The Spectra World master maps!

 

Summer is here! It's the perfect time to explore somewhere new! Sure, that might include a physical location, but I for one hope to explore a new fictional world as well. When I first designed a map for the Spectra world, I drew it on paper and then scanned it on the computer. That became my master map. Whenever an individual book calls for a map, I'll take a section of the master map and adapt it. Maybe I'll crop it to the relevant section, or take out some labels that aren't important to the specific story in question. I'll definitely dress it up a bit, and probably simplify the colors to remove some of the biomes. But, for you today, in all its rough glory, here is the Spectra Lands Master map!

Until recently, every book I've written has taken place on a piece of this map. However, my kindle vella story, The Centaur Chase, expands into the wider world besides this one continent. The Spectra Lands are inhabited mostly by the Spectra, elemental magic users, except for one corner inhabited by griffins. Each of the other continents in this world has its own magical species, whether human-ish like the wayfinders, animal-ish like the dragons, or a mix of the two like centaurs. I'm not sure when I'll expand into those continents, but I have a lot of room to play with!  Here's an even rougher map of where the different continents are. Note that this is just the western hemisphere. I imagine the eastern hemisphere to be more settled by humans, and there are plenty of books already that take place in that kind of world.

I hope you enjoy your adventures this summer, physical and fictional and everywhere in between!

Kindle vella: What is it and why should I try it out?

News is slowly getting out. A lot of people have heard the name "kindle vella", but not everyone knows what it is or why they should give it a try.

I enjoy kindle vella, amazon's serial reading platform, because I don't always have the time or focus to sit down and read a whole novel, but I do have snatches of time where I can easily squeeze in an episode. If books were like movies, then kindle vella would be like a tv show. Each episode contains a section of the story, similar to a book chapter. Stories are often much longer than a novel and might continue through several seasons. My favorite kindle vella story (The Queen Trials by Penelope Wright) updates every single day, so whenever my day starts to drag, I can check for my daily update and continue the story just a little more. I also love to sample a story, or even an entire genre, to see if it's something that I will enjoy before I invest my time and money into it.

To read on kindle vella, you only need your amazon account. The first ten episodes are free, and trust me, you can get into a lot of story in ten episodes! In my most popular story, The Captain's Dowry, the main character changes from a proper lady to a cabin boy, escapes a debtor, and marries a stranger. After you've read ten episodes, you can buy tokens to unlock more. Currently, each episode costs ten tokens, which are about ten cents each (check those numbers for updates though). You can read directly from the kindle vella website, or check stories on the kindle app. For the moment, kindle vella is only available for the United States, but it's a new program and often changes.  

Another huge advantage to kindle vella is that it allows you to interact with the story and its author in ways that are not possible in a full book. While you can review a story like you would a full book, vella has many other options. After each episode, you can choose to hit the thumbs up button, or leave a comment. Some even have polls where you can vote for answers to story-related questions. And each week, you can pick your favorite story. The top 250 favorite stories get a coveted crown (and bonus money), so let your favorite authors know how much you enjoy their work!

I've seen a lot of different genres on kindle vella. As always, romance is queen, and spice sells. Not all stories are steamy romance, though. I write fantasy with sweet (not spicy) romance subplots. My kids screen each episode for me, so I need to make sure they're interesting as well as clean. I've enjoyed nonfiction, such as Life Lessons from Flipping Houses. Rosanne E Lortz writes some amazing Regency Romance stories. As mentioned, I've been reading The Queen Trials, a dystopia with a hint of fantasy, every day for years. I've even found stories that I've loved on kindle vella and later purchased as a full book on amazon, such as the middle grade adventure, The Golden Scarab of Balihar. These are the stories that interest me, but you can find stories of all kinds on kindle vella. 

I highly recommend giving it a try!

Why Self Publish?

 "My question was, what is the process of self-publishing, what is the amount of effort that goes into it, and what is your overall opinion of it?"

I originally chose to self-publish (also known as independent or indie publishing) because I decided that my goal was to share my stories, and I would be satisfied by progress, no matter how slow, even if I didn’t make as much money or reach as many people. I've found several reasons why I prefer self-publishing to traditional:

1. I have all creative control. Traditional authors don’t get any say over their covers and very little over formatting, for example. 

2. Self-publishing is a lot faster. With traditional publishing, it can take months to even hear back from query letters, whereas I usually release a new book every six months. You get a higher percentage of royalties in indie publishing, so if you do manage to make it big, you’d be earning more money. You also get paid more often (usually monthly). 

3. I’ve heard that traditional authors have to do more and more of their own marketing anyway. As time goes on, publishers will put even more of their focus on big-name authors and less on new authors, or even mid-list authors (those who do well but aren’t hugely popular). Self-publishing has no gatekeepers, so it's especially good for those who write books that might not be as appealing to a wide audience, but still have niche readers out there who want to read it.

4. I can change things quickly. I can upload a new cover if the current one doesn’t seem to be working. I can fix typos or even re-edit a story within a day. I can even change the title or give myself a new penname. (A few things can’t be changed, though, including paper color. I accidentally published book 2 of a trilogy with white paper instead of cream, and that can’t be undone).

In both cases but especially in self-publishing, success usually comes a little at a time, and very few see results right away. This year, I finally made enough money to make up for all of my startup costs (website, the 4 covers I bought, experimenting with ads, etc), and I started in 2015.

I suppose I'll have to admit that there are cons to self-publishing. Not everyone wants or is able to invest in learning all of the different facets that go into publishing a book. You don't get a nice cushy advance right up front. Also, there is still a stigma against indie authors. While some indie books are amazing, anyone can publish anything, and some people have been turned off by the bad apples. My local library only accepts traditionally published books on their shelves, and many physical book stores do the same.

