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Race to Tibet

by Sophie Schiller

Giveaway ends January 27, 2015.

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Cover Reveal: Race to Tibet

Hello friends!

I'm very excited to share the cover of my new novel which is a historical thriller called Race to Tibet. It is the story of Gabriel Bonvalot, one of France's greatest explorers, who teams up with Prince Henri d'Orleans, a jaded, ill-mannered aristocrat, in an all-out effort to be the first living Europeans to reach Lhasa. The story occurs during the Great Game, the period of great strategic conflict and rivalry between Great Britain and Russia (1813-1907) for political and military control of Central Asia, including Tibet. Many explorers of Central Asia were really intelligence agents sent to gather information about troop movements and trade routes, which could be used for advancing armies. Race to Tibet focuses on these two adventurous Frenchmen, who are caught up in the Great Game when they are taken for Russian interlopers by Chinese Ambans (officials of the Qing Emperor who enforced the laws of Peking) who had never heard of France, and were determined to stop at all foreigners from entering Lhasa at any cost.

Tibet had long been the stuff of dreams. Buttressed by the Himalayas, and lying at an altitude of about three miles, Tibet was dubbed 'The Roof of the World' by Victorian travelers. Lying at 12,000 feet, Lhasa, is the world's highest capital and those with elevated blood pressures are urged to stay away. In fact, Lhasa had been closed to foreigners for so long, it was called 'The Forbidden City'. So little was known about Tibet that for many years it appeared as a huge white blank on official British maps, as if the entire area was covered with snow. Slowly over time the English in India devised a way to collect intelligence about Tibet by sending 'pundits', or Hindu technicians disguised as Buddhist pilgrims, to explore it and map it. These pundits would enter Tibet clandestinely, calculating distances by using measured footsteps which they recorded by means of specially-designed rosaries, as well as measuring altitudes by means of boiling water and recording the temperatures with a thermometer. Without a doubt, the fascinating adventures of the pundits whetted the appetites of Victorian explorers and before long, an international race to Lhasa was underway.

The Potala Palace has been luring explorers since time immemorial.

My novel, Race to Tibet, focuses on the journey of Gabriel Bonvalot and Prince Henri d'Orléans, a mismatched duo who attempted to reach Lhasa for different reasons. For his part, Bonvalot was already a celebrated French explorer, having crossed the Pamirs to reach India during the middle of winter, for which he was awarded the gold medal of the Société de Géographie in 1888.  Bonvalot was motivated by the desire to be first to reach Lhasa, to have his name go down in history, and to sell out lecture halls and travel books. On the other hand, Prince Henri turned to exploration as a means to escape a bad reputation he had earned in Europe as a brutal, ill-tempered dueler, a drinker, and a gambler.

Gabriel Bonvalot and Prince Henri d'Orleans: these guys hated each other in real life.

There's lots of drama and intrigue in the story, which I wove together from various sources. I spent close to three years researching this story, which I studied within the context of the Great Game. I brought to life real-life characters, including all the major players in Bonvalot's expedition, as well as invented some fictional characters, including Princess Pema, a Tibetan Buddhist princess who I modeled on Yabshi Pan Rinzinwangmo, the real life daughter of the Panchen Lama (a religious figurehead in Tibet similar to the Dalai Lama) who is known as the 'Princess of Tibet' and is considered an important figure in Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan-Chinese politics, and is the only known offspring in the 620 years of history of either the Panchen or Dalai Lama reincarnation lineages.

Yabshi Pan Rinzinwangmo, the princess of Tibet.

I also added mystical elements of Buddhism, as well as romance to give the novel more drama, mystery, and intrigue. In many ways, Race to Tibet fits into the Lost World genre of novels like "King Solomon's Mines" by H. Rider Haggard and "The Lost World" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The story is replete with danger, suspense, and intrigue as the explorers inch closer to Lhasa. So join Bonvalot and Prince Henri on their expedition to the Roof of the World. In the pages of this novel, you will encounter an entire new world waiting to be discovered!

Yak at Yundrok Yumtso Lake the yak is perfectly suited to life at high altitudes.

Gabriel Bonvalot and Prince Henri and Father Constant de Deken were the first Europeans to reach Lake Namtso, due north of Lhasa.

More about Transfer Day

Where did the idea of the book come from?

Transfer Day blends real life events with fictional elements. It started out from an inspirational idea that I could weave an adventure story around the fact that the U.S. acquired the Danish West Indies in 1917. A little-known fact was that the island of St. Thomas had a well-entrenched German spy ring operating out in the open. Using this detail, I wove a narrative about an island girl who rescues a German U-boat deserter who is later blackmailed by the leader of this spy ring into committing sabotage and murder. The result is an old-fashioned spy thriller with an exotic Caribbean setting.

