Hoffmann & Hoffmann

A good villain is essential to almost every story. You can either get it right, or you can get it very, very wrong. When creating a villain, there is always the risk of making the tired clichéd comic book evil genius. In some instances, it might work, and I use might hesitantly. It almost never works, well unless you’re writing a comic book, graphic novel or something like that stylistically. How do you write a villain then? Image from Wikipedia Back Story Villains are characters like any other with one major difference they are evil, right? Well yes and no. I always have a back story on my characters whether it makes it into the main flow of the piece or not. I know who they are or at least have a feeling of their specific background. Villains for me tend to be the most complicated of all my characters. In For Their Sins , Anya Drake is the leader of the Mordere, and you meet her in the Prologue ready to kill Alexandria Diego my heroine. You assume it’s over a man because t

By  Fabrizio Catalfamo London – Gallic Books expands their UK and global presence with Ingram Publisher Services LLC international distribution network. Gallic Books was founded by Jane Aitken and Pilar Webb in 2007 with the aim of bringing French fiction to an English-speaking audience. Gallic saw early success when they picked up Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog , and went on to sell 400,000 copies. “We’ve been pleased with the success of our distribution relationship with Consortium in North America since 2013,” said Jane Aitken at Gallic Books. “But as European publishers, we would like to expand our reach here, and we believe that our relationship with Ingram Publisher Services international network will be a fruitful one.” Ingram Publisher Services’ international sales team focuses on partnering with publishers to scale its sales and marketi

When designing an urban fantasy or historical fantasy, several things are key to keeping it believable. First and foremost you must do your research. When I started writing For Their Sins , I thought I would write something that was pure fantasy. I hoped to design a world that was recognizable but a few paces out of synch with ours. As the story developed, it became obvious that For Their Sins had to occur in the shadows of the real world. On the first draft, I used placeholder names, chose random cities, arbitrary times, and made rough guesses on costuming. Every aspect of this novel had to be rechecked. Some of the facts would probably go unnoticed unless a history buff read the book. While other mistakes would be glaring errors to anyone, who traveled to those parts of the world. The one fact that plagued me was: The United States is a melting pot. We probably have one person from every nation if not every major city in the world. I never knew who was going to pick up my