self-publishing

Hey, Good to See You Again!

| rachelhamm

Wow.  So I haven’t written here since before my job interview.  Crazy.  So much has happened.  Let me catch you up.

I got the job!

And it has been great.  It really has relieved so much of the stress I was feeling on a daily basis.  I love the people I work with and my boss is just great.  All the signs were pointing to “I need a new job,” and not only did this job deliver, it’s been better than expected.  It was exactly what I needed at the time I needed it.

I was MIA on this blog for a couple of months because I was putting a lot of energy into the other blog I started, but after a while, that one sort of fizzled out as well.  I stayed away from here because I didn’t really have anything fresh to say about writing and I didn’t want to post random facts about my boring everyday life.  I know that’s not the best thought process, but what can I say? It’s how I was thinking.

It’s especially silly, because my life has not been all that boring.  But you know, hindsight is 20-20 and all.  I’ve been trying to keep focused on “Saying Yes” and my Happiness Project by seeking out new things.  One of those new things was running a 5k, which I did in December and again this past weekend!  I am still way out of shape (and I didn’t technically run the entire thing) but old Rachel would NEVER have even ATTEMPTED such an athletic feat.  I’m planning on another one in October with my sister and I’d really like to work up to running a 10k before my 30th birthday (358 days to go).

Another new thing, something I’ve been attempting for a long time, I wrote a second book!!!!!  I have been meeting at least once a month with a friend of mine to work on writing, but even that wasn’t giving me the motivation I needed, so I decided to go for NANOWRIMO.  It worked!  I finished the first draft of my second complete novel on November 30th, 2012!  I joined a critique group and have slowly been editing it and have just started the plans for books 2 and 3 in a trilogy.  I’ll post more about that book and plans for the sequels later, I promise.

The big BIG news, though, isn’t that I wrote a second book, it’s that I’m in the process of publishing my first!  I’ve always been supremely proud of Twenty-Five and it’s always been my goal to have it in actual book form at some point, and now’s the time.  I’ve got the momentum going and the support of my friends and family, so I’m going for it.  I read a lot of articles on the benefits of self-publishing and it feels right for me.  I did speak with a publisher, but they were new to publishing fiction and I just didn’t get a good feeling from them.  It felt like the only real benefit I’d get by going through them was a less-hands on marketing approach (I don’t like marketing) and that just doesn’t seem like enough for me to give up my control.  I’m still waiting to receive a Deal Memo from the man I spoke with, but unless that has some hidden perks we didn’t originally discuss, I think I’m going to opt out and publish on my own.  I’ve already done all the formatting and purchased the ISBN and my writing partner (who also happens to be a graphic designer) has already designed a beautiful cover.  I’m just waiting on the final touches to the cover and the chance to peruse the Deal Memo before I submit everything to CreateSpace and Kindle.  Hopefully, Twenty-Five will be available for purchase by mid-July.

All that being said, I will be taking the chapters down from this blog.  Thank you to all who read here and gave me feedback and encouragement.  It meant the world to me.  I plan on keeping the blog up-to-date as I go through the world of self-publishing and as I work to get my next book in a readable condition.  If I ever slack off, you have permission to yell at me!

Please Welcome Guest Blogger Angela Fristoe!

| rachelhamm

I decided that it was probably time to get this blog back on track, seeing as it started out as a blog about writing and has somewhere along the way veered into a blog about randomness.  So, I’ve asked a few of the writer friends I made two years ago on The Next Big Writer to whip up some guest blog posts for you to enjoy.  They are all embarking on the process of having their books published, either through self-publishing, or through a traditional publishing house and I applaud them for that!  They believe in themselves and their writing and they are putting it out there for the world to see and enjoy and that is not only impressive, it’s courageous.  My first guest blogger is Angela, who I knew for the longest time as “penang” or “Ang” in the TNBW forums and whom I’m happy to say is a talented writer and a great friend.  I asked her to talk a little about why she first “picked up a pen” to write and to give you a little information on her latest book, Songbird.  Here’s what she had to say:

Writing was never my number one passion. In fact, writing didn’t even come onto my top ten list until about six years ago. I’d always dreamed of being an artist, a flight attendant, or the next Diane Fossey or Jane Goodall. I ended up teaching. Then I read the Twilight series. Okay, so not the best example of amazing YA literature, but it did make me think I could do that. Until then I didn’t even know that Young Adult was a genre.

When I first started writing, I had no idea how to approach it, and honestly I still don’t. Every writer I talk to approaches it differently. For me this means sitting down at the computer and typing as it comes to me. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t. My first novel is still under the revision process thanks to my unplanned approach.

Songbird is actually the second novel I wrote and most of it was done within a month during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Finishing Songbird, along with revising and editing, took a bit longer, but this story just flowed for me much better than my other novel. There was never a point where I sat down and didn’t feel the story come to me.

There are parts of Songbird that are so close to my heart. Some of the experiences, good and bad, that Dani goes through were inspired by things that either I’ve experienced, or people I know have lived through. At times it was hard to write because all I could see and feel were the real reactions and emotions.

Songbird is a story of death, loss, love, friendship and moving forward. Seventeen-year-old Dani is haunted by memories of her abusive parents and her murdered brother. Those memories constantly influence her choices and when her love for her best friend Reece is rejected, she struggles to find a way to put the past behind her for good. A struggle mad harder when a former foster brother reappears and brings back even more of the past.

Songbird is now available in paperback and all eBook formats at Amazon.com, B&N, and Smashwords.

You can learn more about Angela and her writing at her blog: Turning the Pages.