Charlotte Amalie: the site of an important WWI German Ettapendienst base.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Abigail Maduro:    Odeya Rush
Erich Seibold:        Daniel Brühl
Nana Jane:             Alfre Woodard
Cooky Betty:         Octavia Spencer
Judge Henrik Neergaard:   Bernard Hill
Herr Dreyer/Langsdorff:     Christoph Walz
Jens Jørgensen:      Max von Sydow
 

Odeya Rush: Does she make the perfect Abby?

Alfre Woodard is an extraordinary actress and would make a splendid Nana Jane.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your novel:

Orphaned and alone, Abigail Maduro is sent to live with her aunt in St. Thomas. Despite the island's tranquil appearance it is a hotbed of spies...and when a mysterious stranger arrives, Abigail is drawn into the conflict.

German actor Daniel Bruhl: would he play a convincing Erich?

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Three years.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

Ever since I was growing up in Charlotte Amalie, I longed to know what life was like back during Danish times. When I grew up, I turned my obsession into a full-time job when I began researching and writing Transfer Day. In the book, the reader will be transported back in time to a tropical Danish sugar colony at the height of the Great War when German spies operated throughout the Caribbean and Latin America under the noses of the authorities.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

"Transfer Day" is a spy thriller with romance elements, comparable to "Circle of Spies" or "Ring of Secrets" by Roseanna White, or "Spy of Richmond" by Jocelyn Green.

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

Readers who love the Edwardian period through WWI will love "Transfer Day" because it immerses the reader in that era: the period music, horse carriages, steamship travel, victrolas playing in the background, grand balls....

"Transfer Day" also boasts an international cast of characters from a witty Irish sailor to Old World Danish characters, German spy characters, colorful West Indian characters and a spirited heroine who will capture your heart. So pour yourself a rum & coke, add a twist of lime, and let yourself be transported back to the old West Indies. You'll be in for an exciting adventure!

The Danish West Indies is a location rarely used in novels, movies, and plays.

A preview of my forthcoming historical thriller: Race to Tibet

I couldn't resist posting some pictures of my new novel Race to Tibet, a novel that explores the Victorian era's fascination with exploring the Roof of the World.

http://www.pinterest.com/sophieschiller/scenes-from-race-to-tibet-the-new-great-game-novel/

Let's start with some of the characters:

Nikolai Prejevalsky (1839-1888) was your classic Great Game heavyweight. He was the Tsar's go-to guy for bringing back vital intelligence about British activity along her Central Asian borders, exploring previously-unknown regions and mountain ranges, as well as bringing back zoological and ornithological samples. He even discovered a previously-unknown wild species of horse that was named after him.
His greatest dream was to reach Lhasa, but fate intervened and he came down with a whopping case of typhus and an unpaid hospital bill in the Russian military hospital in Karakol (in present-day Kyrgyzstan) where his body was laid to rest.

The death of Prejevalsky in 1888 opened up new doors for other explorers, namely Gabriel Bonvalot, a gutsy French explorer whose specialty was sneaking up on foreign countries unannounced, a sort of geographical party-crasher. Bonvalot had guns, muscles, and oodles of chutzpa, but not much money, so when the Duke of Chartres offered to finance his expedition to Tibet, he said, "Oui" and "Quand partons-nous?" (When do we leave?) The only caveat being that Bonvalot had to take along the Duke's wayward son, Prince Henri d'Orleans, an aristocratic poltroon with a penchant for gambling, drinking, and getting on everyone's nerves. Thankfully, nothing that a good fist fight couldn't fix. You can read all about their harrowing journey in my forthcoming thriller "Race to Tibet". 

For more pictures about their extraordinary journey to Tibet, please click on the Pinterest link. Please follow me on Pinterest for updates.

http://www.pinterest.com/sophieschiller/scenes-from-race-to-tibet-the-new-great-game-novel/

The Evolution of a Book Cover

I started writing Transfer Day, a historical thriller set in the Danish West Indies, in December of 2008 to fulfill a childhood dream to write a novel that would capture the unique history and beauty of St. Thomas, the island of my youth. Very few people know that for 300 years Denmark owned a sugar colony in the West Indies that was rich in folklore and old legends about pirates, slave rebellions, sugar plantations, Obeah. I grew up hearing about colorful characters like Henry Morgan, Blackbeard the pirate, Black Sam Bellamy, and the exiled Mexican General Santa Anna, but no novels existed that brought to life these colorful, exotic islands.

