Thank you, random internet stranger

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Since writers write it shouldn’t be surprising that a lot of them do some of that writing on the internet, and thank goodness for that. Multiple times in the process of self-publishing my book I’ve had questions that no one in my real life, however intelligent or well intentioned, could have answered for me, but 10 minutes and a Google search provided those answers. It makes me extremely grateful for the knowledge and willingness-to-share of the writing community online.

Need to know why your GIMP created cover won’t load properly into your Amazon KDP (publishing) account? Adjust the size of the file in GIMP – Thank you random internet stranger, we’d been swearing over that for an hour!

Need to know how to set up your listing details to get your book into the Teen & Young Adult category on Amazon? Adjust the age range and add keywords. Random internet stranger to the rescue!

I know it’s not just writers who do this – my techie maker husband finds all sorts of miraculous content online. It just makes me grateful for humans who are willing to help out people they’ll never know.

Rell, the origin story

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The paperback version of my book Rell is now available. It took some last minute graphic design wrangling with the cover (3mm has never been so frustrating), but it’s now officially out there in the world. There’s still a lot of things I want to keep doing for it in terms of promotion and just sharing it with more people, but this is a big step for me.

This book has been in my head for a long time – it started with a 15 minute break. I worked at a college library and I was sitting in a beautiful section of the stacks with my writing notebook, avoiding, as we writers often do, the project I was “supposed” to be working on. Instead I was thinking about seeing Fellowship of the Ring for the first time that weekend (I hate that this dates me, both in terms of how old I am and how long it took me to get this book out into the world, but oh well) I was wishing there were more female characters in the story, and more fantasy stories in general of the kind I liked. Of the Robin McKinley, Patricia McKillip, Tamora Pierce variety. (Now I’d add people like Kristin Cashore, Shannon Hale, and Rae Carson to that list, hooray!)

And this girl popped into my head – it was a pretty clear mental picture. She had long dark braids, this weird chainmail meets wool sweater armor, two swords, and a stubborn, quiet nature. I’ve had a fantasy world in my head since I was a teenager, and several books connected to it in different stages of incomplete, and this girl slid right in. By the end of that fifteen minute break I had a basic story idea for her figured out, and she was pretty real to me. That was the birth of Rell.

It took a long time for me to actually finish the thing. I originally envisioned it as a series, so there’s dozens of pages of backstory that ultimately ended up on the cutting room floor when I realized I wanted this to be a tighter, shorter, standalone style book. I had the fun experience of having a character who started out as a placeholder and became a beloved secondary character who may now get their own book. I had the thrill of sharing it with beta readers who loved it and encouraged me along the way. I had the painful experience many fantasy writers have of cutting off the prologue. But in the end I’m pretty happy with the novel that emerged. It’s been a rewarding process, even if it took forever.

Paperback formatting…finally!

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The paperback formatting was definitely the hardest practical part of the self-publishing process. It gave me a whole new respect for copy editors, book designers, and I can’t even imagine the skill it would have taken to create these things before the computer era.

It made me feel grateful to live in an era where the tools are available to make self-publishing possible. It will probably take a couple days before the book is live on Amazon, but it’s a relief to have it done!

Photo Credit: SweetMellowChill via Pixabay

Happiness for a reader is…

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I’m always reading multiple books at one time – at least one book for work (history or teaching), at least one fiction book, and at least one audiobook. For awhile I had so many of my library audiobook holds coming in that I was having a hard time getting through them so I stopped putting them on hold – and then I ran out of stuff to listen to. (This cycle happens with regular library books too – I’m guessing my fellow library users will find it familiar.)

So today I was left searching for a new audiobook and I found a brand new book I didn’t know was coming out by an author I really enjoy. So thank you Timberland Regional Library for the joy of Kristin Cashore’s Seasparrow – it made me a very happy reader today.

(Photo credit: cromaconceptovisual)

Celebrating a Milestone!

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For six years I’ve had an item near the top of my yearly to do list – publish Rell. The ebook is now available through Amazon – it’s taken so much work to get this far, and even if it sells 3 copies I’m so excited and a little proud of myself that I’ve finally accomplished this goal.

There’s so much of life that’s out of our control, and in a world where there’s so many books and so much media it sometimes feels a bit crazy to think adding one more story to the mix is worth the effort, but at the end of the day I wanted to share my story with more people, and this was a way to do it.

No matter what happens from this point forward, I can be excited that I met this goal and tried something new. Now, what do I do next?….

Rell updates

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So the ebook copy of the book will be available on November 1 as promised – but the hard copy may be delayed a few days. The design is done, but too be sure and for the sake of my own nervousness I want to order a print copy and make sure it looks right before I charge anyone else for it. Wish me luck!

Rell- Available November 1!!!

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So tonight I officially have the ebook version of my first novel Rell all formatted, loaded, and ready to rock on Amazon. All I have to do is hit the “publish” button and it will be live. I’m holding off because I think I can have the hardcopy (paperback) formatting finished within the next week. Either way, I’m setting a publication date of November 1 – even if it’s just the ebook version, my book will be available on that date.

Even if it only sells 3 copies, I’m proud of myself for taking this step.

Learning from other writers: Claudia Gray aka Concept Envy

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I am currently reading (well, listening to) Claudia Gray’s The Murder of Mr. Wickham. I’ve read lots of Austen inspired stuff, but this book does something that I’ve never seen before – she comes up with a convincing way to put characters from all (or almost all, I’m admittedly not a Jane Austen expert) of Austen’s books in a single novel!

It seems like such an obviously cool move that I’m surprised there aren’t 100 books like this out there. It also reminds me of something I have frequently – concept envy. Concept envy is my name for the phenomenon when someone tells you their idea for a book, or what their current book is about and you think, “Wow, that’s a really cool idea, I wish I had thought of something like that.”

Maybe it’s because I feel like I haven’t quite mastered the whole idea of “high concept” books yet. But I frequently find myself with concept envy, and The Murder of Mr. Wickham is no exception.