The 14 Days of Blessing Day 14: Behind the scenes and Release Day!
The prizes up for grabs include:
A free ebook of The Binding (one to give away each day), the first book
A free paperback of Binding (one to give away)- international shipping available
One of seven original art prints (seven to give away, choice of any major character, the fox Nahbet or
the dove Rusephine)
You can choose one of the above character cards, or one of the two prints below- these will not be watermarked
A free ebook of The Parting (five to give away)
And, if you participate in at least 10 of the 14 days, you could win one of five ebook box sets of The Binding, the Parting and the Blessing!
Sounds great, right? But what do you have to do to be eligible? All you need to do is:
-make sure you like my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/maddoctorartist/)
-follow me on twitter @maddoctorartist (https://twitter.com/MadDoctorArtist)
-share my Facebook page
-leave a gold 💛 and purple 💜 heart emoji comment on each daily post (either here on the blog itself or the facebook post)
And that's it! Winners will be picked by random number generation and must be contactable via email. Each daily winner will get a free ebook of The Binding, plus one of whichever of the other prizes above catch your fancy (except for the box-set).
Please share with anyone who loves reading young adult fantasy fiction, and best of luck!
So, without further ado...
Release day!
And so today is release day for The Blessing! It is now available as ebook and paperback on Amazon and Smashwords.
For the final day, I am giving a sneak peak behind the scenes just to show you my writing process, and how I get from initial idea to finished published novel!
Step One- Ideas and Outlines
As you may have read from my author interview, the original idea for The Binding came when I was taking some blood samples to the lab during my first hospital job. I had a scene emerge in my mind—a girl sitting alone in a forest, because she wanted to protect her heart. I took this concept and expanded it, creating the Binding spell, laying down some rules, and then went on to develop Eliza as a character.
Once I had a clear idea of what the general themes would be, I then wrote out the outline. I am very much a planner type of writer, and I find it easy to follow an outline rather than write and see where things go.
Step Two- First/ Second Draft
With the outline complete, now comes the hard part- the actual writing! This means putting chapter markers in the original outline, and then fleshing everything out. I do tend to refine quite a bit- which is where I will write 400-500 words and then go back and tidy it up a few times. A lot of authors warn against this as you can get stuck in the same scene for ages, but I've found this method good for me, as I can do this relatively quickly and move on. This saves time later with the first edit, and allows me to focus on expanding things like characterization (which is one of my weaknesses) rather than the technical parts.
This is also the bit where I can re-write the outline if the story seems to be going in another direction. This helps me keep things flexible without abandoning structure altogether!
Step Three- Editing
The bit most authors dread, but I actually find the first edit quite fun! This allows me to inject more characterisation, spruce up dialogue and cut down on unnecessary filler words ('just', 'even', 'eyes widened' are particularly bad ones for me). I quite like Brandon Sanderson's tip where you only focus on one thing per edit (so one edit for technical issues like word choice/ sentence structure, one edit for characters/ dialogue, one edit for plot points etc).
Step Four- Polish
This bit I find the most tedious, as at this point I'll have read through the manuscript so many times! For this I take a slightly different approach to editing. First, I will have made notes from my editing which parts of the story need extra flavour (so added dialogue, additional character thought or insight, etc). I start from the last chapter and work backwards, using an e-reader to read the text aloud. This is really good for catching typoes and tense changes, and is better than reading aloud yourself as the e-reader will always read what's on screen, whereas your brain may insert or inject words that aren't there!
Reading backwards also stops you getting caught in the 'rhythm' of the story, as this can make you overlook thing as you've already read it so many times.
Step Five- Formatting
This step used to be a huge headache, but now I have ready-made templates from my previous books it's super easy! Ebooks and paperback books have specific formatting (to make sure there's no malaligned text or random blank pages) and these need to be adhered to to make sure the books look right. Different distributors also have different formatting (Amazon vs Smashwords) so make sure you have separate templates for each.
This is less of an issue if you opt for traditional publishing but of course you need to follow the appropriate submission guidelines depending on who you are querying, and will need to do cover letters etc.
Step Six- Cover and Synopsis
Fortunately I am an artist as well as a writer, so this saves me having to hunt down a cover artist! Of course making a cover is still time-consuming and needs to be the best it can be, to attract readers. I have a blog tutorial here about how I made The Binding's cover.
And then comes the synopsis- the bane of most writer's existence, but oddly enough not mine? I put this down to being a doctor- I have to document patient stories in their medical notes succinctly and in summary, so it's something I'm quite used to!
Step Seven- Preparing for Publishing
And so the last step involves checking and re-checking to make sure the books are ready to go! On Amazon KDP, there is a preview tool to check ebooks, and you can also order proof copies of paperbacks to check they print properly and that the cover looks good.
Once these are all ready, you're ready to go live!
And so ends the 14 Days of Blessing...
Did you participate on at least 10 of the 14 days by leaving the gold and purple heart emojis? Then you could win a free ebook box set of all three books! Send me a message on my facebook page or twitter- you have 7 days to contact me (so until the 21st February). I will draw and announce the winners of the box-sets on 26th February.
I really hope you enjoyed the 14 Days of Blessing! I had great fun creating it. The next Azaria books will begin in a brand new era and feature an all new cast of characters, but until then, take care and happy reading!
Click here to purchase from Amazon
Click here to purchase from Smashwords
