self publishing

Scars Publication and Other News

astheheroflies2 Comments

Hey all! Long time, no blog! My apologies for the extended absence. Some big life changes, including a sick cat and a brand new job, have kept me very busy and struggling to find my new “normal.”

I’m happy to report that the cat is doing better, and I’m starting to find small windows where I can squeeze in some writing time. Lately I’ve been writing on my phone when outside with one of my special needs cats, as well on my lunch breaks at work (that’s where I am right now!).

My new writing partner!

It reminds me a lot of the old days when I first started writing. I just couldn’t find a good time to sit down at the computer and write. And I realized if I waited until I could find time to do that, I’d be waiting forever. If I really wanted to write my book, I’d have to find another way – so I did. I handwrote my first book in 15 numbered notebooks while outside watching our dogs and doing other animal-related chores.

If you want something badly enough, you will find a way, and I guess I needed life to teach me that lesson again.

One thing I wanted really badly was to release my paranormal romance novelette, Scars, before starting my new job. I am thrilled to report that I got this done, and Scars is available on Amazon and can be read for free on Kindle Unlimited:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D7864Z9N

I was also lucky enough to get another wonderful review. This one is from Astilbe over at Long and Short Reviews, and you can read it here:

http://www.longandshortreviews.com/book-reviews/scars-by-g-a-bassier/

I hope everything is well with all of you, and I hope to blog more frequently as I get back into the swing of writing, publishing, and advertising.

Peace and Happy New Year!

~Gretchen

Indie Publishing: Cover Reveal for Scars!

astheherofliesLeave a comment
Book cover showing a man's chest with three diagonal slashes across it, entitled "Scars: A Werewolf Love Story" by G.A. Bassier.

There you have it, folks! The cover art for Scars. 🙂 This one was pre-made and came from SelfPubBookCovers.com, courtesy of artist billwyc. Check out the rest of the artist’s gallery here:

https://selfpubbookcovers.com/billwyc

I had a tough time choosing which cover to go with, but only because there were so many great options for werewolf stories and for romance. In the end, it came down to three finalists: a pretty picture of a wolf with roses around it, a gorgeous bit of art with a rose and a full moon, and the slashed chest. The image above won out because it most closely fit the title and the story itself. The main male character, Jack, actually has similar slashes on his body, albeit in a slightly different location. And it’s definitely not a “pretty” story. There’s some gore in this one, and some fairly graphic descriptions of violence. So, the ragged claw marks seemed appropriate.

As before, I had such a blast cover shopping. There is some amazing artwork out there. Kudos to the incredible artists whose images were the most delicious eye candy I’ve seen in a while. 🙂 Also as before, I did the lettering myself. I would prefer to have someone else do it, and maybe next time around I’ll be able to afford that, but for now I did the best I could. I did at least try to make it a bit more dynamic than I did with Even Heroes. That was one thing I was kicking myself over after the fact – just seeing the creativity of what others were doing with their lettering, I felt I probably could have done something a little less basic and bit more WOW.

In general, I am a lot less stressed about publishing this time around, mainly because I know what to expect from the process. And also, possibly because I’m doing more things right in round two, including getting my promotional options lined up ahead of my release, and getting some ARC reviewers on board.

Speaking of early reviews, check out this absolute gem I got from Asha over at Books and Readers:

Scars-ARC review

Honestly, this is the type of review that would make any author’s heart soar, and I am so grateful to be on the receiving end of it! 🙂

Sooo, now that you’ve seen the cover and read Asha’s epic review, are you ready to read the story? If all goes well, my next post on here will be an announcement of publication. 🙂 In the meantime, if you’re an indie author, feel free to share a link to your own latest cover art in the comments. Did you buy a pre-made, commission an original, or create the cover yourself with your mad art skillz?

More soon!

~Gretchen

Indie Publishing: The Werewolf Story

astheherofliesLeave a comment

They say the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Perhaps in spite of my better judgment, I am eagerly preparing for my second foray into self publishing! I learned SO much the first time around. I learned about buying cover art, and how to set up my title on KDP. I learned about keywords and categories and SEO. I learned how to code an ebook, for crying out loud! I learned how to find book bloggers who might (if I’m very lucky) be interested in reading and reviewing my book.

So yeah, I’m in a (slightly) better place this time around, and I’m feeling the excitement. And also the nerves. Because despite all the knowledge I gained last time, in some ways this is starting fresh. My first book, Even Heroes, was a full-length YA action/adventure novel that had never before seen the light of day. This one is a totally different genre: paranormal romance. It’s a short piece (considered either a novelette or a novella, depending on your definition), and it has been published before, in an anthology called Transformed.

