Greetings, people of earth! I can't believe how fast the summer weeks are going by. In just a couple of weeks I'll be off to the mountains in an internet-free zone (which means no blogging, no twitter, and no facebook...OMG!), but until then, I have lots of stuff to feature. Today our Indie Author of the week is Blakely Chorpenning. She has written a YA novel called Souled Out, and it's the embodiment of all the paranormal goodness everybody loves to read about. Here's the pitch: 
Ell Clyne is lost living someone else’s life. But reading souls to save the fate of a loved one seemed like a fair trade. At first.
The lie has cost Ell her family, her future, her very soul. Now the secret is out and the vampires want answers....This is the story of a girl who isn’t a superhero or a badass, but manages to fight for her place in a cold-blooded world regardless of the pain caused by that empty space where her soul should be. (Read More on GoodReads)
Here's what Blakely had to say about her book!
Hello, Blakely. Thanks for stopping in. Introduce yourself to everyone!
Oh, I hate introductions. I’m horrible at them. I enjoy bonfires, green tea, and faux celebrity sightings. I think about writing more than I actually get time to write, and sometimes my socks don’t match.
Give us a rundown on the plotline of Souled Out.
When readers are first introduced to Ell Clyne, her emotions are wide open. She’s given away her soul and accepted someone else’s fate as the Cypher -a soul reader- for the vampire underworld. By doing so, she’s alienated herself from her family and can’t seem to live half-way normal due to all of the pesky vampires in her life.
But when her mother of a secret is discovered by her vampiric employers, Ell realizes just how much her sacrifice is worth. It’s shocking, but not as much as the truth of being souled out.
What inspired you to write a book about the supernatural?
I have always loved anything supernatural, paranormal, and macabre. As a child I aspired to be a live-at-home vampire -seriously, I even told my parents that I would just need to install a large branch in my bedroom to hang from while sleeping. Yeah… And when I was in middle school, I thought people who had near-death experiences were lucky buggers (not because they almost died, but because they experienced something extraordinary). So is it any shocker that I watched The Lost Boys more than two-hundred times before graduating high school and found nothing wrong with decorating my first car with deer bones?
But the real attraction to this genre of writing is possibility. My characters don’t have to play by “our” rules. Everything can happen. Anything can be dangerous.
You're self-published in an industry where being independently published is becoming the thing to do. What advice can you give to aspiring authors?
Oh my gosh, most days feel like the complete opposite of “the thing to do.” There are still so many road blocks set up to detour self-publishers. This is not a decision I made lightly. I actually studied it for about two years, weighing my options.
I made my final decision when an agent was very interested in Souled Out, but decided against it because the large publishing houses were throwing up stop signs to vampire manuscripts. I don’t blame her. The odds were crazy bad. But I also had faith that there was an audience for Souled Out, for all of my supernatural characters and plots.
And after I wrote Frayed, my urban fantasy shapeshifter novella, I discovered just what a pariah a novella is in the “big six” world unless you’re already a well-known author with an established readership. However, by no means do I think of myself as a poor little indie girl. I’m rather lucky to have the chance to do something that I love.
So who should self-publish?
Anyone who is completely serious about a writing career and still loves the crap out of it even after you realize that you probably won’t make enough money from it to buy a round of bagels. I love it even while I’m cursing like a pirate some evenings. In the future, I may try to work with some small publishing houses, but for now I’m good. I’m happy.
The most important advice I can offer is to research the shiznit out of everything so you can empower yourself with knowledge to make an informed decision.
Fun question: what is your favorite reading snack?
Soy beans with salt. And maybe a little chocolate right before I turn in if I’m taking a handsome book with me to bed.
Thank you so much for chatting with us, Blakely. Have a wonderful day!
And thank you so, so much for this opportunity, Summer.
Visit Blakely at her blog right here. Visit Blakely on Twitter right here. You can also check out her author website by clicking this link.
