10 Things I Learned about Publishing by Kia
10. Writing is hard. I
thought I knew this already, but I didn’t realise how hard until I was
published. Suddenly you get scared of disappointing people, and you keep
wanting to check your sales rankings all day. When you’re checking sales
rankings you’re not writing. Suddenly you want a lot more than just writing.
9. Editing is even harder than writing. After you’ve written your story you’re going to edit, edit, edit it,
and after that edit it some more. It’s not that easy to reread your own story
time after time, trying to fix all the problems you can find.
8. An editor is your friend.
But they do need to be tough. Your editor is not your enemy and working with
them shouldn’t feel like a hostage situation. I found my editor after I looked
around and got example edits back from 6 people. This editor picked out errors,
asked me some good questions and also kept my own writing style intact. I don’t
accept all the changes as sometimes it’s about preference but I always take her
suggestions on board. Working with her has been a blessing and I know that is
not the case for everybody. An editor should work with you and you need to find
someone who can.
7. Bad reviews will come. They
will sting; you will get upset. This is all part of the process and it will
hurt. Not everybody thinks about things the same way, and not everyone will
read the book description. Some people will be disappointed that the book is
not what they thought it would be (no matter how clear you make the cover and
description).
6. Returns will also come.
See #7.
5. Your fans will make your day. Each new fan will be a blessing and you will love them. I’ve gotten to
know a lot of new cool people through my writing, and I really love that.
Everybody is different, but it’s great to know that there are some people out
there who love the same things as I do.
4. Do blog tours. Not just
for the marketing opportunity, but bloggers are great friends. 5 blog tours in
I’ve got a list with people that I know I can contact at any moment and they
will help me with a new tour. But that is not the best part. These are people
who know about books, about reading genres or about writing. These are people
who you can connect with not, as an author, but as a lover of books. Bloggers
make the best friends because you both love books.
3. Become friends with other authors. Especially within your own genre. I’ve learned a lot from reading
books from authors within my genre. You’re not competition. You can’t write a
book a day and publish that. Readers can read a book a day, sometimes more. So
when you’ve got authors who are your friends you can help each other find new
fans. But the best thing about author friends is that they get what you’re
going through. They know what problems there are and they’re great helps when
you’re stuck somewhere. Shared pain and everything like that.
For me there is
nothing better than being able to explain what is going wrong and having
someone who might know a solution or at least know how to soften the pain. Authors
make great friends because they let you know you’re not alone in this, even
when you’re sitting in your room writing, alone, while the sun is shining
bright outside.
2. Reading is a blessing.
And so is watching tv and learning new (non-research) things. As a writer most
of what you do is output based: writing, connecting on social media, marketing,
etc. Those are all things that are output based, you’re actively doing things.
Reading, watching tv and learning new things are input based, this requires a
different mindset. For me there is nothing more relaxing than sitting down with
my tablet and work on learning Japanese for an hour, or reading a book, or even
watching some of my favourite tv shows. If you’re only doing output the whole
day, day in day out, you get tired and writing doesn’t go well when you’re
tired. Doing at least a bit of input based things each day helps you with not
overworking yourself. And I’ve had the greatest moments of inspiration while I
was calming myself down with some input time instead of output time.
1. Write! Without this
last one it’s hard to be a writer. You need to write to be a writer, to edit
and to publish. Without writing none of the previous steps are useful. I love
writing, with all the pain that comes with it. I love coming up with new
characters, and the best thing? I love it when other people love my characters
as much as I do.
Now on to Kia's release: Disturbed Connections Book 2 of the Otherkin Spirits
Blurb:
A werewolf and a vampire, forbidden love. What could go wrong?
CHRIS, a werewolf on the run from his abusive clan, hides in a vampire house. ALEC, a vampire who has comfortably lived in the house for years, has no intentions to ever leave it.
Their connection is obvious from the first time they meet. But the house rules are strict, werewolves and vampires can not date. Unable to fight their attraction and unwilling to leave, they instead choose to hide their love.
Then Chris’ old clan finds him and takes him back. Will Alec ever see Chris again?
Sales links:
Excerpt
On impulse Chris unlocked his door, opened it a fraction and sat on his
bed with a book. He hoped he could catch a glimpse of Alec without seeming too
obvious. He started reading the book though he kept glancing up at the door.
Anything to not seem too stalkerish, because that would be a bad first
impression to make. He heard the door to the bathroom open and footsteps in the
hallway. Travis had told him that after taking a shower they usually didn’t use
the doors directly to their own rooms since it would fill up the rooms with
steam—annoying maybe on other days, but lucky for Chris today.
He caught a glimpse of Alec as he walked through his line of sight. Then
the footsteps stopped. Chris quickly looked at his book, acting as if he hadn’t
opened the door on purpose.
He heard Alec come over to his door and knock on it.
“Hey, you settling in okay?” Alec’s voice was light, not as deep as he
expected it, but it was melodic, happy even.
“Yeah, everything is fine.” As Chris answered, Alec pushed the door open
and leaned against the frame. Chris swallowed as Alec dried his long black
dreadlocks and stood there, all innocent and open, in just a towel. He seemed
to be unaware of his staring and Chris got enough courage to look him up and
down.
Alec looked even better than the last time he had seen him. Not too
bulky, a slim frame with strongly defined muscles. His chest and arm muscles
moved gracefully under his tanned skin as he dried his hair. The moving stopped
and Chris looked up, catching the sly smile in Alec’s eyes.
“Very well, I see.” The guy grinned. “I’m Alec.”
“I’m Chris. You’re Travis’ sparring partner, right?” Chris acted like he
didn’t know much about him, though he probably knew more about Alec than he
himself did.
“Yeah. How do you know him? You don’t seem like the type he normally
hangs out with.” Alec walked into the room a bit further, one towel now
fastened around his huge bundle of dreadlocks and the other still around his
well-defined hips.
“We went to the same school.” Huge understatement, but Chris knew that
there were parts of himself that Travis would rather not talk about. His past
before he awoke as a vampire was one of them.
“Cool. So what do you think about the rest of the house, have you met
them yet?”
“They seem nice, especially Jasper.” Chris grinned.
Alec reflected that same grin. “Nice doesn’t really cut it with him, but
he is okay. He’s a good guy under all that scary muscle.”
“Good to know.” Chris looked away from Alec, trying to keep himself
under control and not pull the towel off of him.
“Hey, um, I’m getting dressed. Do you wanna go to the party downstairs
after? They seem to be having a great time.” Alec turned around and Chris got a
good look at his back before he found his voice.
“Yeah, sure. I’ll join you.”
“Great, I’ll be back in a bit then.” Alec shot him one last glance over
his shoulder before he closed the door behind him.
Chris sighed. Damn, Alec was even
sexier than he remembered. Chris didn’t get why Travis didn’t want him—Alec was
way hotter than that Nick Travis was dating now.
Kia Zi Shiru is a Dutch girl who did her
bachelor studying English and Creative Writing in the UK but has now returned
to the Netherlands to do her masters. Amongst her interests she finds writing,
reading, doing research and learning different languages (including but not
limited to: English, Dutch, French, German, HTML, Java, PHP and Assembly). Her
writing and reading habits include books with Young Adults, gay themes, strong
female or minority characters and fantasy elements (more often than not all at
the same time).
You can find me:
Website www.5timeschaos.com
Twitter http://twitter.com/kiazishiru
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/KiaShiru
And if you want to keep up to date you can
sign up for my newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/vvShb
Thank you for letting me do this fun post on your blog :D
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