After much research I developed a story that takes place around the time of the transfer of the islands from Denmark to the United States. The world was in the midst of the Great War, when the US was determined to enforce the Monroe Doctrine and keep Germany out of the New World. It became imperative for the US to acquire the Danish West Indies for $25 million in gold bullion, an enormous sum. Woodrow Wilson was determined to do everything possible to keep the Kaiser from setting up a colony in close proximity to the Panama Canal.

The story is told through the eyes of a 16-year old Sephardic Jewish girl who becomes embroiled in a German spy's plot to invade islands when she rescues a deserter from a German U-boat. After several years of writing and polishing several drafts, I was ready to start designing a book cover.

And this is where my education in book publishing really began.

In the Spring of 2011, I hired a professional designer and described my vision for the cover, which included blazing cannons, Danish soldiers, and U-boat medallions. Here are the results:     

I liked the covers, and have no doubt I would have used one of them had it not been for a certain beta reader—a gentleman who runs a book store—who pointed out that the majority of book buyers are women, and for the book cover to work, it should reflect that fact

.

This added a significant wrinkle to my situation. Since the male protagonist is a German U-boat officer, I thought that guys would be more interested in reading Transfer Day. To successfully market my book to women, I had to change the girl's age, change several key scenes, and create a richer romantic subtext to the story.

 

I went back to the drawing board, redrafted my book, and went to Guru.com to hire a new book designer from India. The relationship I had with the artist was tense and stilted, and this is somewhat reflected in the cover. Gone were the smoking cannons, the flags, the shiny medallions. Instead, we inserted a beautiful girl superimposed over an idyllic image of Charlotte Amalie. This is the result:

While I generally liked the cover, I wasn't completely satisfied. I decided that the model was unsuitable, so I began to search through stock photo websites until I found a model that better reflected the WWI time period. This is the result:

I launched "Transfer Day" in June of 2012, never realizing that my journey was just beginning. As a thank you for sharing his expertise, I sent a paperback copy of "Transfer Day" to my European military consultant (who is also an avid reader) who promptly declared upon completing it that the book was a spy thriller. A spy thriller?  I was not expecting that. "That's impossible!" I argued. "This book is historical fiction. Look at the historical setting, the island vignettes, the international cast of characters." "No, no," he answered firmly. "Transfer Day is a spy thriller."

I accepted his assertion, but if "Transfer Day" was indeed a spy thriller, then it would need new title and a new cover to reflect its true genre. I pondered this dilemma for hours, but I was stumped. I couldn't think of a new title. And then, right out of the blue, it hit me:  "Spy Island". Spy Island was the perfect title for my book. After more intensive research, I designed a new cover to reflect this new image:

 

I was pleased with the results. But two months later, I got another big surprise. I entered "Spy Island" in a giveaway sponsored by a popular YA blog (since I was trying to break into the YA market) and to my dismay, the reaction was lukewarm. The new cover didn't seem to excite much interest. I was shocked because I thought the title and cover would appeal to lovers of historical fiction and action/adventure novels. But I was off the mark. Sales were lukewarm. Back to the drawing board.

This time, I delved deeper into the study of YA book covers. Many book blogs contain in depth analyses about current trends in YA book covers, and I studied these blogs for hours on end, analyzing hundreds of covers, studying which images worked best to attract readers. After more research and investigation, this is the new image I came up with:

While the new cover captured the essence of my main character and the tropical setting of the novel, the historical aspect was missing. After subjecting the cover to a focus group, the conclusion I came up with was that most people felt the cover projected a contemporary romantic look, not the sweeping historical espionage thriller I had written. I heaved a sigh and went back to the drawing board.

Late one night after everyone had gone to bed, I was browsing through Shutterstock, looking for the right image. Then it hit me. I found a picture of a beautiful Croatian model with a turn-of-the-century hairdo that was just perfect. I knew I had found my Abby. 

It took hours of searching to find this glamorous new model

But what about the background? After more consideration, I decided to go back to my original background, the one that accurately captures the look of the island that I had used for the original Transfer Day cover. My cover artist put the cover together and for the first time in years, I had a feeling of total satisfaction. After all those hours of work, I finally achieved the desired results. The cover is attractive and intriguing, and conveys the historical feel of the novel. My job was finally finished. Or so I thought…

After two years of hard work, I learned there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to designing a book cover. It is a complex subject best left to professionals. But if a writer is compelled to do it, you should be prepared to make mistakes and learn from them, as it is only through those failures that you will learn, grow, adapt and change. The hardest lesson of all is accepting that what pleased me as the writer is not necessarily what will please the reader. I had to let go of my preconceived notions about what entails a successful cover and embrace the market's needs. Now that I've reached this new plateau, I feel like I've passed a crucial test. But when I look back on my journey, I'm grateful for all the help I received. Mostly I'm grateful that I listened to the messages I received, and that I had the flexibility to act on them.