I’m choosing to self pub this one for several reasons:

  • I love the story and the characters, and I want to share them with a (hopefully) wider audience.
  • Eventually, I want all of my work (past, present, and future) to be available in one place.
  • I have two more stories planned for these characters, so this will, in time, be a series. 🙂
  • The original anthology where the piece appeared seems to be out of print, so right now nobody’s getting to read one of the best stories I’ve ever written – that definitely needs to change!

In the coming week, I’ll be sharing more details, including the cover art reveal (oooh!) and a brilliant early review I’ve already gotten from an ARC reader. In the meantime, if you like angsty romance, nice guy heroes, and female werewolves who change into raging, homicidal beasts on the full moon, I’ll be offering advance review copies to interested readers via my newsletter, so be sure to sign up. 🙂

More soon!

~Gretchen

Indie Publishing: Adventures in Advertising

astheherofliesLeave a comment

For all those who have self published a novel or are considering doing so, there’s one very important thing you should know: your book has a superpower. Sounds awesome, right? Until you realize what that superpower actually is: invisibility.

That’s right. Your book is invisible. No one can see it except you. So…not as awesome as what you were imagining (admit it – you thought your book could fly or shoot lasers from its title page). And let’s face it – invisibility is definitely not what any author wants for their precious newborn novel.

But that’s not the end of the story: YOU, the author, have a special power too. You are the only one on earth who can make your book visible to others. And that is an amazing power, if you can just figure out how to use it.

Below is a chronicle of my efforts thus far to make my debut novel appear in the eyes of the world.

Kindle Select/Kindle Unlimited

After some initial sales to kindhearted friends and family members – and three wonderfully detailed reviews from book bloggers – my YA novel quickly returned to its original state of invisibility, where I sadly left it for several months. I didn’t really know what to do or how to move forward, so I just let it stagnate.

Eventually, I pulled myself together and made some kind of effort by enrolling the book in Kindle Select (This is what it’s called on the author side of things. On the reader side, it’s known as Kindle Unlimited.)

Enrollment has several perks. Readers with a KU subscription can read the book for free, and authors are paid a certain amount per page read (typically about half a cent). The program also allows authors to give their ebooks away for a certain number of days per enrollment period, or reduce the price for special, short-term sales called Kindle Countdown Deals.

The one main downside is that you can’t have your ebook available anywhere else – it must be an Amazon exclusive (not a dealbreaker for me, since my ebook wasn’t published elsewhere).

With much excitement, I arranged my first giveaway. I posted on this blog that my book would be free, and promoted it on Twitter (is anyone actually calling it X?) as well. All told, eight people downloaded the book during its free days. In my mind, that was pretty good – eight more people had discovered my book and might actually read it.

A few months later I tried another giveaway, this time promoting only on Twitter. Zero people downloaded the book. It was a definite low moment for me. Apparently, I couldn’t even give my book away. Then there was the fact that my one and only KU reader made it through 158 pages, then abandoned the book, never to pick it up again, and I would never know why.

After these glaring failures, I slumped into despair for a while, and my book sales were at zero for a good 5-6 months. Eventually, I picked myself up, dusted the self-pity particles off the butt of my jeans, and got back to work fighting for my book.

The first thing I did was spend weeks researching proper categories and keywords for my novel – something that should have been done prior to publication. I’ll try to do a separate post on this because it’s vitally important.

Bargain Booksy

Once my book was as well-categorized and keyworded as possible, I decided to try pairing a Kindle Countdown Deal with a paid promotion on Bargain Booksy. Bargain Booksy sends out emails to subscribers about discounted books ($4.99 or less) in each reader’s chosen categories. The discounted books are also listed on BB’s website.

In my case, I paid $25 for my book to be emailed out to the 150,000+ subscribers in their “Young Adult” category. My book was already priced low enough that I didn’t have to reduce it further, but I dropped it to $0.99 just to sweeten the deal.

My Bargain Booksy promo email went out on a Monday (the first day of my countdown deal). One person bought the book that day. I made another two sales the following day, and one later that week. Four sales, in all, and though I didn’t make back anywhere near what I spent, it still felt better having people buy my book than giving it away for free and having no one even take it.

Despite not selling oodles of copies, I will say that Bargain Booksy was very easy to work with, and gave clear instructions on how to set the timing of the Countdown Deal so that it would match up perfectly with the promotional email.

Also, I signed up for their newsletter (they strongly encourage all authors to do so) and while I enjoy getting the daily emails featuring bargain YA books, I do wonder how many of their subscribers are actually fellow authors who signed up in the process of advertising their books.

Amazon Ads

Having gotten a taste of people actually buying my book, I didn’t want to turn back. My next foray into paid advertising was through Amazon Ads. I found an awesome tutorial which simplified the process of setting up different kinds of ads, and got to work.

