Mistakes I've made in my publishing journey: Winter Cursed edition

 

Winter Cursed was the next series I released, I actually technically released it before A Certain Sort of Madness the first Return to Amar book. For about five years there were only my Amar and Winter Cursed books out there in the world. As such, with it being a so much older title, I made many of the same mistakes that I made with my Amar books. The first two mistakes I list below are ones that already I touched on in the Amar edition post. But I'm going to say them again, because obviously I was dumb enough to make the same mistakes twice. And I am doing this whole series so that you can avoid the mistakes that I have made. So, don't stumble into the same pitfalls I did.

Find your own pitfalls and dance around these ones.

Mistake Number 1:

I published with an unprofessional cover

Look at this cover

Now look at this cover

Look at this cover again

And then look back at the other cover

These covers are not the same.

Mistake Number 2:

I took too long to publish the follow-up

I published Winter Cursed in the summer of 2018, and from that point on I was promising A Winter Dark and Deadly the sequel. Well, 2019 came and I released A Winter Grim and Lonely, the prequel, but still no AWDAD. 2020 came, I published nothing in this series. By the time I finally published AWDAD in 2021 (which is still much better than the time gaps that were between some of my Amar books), it had been three years. And three years is plenty of time to lose interest in a series. That really put the hurt on AWDAD which was such a highly anticipated book for so long, but then people grew disinterested and when it finally released they didn't really care as much anymore.

Okay so those were the trademark mistakes of my early publishing era. Now for the original mistakes I made with this series...

Mistake Number 3:

I lost track of the community I had built while writing the book

It was quite some time ago, but perhaps some of you still remember the buzz that was the Five Poisoned Apples Rooglewood Press contest. Winter Cursed was originally written for that. There were a lot of other authors who wrote stories for that contest, many of whom I beta read their stories and they in turn beta read Winter Cursed (I met one of my closest friends through this story swap, in fact). However, when the contest ended, that comradery sort of faded a bit. I'm still pretty close friends with some of the authors, but I was talking to probably at least a dozen highly talented authors at the time of that contest and I should have tracked them down when I released my short story from that contest. Asked them to help me boost Winter Cursed and even review it since they had already read it, but I did not. I only sought out community while I was writing, not while I was publishing even though both are equally hard. And you're gonna need all the help you can get in both areas. That's what I've learned since then.

Mistake Number 4:

I didn't have a clear view of where I wanted this series to go

Now this one is probably more of a pet peeve of mine and doesn't really impact the marketing or the ability to sell this series. I did not write Winter Cursed with the plan to have it be a part of a series, I only realized that there needed to be a sequel as I was writing the first draft and even then I hadn't fully made up my mind to actually write the sequel until I was publishing book one.

This leads to some issues with the series. First of all, the first book has a title that doesn't match the rest of the series. Winter Cursed. As opposed to A Winter Grim and Lonely, A Winter Dark and Deadly, and A Winter Bright and Burning (book 3's title) which all match. And you may not know this about me, but I am an absolute stickler about having my book titles match. I am so picky and spend so much time figuring out titles, I mean honestly you probably have no idea just how much I obsess over my titles and making sure that they line up and have common elements. So it bothers me that book one doesn't match the latter book's titles, but I had already published Winter Cursed by the time I settled on the type of title style I wanted to use with this series. If I hadn't, I would have probably named it A Winter Cursed and Wicked instead and it would have fit and sounded fantastic, but ah well, can't turn back the hands of time (or change the title of an already released book, trust me, I've checked).

Also there's the slight matter of the size of the books. Now I get that some books are going to be longer than others, but to have the first book be shortest book in the series, even shorter than the prequel??? That's a bit off. And then to have two novellas followed by a 550 page long novel, and the third book (which isn't written yet nor will it be released for a little while becuase it's essentially a standalone) will also be a full-length novel. Not to mention that I have three different protagonists in a four book long series. It's just all wonky tbh.

Also the first two books tell their own story, about Elisabeth and Cedric. The prequel gives a backstory to the villain. And the third book is only loosely connected. So much so that I've considered not even making it a full member of the series, just publishing it with a similar cover and title. I've ultimately decided against that because I feel that would just add to the confusion. But it's fine. I love Winter Cursed and at least it's unique in its structure, but I now try to have a better gameplan when I start a series so I can have more continuity with the finalized product.

Mistakes I've made in my publishing journey: Amar edition

 

Well, you guys, I think it's about time for a new blogging series. This one about mistakes I've made along the way. Which isn't exactly the most cheerful subject, but ah well, we wouldn't be where we are now without our mistakes right?

