Blog tour begins today!

Hello everyone,

Over the next ten days the Super Spuds are going to be cropping up over various blogs.  The tour starts with Marcie and her blog 2readornot2read, featuring an excerpt: http://www.2readornot2read.com/

There will be reviews, interviews and more excerpts coming up.  Also, editing will start today for Book 4  - Over Land and Sea.  I'm looking forward to the process and working with my editor again.  I'll be revealing the cover in the next month or so!

There will be a drawing competition coming very soon, so I thought I'd have a go at drawing a Super Spud so people get the general idea.  Below is a steak and spinach flavour with his strong arms and legs, holding a pencil for defence against those pesky seagulls!  Only the steak and spinach flavours have strong arms and legs though, all the other flavours would have thinner arms and legs.  Colour is up to you, but the flavour type must be written on the package.  If you think you can do better than my feeble attempt, stay tuned to enter once the competition is up for a chance to win a $30 Amazon Kindle gift card. 

Self-critique

I’m very grateful to all the bloggers I have contacted for their honest reviews.  Everyone has been very professional and their passion for books and their blog sites is very admirable.  I’d also like to thank the people who have won a copy of my book through a giveaway for reviewing it as well.  Just as a warning, this self-critique contains some spoilers about what happens in The Super Spud Trilogy.

Negatives :(

• I need to work on character development.  I always planned to have many characters in the book, and due to their vulnerable nature, some of them couldn’t last long.  I couldn’t make them seem invincible when the magic rules are so strict.  However, I should have realized that even with a book like mine, readers like to feel attached to a character so I probably should have kept Colin alive longer and focused a bit more on dialogue.  Colin's adventure probably is too short and I should have taken some chapters from Cougar's adventure.  Book four certainly addresses this issue and sees core characters which feature throughout the book.  Readers have also said they had trouble keeping up with the number of characters.  Paperback readers have commented that the obituary was helpful, but e-readers don’t have this ease of access to quickly flip back and forth.  So I do emphasize with any readers who may have had trouble.

• Level of violence.  In hindsight, I probably should have toned down the level of violence.  Although a lot of it is comic in nature, the use of thumbtacks, hedgehogs etc… I probably didn’t need to be so gory in my descriptions.  I didn’t want this to be a kid’s book, however, due to the references, cynical humour and my general style of writing.  I also wanted to make the evil Super Spuds as evil as possible, as evil is a strong word, so they had to be super mean.  I don’t think a writer should ever force themselves to write something that is not their natural style, but then again, it might be fun to go back and re-write it – or re-edit, at least – for children.  By this I mean no violence, more fun and a stronger sense of good morality (take out the gambling, killing humans, blowing things up…).

• The cover.  I actually liked the cover, with its creased appearance and the ‘guideline amount’ reference to Walker’s crisp packets in the bottom left.  Some people have commented it is too simple and looks like a kid’s book, which may deter potential readers.  Ideally, I’d have liked an illustrated Super Spud to be on the front but I was happy with the design and I have no regrets.  I thought my cover designer did a great job and I’ll see what I can do for the next book.

• Some people have commentated that the book is too predictable in places, which I agree with in parts.  Sometimes it was deliberately predictable, but others parts I could have worked on more.  For example, recruiting and using the generals to save the day most of the time.  But, I also had feedback that a reader never knows what is coming next, like a falling satellite blowing up a postal train.  I’ve tried to create my plots more diverse and unpredictable for book four, so we’ll see.

Right, that’s enough dissing my own book for one day!   My marketing manager will probably give me a slap on the wrist.  The reader is the number one priority though, not me, and I’ll always welcome any feedback to enable me to create a better and more enjoyable story for my audience.   Overall though the feedback has been positive, with many great four and five star reviews and it's very rewarding knowing someone has read and enjoyed your work.

Also, I will have another international giveaway on Goodreads from September 15^th to October 3^rd, so please feel free to enter for a chance to win.  Coming very soon I will also be hosting two competitions, one for the best drawn Super Spud and one for best new flavour idea.  There will be great prizes for both competitions.

The Super Spud Super Blog Tour

Hi all,

I have a fantastic book blog tour coming up between the dates of 21st to 30th September 2012.  These blogs below are going to be featuring reviews of The Super Spud Trilogy, interview questions, extracts and a guest post I have written.  I'm looking forward to it and many thanks to Stormi at Lightning Book Promotions.

Sept.

