Mexico, 1916. The ghost of the hanged-man slips into Matilde Iraeta’s room and her life. A living woman can not have a relationship with a dead man,  specially when there is a very much alive and very rakish suitor competing for Matilde’s attention.

Not that Matilde has much of a choice in the matter of suitors. It is completely improper to follow your heart in a world where manners and customs hold sway, but one by one Matilde and her sisters begin to drift from the path of social conventions.

Proper People is a 72,000 word magic realist novel charting the journey of four sisters through a post-Revolutionary Mexico where withcraft, ghosts, family and romance combine.

The cover used here is just a fake cover I did for it. Enjoy, please leave some feedback!

Twelve Iron Horses

Sofia works in her father’s shop in downtown Mexico City, commanding life-size dolls to do her bidding and selling animals that can be animated with magic.

Marco is her supplier, carving the magnificent birds and reptiles which inhabit her shop.

A rich, young heiress orders a special creation for her wedding; the most elaborate project either Marco or Sofia have ever known.

Sofia learns that Roberto is the groom paying for the extravagant gift. Roberto once pledged to marry Sofia, but his father intervened.

Sofia decides to deliver Roberto’s 12 iron horses and never speak to him again.

Things don’t turn out the way Sofia intends when her interest in the young man reawakens.

Blood Week

El Tepos is dead, shot three times in the back. The police claim it is suicide. Since no cop in Mexico City cares about the death of an alcoholic vampire, it’s going to take his cousin to solve the murder.

Veronica can barely pay the bills with her bloodletting job, much less become an amateur investigator, but with the help of her buddy Bernardino she learns about her cousin’s mysterious blond girlfriend, who has fled to the north of the country.

Up north, the vampire drug lords will cut your head and deliver it in a cooler to your family. Up north, Veronica is going to need all her wits to stay alive.

Near future Mexico is about to get a little bloodier this week.

Red type over black (maybe even a graphic of blood splashes next to text) is the default modus operandi of many a horror zine or publisher. The train of thought seems to be that red (with its connection to blood) and black (with its connection to death and darkness) make an immediate pairing. They’ll telegraph your concept right away.

Wrong. Put together, red and black will cause eye-strain to your reader. It is very hard to read red and black. Not as hard as say blue on red (give it a try), but it is a bad combo, specially if you’ve got a whole webpage of red on black (lime green is also pretty damn annoying).

Legibility is incredibly important to your audience. If you can’t make out a title, or even worse, give up on reading something because it’s so hard, you’ve lost your audience.

Black on white is the best for legibility.

But a black background makes me look more mysterious or gothic or unique or .. stop. It doesn’t.

There’s also the fact that less in more. Colour works as an accent, calling attention to certain parts of webpage of document (say headlines) instead of being used uniformly. The larger the area you are covering the more muted the colour should be. So, long stretches of text should stay close to the black on white rule, while small areas of text (callboxes or pull quotes) could use white on black, yellow on black, etc.

Don’t overpower your text with red on black. This is specially heinous if you are using a gothic font. Wow, you sure want to make the reader work for it, don’t ya?

How do you still indicate horror without going the red on black way? Lots of ways! Like this poster from Ligeia below shows, black and white (and not a drop of red) can definitely evoke horror, but if you simply can not stand simple white and black, look at websites and blogs related to colour theory. COLOURlovers is an obvious choice. Other recommended reads on colour: The Complete Colour Harmony Workbook and Color - Messages & Meanings.

After you’ve done some research on colour, try a different and creative approach that removes the red and the black. See how you do.

The other good resource I learned about was ePub Zen Garden, which has some really nice Creative Commons CSS  that can be applied to your ePub files.

Considering that the market for e-books hovers at one percent right now, I don’t think this is the next best thing since slice bread, though it was good to hold a real iPad in my hands. I also got to look at the Kobo reader, which looks cheap. Then again, it is cheap.

The Kobo is used by Chapters in Canada and Borders in the US. It’s a no-frills alternative to the Kindle. Unfortunately, sales of the device have been hurt by Amazon and Barnes & Noble; both stores lowered the price of their e-readers. Barnes & Noble released a $150 Wi-Fi-only version of the Nook.

I still have huge issues with DRM, so I’m not rushing out to get the Kobo, or anything of that sort. But DRM is a topic for another post.