Squigglysquidd mentioned that you're working on an original fantasy romance series, Rifts. I'd love to hear a little about your series and your experience writing it! I assume it's published somewhere? Congratulations, by the way! What a fantastic achievement!
Howdy! I do have an original fantasy series that is available in ebook and paperback on Amazon. There's two books out, Aerials and Fathomless Depths and the third book will (hopefully) be released late next week. The overarching plot circles around a theme that sometimes, the monster deserves to get the girl. So if you like monster romance, female protagonists, and immersive fantasy settings, give the Rifts series a read.
This is my fanfic/fandom account so I try not to cross-pollinate too much with original works, but rest assured after finishing book 3 of 5, I'm deep in OC hell, haha.
So far as my experience self-publishing an original series and all the leg work that goes into that, I'll put a full answer under a cut, because it's long.
I was one of those that actually got a college degree in fiction writing and held onto a cozy notion that in-between a day job, I'd submit stories to journals and anthologies as a fun hobby. Unfortunately, my day job ended up beating the love of reading and writing out of me for several years. It wasn't until I started reading fanfiction that I rediscovered my own love of writing. While I do write main characters, I enjoyed creating fics featuring all original casts, or else putting a fantasy spin on the scify setting. Which led me to considering doing my own totally original works...
I am fortunate in that I knew a professional editor through another friend. We agreed to meet for coffee, and she gave me the run down on the writing/publishing process. Initially I had thought I'd pursue traditional publishing, but after in depth conversation with the editor, whom I'll call "K," I was more than a bit overwhelmed. While I knew publication wasn't just emailing a publication house my book, I never realized how in depth and daunting the querying process for an agent was, and all the other things that entailed. Likely seeing my wide-eyed look of shock, K had a suggestion for me: self-publish on Amazon.
K walked me through that process and given my own self-perceived feelings of still not being "good-enough" she advised I try to self-publish an original series first, build my skill and confidence, and then if I was still interested, circle back to traditional publication.
So that's what I did. First, I had to write the story; which was a journey of frustration in itself. I was lucky to have met the fabulous @squigglysquidd through fanfiction and she graciously offered to alpha read my chapters as I completed the first draft. Without her cheer-leading I might have given up.
After finishing a complete draft, I went over and fixed the glaring issues myself before handing the manuscript off to a beta reader. My beta reader happens to by a huge fantasy nerd and a trained editor of sorts, and while their concrit is sometimes very... lets say blunt... it's always great. After getting the book back from my beta, I overhauled it again with all their edits. Once I was confident that it wasn't a total turd, I contacted K again and hired her at her freelance rate to do a general edit of the manuscript. (Most freelance editors offer different services from general review to line edits, for my purposes general edits worked best). K was absolutely fantastic and taught me SO MUCH about writing and details and pacing ect. After I again overhauled the manuscript based on K's edits, I gave it over to a beta reader one more time for final critique. When it was returned I fixed any issues they identified and then began the painstaking line edits for any grammar issues.
While I have not used an empathy reader in my own works (yet) I did find a fabulous resource, fiverr, where you can hire empathy readers to review your work for areas where an author might unintentionally sound racially insensitive, ablest, ect.
So far as cover-art goes, I'd met an absolutely incredible artist through the Mass Effect fandom: @savbakk is the most talented land-mermaid of an artist and when I approached her about a commission for cover art, I hit the jack-pot when she agreed to do it. I adore her style and gaze fondly at the three book covers she's done in pure disbelief that she captured my characters so perfectly...
When my book is as polished as it can be, and I feel the narrative is tight and characters fleshed out with a solid plot, I self-publish on Amazon. It's a fairly straight-forward process, luckily.
I then marketed on Twitter and other social media platforms, with varying success. I was fortunate and my series was selected for a book club and I did an interview and gained some nice readership from that. I definitely could be better about marketing, but admittedly I get lazy after a while on that front.
And that’s my process in a nutshell. Eventually when I complete my fantasy series I’ll tackle traditional publishing. Until then, I’m enjoying myself and the experience. 😃
And that's my experience/process in a nutshell. I still have 2 more books planned for my series. I feel that I'm a stronger, better writer, with each story I complete. When my series is all finished, I will pursue traditional publication on my next project. Can't say I'll be successful, but I believe I'll be ready to try and enjoy the learning process.
I'm always happy to chat self-publication with anyone who's interested, just pop into my DM's if you like. =)
This project was for the story Commit to the Kick by Tris Lawrence.
It is part of Welcome to PHU, a web serial about the students who attend Pine Hills University, a fictional liberal arts school, and the folks around them. It’s about magic, and love, and football, and music, and taekwondo, and just about anything else that college students might get involved in. And magic. Did we mention the magic? Because in this world, ten years ago, the public found out that magic is real, and ever since then, more and more Talents have become public in the world, and Pine Hills University happens to be one of the schools that welcomes these magical students with open arms.
You can read the stories as they are posted on Tumblr and on Pillowfort.
Commit to the Kick is the first story of the “Twinned” trilogy and can be purchased as an E-book through Duck print Press. The printed version was a Kickstarter reward and is not available for purchase.
This is in the “6×9” format, with white paper and glossy cover options. The story has 168,771 words and the final book had 437 pages.
If you’d be interested in getting your story typeset and ready to print, please visit my commissions page.
Cover, spine, and back cover - when received from the printer.
Interior page
Each chapter had an excerpt from a in-universe text book.
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Commentary to The Rivers and the Sea Book I is now posted up at Question Cave. Read the full comic there or buy the self-published version in our shop!
Amazon has accused several book publishers, marketers and authors of using the Kindle Direct Publishing system to artificially inflate their sales numbers and..
I’m extremely thankful Amazon is taking steps to level the playfield for authors. For anyone to purchase fake reviews, just to artificially elevate their books to the bestseller list, is disgusting and lazy. You shouldn’t be able to throw money at what you want to achieve--you should work hard for it. Thank you, Amazon.
Either or... Just be sure you pay for the fucking things. heh. \m/
Yeah, so... It’s quite possible I had a little too much fun taking bathroom selfies with my new novel. o.o
SUCK IT, FUCKERS!! I’M GOING ALL THE WAY!! lmao...
I was doing a little dance for a bit. Held it above my head like the fucking Stanley Cup. Smooched with it a little... (wouldn’t you? o.0) Oh, and of course I sat there, all sophisticated an’ shit, reading my own stuff with a big ass grin like, “Hey... This is some pretty good stuff! Who wrote this?” =D lol... So lame... -z
Still waiting on the numbskulls I paid to put it together to get back to me on some massively amateurish mistakes they made... So the book isn’t ready for purchase yet, but when it is, you crazy bunch of horror hounds will be the first to know. This is what the regular edition looks like. The Pure Art Edition is gonna be this without the title or my name, and just art on the spine and cover. Limited to only 500 copies and only available through me. Stay tuned. -z/cm/cc