21st  Marcie @ To Read or Not To Read (review)
22nd Gina @ Gina’s Library (guest post)
23rd Andrea @ Andi’s Young Adult Books (review)
23rd Chaye @ The Book Reaper (review)
24th Delphina @ Delphina Reads Too Much (guest post)
24th Melissa @ There for You (excerpt)
25th Allizabeth @ The Paperback Pursuer (review)
26th Stormi @ Books, Movies, Reviews. Oh my! (review)
27th Ruth @ My Devotional Thought (review)
28th Lauren @ A Little Bit of R &R (interview)
29th Phaedra @ Identity Discovery (review)
30th Joy @ Joie de Lire (review)
30th Mariam @ Book-a-holic

http://lightningbookpromotions.com

The Super Spuds: Book 4

Happy summer holidays everybody!

I’ve been busy the last six weeks writing another set of Super Spud adventures and now they are finished (it still needs editing, though).  This new adventure revolves primarily around four Super Spuds: King Martin, G-Boa, Kate and General Nectarine.  

                The evil Super Spuds have all disappeared and life is great for the rest of the Super Spud world.  Their technology is advancing rapidly and their cities are safer than ever, but everything changes after a mysterious fog enshrouds the city of Mt Pleasant and its inhabitants disappear.  A new threat faces the Super Spuds and the only way to stop it is for King Martin to enlist the help of the sea salt flavours and boldly go where he has never been before:  the sea.  

I had a lot of fun writing book four.  I’ve learned a lot from the feedback from The Super Spud Trilogy, and although this new book is still packed full of wacky humour, there are less characters than in the first three books.  I hope readers will enjoy it just as much – and hopefully more – as the three previous ones.  The book starts out with King Martin journeying to China to rescue G-Boa.  After that it sees them going to Mt Hollyspud in America, meeting the U.S. President and even flying aboard Air Spud One.  New flavours in this book include the salmon flavours (very smart), mixed grill and spinach flavours, and cheeseburger flavours.  I’ll be working on the book cover design and hopefully getting it animated; I’d love for someone to draw me some Super Spuds because I cannot draw to save my life…  

I’ve got another international giveaway up on Goodreads so please feel free to enter for a chance to win a copy.  

Thanks everyone and have a nice day!

First 5-Star review!

Hi all,

I had a great review by Shantria on Amazon:

5 STARS!!...... for creativity, originality, laugh-out-loud funniness, and pure, raw, awesome-ness! The Super Spud Trilogy is a book of 3 stories of genetically engineered potato crisps that take on a life of their own when not eaten by their expiration date. They have different personalities depending on the flavor of potato crisps. There are over a hundred adventurous and interesting characters in the story, though most of them experience a sudden or gruesome death at unexpected moments during their wild endeavors. If you refer to the obituary in the back, of the Super Spuds who lost their life in the making of this story, it helps to keep track of the characters and all of the fatalities that occur throughout their adventures.

This is a quick read, with constant humour, dialogue, and action- unpredictable, with twisting plots. I read a large a part of this novel at work during my breaks, and I found myself laughing out loud and then having to look around and make sure that no one was watching me. I was totally surprised by how much I enjoyed this novel, nothing like anything I have ever read. I would also recommend it to older kids or teens. I would love to see this novel as an animated film for adults and children, with a little tweaking to downplay the violence. Over here.... Disney Pixar!!! Or maybe even a late night animated sitcom. Move over "Family Guy"!!! Michael Diack slam dunks it with this debut novel. Looking forward to reading the second novel. Get on with it, Michael! 

I'll be posting more giveaways on Goodreads in the next few months, and I'm currently 1/6th of the way through the second set of adventures of the Super Spuds.  This new story sees the Super Spuds travel to America, China and an epic sail across the Atlantic.  Familiar characters will return, as well as some you thought died, and, of course, it will have the same wacky humour!  Have a great summer everyone and I hope the weather is good wherever you are!

Reviews

Hi everyone,

The first reviews for the book are coming in from blogs and on Goodreads.  I'd like to thank all the reviewers for accepting the book and writing their review.  They are all great blogs so please check out their sites.  Here are the links to the reviews:

http://voltairereviews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/super-spud-trilogy.html  4 out of 5 :)

http://greenmushroom1up.blogspot.ca/2012/06/super-spud-trilogy-by-michael-diack.html 3/5 :)

http://bookaworld.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/review-the-super-spud-trilogy/

I'm currently writing a new set of Super Spud adventures and if anyone has any suggestions for new flavour personalities I'd be happy to read about it, just leave a comment below.

Hope everyone has a great summer!

Book Giveaway on Goodreads!

Hi everyone,

I have created a book giveaway on Goodreads for three signed copies of The Super Spud Trilogy.  It’s an international giveaway open to anyone and free to enter.  All you have to do is click on the Goodreads link in the top right of this blog (if you don’t have a Goodreads account, it’s free to join and the giveaway requires nothing more than clicking to enter).  

I’ll soon be starting work on a book trailer for The Super Spud Trilogy which should be available in the next few months and I’m also excited to announce that the Super Spuds will return in another set of adventures!   

You can follow updates on Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads for the latest news, discussions and book events.

Thanks.