My first campaign was a sponsored product ad with automatic keyword targeting and a small amount of custom text. In this model, Amazon would choose my keywords for me, I would get impressions (views) if my bid was competitive enough against other advertisers, and I would only pay if someone clicked on my ad.

I set my bid at $0.40 per click, sat back, and waited. Not much happened. My impressions were at zero, and I got impatient, so I upped my bid by five cents every day until I started getting impressions.

I think my bid was at $0.65 or $0.70 by this point, and I was getting about ten impressions per day – very low, but at the time I had no idea ten was a bad number (FYI: if you get one click per 1,000 impressions, and one sale for every ten clicks, that’s pretty good). I left it alone for a month, got no clicks (and therefore paid nothing), but felt good that at least a few people were seeing my book. It was no longer invisible.

The next month, I tried a manual targeting campaign (i.e. I chose my own keywords). This was fun because I had researched the heck out of keywords several months prior, and since you can only choose seven for your book’s metadata, a lot of really good ones didn’t make the cut. This gave me a chance to use them all and then some.

I unwisely set my default bid at $0.60, allowing it to go up to $0.90 for prime advertising real estate (e.g. the top of the search results page). Right away my impressions were in the upper hundreds/low thousands, and I started getting clicks. Sometime during that month, one of those clicks resulted in a sale. I was ecstatic – someone had discovered my book, read the description, and decided the novel was worth spending money on.

The next few months ran in a similar vein, though the spend gradually increased from $15 a month, to $20, to $25. I typically sold between 1-3 books per month through ad clicks, and was definitely in the red, but still feeling good about investing in my novel.

Things went both right and badly wrong in January. About a third of the way through the month, my sales jumped to $111.92. I thought it was a mistake. It turned out not to be.

Apparently, I had sold eight paperbacks from a single $0.75 click. This was really cool, but also confusing. Why would someone buy eight? I felt like I was missing something, something bad, but couldn’t figure out what it was. Part of me wondered if Amazon periodically buys books from its own advertisers, then resells them, all the while keeping authors addicted to ads via the sweet taste of making the occasional sale. I doubt this is the case, but wouldn’t it be a massive scandal?

No matter what the reason for the weird eight-book click, my impressions soared, as did my clicks, yet I failed to make another sale that month, landing me deeper in the red than ever before. In the end, I spent over fifty dollars on ads in January, and only made ten of it back in royalties.

Being on a very tight budget, I couldn’t afford to continue at this rate, and after a panicky and disastrous effort to quickly lower my bids, I ended up having to pause both my campaigns (the manual, and the automatic, which I had left running because it occasionally came alive and generated a few clicks, though never any sales).

I am not done with Amazon Ads, but I do need to regroup and figure out how to do it on a budget that works for me (i.e. much lower default bids). I also need to view it as a long-term investment and let things grow and build momentum slowly, rather than jacking up the bids in the first few days just to see some results.

Voracious Readers Only

Even though I sold some books through paid advertising, I felt that I could have sold more if readers had more than 3 or 4 reviews to peruse for info and opinions about my novel. In an effort to gain reviews and new readership, I did a free twenty-book giveaway on a site called Voracious Readers Only. This site focuses on connecting readers with fledgling authors, in hopes of the experience being beneficial for both parties.

Authors gain new readers (who are encouraged by the site to leave reviews), and also get to add those readers’ email addresses to their mailing lists. Readers get a steady stream of free books and the chance to help authors out by joining their mailing lists and leaving reviews.

To get the most out of my giveaway, I decided to first set up a mailing list. I signed up for a free account on MailerLite.com. They quickly informed me that sending out my newsletter from a free email address (e.g. yahoo, gmail, etc) was very bad and likely to go to spam instead of my readers’ inboxes. They recommended that I purchase my own domain and a professional email address to go with it.

Thus, what started off as a free venture ended up costing me $$$$$. When all was said and done, I owned my own website, and had a pro email address. Later, I got to thinking and decided to check the sender addresses of the author newsletters I am subscribed to. They were ALL free emails. **facepalm**

On the bright side, since I upgraded my WordPress site, you won’t have to look at those gross adds for reducing belly fat anymore. So, you’re welcome. 🙂

My experience with VRO was…interesting. Unlike Bargain Booksy, I didn’t find VRO’s interface to be user friendly. I was confused several times while setting up my giveaway, had no idea what information was going out to readers, and began to wonder whether it was even okay to put anyone’s email on my list, should I be lucky enough to get any requests.

Also, when entering info about my book, there was apparently a word count limit in the “reviews” section…however, the site didn’t let me know that. I included the three reviews I’d gotten from book bloggers (VRO asked for 3-5 reviews), but one of my reviews got cut off in the middle and there was no way to see this until after the form was already sent. I thought my form looked like a pile of crap, and worried that this was what readers were going to see.

