A lot
has happened recently. Other than myself getting in the way of my own plans,
there has also been some exciting developments.
Most of
June was spent editing and formatting my novel, Ties of Fate: The Lost Continent. The crunch was due to the fact, as
some of you may know, that I had a coupon for two free paperback editions of my
book thanks to Createspace and NaNoWriMo. My sister had to make a new cover for
the novel since her previous version was m.i.a. As you can guess, I got it
done. Not only did I get my books, but my novel is now available in e-book at
the Kindle store and in paperback format on amazon.com. Huzzah!
I took a
few days off and then finished my full edit of The Beast of the Ruin. (Yes, I'm bragging about it...) It is now in
my sister's court for a read through and to update the cover since I changed
the title from My Dark Prince. It was
her idea so she can't complain! I also started back up on another story, whose
working title is Lost Lady. I am very
motivated to complete this project, though in all honesty, I should be working
on book two of the Chronicles of Odde:
The Lost Prince.
I am not
really liking the Lost Prince as a
title. It is better than its previous incarnation: She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not. Melli brought up the fact that some
of my titles were a little too modern and didn't really fit with my genre. I
agreed and tried to revamp the outlines. I have eight books in this series so
far, most have very brief outlines, some plot points and character sheets but
little more than a title. The book has sort of taken a different direction than
what I had planned. I am not sure who my heroine will end up with. I guess I
will have to finish the book to find out.
on
another note, the publishing process was more difficult than I expected, but
not in the areas I thought I would have trouble. Formatting my novel was a
beast. I had to make it a pdf to save my special fonts, but every time I
noticed something was off, I had to change it and save if again as a different
pdf; I think I ended up with four in all. My map didn't want to fit in the
novel after my sister tricked it out for me. My cover was too large in size,
for the 40 MB max. We had to rescale it three times. I swear that if there are
any errors I don't want to know. Okay, that's a lie. I hate spelling errors, so
I'll just have to have someone else read it, mark the errors and then reload it
all again.
The
process of getting my book out there was remarkably easy (and free), especially
with my sister's help with the cover and what not. The hard part, the part that
actually costs money, is the marketing. While my book is available, no one is
buying it because they don't know it is there. Unfortunately I don't have the
funds to market it at the moment. My GoFundMe starter has stalled. My family
and friends still haven't purchased the book, which makes me sad.. but I'll get
over it!
So my
question for today is: How do you come up with your titles? Do you wait until a
novel is finished? Do you take it from some part of your book that speaks to
you? Are you like me, and you title your work right out of the gate and then
change it when needed?
Well,
that's it for now. To my fellow writers, don't give up! I know it's long and
hard process, and sometimes being a published author isn't exactly what you
expected, but it's a huge accomplishment. Don't let anything dim that!! And
remember...Write on!!
