Book 6 is live

OK, I tweaked Book 6 and republished it. Had some typos to fix because I finished it in a swift bout of mania. I just ordered an author copy of the paperback, for myself. (I had ordered 4 & 5 too, but they haven't come yet).
I also went back and added blog/FB author info to each Kindle edition. I should probably add the author bio. It's only in Book 6.

 

 

I finished Book 6

Well, I've had a lot of free time on my hands from my stupid forced work break (it happens every year) and not having a car because my car died and has been at the dealership getting repaired for a fucking month. I've mostly been focusing on finishing Saccharin Valley Twits. (both the writing and the illustrating). I had the 6 titles planned out and listed from the time I published the first book (6 years ago??) but I didn't have the stories really finished (to my liking, trying to find all the typos and mistakes) or the covers finalized.
Then yesterday (Or the day before... all the days blend together when you can't go to work and don't have a car, and when you can bum a ride, you have to run errands) I finished the last book - The Babysitter II. I actually thought it was pretty great. Funny, creative, weird, and a satisfying ending to the series (although I wasn't under any obligation to provide one, seeing as how Sweet Valley Twins spawned Unicorn Club and Sweet Valley Junior High and petered out around 1998).
Which was a big deal for me (the feeling good about it), since I usually am embarrassed about the things I write (especially these "evil stories".)
And I had the cover illustration for Book 6 pretty much done. Now I've got a template in Illustrator so all the elements of my SVT-book-parody cover layout are consistent from cover to cover.
So then I was like... have I gotten this thing (horror-parody of Sweet Valley Twins, using my own characters, a witch and her warlock boyfriend, tormenting the twins and occasionally their brother, as revenge for being sub-par reading for kids and taking so much of my time/ attention for all those years) out of my system??? Maybe. Piper and Tobias, years ago, broke away from SVT and started to occupy their own original stories. Or really, they existed in their own world first and then magically travelled to this parody of Sweet Valley.

I just haven't finished (again, to my liking) one whole book (non-Saccharin Valley Twits) that's good enough to (self-)publish.
But I kind of always thought I could continue this series (since I had oodles of ideas for messing with the twins [magically, that is], left over from all the stories I wrote as a teenager). I would just add the titles to that listing inside the front page (just like Sweet Valley Twins used to do).
Now I'm like, let's finish this, and publish it, and then from time to time re-read the paperback copies of my books in my continuing quest to make the text PERFECT, and re-publish them when necessary (printed books will hold the typos forever, but luckily not a whole lot of paperbacks have been sold - about 11 in the last 6 years - and the Kindle versions can be updated by the readers without them having to buy it again).
So, really, I suppose I'm done. I'll still continue to deface Sweet Valley Twins books, because that's a kind of art therapy. But I probably won't write any more "horror parodies." At least until the first 6 books gain momentum and become more widely known (which they may not, but I can dream).
I'll still write, but it won't be Sweet Valley Twins. It'll be asexual urban fantasy or whatever.
I really don't think anyone reads this blog (I should put a link in Kindle & paperback editions) but if you have been, thanks.

ETA [May 2021]: Haha this didn't happen; I keep writing them.

Books 4 & 5

I've got the covers finalized for Books 4 & 5 and I'm trying to publish them to KDP. Paperbacks should be soon, I was having issues with the spine text. And the Kindle versions are live, I think, but the formatting may be weird. Kindle keeps splitting my text in weird places (where I don't have a line break or a page break or a section break) so the title pages goes:

The Vampires --- (turn page)
A Saccharin Valley Twits-- (turn another page)
Evil Parody

Also, it didn't like my fonts or my dingbats, so in Book 4 there are two jpgs in the ebook that I hope are legible.

I also just finished Book 6 in a fit of mania. Now I'll go write proper books*.

*or not

covers for Books 4 5 & 6!

OK I finished the covers for books 4-6. (After that, it's beating a dead Unicorn, but I have bits of other Evil Stories that I could do something with).

Here they are (with the aforementioned "in poor taste" Book 6)

I really love playing in Illustrator (I'm subscribing to the Creative Cloud now). And messing with stock vector graphics to make cute witches.