You see, I've been writing for well over a decade, and I've been a published author for going on eight years now. Due to this fact, I have a boatload of experience. Most of it gained from things that I did wrong. So I thought I would share some of those things I did wrong with you today.

I had absolutely no idea what I was doing when I started out. I went from a total novice who thought every press was essentially a Vanity Press (meaning that you the author had to pay the publisher to have them publish your work) to where I am now. I will first off say that I absolutely do not know everything there is to know about publishing, I learn knew things almost every day. But I will say that over the years I have developed a relatively advanced knowledge of the inner workings of publishing. Primarily self-publishing, but I also know a good deal about how traditional publishing works now. I know what all is needed to publish a book (it's not just a completed manuscript unfortunately), the pricing for certain services (such as editing and cover design)so I know if something is a good deal or not, not to mention how much I've learned about the process of writing the novels themselves.

So, I thought I would share part of the journey that got me here, by revealing the mistakes I've made as a published author. And there are a good deal of mistakes, and they are some doozies let me tell you. I'm a little embarrassed tbh, but if my sharing can help you know not to repeat them then I will count my time well spent.

So first of all, I'm going to point out that I published my first book when I was fifteen years old. And I knew nothing about anything. I'll readily say that I probably published way too early, but on the other side of the spectrum if I hadn't published then I wouldn't have made those mistakes and I wouldn't have learned to stop making them. And I could very well still be doing the same stupid stuff today if I hadn't already learned not to do it back when I was 15.

So anyway, this series is so that you can reap the benefits of my experience without having to actually live through my mistakes. I'm going to be doing a different post for each of my different series, explaining what I did wrong with each release. This post is focusing on the My Time in Amar and Return to Amar series.

These were two of my first series. I published the first MTiA book, A Week of Werewolves when I was 15, book two A Time of Trepidation came out when I was 16, I rewrote Week of Werewolves at the age of 17, and then RtA book one A Certain Sort of Madness came out when I was 18, then I republished A Time of Trepdiation at 19. That was it for those series until this year (I am now 22) and I finally published the third book in MTiA A Season of Subterfuge, and the final book in RtA A Matter of Curiosity. So anyway, keep this in mind because the way I published them and when I published them is a large part of how I messed up.

Mistake Number One:

I did not get a professional cover when I first published

Ugh, I hate even dragging this up back into open daylight, but this Week of Werewolves' first cover.

I apologize if it is a poor quality picture, I downloaded it off of Goodreads because I didn't even have a copy on my computer, that's how ancient this thing is. I'm like three computers down the road from when this was my cover. Now don't get me wrong, the picture isn't actually that bad... as an art piece. But there's no way this picture that was drawn by my sister and colored by me could really pass as a cover.

Okay, here's the new cover to cleanse the pallet.

Seriously though, unless you are insanely talented in graphic design, just hire a professional cover designer. Some of them can get pretty expensive, but there are far less expensive options that will still look really good and professional. My second and current Week of Werewolves cover cost me $75 dollars. Affordable, gorgeous covers are out there. You just need to know where to look.

Mistake Number Two:

I did not have all the covers done by the same designer

Now, I'll preface this by saying that I think that I did a really good job choosing and designing covers that look good together. And I really, really like my MTiA covers. However, with that said, I will point out that all four of my MTiA covers were done by four different artists.

The first two covers (Week of Werewolves and Time of Trepidation) were Premades meaning that they were already created and up for sale and I happened upon them and decided that they would be a good fit for my books and purchased them. I then had the colors of clothes and hair switched around and my title and name slapped on it. I don't even recall who the designer of my Week of Werewolves cover was, I'm sorry I was like sixteen at the time and that was forever and an age ago. Time of Trepidation was designed by someone called Betibup33. The third cover was custom made by Victoria Cooper who has done a bunch of my other covers, and it was made to try to resemble the other two as much as possible, but obviously there are stylistic differences between designers. And then the last book's cover was done by GetPremads (which makes it sound like it was a Premade but it was actually custom made by a company that usually makes Premades and yeah that definitely sounds confusing when you say it out loud). All of my covers are gorgeous and I love them, but they don't quite fit together as seamlessly as I would like. So, now I only ever go for one designer per series.

But like I said, I still think that my covers look really good together. And they even for the most part look like they are in the same series.

But both of my Return to Amar books were done by the same artist (Victoria Cooper) and they are clearly in the same series. Even straight down to being able to have the same model on the cover. Not to mention all of the same fonts. It just makes that much of a difference.

