WHEN CAMELS FLY
BY
NLB HORTON
Publisher: NLBHorton, via Amazon's White Glove (May 15, 2014)
Agent: Mary Keeley at Books & Such Literary Management
Category: Contemporary suspense, thread of Romance
Tour Date: May/June, 2014 Cover Reveal: April, 2014
Available in: Print & ebook, 370 Pages
A mother's fatal shot. A daughter's deadly choice.
In Israel, archaeologist
Grace Madison shoots her daughter's abductor. Seconds later, a handsome
shepherd drops from the sky to kill a second assassin. Their world
changes in two blinks of an eye.
Unbeknownst to them, a
fiercely ambitious evil is destroying everything in its path-the
unconventional path Grace and Maggie take. They struggle to right a
wrong as old as time, and discover time is running out in the race for
their lives. Family and friends are swept into their vortex,
extinguishing old flames while igniting new loves.
While the scale tips
dangerously toward disaster, millions of lives hang in the balance. And
the mother-and-daughter team soon realizes nothing is as it seems. Even
each other.
Because choosing what's right is all that's left.
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Carole's Book Corner is delighted to be part of Premier Virtual Author Book Tours and today When Camels Fly by NLB Horton is on Tour and has kindly written a Guest Post for me!
When Camels Fly by
NLBHorton
Every publicist I interviewed to facilitate the launch of When Camels Fly was curious about the
title, and development of the cover and back-cover copy. Bloggers (one being
Carole) asked about these marketing elements, too. While answering their
questions, I realized that the cover was doing its job really well if it triggered this much interest. I really appreciate
Carole giving me the opportunity to share my observations about the cover with
you.
Once upon a time…
When Camels Fly
was a lowly file in my computer. It took six months to write, and longer than
I’ll admit to reach “professional quality.” The working title (no, I won’t tell
you) was a bit of a dud, and a tad academic. As my protagonist’s sense of humor
began to shine through, I knew that the story deserved a new, more intriguing
title.
That’s when the real
trouble began.
My partner in crime in this endeavor, my daughter, and I
beat on the title for months over pots of tea in my office. We were, in the
lingo of Jeff Madison (my protagonist’s son), epic failures. It didn’t matter
if we brought in Scottish shortbread cookies, or baked blueberry bread to
encourage our little grey cells to work during these brainstorming sessions. We
were stuck.
Silly me. We used the wrong libation.
She and I were sipping glasses of good French champagne when
the title trauma resurfaced at the end of the Thanksgiving meal. After a flute,
we didn’t care too much, and got a
little silly. Then she, of the serious engineering degree, said something about
flying camels. I, having consumed less champagne, said, “That’s it! When Camels Fly!” We giggled, and my
eight-something (do specifics really matter in your eighth decade?) mother
poured more all around. I worked the new title into the manuscript the next
week.
All the world may be
a stage, but not everybody’s an artist.
My background is in marketing and advertising, and I’ve been
privileged to develop some beautiful campaigns. Many authors rely on
self-publishing house to design a cover, or take a shot at it themselves using
public-domain images, clip art, and Photoshop.
Because I knew the cover would trigger the first click or reach for work by an unknown author, I wanted a
Big-Six-publishing-house-quality cover. That means I paid for it.
I lurked in bookstores, watching to see what people picked
up. I wandered the stacks to determine what appealed to me. I asked questions
of my book-club friends and beta readers (who range from eighteen to
octogenarian). I did a LOT of online research about the genres that sell best,
and how covers in those genres are designed. Then I put together a team that’s
created more than one New York Times best-selling novel cover, and organized my
thoughts to do the art direction I used to do for marketing campaigns.
The cover was easy and seamless, and my team is now working
on the second cover in the series, for The
Brothers’ Keepers, due out November 17th. (I should note that
this title did NOT require champagne. However, the book club Readers Guide at
the back of When Camels Fly did.)
The Elevator Pitch
(or “Why I hate writing headlines”).
When I was a journalism student (when we set type by hand
and dinosaurs roamed the earth), I hated writing headlines. How could I
condense an article into four or five noteworthy words? Impossible!
About halfway through the writing of When Camels Fly, I signed up for a craftsman level fiction-writing
practicum, a one-year adventure with some of the most talented people this side
of Hemingway’s grave. And guess what? We had to develop something called the
elevator pitch, which essentially meant that if I trapped a publishing
executive in an elevator (it is not beneath me), how well
could I sell my work between floors? Yep. It’s a verbal headline offering the
gist of When Camels Fly in an
intriguing fashion.
So I flexed my old ad-copy muscles, grabbed the elevator
pitch, and tried to compose the most compelling, powerful back-cover copy
since…well, since dinosaurs roamed the earth. I’ll end this guest blog with it,
and thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts about my cover. I hope
you join me in the adventures of archaeologist Grace Madison in When Camels Fly, and look forward to
hearing from you.
A mother’s fatal shot. A
daughter’s deadly choice.
In Israel, archaeologist Grace Madison shoots her daughter’s abductor
moments before a handsome shepherd falls from the sky to kill a second
assassin. Running for their lives, they pursue an evil prepared to sacrifice
millions of people. Endangering family and friends, and confronting old loves,
the mother-and-daughter team soon realizes nothing is as it seems. Even each
other.
When all that’s left is
right.
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About NLB Horton:
After
an award-winning detour through journalism and marketing and a graduate
degree from Dallas Theological Seminary, NLBHorton returned to writing
fiction. She has surveyed Israeli archaeological digs accompanied by
artillery rounds from Syria and machine gun fire from Lebanon. Explored
Machu Picchu after training with an Incan shaman. And consumed afternoon
tea across five continents.
When Camels Fly is her first novel. Her second, The Brothers' Keepers, will be available November 2014.
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