I also added footnotes to Book 1 so it notes every SVT book I reference:
#3, The Haunted House,
Super Chiller #7, The Haunted Burial Ground,
Super Chiller #9, Evil Elizabeth,
#97-100, The Frightening Four miniseries
#110, Pumpkin Fever
#54, The Big Party Weekend
#50, Jessica and the Secret Star
#80 The Gossip War
Super Chiller #1, The Christmas Ghost
Magna Edition #1, The Magic Christmas
Magna Edition #2, A Christmas Without Elizabeth
Magna Edition #3, BIG for Christmas
 #78, Steven the Zombie
#15, The Older Boy
#42, Jessica’s Secret
Super Chiller #4, The Ghost in the Belltower
Books #97-100, The Frightening Four miniseries
#64, The Charm School Mystery

daaaamn. (I did my homework! unlike some of the ghostwriters)

New Paperback covers coming soon

I just spent the weekend working in Illustrator to clean up my cover illustrations. I improved them, although you maybe can't tell unless you're looking at them side by side. Uploading them to Amazon KDP so the paperbacks will be available in 72 hours. Then I'm going to publish Book 4, and maybe Book 5 too. I finished cover illustrations for those earlier but I needed to finalize the text.
Behold:

For book 1 I added the "Sunny Spanish-tiled kitchen" that is always mentioned. Book 2 pretty much the same, that background was a quick clip-art thing with a filter. Book 3 I fixed the curtain/ background and cleaned up the light on "Lady Ostara"'s hands. And the crystal ball stand. (Sorry if you have an older paperback copy with the messiness.)
I've been really motivated lately.

More Honest SVT Book Titles

because I'm bored at work bad at life

7. Does Anyone Really Care About Mary? The Twins Do, At Least for Now
8. Lila has a Horse and Elizabeth is JEALOUSE*
9. Sophia is Trash, No She Isn't, We Like Her. Do We? YES
10. Ye Random Character Pamela Has a Heart Defect, but also Jessica Wants to Fake Being Sick for the Attention
11. Jessica and Ellen Found Buried Treasure and Wanted to Keep the Money for Themselves, Those WHORES
12. Everyone is Interested in Our Stupid Made-Up Language
13. Mary Hates Her Stepdad's Boat (Although this book is about Mary, for some reason Jessica and Ye Random Dude are on the cover)

14. Jessica Would Make a Terrible Class President (or Treasurer? Can't remember)
15. Older Boys Still Want to Date** You Even if You're Clearly TWELVE

That's just off the top of my head, from memory. I should post altered photos of the book covers.

*SA REMEMBER THIS?? LOL

**they want to do more than that, but this book is for 12-year-olds so instead of him forcing her to have sex with him, he takes her on a surprise double date to the CIRCUS

Book 3 improvements

I just found a bunch of typos/ things I wanted to change in Book 3, The Fortune Teller (of course I did). I fixed them and saved a copy as a Word Doc and as a pdf and something else, maybe rtf. I really have to remember how to upload them to Kindle. Like, what format they need to be in. I could probably redo the paperback with the pdf. (ETA: I forgot, just export it as .epub, duh.)
I want to publish Books 4 & 5, at least in paperback for myself. But I still don't have the cover pictures right. I tried to depict Jessica as a vampire and it ended up looking like Kristen Chenowith.

ETA: OK now both paperback and Kindle ebook should be updated. Check your "Digital Account" on Amazon, and "Manage Content and Devices" and look for The Fortune Teller (if you bought it, obvs) and see if there are updates. I always hope it happens this way. (As opposed to everything becoming messed up). I'm not sure if anyone actually bothers to do this (update their Kindle books to correct mistakes), but I hope they do.

Maybe I'll post that Illustration. But it's in the Creative Cloud.
ETA: OK here it is. I was working on the cover for book 5 recently. You may even see them published soon.  Behold the disembodied head:

 

 

ETA 2: THIS is what I wanted it to look like. Bwahaha.