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112. How Does Fiction Help Us Love Our Enemies Even If We Must Defeat Them?
Fantastical Truth Podcast, May 17, 2022

Clawing Free
Reviews, May 13, 2022

How Spider-Man Saved My Marriage Before It Even Began
E. Stephen Burnett in Articles, May 12, 2022

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Vivid, Ashley Bustamante
My Soul to Take, Bryan Davis
Into Shadow's Fire, Mark Castleberry
Deceived, Madisyn Carlin
Arena (2022 edition), Karen Hancock
Kurt Nickle-Dickle of Whiskers, N. J. McLagan
"In a city where debts are paid in blood, one young man will learn that everyone needs help sometimes if they want to survive." New in the Lorehaven library: A Matter of Blood, Lauren H Salisbury
Son of the Shield, Mary Schlegel
Maxine Justice, Galactic Attorney, Daniel Schwabauer
Mordizan, Alyssa Roat
Prentice Ash, Matt Barron
Etania's Calling, M. H. Elrich
The Choice, Bradley Caffee
The Obsidian Butterfly, Lani Forbes
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Clawing Free
“Clawing Free is an absorbing tale that seamlessly joins modernity and myth.”
—Lorehaven on May 13, 2022

Vivid
“Ashley Bustamante’s Vivid paints a world built on secrets and carefully controlled color palettes.”
—Lorehaven on May 6, 2022

Prophet
“If great fiction dares explore culture wars, it must show more than perfect people smiling before a flat backdrop. Frank E. Peretti’s 1992 novel Prophet reflects this reality.”
—Lorehaven on May 4, 2022

Realms of Light
“Author Sandra Fernandez Rhoads creatively uses classical art and Milton’s writing to give Cera necessary information to fight the darkness, drawing readers deeper into this urban fantasy world.”
—Lorehaven on Apr 29, 2022

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112. How Does Fiction Help Us Love Our Enemies Even If We Must Defeat Them?
Fantastical Truth, May 17, 2022

111. Why Do Your Kids Need Fantastical Stories for God’s Glory?
Fantastical Truth, May 10, 2022

110. Could We Enter a ‘Golden Age’ of Christian-Made Fantastical Fiction?
Fantastical Truth, May 3, 2022

109. How Should Local Churches Support Christian-Made Fantasy?
Fantastical Truth, Apr 26, 2022

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Yes, Speculative Faith Is Closed, At Least For Now
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How Christian Must Christian Fiction Be?
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Gender In Fiction: The Implication Of Failure
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Making a Story Visual UPDATE: Behind the Scenes of the Animal Eye Comic
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Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
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Book Trailers Part Two: Electric Boogaloo

Two weeks ago, John talked about book trailers. This time, he’s talking about book trailers again, but with a twist!
John Otte on Mar 13, 2013
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So last time, I shared some book trailers that I’d found on YouTube and asked all y’all what you thought of book trailers. And the reaction seemed sort of mixed. Some people liked them, some were ambivalent, and some didn’t think they were necessary at all. It was interesting to read your opinions and I appreciated it. I think I’ll still do book trailers, but maybe I won’t be so nervous if I don’t do too many of them.

But there is a second kind of book trailer we can talk about, something that I had never heard of until a few years ago. When I first signed with Amanda Luedeke at MacGregor Literary, she was going to shop Failstate around to a few different publishing houses. To help her do so, she encouraged me to put together a pitch video.

I believe my exact response at the time was, “A what now?”

She explained that a pitch video is sort of like a book trailer for an unpublished novel, a way to introduce the author and the concept to an editor and maybe even help the editor pitch the book to a pub board. She told me that Jill Williamson had done a pitch video like that and, with Jill’s permission, let me take a peek at the results.

Well, Jill has since released the pitch video to the general public, and so now, I share it with you.

This is what Jill has to say about the video in the description:

Many writers stink at the novel pitch. I am one of them.

I practice and practice, but when I sit/stand in front of an editor, I babble, I ad lib, my mind blanks and I say things I never meant to say!

It’s so frustrating!

In September of 2010, I attended the American Christian Fiction Writers conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. I pitched my new idea to an editor there. I started out rambling about my plot, the whole while thinking to myself, “Danger Jill Williamson! You have deviated from the plan and are heading into shark-infested waters!” I finally shut up and let her read the one sheet in silence. When she finished, she said some nice things about the idea, then asked me if I was published.

I said, “Oh, yes. Ha-ha-ha-ha. I wrote this.” I handed her a bookmark for my fantasy novel By Darkness Hid. “It won a Christy Award this year,” I said.

She looked at me, raised an eyebrow, and said, “You should really open with that.”

And so when I got home from that conference, I made this video to send to the editors who requested the proposal, in hopes that it might help them pitch my story to the other editors and the pub board in the way I failed to pitch to them.

It was really hard to get through this without stuttering, you can see my eyes darting back and forth as I read my lines, and there are several places where I spoke in a ridiculous tone that I never meant to use–totally embarrassing! But it did the trick. Jason Farms, now titled Replication: The Jason Experiment, comes out January 2012 from Zondervan.

Having seen that, I decided to give it a shot. I shamelessly ripped off her three-part outline and dredged up some graphics. If I remember correctly, it took me close to an hour due to a number of flubs and flops. Eventually, though, I uploaded it to my YouTube channel. I originally had it on private, but now I figure it’s okay to share. I mean, the book’s been out for a year, right? So here I am, nervous as all get out, trying to sell my debut novel.

Please don’t laugh too hard:

I haven’t made one of these since, but then, I haven’t had a need to yet. When the time comes, I might just break out my video camera again and try it again.

Now I know that there are a lot of writers who come to our little corner of the Interwebz. I’m not saying that you have to do this. Quite honestly, I haven’t heard of any other authors doing this. But it is an interesting tool and I just thought I’d share.

John Otte
John W. Otte leads a double life. By day, he’s a Lutheran minister, husband, and father of two. He graduated from Concordia University in St. Paul, Minnesota, with a theatre major, and then from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. By night, he writes unusual stories of geeky grace. He lives in Blue Springs, Missouri, with his wife and two boys. Keep up with him at JohnWOtte.com.
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Lorehaven magazine, spring 2020

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Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.