Mistake Number Three:

I released them before they were ready

As I stated when I mentioned the release schedule of my Amar books, I actually ended up having to rewrite Week of Werewolves and Time of Trepidation and republish them becuase my writing style had changed drastically since writing them and I realized that the way they currently were just wasn't good enough. It was a very infamous decision at the time, I don't know how many times I was asked why I had pulled my books and was rewriting them, but it was a lot.

Mistake Number Four:

I published without anyone else having read my novel

I think my dad read it before I published, but that was about it. No beta/alpha-reader feedback. No editors. After rewriting both Week of Werewolves and Time of Trepidation, I remedied that mistake. I had a crazy ton of beta readers, especially for Week of Werewolves. And even got myself an editor.

Now don't get me wrong, this is less of an issue for me now. I absolutely won't publish a book unless I've had an editor go through it. But I don't always get beta or alpha readers for all my books. And this is because I've really developed as an author and I am confident in my ability to write a story that is cohesive and makes sense. But as a first time teen author, I really just absolutely needed those extra critiques on style and plot.

Mistake Number Five:

I took forever to release the follow-ups

This is the only mistake that I really made for RtA as well as MtiA, but what a doozy it was. Even if I ignore the first versions of Week of Werewolves and Time of Trepidation (published in 2015 and 2016 respectively) since no one really even read those at that time, that still has Week of Werewolves releasing in 2017 and Time of Trepidation in 2019, and Season of Subterfuge not coming out until 2022. That's multiple years between each release, and in that time, people forgot plot points, they forgot what the series was about, they forgot why they were invested in it.

It was even worse for A Certain Sort of Madness that released in 2018. It's sequel A Matter of Curiosity didn't come out until 2022.

In 2017-2019 my Amar books were really quite popular, but by the time I released the next installments in 2022 interest had dropped incredibly. That was quite the mistake on my part. I should have written those books sooner.

And now I'm having to prove to my readers that I can indeed write and publish books in a timely manner so that they aren't left hanging forever for the sequel. To show that what happened with my Amar books was because I was still in the process of even learning how to write.

Mistake Number Six:

I had no online presence

This one isn't actually my fault. You see, I wasn't allowed online till I was seventeen. I first published when I was fifteen. So yeah, there was a rather large gap of time where the only thing I did online was occasionally write posts for my mom's blog. Hard to market a book like that. If I could do it over, I probably would put off releasing either of those books until I was at least seventeen (which I sort of did in that I relaunched Week of Werewolves at that age after I had finished rewriting it), focus instead on getting the rest of the series written in that time so that I don't have to have so much time between releases, and grow in my writing so I don't have to keep rewriting everything I put out there. I wouldn't have worried about publishing until I had a stronger online presence where I could really push my debut, since you only ever really release a debut once (unless you take on another pen name or something).

But ah well, I was young and impatient. And I suppose I wouldn't really be the author I am today if I hadn't made those mistakes then. Still, hopefully this blog post can help keep you from repeating the same mistakes I made so that your releases can go smoother than my first ones did.

Next week, I'll discuss my Winter Cursed era mistakes.

Rage Like the Gods Alternate Hardcover Edition Cover Reveal

It's time to reveal the special edition hardcover for Rage Like the Gods.

So yup, it's time to start scrolling... AGAIN

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The end that was foretold has come.
The gods selected five heroes to save everything.
They chose poorly.

Ruskhazar is a land of mountains and magic; men and elves. Built atop a fallen civilization, the bodies of demigods, and the tombs of the old monsters it knows a tenuous peace. However, there are those that believe that not all that is buried should remain so. A powerful cult of necromancers is bent on bringing about the prophesied end of the world. If left unchallenged their army of corpses will only grow, until nothing can stop them and the living fall to their own ancestors. To forestall this end, the gods have chosen mortal champions who will fight against these necromancers.

A bandit turned assassin.
A bard turned thief.
A noble turned student.
A mercenary turned vampire.

These are the would-be heroes of Ruskhazar.

One will go on to be a killer of kings. One will discover the darkest secrets of the Academy of Magickers. One will serve a queen of thieves. And another will always remain a monster. Together, they can save Ruskhazar. But that is only if they choose to accept their fates.

Unfortunately, these champions are just strangers on their separate paths, unaware of each other’s presence. And unwilling to save a world that never had any place for them. Perhaps destiny had lofty plans for these individuals, but they are determined to write their own stories. Forget the gods, forget necromancers, forget the mad sorceress determined to unite them and save the world no matter the cost— this isn’t their story. This is the tale of the heroes who never were.

