My Phantom: The Memoir of Christine Daaé

[Anstance Tamplin]

I’m the author of seven traditionally-published novels but decided to bring out my new novel under the pseudonym Anstance Tamplin and test the latest innovations in print-on-demand and ebook manufacturing and Internet-only sales and promotion. As you probably know, iIn traditional publishing, thousands of copies of a book are manufactured before the publishing date, some to fulfill advance orders from bookstores and far more for warehousing in hopes of future sales. Many of those books are returned from bricks-and-mortar booksellers unsold and, along with most of the warehoused books, eventually destroyed. This month Straight Up Press published my new novel My Phantom: The Memoir of Christine Daaé and will manufacture individual copies of the trade paperback only when a reader orders the novel at Amazon.com. The book came out simultaneously in a Kindle edition and to date 43 percent of sales are ebooks.

I haven’t received any reviews of My Phantom yet so I’ll just post the copy from the back cover:

“Gaston Leroux was wrong about many things.  The falling chandelier.  The deaths of Joseph Buquet and Philippe de Chagny.  Most of all, the opera ghost, who was not a terrifying monster but a mesmerizing man…”

Thus begins the memoir of Christine Daaé, the gifted soprano immortalized in Gaston Leroux’s classic The Phantom of the Opera. In My Phantom Christine reveals the truth behind an enduring legend.  Her memoir tells the stories of a talented orphan struggling toward stardom and a throwaway boy determined to conquer opera’s greatest stage.

My Phantom chronicles the collaboration of two lonely people – a musical master and his exceptional student – who rescue each other from solitude as they strive to reach the pinnacle of their art and of the love triangle that destines one to remain forever alone.

Rich with details of the opera and the ballet, the memoir unfolds in the most intriguing opera house in the world.  Outside lies Belle Époque Paris, where Impressionists form the vanguard of the beautiful era’s freewheeling and innovative spirit, and opera singers are the first global superstars.  Café society has been born, and in the salons of the rich and the bistros of the artistic the emphasis is on pleasure and the talk is all about art and music and literature.

Christine and her lovers – the mysterious Phantom and the aristocrat Raoul – personify the élan of a fascinating and tumultuous era whose artistic ferment shapes their lives forever.

You can learn more about the story – and read the first chapter – at MyPhantomTheMemoir.com. And you can find the Kindle version here


Anstance Tamplin
Anstance@MyPhantomTheMemoir.com

[Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake']

It just so happens I'm reading Phantom of the Opera right now, so I sampled your book.  Good luck!!! 

[Kevis 'The Berserker' Hendrickson]

I'm a huge fan of The Phantom of the Opera, so it goes without saying that I'm interested in your book. I'm adding it to my TBR list.

[telracs]

I'm not sure how I feel about a Phantom story from Christine's point of view, but I've downloaded the sample.

[Geoffrey]

Sounds similar to the idea behind Gregory Maguire's 'Wicked' - I really liked that so I'll have to sample this one and see what I think ....

[Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake']

I was disappointed in the P&P book from Mr. Darcy's pov, which took chunks of dialogue from the original.  That's why I sampled.  I'm keeping an open mind, but I think I'll finish reading the original first. 

[Anstance Tamplin]

Thank you all for your interest in My Phantom. I hope you'll read it and enjoy it. I'm especially interested in hearing reactions from people who are very familiar with the original. Leroux's novel purports to be a report of his investigation of incidents that occurred thirty years earlier. Mine began with the premise that perhaps he got it wrong and ends by taking the same set of facts and events to tell a very different story.

Anstance
Anstance@MyPhantomTheMemoir.com

[Rasputina]

“Gaston Leroux was wrong about many things. 

The chutzpah of claiming a classic author is wrong about his characters always loses me. I'm all for a retelling of a classic story, but not when it comes from a place of superiority, love and desire to explore areas not fully conceptualized in the original work is so much more compelling.