. Mine was: “If just one person loves this story half as much as I do, publishing it will be worth it.” And then, with some time and hard work and patience, the most incredible thing happens and we reach that notion of success, maybe even surpass it, so we move the goal post a little further. We adopt a new meaning for success, and sometimes we do it without even realizing we’re doing it. That’s when we risk forgetting. We risk forgetting the first goal we set, and we keep moving that goal so far ahead we no longer feel successful. We start to feel like failures. And that’s when it’s so important to remember. Remember why you published in the first place. Remember what success meant to you when you took that leap. Remember your love for the craft and your love for the story, because the pressure for more success is very real and extremely stressful. It’s important to push yourself, believe in yourself and to strive for more, but if anything can kill your passion for this industry and stall creativity, it’s feeling like a failure. Keep pushing to get your words out there, but don’t forget the successes you’ve achieved along the way.
The Mystic Series
Book 9
B.C. Burgess
Genre: Fantasy, Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Bandit Publishing
Date of Publication: June 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-946793-27-0
ASIN: B092TMV1H8
Number of pages: 302
Word Count: 98,594
Cover Artist: Sarah Hansen at Okay Creations
Tagline: Ever wish there were more sexy times in Twilight? Then you need to read the Mystic series!
Book Description:
Layla
While chaos consumes Maganthia, deep below the city in the Dark Vault, terror consumes Layla. Ava's servants meet tonight, and the enemy has taken Quin, forcing Layla to choose. Will she find the strength to follow her fated path and protect the servants? Or will she follow the love of her life and let the world burn?
Quin
Quin never took his eyes off Layla as he stood on the balcony of Heavens Hall, not until a hand came down on his head and his world went black. Now, everything he cares about is in jeopardy as Layla races the clock, but Quin remains at the mercy of the enemy, unconscious, useless and dying.
The Enemy
For thousands of years, the Dark Guild strove to reclaim the realm of humanity for the Lord of the Underworld. Now their dedication has paid off. They've sabotaged the angel, procured the coordinates to the servants' meeting, collected the power in Ava's blood, and discovered the key to enter her tomb. Tonight, they raise hell.
Excerpt:
Right or wrong, Layla held their verdict on the edge of the executioner’s sword, and everyone who’d invaded the island would suffer the same fate. She didn’t have time to weigh their crimes – the murderers, voyeurs and brainwashed. Whatever part they’d played in the tragedies unfolding, they stood guilty on the brink of humanity’s destruction, and so they’d face her retribution. But before swinging the blade, Layla scanned the civilians for children, relieved to find none.
Not a shimmer of evidence exposed her as she planted her feet on the ancient cobblestone walkway. Then she raised her invisible palms and summoned her wall. She knew the magic worked as soon as she heard the outer guards’ shouts, which turned to screams the moment her deadly cloud caught up with its prey. They didn’t scream for long. The jet stream grew stronger as it contracted around the mountaintop like a savage rubber band, scorching people and plants alike.
B.C. Burgess is a small-town girl who was born and
raised in Oklahoma. She has always dreamed big and tended to let her
imagination run wild. She’s addicted to coffee and writing, and the combination
is her idea of heaven.
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