Piper J. DrakeThis convention orientation is designed for all first-time RT attendees. We’ll give you the “quickie” seminar experience. Trust us: if this is your first-ever RT Booklovers Convention, this could be the most important 60 minutes of your week! After you head to registration, get your bag of goodies and experience the initial shock and awe, you’re going to have questions. That’s where we come in. Come join us for an hour that, for some, has been a life-altering experience. We understand what it’s like — your virgin year at RT! Here is where you get your questions answered, meet other first-timers and become part of a special group like no other during convention week.
Tag Archive for: PJ Schnyder
Long-time readers might have read my London Undead (now the London Shifters) series way back in 2013 when I was still writing as PJ Schnyder. I’ve since had the rights reverted to me and I’ll be re-releasing them in ebook format this autumn, starting with Bite Me.
You might wonder, What’s different? Is it worth adding these to your collection?
- All new covers! The original covers by Carina Press really highlighted the zombie apocalypse setting of these stories and some people worried the romance was WITH the zombies, which is not the case. These are shapeshifter/human romances, and if you’re Team Werewolf, these might be just what you’re looking for.
- The series name, “London Undead” also really leaned heavily into the zombie setting. I decided the London Shifters was a much better description of the romantic core of the series.
- A fresh professional editorial pass was done on all three books. I wanted to be sure these older stories were up to par with my level of writing today.
- Bite Me, in particular, featured a disabled heroine in the original version. This disability is outside of my personal experience and I felt I didn’t have the insight or experience to write this well. I was worried I could do harm unintentionally. So Maisie’s character has been revised with this in mind.
The London Shifters series will release on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited first, starting with Bite Me on September 14 – the day before my birthday! Followed by Sing for the Dead and Survive to Dawn each month after that.
You can pre-order Bite Me by clicking here.
If you’re not a Kindle reader, no worries! I plan to take the series wide next summer and make the books available in most places books are sold online.
So…what do you think of the new covers?
Every once in a while, a long time reader asks me how to get a hold of an out of print title, especially now that I’ve been re-releasing some of my older titles originally written under the pen name of PJ Schnyder.
The thing is…
That was a long time ago and my writing skills have developed over the years. It would be a big difference from my voice and writing style now, so many of those stories are in need of a rewrite before they could be re-released. Books like Heart’s Sentinel and Hunting Kat come to mind.
There’s also higher priorities.
I’ve got contractual commitments to write new books – there’s the Darke Consortium (working title paranormal romance) and The Missing (romantic suspense). Those take priority.
How to carve out the time to devote to re-writing an out of print story?
I’ll be doing the re-writes slowly, one chapter a month, and posting the revision on my Patreon with annotations so readers get insight into my stream-of-conscious thought process as I was revising. Patrons at the Trail Buddies tier or higher will have access.
It’ll be important that these don’t become another form of procrastination. I won’t sacrifice my progress on my new works because it’s really important to me to ramp up on writing the new series. So I’ll be balancing the benefits of doing this with the time I need to write new words. Still, I think it will actually help me write more.
Revising some of my out of print work will help me in a lot of ways.
I’ll be accomplishing something each month, where drafting new words on a new novel is great but tends to take me months and thus I go several months without celebrating accomplishments. Celebrating more incremental accomplishments will lift my spirits, increase positivity, and help me gain momentum to write more.
Revising is easier for me than new words, so using this as a writing exercise or prompt will also help me dive into writing new words for my contracted work.
Falling in love with my old stories will be encouraging too, which again, leads to me wanting to write more new works.
Overall, I hope this will be positive and fun. It may also lead to those out of print books eventually becoming re-released and available to you all again, with improved writing craft and maybe even additional content. There would definitely be shiny new cover art and wow, I do love new cover art!
The fact that I write science fiction and paranormal romance, plus steampunk, as alter-identity PJ Schnyder is not a secret so much as a way to help keep my very different genres easily sorted.
Sometimes, though, I’ve got a project so nifty that I’ve got to share what my alter-identity is up to. And in this case, representing romance in J.R. Blackwell‘s In Their Own Worlds project is incredibly nifty.
J.R. has provided a teaser image from the project. Me, as PJ Schnyder, in the world I created: the London Undead.
You can read more about the project over on PJ’s blog.
