Today we welcome Pavarti K Tyler, author of Two Moons of Sera.  She is on an extensive book tour and has stopped by with a guest post.

The Esoteric Reader - by Pavarti K Tyler

I'm willing to bet that half the books on my bookshelves are things you've never heard of.  I know, I sound like a snob when I say that, and in a way I am.  A literary snob.  Not because I've read and bow down to the greatness of canon (because I don't) but because I have made it my life's mission to find the books that are the most interesting, most unique, best crafted pieces of writing I can find.  It's been a hit or miss endeavor but in the end it's been worth it.

This is not to say that I don't enjoy a good NYTs best seller now and then.  Hell, I'm one of those "twilight people" you've been known to make fun of (don't pretend you haven't).  I love a good new Sookie book and often pick up whatever the newest big thing is when I'm at the airport.  But left to my own devices I'm more likely to check out the newest release from Interlink Books than Random House.

Perhaps this is why the idea of Indie Publishing is so exciting to me.  I've not put much stock in the idea that doing things the way everyone else does is a good thing.  I never have, just ask my family.  I didn't go to the college I received a scholarship at because it wasn't what I wanted to do.  I didn't marry a man my father approved of.  I didn't get a job as a high powered professional.  I didn't stay home with my kids like a good wife should.  In fact, anytime there's a rule, the only thing you can count on is that I'll try my damnedest to find a way to break it.

When seen in that light it's not surprising that I make my day to day living as an entrepreneur, or that I am drawn to the stories that are rarely told.  I certainly love a number of mainstream books but for a moment; let's revel in a few you may not know:

Moth Smoke - The world isn't really that big or complicated, we're all people

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - What is real?

Games of the Strong like Hunger Games? It was pretty much a direct rip-off of this

The Reapers Are the Angels - Zombies!  Brains!  The best book ever.

Amrita - What is it to be human?

A Sky So Close - A warzone through the eyes of a child

The Far Euphrates - the holocaust did so much more than kill people.

Changes: A Love Story - think you understand polygamy, you don't till you read this.

All of these books ARE traditionally published.  Many of them have won awards and achieved significant success.  I'm not special in my enjoyment of them, and believe me, I'm no high bar, Battlefield Earth is one of my absolute favorites (don't judge until you read it, you'll be shocked by how good it is).  But these are not titles you will see in your local bookstore, or in the Barnes and Noble "Staff Pics" section.  And why not?  What is it about them that renders them commercially unviable?

Probably the same thing that draws me to them.

These are stories that are not comfortable, are not familiar.  These are stories that challenge our minds in a way that Incarceron (which I couldn't even finish) simply does not.  I love a book that I can loose myself in so completely that I become another person, live another culture, revel in the sorrows and pain of a life I have never lived.

And this is my definition of success.  Why am I Indie Publishing?  Because I don't want to ever hear "yeah, but if you change this it will sell better."  Instead I want you to read it and then sit back, take a deep breath and shake your head, unable for a moment to be sure which world is real and which was within the pages of a book.  

Pavarti K Tyler is an artist, wife, mother and number-cruncher who has been committed to causing trouble since her first moment on this Earth. Her eclectic career has flirted with Broadway, Teaching, Law Firms and the IRS. 

Pavarti K Tyler's novel Two Moons of Sera is a Fantasy/Romance and is being released in a serial format.  Her next novel Shadow on the Wall is scheduled for release early 2012. Shadow on the Wall is the saga of Recai Osman — businessman, philosopher, Muslim and . . . superhero. 

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my review of Two Moons of Sera

Fascinating, well written fantasy tale. Serafay is the child of a Saulwet (creature of the sea) and an Erlander (creature of the land). She is hidden from a world at war with itself. Sera is a marvelous character, strong-willed and cautious, but eager to learn about others on her world. She meets Tor, an enigmatic character. He is large and brawny but also gentle and vulnerable. I love reading the interactions between these two characters. 
This is part one of a serial novel. Part 2 will be released in January 2012. I look forward to reading the rest of the story. I want to learn more about these characters and about the strange genetic experiments that resulted in Sera's birth.