Welcome to the world of Ruskhazar where men and elves live under the illusion of peace, magic is a mysterious entity of its own, and the dead never remain that way for long. Gods and men clash in this romantic high fantasy series that is perfect for fans of Michael J. Sullivan, J.R.R. Tolkien, and those that always wanted a cleaner Game of Thrones.

Rage Like the Gods,

Break Your Destiny,

And Watch the World End

Coming 11.11.22

Pre-Order Now

Pre-Order Signed Paperback + Swag

Pre-Order Alternate Cover Edition Hardback

This cover was designed by GetCovers and will be sold through Barnes and Noble. And as I already stated, everyone who purchases a hardback copy (and is a resident of the United States of America) and sends me a proof of purchase to my email (nicky(dot)chapelway(at)gmail(dot)com) will be entered into the same giveaway as those who purchase an ebook to win a paperback copy of RLtG plus all the included swag.

Or if you just want the paperback and swag, you can buy that straight from me. The choice is yours!

Rage Like the Gods Cover Reveal

You guys!!! I am so excited because today I am finally able to share the cover for my upcoming epic fantasy novel Rage Like the Gods. And before we do the reveal, I will spoil it for you because yes, it is absolutely gorgeous. It was designed by Hannah Rogers who did the covers for both A Tale of Gods and Glory as well as Between Gods and Demigods. The border, back, and spine were designed by GetCovers

I cannot wait for this book to release, RLtG is such a special story to me and its cover is absolutely perfect in every way.

It's time to start scrolling...

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Halfway there...

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I know I'm making you scroll a ton, but I promise it's totally worth the suspense
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The end that was foretold has come.
The gods selected five heroes to save everything.
They chose poorly.

Ruskhazar is a land of mountains and magic; men and elves. Built atop a fallen civilization, the bodies of demigods, and the tombs of the old monsters it knows a tenuous peace. However, there are those that believe that not all that is buried should remain so. A powerful cult of necromancers is bent on bringing about the prophesied end of the world. If left unchallenged their army of corpses will only grow, until nothing can stop them and the living fall to their own ancestors. To forestall this end, the gods have chosen mortal champions who will fight against these necromancers.

A bandit turned assassin.
A bard turned thief.
A noble turned student.
A mercenary turned vampire.

These are the would-be heroes of Ruskhazar.

One will go on to be a killer of kings. One will discover the darkest secrets of the Academy of Magickers. One will serve a queen of thieves. And another will always remain a monster. Together, they can save Ruskhazar. But that is only if they choose to accept their fates.

Unfortunately, these champions are just strangers on their separate paths, unaware of each other’s presence. And unwilling to save a world that never had any place for them. Perhaps destiny had lofty plans for these individuals, but they are determined to write their own stories. Forget the gods, forget necromancers, forget the mad sorceress determined to unite them and save the world no matter the cost— this isn’t their story. This is the tale of the heroes who never were.

Welcome to the world of Ruskhazar where men and elves live under the illusion of peace, magic is a mysterious entity of its own, and the dead never remain that way for long. Gods and men clash in this romantic high fantasy series that is perfect for fans of Michael J. Sullivan, J.R.R. Tolkien, and those that always wanted a cleaner Game of Thrones.

Rage Like the Gods,

Break Your Destiny,

And Watch the World End

Coming 11.11.22

Pre-Order Now

Pre-Order Signed Paperback + Swag

Pre-Order Alternate Cover Edition Hardback

Just like my other books, there will be an ebook pre-order as well as a paperback pre-order that will be available through me. However, this time around I'm adding a Hardback Pre-Order as well. Everyone who pre-orders the ebook (which is currently $3.99 but will go up to $5.99 when it is released so you definitely don't want to miss getting it at the discounted price!) or the hardback will be entered into a giveaway for a signed paperback copy as well as all the extra incentives. I will need a proof of purchase emailed to nicky(dot)chapelway(at)gmail(dot)com (giveaway only open to US residents). If you purchase a paperback directly from me, you will automatically receive all the associated arts. More information is available through the link above.

But... wait, what was that about a Hardback Pre-Order? Well, RLtG is going to have an alternate edition hardback as well. I'm planning on doing the cover reveal for the alternate cover on Friday, but you can pre-order the book now if hardbacks are your thing as they are mine. The same giveaway for ebook pre-orders ablies to the hardback pre-orders, just send me a proof of purchase and you will be entered and it is open to US residents only.

All ze pretty incentives

The Full Wrap Around