Looking back at 2015

Sadly, all of my 2015 memories are overshadowed by the death of my cat Pagan in September. Pagan and I had a special relationship, and I miss him like crazy. It means that, for me, 2015 is a year I'd rather forget.

However, in my writing life, there were some good things that happened too, and so I am making an effort to remember the more positive things that occurred, at least in my writing life, in 2015.

1 - I created several new book covers this year, including some for me, some for others and some for sale, and I have been growing in confidence in my ability to create the kinds of book covers that will sell and also growing in my cover-creating skills.

2 - I came up with several picture book ideas, and some new drafts of picture books, but, more importantly, I wrote the first draft of a new picture book which I really, really love. It's become my new "baby." And I will do whatever it takes to bring this picture book into the world and to make it the best it possibly can be, because it means a lot to me.

3 - I, through my Your Kids' Creations imprint, published another anthology in the Kids' Chronicles series of anthologies - "The Superhero Chronicles: A Collection of Superhero Stories Written & Illustrated by Children" - and published three more books for children written by my children. "Dark Unicorn," written by my daughter Isabella, came out last year and has grown significantly in sales this year. "A Hero's Adventure, " written by my son Connor, came out in August. "Grabbed by the Shadows," written by my daughter Gabriella, came out in October. And "Tiger Boy," written by my youngest son Cameron, came out in November.

Children who contributed to the anthology have been very excited about it and very positive about the experience and are pushing me to start taking stories for another anthology. I only create these anthologies written and illustrated by kids FOR the kids, so the positive responses I am getting from them makes it worthwhile, even though it takes a lot more work than any of the other anthologies. The whole point of the Kids' Chronicles series of anthologies is to encourage children to write, and to build up their confidence in their story-telling abilities, so with these goals in mind, the anthologies have been a success.

Both Isabella and Cameron have had really wonderful responses to their books and both of them have gained some real fans of their books, kids who can't wait for them to write sequels to their stories.

4 - Through Melusine Muse Press, I published two anthologies this year - the third volume of Teapot Tales, "Teapot Tales: A Collection of Unusual Fairy Tales" with proceeds that go towards the Chapter Book Challenge (ChaBooCha) and the second volume of "SuperHERo Tales: A Collection of Female Superhero Stories" with proceeds that go towards the charity Because I am a Girl (which helps girls in 3rd world countries).

5 - I started compiling all of my mermaid stories into one collection, and created the book cover for it. With some editing and formatting, and then sending out to beta readers, I might be able to get this collection, Mermaid's Muse, out in early 2016.

6 - While my novel "Ink" was set on the back burner for this year, I spent this year's NaNoWriMo working on a series of novellas that are set in the same world as "Ink." There were seven novels I worked on, in total. I think three of them will develop into full-length novels. None of them are complete yet, but I found myself getting wrapped up in this fictional world of my creation again, and I am really enjoying writing about characters who live in this world, these female heroes who are determined to do something good and worthwhile to make this crazy world they live in a better place.

7 - I did not send out any queries this year, which might sound like a failure rather than a success, except for the fact that I used this year to work on improving my writing and on improving the stories I have already written. I'm also not sure I want to send my stories off for someone else to judge and possibly publish, because I really like having the creative control over my books, the kind of creative control that one can only get through self-publishing. I have improved in every area of my formatting and publishing skills in the meantime. I just haven't fully decided yet which road I will take when it comes to publishing my novels. I may, in the end, decide to go the hybrid route, but that hasn't been decided yet.

8 - I managed to get some wonderful authors, many of them well-known, such as Tamora Pierce,  Darren Shan, Lee Wardlaw, Wendy Orr, Patti Larsen, Adam Wallace and Nancy I. Sanders to guest post on the Chapter Book Challenge last March. With only around 300 participants, it would have been a simple thing for these very busy authors to turn me down, but they didn't, and I'm such a fan-girl! The only problem with getting big-name authors to guest post during 2015 is figuring out HOW I am going to top it for 2016's challenge! (If any of my friends and followers happen to be friends with J. K. Rowling, Meg Cabot or Neil Gaiman, please put in a good word with them about the Chapter Book Challenge and get them in touch with me.)

9 - I started a group to discuss a plan for something I think would be really great. The whole point of the SuperHERo Tales anthologies is to increase the amount of female superheroes out there in media for little girls to look up to. It doesn't solve the problem of there not being enough merchandise featuring female superheroes though. An idea I had for something to crowdfund was to take the characters created by different authors within the anthologies and have them made into action figures and/or resin figurines - the kind kids can play with. The idea is there and, so far, I have permission to create about 13 of the characters. But, in order to get started, I need to find an artist skilled in creating 3D figures, a company that can create these figures in limited runs, and somehow get a really compelling video made that will encourage people to contribute to the campaign. I need to work out the costs, and and it all needs to be affordable so that people won't have to pay much more than what a collectible toy figure would normally cost. I have not managed to figure any of the details out yet, but the idea is there and I've done quite a lot of research on it so far. (I am open to suggestions.)