The day of my giveaway arrived, and requests began to trickle in before the one-hour window opened, and continued all the way until the next morning, until I accumulated the promised total of 20 opt-ins. Thankfully, the communication from VRO on that day was clearer, and I at least understood that everyone who opted in had voluntarily signed up for my mailing list.

Time to get to work! I dutifully sent out copies of my ebook to everyone who asked for one, thanked them profusely, and signed them up for my newsletter. The automated Welcome message I’d set up on MailerLite seemed to go out exactly as planned. Roughly half of the readers opened the newsletter, while the rest ignored it or it got lost in their spam traps. One person immediately unsubscribed, which didn’t feel great, but I tried not to take it personally.

Still, I had a few subscribers, and that felt good. Roughly a month later, a new review popped up on Amazon from one of the VRO readers. Just a single word – “Stunning” – accompanied by a five star rating. It was definitely one of the better days I’ve had in a while. 🙂

Takeaways

  • Investing in my novel feels so much better than giving up on it.
  • Paid advertising DOES sell books, but so far not enough to cover the cost of the ads.
  • Giving my book away in exchange for subscriber email addresses seems more beneficial than just giving it away for nothing.
  • In case you missed that big purple button up there, I have a newsletter now! Here’s where you can sign up: https://subscribepage.io/gabassier_newsletter (if you’re on the fence about clicking, there’s a REALLY cute pic of my cat Black Canary on there).
  • I can’t wait to save up a bit of $$ and try more adventures in advertising!

Are you an indie author trying to market your books? What have you tried so far? What works for you and what doesn’t?

Free Book and Self Publishing Reflections

astheherofliesLeave a comment

It’s been a little over a year since I self published my first novel, and it has been a LOT of fun, as well as a huge learning experience.

The happiest moments so far:

  • Seeing my book’s product page for the very first time
  • Having friends and family send me pictures of my novel after they bought it, or screenshots of themselves ordering it
  • Getting a multi-page letter from one of my uncles, out of the blue, with a detailed review of the book and the words “This is the best book I’ve read so far this year.” Okay, it was only March at that point, but still. ;P
  • Hearing from another uncle that he’d given a copy of the novel to his grocery shopper, and she “loved the book, could not put it down, and even cried at times.”
  • Being lucky enough to get three really positive reviews from three awesome book bloggers (check out the latest one here: https://amanjareads.com/2022/12/08/even-heroes-book-review/ )

The most difficult lessons I’ve learned so far:

  • It’s really hard to get readers when you don’t have many reviews.
  • It’s really hard to get reviews when you don’t have many readers.

Right now, I am still struggling to break out of this chicken-and-egg cycle. I totally get why people wouldn’t want to buy a book – or any product – that doesn’t have reviews, because the quality might be poor. I also totally get that most people don’t have lots of money to spend at the present time. Heck, the majority of books I read these days are either library books or those obtained through giveaways. Free books rule – and I think they’re a really great way to find a new audience.

On that note, I am SUPER excited to be holding my very first free promotion for Even Heroes, which will run today (Monday, January 16th) through Friday (the 20th). My ebook will cost a very affordable $0.00 for all readers during that period. You should be able to simply visit the product page on Amazon, and then download the book to the reading device of your choice. I really, really hope some folks who don’t have any extra money (or are just wary about trying out an unknown author) decide to give my novel a chance. If you miss the promotion, don’t worry, there will be more in the future (plus, the book is already free to borrow for anyone with a Kindle Unlimited subscription).

And hey, if you do decide to give it a go, please consider leaving a review. Or even just recommending the book to a friend or family member, who might then enjoy it and pass it on to someone else. Word of mouth is a powerful tool, and I have personally discovered plenty of great books through recommendations.

At the end of the day, though my sales are basically nonexistent and KU subscribers haven’t borrowed a single copy yet, my chin is up. I have no regrets about self publishing, and can’t wait to share more of my titles this way. I knew this would be a hard road. I knew I would get out what I put into it, and I haven’t done nearly enough yet to promote the book. Hopefully in time, with many more books and giveaways under my belt, I will actually find my readers. In the meantime, my wonderfully supportive friends and family (plus some very encouraging reviews) help me keep the faith that I do have something special to share with the world. 🙂

Indie Publishing: Cover Art Reveal!

astheherofliesLeave a comment

The artist who created the gorgeous image you see above is the insanely talented Muhammad Nafay. Please check out more of his breathtaking artwork on his Instagram or his page on ArtStation. Your eyes will thank you for it, trust me. 🙂 Then, once you’re finished soaking in all the pretty, read about my journey to finding the perfect cover art (and artist!) for my debut novel.