Self-publishing can be as hard or as easy as you want it to be. Once you set up an account with amazon, it’s really simple to upload your story as an ebook. You can upload just about anything, no matter the quality. However, if you want to do it well, here are a few basics about the process to get you started:

The first step is to write the book, as well as you can. Next, edit as best as you can, with as much feedback as possible (preferably with a paid editor, but keep in mind that won’t be cheap). You’ll need to format your book or pay someone to do it for you. If you’re only doing ebook, this is easier, but you’ll still need chapter breaks and usually a table of contents, things like that. It’s much more involved with a paperback, since you’ll need to consider things like font and font size, page numbers, additional front material (title page, table of contents, etc), what the chapter breaks look like, and so on. You’ll also need a cover. Covers are super important for marketing, so this is not a place to skimp on time or money. Unless you really, really know what you’re doing, you’ll need to purchase one. Some places have premade covers, which are cheaper (find one you like and buy it, and they’ll put your name and title on it for you). Getting the paperback as well as the ebook will cost extra, if you go that route.

In case you’re wondering, I personally don’t hire an editor, a formatter, or (usually) a cover designer. I do have lots of beta readers, and I’ve been willing to put in work/study into learning the skills needed for all of these. It’s taken years and a lot of mistakes, and I’m still improving.

With self-publishing, you get what you put into it: the more you learn to market, and to put out a good product, the better you will do. 

Behind the Spectra

I don’t know when my dream of publication began; the earliest mention of it in my journal comes from high school. In “Mckay Recycled” by my college friend Mckay Coppins, he points out, “The thing is, I don’t think you can be a writer—whether you’re a journalist or the guy who writes the hazard signs for every ride at Disney World—and not dream of seeing your name on the cover of a book.” Now, a decade after I graduated high school, writing and dreaming the whole time, my first book is finally coming to print.

One of the few non-Pokémon stories that I began in middle school was about a group of kids who each personified a different element, represented by a different color. I titled it “Rainbow Warriors” (my friends had to point out why this might not be an appropriate title). I never got further than a few chapters, after the yellow-electricity girl was forced to go swimming for PE and had to be rushed out of the water by her other magical friends before she exploded and zapped everyone. The idea lived on in my imagination, though, and the abilities of the different groups became clearer with each daydream.

All through college, I had been working on a story about teenagers who are on their own after the electricity in their desert town runs out. I edited and polished, but the basic plot was too much like a daydream and not enough like a publishable novel, and eventually I abandoned it. Soon after, I had a dream where the color-element kids were royalty, running away from bad guys through a castle and jumping through hidden doors in unlikely places (like the refrigerator). I played with the idea, wondering which clan different family members would be in, and it developed into a story. 

For around three years I worked on the new story, which I called The Specta: Seeds of Light. I was learning a lot about writing, checking out books from the library, even attending a writer's conference. I sent a few query letters to agents. For readers of the Spectra books, that first book followed Keita Sage as she learned about her arranged marriage, met the other royal heirs at the Summit, travelled to Brian’s home in Muselands, and finally survived the Stygian takeover. 

In between rejections, I started work on the sequel. I had gotten a few chapters in when I realized that the entire first novel was nothing but backstory, and the whole thing ought to start with the sequel I had just begun. So, I started over, and in about a year I had the working draft for the new version, ‘The Spectra Unearthed’. I also worked on all the extra fun stuff, from maps to family trees to computer graphics of the characters.

  

Again I started looking for agents. The lack of internet at home and addition of children to our family slowed me down, but a year and forty queries later, I started thinking about other pathways to publication. I decided that reaching a huge audience through a traditional publisher was not necessary, so I started researched self-publication. In the past, self-publication meant purchasing hundreds of copies of your book and trying to sell and ship them all yourself. Now there is another option, called POD publishing, which can print small numbers at a time and ships them for you. I researched many companies and decided on Booklocker.com. I liked that they not as expensive, had a wide-reaching audience (especially for ebooks), and required a quality check that meant that they had a good reputation for selling decent material. So I sent in my novel and was approved.

The first step, after signing the contract, was to reread my story. I’d edited it many times during the year that I was searching for agents, but I decided to do one last in-depth edit, especially looking at details and word choice. My husband and I did this polishing together. We also figured out what bonus material to use (the acknowledgments, appendix, title page, etc.) I also started working with a cover designer. I had drawn a few covers on my own, but I knew that they were not high quality enough.

  

              

I gave the designer the text for the back of the book as well as a list of images that were important in the story, and he assembled them together. I’m picky about human figures, probably from drawing them pixel by pixel, so we decided to leave them out of the final cover:

I also started working on the website. I chose to make one for the series instead of for me as an author. The series will have six books, plus possibly another couple that fit in the same world, so I figure I have plenty of time before I think about publishing something else. I wanted to post some of my extra material that I’d created in making the Spectra world. I researched website hosting companies but eventually chose webs.com, which I’d already tried out with a free site for my homesteading attempts (see insert). I paid for the premium service, and I went to a separate site to buy my domain name to make sure that it was private. I published the website at www.TheSpectraBooks.com about a month before the book came out (in retrospect, I probably should have waited a few more weeks).

It took a few weeks to get everything together: the cover from the designer and our fully polished manuscript. Then we sent it all in, and Booklocker sent it to the printer. My first copy arrived in the mail about a week later. We read it and approved it (although there were a couple small things I would have liked to change if it didn’t cost so much), and then the publisher put the book up for sale!

Update: I split with booklocker after my first book, and now work mostly through amazon directly.