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Sale on Custom Book Covers

Some of you know I make custom covers for myself or others. I use stock photos, and sometimes I use photos I photographed myself for stock photos. (I have a large family and many props, so there is a lot of variety for models.) I also take scenic photos wherever I go.

Having a custom cover made can be costly. That's why I learned to do most of the work myself. When I have difficulty with something or don't have the skill to crate exactly what I want, I turn to my husband who has been doing photo-manipulations longer than I have.

Well, we've had a minor, but expensive family emergency this past month. Our kitten, new to the family, somehow managed to break a bone in his paw. We don't know how he broke it. One minute he was fine and speeding around the house, as kittens do, and the next, he was favoring his right front paw and unable to put any weight on it. We took him straight to the vet where he had an x-ray and we found out he had broken the middle bone (metacarpal?) in his paw.  The poor thing has had to remain in a crate for the past three weeks.

He just had his follow-up x-ray at the vet's, and his bone is healing but not completely healed. The vet understands that, even being in a crate had not kept the kitten from leaping and running, despite his broken paw, so she has given him permission to be on room-rest, as long as we keep an eye on him so that he doesn't jump too much.

All of this was very expensive, which, under normal circumstances, would have caused us a bit of a financial strain, but we would have been okay. But this time of year could hardly be considered normal circumstances. Our 5 year old turns 6 in two days' time. My eldest daughter turns 23 on the 26th of December, and, of course, Christmas is nearly here.

My children do not NEED anything. They have more than they could ever need, and we have decided that this year, presents will be small and simple, and most likely hand-crafted. But it will still be a stretch to pay all of the bills this month after paying all of Loki's vet bills.

That was very long-winded, wasn't it? Well, I am explaining all of this in order to explain why I am running a huge sale on my custom book covers. (They are made using photos, not illustrations.) If you would like a custom book cover made for you, as long as it is not immensely difficult and complicated, I will make it for you for $25. You contact me and tell me what you want, what vision you have for it. If it's do-able, I will agree and you will pay the money through PayPal. I will then make your custom book cover, and you may have up to three revisions after the orginal. I will make you an ebook cover, and, for an additional $15, you can also have a print cover version of it. Your book cover will be sent as png, jpg and psd files.

Here are some examples of previous custom book covers:

I also create fairy photo-manipulations (and occasionally mermaid photo-manipulations for people to print as gifts. (sent to you as png and jpeg files). Check out Fairy Magic Photos on Facebook and go into the folder with the photos "by Rebecca" to see examples. I am having a similar sale on these.














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Writing: The Challenges

This is my post for Day 13 of the Author Blog Challenge.




What has been the most challenging part of your book process: writing, building the book, printing, distributing, marketing, etc.? What do you wish you’d known before you began?

My books are not at the printing and distributing stages yet, so I cannot accurately discuss how difficult or easy those stages might be. However, I can discuss other aspects of the book process.


Writing the book is not the most difficult part. I can say this even though I have not finished any of my books yet, because I love the writing part of the process. I enjoy creating something from nothing. I enjoy letting my imagination run free and creating people, creatures and entire worlds that have never before existed yet come to life as I write them.


"Building the book" is a process I associate more with non-fiction books. With my nonfiction book, I feel more like I am buiulding it and putting it together than imagining it into being. And I am finding it very difficult. But maybe, in the context of the question for the writing prompt above, building the book has more to do with having it bound and creating the Kindle and epub versions of it. I admit that I have not yet created a Kindle file and don't know anything about the process yet.


This post is a bit rambling, but I am not finding any of the processes mentioned in the question difficult, not really. I think the hardest thing about writing a book is believing in yourself enough to know that you can do it.


P.S. Yes, I already know that the above picture has nothing to do with this post topic, but it's cute, isn't it?

 
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Writing: Book Covers

This is my post for Day 12 of the Author Blog Challenge.

Describe your process for choosing and designing your book cover. Who created your cover? How did you find him/her? What do you love about your cover? What might you do differently next time?

This doesn't really apply to me as I don't have a cover for any of my books yet. Just for fun though, I took a photo from one of my husband's Fairy Magic photo manipulations and gave it the title of one of my short stories. (No, I do not intend to create my own book covers, but my books aren't finished yet, so it doesn't hurt for me to play.)

I do not know yet who I will have creating my book cover and, to be honest, I haven't even started looking for someone yet. My main goal right now is to get my books finished, edited and ready. Organizing a book cover for each of them will come later.

(P.S. The fairy above is one of my daughters, Angelica.)


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