The Hunt Begins

My search began on websites that feature premade cover art. There are numerous advantages to purchasing art that is already created, the top two being: 1.) you know EXACTLY what you’re getting, and 2.) it tends to be more affordable, oftentimes around $60-75 for an eBook cover, a bit more for a wraparound paperback cover (if you’re doing a print book, definitely get the wraparound – believe me, it’s worth it). Below are some of the sites I searched, and they all had a wide selection of excellent work:

I had SOOOO much fun looking at all the amazing covers. I found potential book covers for several of my future books as well as possible cover art for novels people in my writing group were working on. I even made an account on SelfPubBookCovers.com so I could bookmark some of my favorite pieces and artists. The first two sites listed above are especially awesome because you can search by genre as well as by specific images you might be interested in. Like, a raven or an alien or a zombie or a tattered American flag. I kind of went a little crazy window shopping. 🙂 Alas, in the end, although I found some “maybes,” I didn’t find a cover that reached off the screen and grabbed me for this particular book. So, I found myself at the next step:

Choosing an Image

I am NOT a digital artist. I will flat-out admit that. If you’ve read this blog before, you’ve probably seen some of my little “illustrations.” To say they are basic would be putting it kindly. Thus, I knew I’d never be able to create my own cover art, but if I was going to commission a piece, I at least needed to be able to tell the artist what I wanted. Which meant I actually had to decide what I wanted. This was not easy and involved several weeks (possibly months) of me playing around in Krita (a free, open source art program I love because I think it’s fairly easy to learn).

I asked everyone who’d read my book about any ideas they might have for the cover image. Then, I made numerous sketches (including some very horrible ones that still give me nightmares – because seriously, a four-year-old could’ve done better #notkidding) and also tried creating some artwork using free-to-download images from Pixabay. Eventually, after all that tinkering, I wound up right back where I started, at the very first sketch I’d made. It was a really close call between that and a piece of vector art that looked pretty cool, but in the end Sketch #1 just felt right. It had the mood I wanted to convey.

Finding the Artist

Now that I had an image in mind, I could finally begin my search for an artist. As someone who’s been beta reading on Fiverr.com for the past few years, I was SUPER excited to contribute to the freelance marketplace as a buyer. There are so many talented artists out there, it’s unbelievable. I wanted to hire them ALL, and had to force myself to focus on the specific mental picture I had in mind and who would be best suited to deliver that image.

When I saw Muhammad’s portfolio for the first time, it truly took my breath away, and honestly, his artwork still does that every time I look at it. Some of the things that struck me about Muhammad’s work were his stunning use of color, his majestic skylines, and the cinematic quality that really makes you aware of how big the universe is. Another thing I noticed about his artwork was that it looked gorgeous and eye-catching even at a thumbnail size, which was really important to me. Also, as you can probably tell from the image above, the deer is an important symbol in my book, and coincidentally a few of Muhammad’s other pieces also had deer in them, so it just seemed like fate. I am beyond lucky he was able to take on my project, and I am absolutely blown away by the results. I gave him a childish scribble and a brief description of my novel, and in return he gave me perfection. 🙂

Lettering and Proof Copies

Once I had my beautiful cover art, I tried my best not to ruin it with awful lettering. I used Krita and KDP’s book cover template (pasted over the art as a new layer with the opacity turned way down) to make sure none of the words went off the page or ventured into forbidden territory, like the bar code area. I just wanted something simple that wouldn’t detract from Muhammad’s brilliant artwork, and I am happy with how it came out. I actually tailored my book description to the amount of space available on the back cover, and in all honesty, it forced me to pare down the word count and I wrote a better, tighter blurb as a result.

The final product, after deleting the template layer in Krita.

Next, I uploaded the book to KDP’s Cover Creator, chose an option that featured the whole cover image (and nothing else), selected a style that only had text (no space for an author photo), then simply deleted all of the text on the template. In other words, I cheated the system :). You do not actually want to use Cover Creator to design your cover – you just cannot manipulate text and images the way you can in a regular art program. The options are very fixed, and that is not a good thing.

Now that the cover and book text were uploaded to my bookshelf, I had one last step: ordering a proof copy to make sure the whole thing had not gone disastrously wrong. This is not as easy as it sounds, people. I’m not joking when I say that I almost accidentally published my book. When it’s late at night, and you’re starting to get confused, bad things happen. Like coming thisclose to hitting the “Publish” button by mistake. My finger actually hovered. Briefly. But something didn’t feel right. So, I did a quick search and found this helpful video which explains how to order proof copies without publishing your book. A true lifesaver!