***UPDATE 2016***

With the Centennial Anniversary of Transfer Day approaching in 2017, I decided to go back to the original title of "Transfer Day" and remake the cover in honor of the momentous occasion. Yes, it was time to go back to the drawing board.

 

This time I wanted to hire someone with a proven track record of success in designing book covers. I searched online for some high-profile Indie Designers and found a graphic designer whose portfolio impressed me greatly. He worked for all the major publishers plus some bestselling Indie authors. I also found a new model via Shutterstock who I thought best represented the novel's protagonist, Abigail Maduro: 

This model captures the look, the dress, and the age of my protagonist, but I decided her expression was too dour. I still hope to use her in marketing adverts. 

Here are the two samples I received: 

While the two covers are striking and original, something about them bothered me. I didn't feel they accurately reflected either the Danish or the West Indian feel of the setting. They looked too generic American.

 

In addition, I began to see the model's dour expression as a potential drawback. Although she indeed has the right look, she lacks the right expression. As an American, I didn't think my new cover artist would be able to inject the Caribbean feel into the covers that I so desperately wanted. I finally realized that the only way to get that West Indian look into the cover was to hire a local graphic artist from the Virgin Islands. To this end, I began to google "Graphic Artists Virgin Islands."

 

Adrian Poe of Silver Squid Design wasn't the first name to come up in the Google Search, but her portfolio was outstanding. As a St. Croix-based graphic designer she had an impressive portfolio of island businesses as her customers, and had created logos that perfectly reflected the tropical setting. As a craftsman, she seemed to be in a class all her own. I knew she was the right woman for the job. And the sample she gave me exceeded my expectations:

***UPDATE 2018***

With the release of my new historical thriller, Island on Fire, I decided Transfer Day needed an updated look, one that would reflect a similar tone and style as Island on Fire. Using the same graphic designer as Island on Fire, Tim Flanagan from Novel Design Studio, he came up with this concept. The final results took my breath away:

 

The model perfectly captured my vision of Abby Maduro and the artwork perfected reflected the setting and the color of the story. And so, after years of hard work, numerous graphic designers, numerous models, and numerous prototypes, I finally had a cover that accurately represented the setting, the intrigue, the history, the color, and the cultural aspects of my story. 

 

Designing the perfect cover was hard work, but it taught me many valuable lessons about publishing, book marketing, and perseverance. If I had to sum up my experience in one word it would be this: tenacity. Don't give up until you have the perfect cover. Keep striving, keep digging, keep searching. Your perfect cover is out there, but only you can find it. Keep striving until your vision becomes a reality, then you can truly say your job is finished. 

***UPDATE 2019***

I guess I have come to understand I am a bit of a perfectionist. Not in a negative way, but in a positive way of constantly growing, changing, and improving (at least I hope). Somehow I wanted a more “toned down” cover since the 2017 Centennial Anniversary of Transfer Day has come and gone. Using a lady I know from Fiverr and a very nice model image, this is my cover going forward. What is my lesson from all of this? In book publishing, persistence is key. You will get results!

***UPDATE 2021***

My 20th and hopefully last cover. It's a long story how this came about, only that I wanted something that conveyed the historical setting better than the 2019 cover, one that I wanted to stay around long after I was gone. I hope you like this cover. I don't think I have the desire or patience to do another one. What is the lesson I learned from this "perfect cover odyssey"? That writing and publishing are areas with a long learning curve. You can't really shorten it except by jumping in the ring and doing your thing. You constantly read, learn, and grow in this field, and hopefully improve with each writing project. I know I am a much more savvy writer and publisher than I was when I started out on this journey back in 2006. It was a long, hard road, and I feel the results more than make up for the hardship. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

The Writing Process Blog Hop

I've been tagged by my friend, the lovely and talented Lynne Hinkey, to blog about my writing process. Just scroll down to my entry of March 6th (My how time flies!) to read about my forthcoming historical novel, "Race to Tibet". If you would like to listen to an interview I gave to Etienne Gibbs in his show "In the Author's Corner", please scroll down to the very next post. Thank you in advance for reading/listening about my books. And as always, we serve a steaming mug of fresh coffee on this blog to all our readers!

In the Author's Corner with Etienne Gibbs on Blog Talk Radio

Join me on Blog Talk Radio where I discuss the writing and researching of Transfer Day (Spy Island):

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/intheauthorscornerwithetienne/2014/04/07/sophie-schillers-danish-transfer-1

Thank you again to Etienne Gibbs for a great interview. I really enjoyed it!