For now, look! It’s amazing:
RT Book Lover’s Convention is huge and one of the events I attend as both my alter-identities. It get’s pretty confusing sometimes, but I answer to both Piper and PJ and love to meet readers of any of my books, no matter what name they call me by. 😀
This is the most involved I’ve ever been in this convention and I’m looking forward to all the opportunities to meet readers. I’ve been told I’m so energetic that it can be a bit intimidating…please don’t let this stop you. I very much love to say Hi and look forward to meeting new people!
Scheduled Appearances on Panels and at Events:
First Timer (aka RT Virgin) Orientation
Event Date:
Wednesday, May 13, 2015 – 8:45am to 9:45am
Panelist(s):
Location:
Lobby Level
Room:
Reunion A
SCI-FI: THE STRANGENESS BUDGET — Overloading on Weird
Singing starships, pouting planets and alien languages that consist only of punctuation … When is the strange just too strange even for science fiction? Can an author’s love for all things alien alienate the reader? Come explore the weird, the wacky and the why not with this panel of top SF authors!
Event Date:
Thursday, May 14, 2015 – 11:15am to 12:15pm
Captain:
Panelist(s):
Location:
Atrium Level (2nd Floor)
Room:
McMillan
HORROR: One … Two … We’ve Got Something Scary for You
Horror is making a come back in literature and TV. Why do we love to scare, and to be scared? What’s the difference between horror, dark paranormal and urban fantasy? Join authors of YA, romance and historical fiction as they discuss the appeal of this creepy genre, and why it’s becoming more and more popular with women writers and readers alike.
Event Date:
Thursday, May 14, 2015 – 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Captain:
Panelist(s):
Location:
Atrium Level (2nd Floor)
Room:
Bryan-Beeman A
Fun and Games with Forever!
Come play with us! Forever Romance is throwing a Wild West carnival that features classic games with a romance twist. Don’t miss your chance to mingle with authors, win fun prizes, and enter our epic raffle to win a full year’s worth of books!
Event Date:
Friday, May 15, 2015 – 10:00am to 11:00am
Host(s):
Courtney Cole; Emmy Curtis; Lauren Dane; K.M. Fawcett; Chelsea Fine; Karina Halle; Christine Hughes; C.C. Hunter (aka Christie Craig);
Jodi Ellen Malpas; Sara Richardson; Lia Riley; Piper J. Drake (aka PJ Schnyder); Jill Shalvis; Dorothy F. Shaw; Tiffany Snow; S.C. Stephens; Cecilia Tan; Sofia Tate; Rachel Van Dyken; Meredith Wild; Rebecca Zanetti
Location:
Lobby Level
Room:
Reunion E
Working That Tension in All. The. Ways.
Join popular & bestselling authors as we explore how we build the tension, draw out the suspense and let the action loose in the stories we love. We’ll share behind-the-scenes research, have fun with TV/movie clips that inspired us and answer questions from the audience!
Event Date:
Friday, May 15, 2015 – 11:15am to 12:15pm
Panelist(s):
Cherry Adair; Philippa Ballantine (aka Pip Ballantine); Stella Barcelona; Patricia Briggs; Kady Cross; Piper J. Drake (aka PJ Schnyder)
Location:
Atrium Level (2nd Floor)
Room:
Gaston
Intergalactic Bar & Grille
Attention starship crew! Charge your blasters and get ready to repel the invasion of the dastardly alien space ducks as we drink, snack and indulge in sci-fi silliness at RT’s only sci-fi party. Win prizes! The first 200 crew members to report for duty get goody bags loaded with swag. Brought to you by Captain Linnea Sinclair and her trusty space commando authors: Cathy Clamp, KM Fawcett, Pauline Baird Jones, Stacey Kade, Monette Michaels, Janet Miller, M.D. Waters, First Officer PJ Schnyder and more!
Event Date:
Friday, May 15, 2015 – 2:45pm to 3:45pm
Captain:
Panelist(s):
Cathy Clamp (aka Cat Adams); K.M. Fawcett; Pauline Baird Jones; Stacey Kade; Monette Michaels (aka Rae Morgan); Janet Miller (aka Cricket Starr); Sabine Priestley; PJ Schnyder (aka Piper J. Drake); M. D. Waters
Location:
Exhibition Level
Room:
Cumberland F
Giant Book Fair
Event Date:
Saturday, May 16, 2015 – 11:00am to 2:00pm
Lobby Level
Landmark Ballroom & Reunion Ballroom