Me, after receiving my first proof copy. For days afterward, I could not stop picking it up and looking at it. 🙂

My first proof arrived really fast, and as you can see from the rather idiotic grin on my face, I was satisfied with how the book came out. Also, as an added bonus, the cost of printing plus shipping and taxes for my proof copy is exactly $11.21. Which, for my fellow X-Philes out there, just felt like a little bit of icing on the destiny cake. 🙂

Coincidence, fate, or a global conspiracy? You decide. 🙂

I hope hope HOPE that I’ll be pushing that scary “Publish” button very soon. In the meantime, thank you for joining me on this crazy but wonderful journey to realize a dream that has been over 15 years in the making.

Love to you all, and Keep Writing!

~Gretchen

Indie Publishing: I Take the Plunge

astheheroflies2 Comments
A collection of indie titles from my bookshelf.

I may not have gotten much writing done during the pandemic. Or much reading. Or much exercising. But I do have ONE claim to productivity over the last year and a half: I’ve been slowly, quietly getting my first novel ready for publication.

The idea of publishing independently has been knocking around in my brain since I attended a workshop on the subject roughly ten years ago. Since then, I’ve participated in several more workshops, read numerous indie-published books, and even interviewed an indie author. The more I learned, the more I liked what I heard:

Complete control over your content. Publishing at your own pace. Earning higher royalties. The freedom that comes with being your own boss. And, probably most important for me: the opportunity to share unique stories that traditional publishing doesn’t want to take a chance on.

One thing that has struck me about most of the indie books I’ve read: They’re special. They’re different. They’re not cardboard cutouts of every other book in their genre. Some of these books experiment with style, structure, or just explore a topic so different from anything I’ve read before that I doubt the authors could come up with a comp title even if someone offered them $50K. As a reader, I find this stimulating, exciting. I like different.

I am different.

Of course, traditional publishing had always been the dream, and letting go wasn’t easy. There will be no advance on royalties, no prestige of having my work get “chosen” by an agent, no NYT Bestseller List bragging rights.

But maybe, just maybe, with a TON of hard work, I’ll earn a small readership who appreciates quality writing that doesn’t quite fit the mold. And maybe, just maybe, one day I’ll get to have an even greater honor than being chosen by any agent or editor:

The honor of being chosen by YOU, the reader.

Best wishes to all, keep writing, and stay tuned for more posts about my publishing journey!

~Gretchen

Author Interview: Elaine Bassier, YA Fantasy

astheheroflies1 Comment

Hey all! Recently I was lucky enough to do an interview with my cousin Elaine Bassier, who happens to be a crazy-talented YA Fantasy author. We talked about everything from resources for self-published authors to unicorn mating habits! For loads of writing tips, helpful websites, answers to burning fan questions, and some very tantalizing hints about the two remaining books in her trilogy, please keep reading!

 

ATHF: Hi, Elaine! Thanks so much for taking the time to do this interview! Before we get started, please tell everyone a little bit about yourself and your books!

Elaine Bassier: I’m the youngest of five siblings. I was born and raised in Elko, Nevada, and I’m going to go ahead and answer the two most frequent follow-up questions I get when people hear that. 1) No, it’s not near Las Vegas (Elko is in the northeastern part of the state) and 2) Yes, it does snow there. I now live in Spokane, Washington. 1) No, it’s not near Seattle (it’s in the eastern part of the state) and 2) No, it’s not always rainy here.

I’m left-handed (and, fun fact, so is Arianna!). I’m an introvert. I love animals. I have a Golden Retriever named Ruby. I’ve never owned a horse, but I took riding lessons on and off growing up and it’s a dream of mine to one day have a few.

I like to write Young Adult fantasy. My debut novel, Knight’s Duty, is the first book in the Unicorn Knight trilogy. It tells the story of a young woman named Arianna, who longs to be a Unicorn Knight. When she comes across a unicorn who lost her knight and learns she has strange magical powers, Arianna and the unicorn agree to partner together. Under the tutelage of her knight-master Flynn, Arianna’s training as a warrior and magic user begin.

ATHF: I read on Goodreads that you started writing The Unicorn Knight trilogy when you were just 12 years old! That’s so amazing, that the story has been with you since childhood. Are there any details that have remained the same from first concept all the way through to the finished product?

EB: This is a great question! I sadly lost the very first draft of the story when our family computer crashed, so I don’t remember a lot of details about it. I so wish I could look at it again! It’s changed quite a bit since I first started.

The one thing that has remained more or less constant since the beginning, though, is the characters. Arianna has always been the protagonist and she’s always looked the same. She’s always been partnered with a unicorn (though initially it was a male unicorn that became Ronan in later drafts instead of the female Serissa). Most of the other characters have kept their names and personalities, too.

ATHF: Is there anything that totally changed from the way you originally imagined it?

EB: The biggest change I remember from the first draft to the published edition is that Arianna was originally a princess trying to reclaim her throne. Obviously, the plot has changed a ton since that initial idea.

The magic system changed pretty drastically from draft to draft as well. It started with humans having the “traditional” fantasy magic. Then it slowly evolved into the concept of the Magickers, where only magical creatures and a few humans have special powers.

ATHF: I really love how you handled the world-building in Knight’s Duty. You wove the details of setting and culture seamlessly throughout the story, rather than telling it all in a big info dump. Do you have any world-building advice for aspiring fantasy authors?

EB: Thank you so much! That’s so kind of you to say. World-building can be a challenge, especially in fantasy books, because most of the time you are literally creating the entire universe your characters inhabit.

I’m lucky because I love learning about mythology and studying other religions, especially ones with a pantheon of gods. One thing I’d recommend to other writers is to really think about the organization of the world. What form of government does the country have? What is the most popular religion?

My world and the country of Failyn really came together once I developed the idea of the Magickers. Each country has more of one [type of] Magicker than the rest, which then influences a lot of the culture of the area.

Figuring out all of this stuff means you’ll know a lot of details that may or may not end up in your books, but that’s okay. The more you know about your world, the more realistic it becomes in your own mind. That familiarity will come across in your writing, even if you’re not sharing specific details.

ATHF: That is great advice! Do you have any tips for writers in general, regardless of what genre they’re working in?

EB: There’s the obvious one (and one I need to follow myself at the moment!): Write! Whatever you’re writing, just keep going!

I also really like the advice from an author I’ll paraphrase here: Write what YOU want to write. For a very long time, you’re going to be the only one reading your work, so make sure you love it. And don’t think your story is too niche – someone out there, probably several someones, is waiting to discover a book just like yours.

ATHF: In the acknowledgements of Knight’s Duty, you mentioned your friends on Wattpad. For those who don’t know, can you tell us about Wattpad? What exactly is it, and how did it impact your journey to publication?

EB: Wattpad is a website where people can post any kind of writing for other people to view for free. Fanfiction is very popular there, but there is also original fiction and even non-fiction and poetry. The quality of the writing and the grammar can vary wildly, but everyone can find something they like.

With that being said, Wattpad is very popular among teens, which is why I chose to first post Knight’s Duty on it. I wanted to build an audience with people in my target demographic.

One particularly awesome feature on Wattpad is the ability to interact with your readers. People can comment on a single line from the text and you can reply. I loved reading people’s reactions to exciting moments in the book and having discussions with them about where they think the story is going.

I will admit that I think Wattpad works better for people who write fanfiction, or post earlier drafts and even things they don’t ever plan on publishing. However, I’ve made a few good friends there who were the first fans of my work outside of my family and that means a lot to me.

ATHF: I think your book cover is beautiful! The silver and blue tones make me think of the unicorns’ coats. Please tell us a little bit about your cover. Who is the artist and how did you find her/him? Did you already have an image in mind for your cover before approaching the artist? What did it feel like, seeing your finished cover for the first time?

EB: Thank you so much! I love all three of the covers I have for the Unicorn Knight trilogy, but the first is my favorite. My cover artist is R.L. Sather, and I found her on an awesome website called SelfPubBookCovers.com. It has hundreds of covers, each one is unique, and once you buy one, the website won’t sell it to anyone else. It also lets you customize the font and title.

I wasn’t really sure what I wanted the cover to look like when I first started trying to find one. I looked at similar book covers to get an idea of what’s popular in the genre. I highly recommend other authors do the same, by the way: we might say not to judge a book by its cover, but the biggest deciding factor in whether someone will consider reading your book or not is the cover. You want to make sure you’re attracting the right readers.

Looking through the options on SelfPubBookCovers.com, I found what would eventually become the covers for Book 2 and Book 3. However, I couldn’t find a third cover that fit with the other two. I wanted all three to have a similar look so people would know they were part of the same series. So, I contacted the artist who did the other two covers and commissioned a custom piece, which ended up becoming Book 1’s cover. The entire process was a whole lot of fun, and it ended up being the push I needed to actually start the publishing process.

Seeing my cover at every stage – when I first bought it and looked at the finished product, when it was posted online on various websites, and especially seeing the paperback version – was incredible. It made the whole process feel real to me and it was so cool to see something that I had created that looked like an actual book.

ATHF: Sounds like an amazing ending to an incredible journey! Going back to the beginning of that journey, do you have a favorite author, and/or someone who really influenced your writing?

EB: One of my favorite authors is Tamora Pierce. I think anyone who has read her earlier work and my own book will see how she has influenced me. She’s also a Young Adult fantasy author and she’s known for creating strong female characters. If you haven’t read any of her books, I recommend starting with Alanna: The First Adventure.

ATHF: Are there any books, websites, or other resources you’d recommend for authors thinking of self-publishing?

EB: Other than SelfPubBookCovers.com, which I mentioned above, I also encourage aspiring self-publishers to check out Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, or KDP. You’re most likely going to publish on Amazon (and maybe other places) once you do publish, and that website has a bunch of resources, including a community where you can talk with other authors.

ATHF: Now that you’ve survived the process of publishing your first book, what is the most important thing you learned from the experience? Is there anything you’ll do differently the second time around?

EB: I wish I had decided to publish sooner! Seriously, I held off on putting my work out in the world for a long time because I was so afraid of what people might think of it and of me. It was a huge hurdle to get over, but once I did, I was astounded by the support I received from everyone, including people I hadn’t had contact with in years. It’s been a dream come true!

ATHF: I’m so glad to hear that :)! Getting back to Knight’s Duty, I will admit to being a hopeless romantic, so of course I noticed a spark of something brewing between Arianna and Flynn. I’m not asking for a definite answer to “will they or won’t they?”, but is there at least a chance of romance between these two in the next installment? Or maybe Book 3?

EB: I’ll keep this one brief because I don’t want to give anything away, but I think readers will be pleased with what happens between Arianna and Flynn in the future. 😉

ATHF: Any possibility for *unicorn* romance on the horizon? Are they romantic creatures, or are they more practical about that sort of thing?

EB: This is a really interesting question and I’m not sure anyone has ever asked me about it before. I don’t want to go into detail for fear of having written myself into a corner later on, but I will say that unicorns don’t magically appear fully formed. They are mammals and have young in the same way normal mammals would. I don’t have any plans to include a romance between unicorns in the trilogy, but I could definitely see myself writing a short story or something in the future about it to explain everything now that you’ve brought it up!

ATHF: LOL! Speaking of creatures, the alphyns were my favorite ones in Knight’s Duty. Were these an original creation of yours, or did they come from somewhere in mythology? Will they appear in Book 2?

EB: Thanks so much! I loved coming up with the magical creatures and what kind of powers they have. It was one of my favorite parts of writing this story.

The alphyns are not an original creation, although my interpretation of them adds some uniqueness. For example, the alphyns in lore are not associated with concealing or tracking magic like the ones in my book are.

I knew early on that I wanted a wolf-like magical creature because I love wolves/dogs. I stumbled across the alphyn while looking up mythical creatures online (I can’t seem to find the website where I first read about them now), and decided I liked the name. It’s actually a Germanic word that means “wolf.”

I think there are fewer mentions of alphyns in book two than there were in the first book, unfortunately, but you will get more of them in the third one!

ATHF: Awesome! When can we expect Book 2, btw? Is there a release date scheduled?

EB: Yes! I’m planning on publishing Knight’s Honor on May 1, 2019! I’m hoping to do something a little different this time and have both the ebook and the paperback available on the same day. (With Knight’s Duty, I published the ebook first and then the paperback about a month later.)

For those of you who just can’t wait or who might like a preview, the first several (unpolished) chapters are on Wattpad. There will be some changes to the Wattpad version compared to the one that’s actually published, but the overall plot will remain the same.

ATHF: Any tantalizing Book 2 tidbits you can tease us with (don’t give TOO much away!)?

EB: Knight’s Honor has always been my favorite book in the trilogy for several reasons. The action amps up and the characters and their relationships deepen. Plus, you finally get to meet the main villain of the trilogy, and he is both frightening and fascinating. I can’t wait to hear what readers will think of the second book!

ATHF: It sounds amazing. I can’t wait to read it! But since I can’t get the book just yet, and since we’re still doing an interview, is there a question I didn’t ask that you wish I had? If so, what is it and how would you answer?

EB: This might fit in the question about websites you asked above, but I’d like to talk about naming characters, since it’s a fun thing to work on especially with fantasy writing. Many authors say they use baby name books to come up with names for their characters, and I’m no exception. I actually use a website called babynames.com to find names. It even has a handy “tips for writers” section that has my personal favorite advice when it comes to naming fantasy characters.

You probably want something that sounds unique and otherworldly for character names (not many fantasy stories have protagonists named Bob, after all), but I also encourage you to make sure your names are easy to pronounce. If a reader is stumbling over how to say a character’s name every time they come across it, it can create a frustrating experience.

ATHF: ROFL! That’s fantastic advice. (Also, I now have the urge to write an epic fantasy about someone named Bob Smith! ;)) On a slightly more serious note, I just want to say thank you again, Elaine, for taking the time to do this interview, and for sharing your writing gift with the world! We will all be looking forward to reading Knight’s Honor in just a few short days!

EB: Thank you so much!