Facebook. Instagram. Amazon. Millions of new books are released every year, and there are a million ways to market them. Out of the many different ways, there is one tried and true method to put books in people’s hands: word of mouth. We skip YouTube ads, scroll past sponsored Instagram posts, and ignore Facebook banners, but the honest recommendation of people like us grabs our attention. This word of mouth comes in many forms: reviews from readers, buzz from friends and coworkers, and hype...
7 days ago • 1 min read
Forget winter is coming. Fall is coming. And with it, the release of the first two books of The Last Sin series. My first book, Disciple of Sin, has a planned release date in October (specific date to be determined). This means my advanced review copy (ARC) needs to be ready by the beginning of September at the latest. My goal is more ambitious. I want my ARC to be ready by the beginning of August. I have already created the cover and had my manuscript reviewed by a copy editor and...
14 days ago • 2 min read
You are what you eat. That's twice as true for authors. The stories we consume inspire the stories we create. Like a modern artist sampling music, a writer knows everything is a remix. To create the best stories possible, authors need the right inspiration. With that said, here are three pieces of media that have inspired me this summer. The Vampire Lestat: The Vampire Lestat is a continuation of AMC's incredible Interview with a Vampire tv series. It is a masterful adaptation of Anne Rice's...
21 days ago • 3 min read
Appearance matters. Imagine going into a job interview wearing a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts. Unless your job involves lounging around a tropical beach, you'll probably be laughed out of the room. In the same way, the job of a book cover is to make a good first impression. As authors, our stories have to audition for your time. You only have so much to spend, and there are millions of new options being released every year. For the first book of The Last Sin series, I reunited with Italian...
28 days ago • 2 min read
I love "everything" stories. An everything story has, well, everything: action, suspense, romance, drama, horror, etc. They make you feel a wide range of emotions and pull elements from different genres of media. When I sat down to write The Last Sin, I wanted to create an everything story, pulling inspiration from all the media I enjoy. There was one big problem with this approach: it made it very difficult for me to explain what my story was about. This was a problem I grappled with when...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
I am an addict. When I find a book series that I like, I become obsessed. I lose sleep binging audiobooks into the late hours of the night. I rot in bed with my eyes glued to my eReader. It was this obsession that made me binge the Wheel of Time book series in a month and a half. My latest obsession was the last thing I expected. On the recommendation of a friend, I checked out the sci-fi series: Red Rising. This is not my usual read. I love fantasy, magic systems, and distinct worldbuilding...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Nothing about writing is easy. As authors, we struggle to knock out our first draft, and then wrestle with multiple rounds of editing. Once we're (mostly) happy with our book, we have to market it, competing with millions of other releases every year. As I speak, I'm in the middle of this process right now: managing marketing, finalizing my first two books for release this fall and writing my third book in my series. For the past few months, I've mostly focused on marketing: completing my...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Spiders. Snakes. Tall buildings. For many, these are the ultimate nightmare, but they have nothing on my greatest fear: public speaking. It's an insecurity that has plagued me for most of my life, compounded with the stutter that I've had since birth. So when I became serious about being an author, I dreaded promoting myself through social media. If talking to a small classroom was a challenge, imagine doing that in front of potentially millions of people. Despite it all, I pushed through my...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
I miss being young (and not for the reasons you think). In my first year of university, I joined five clubs while working a part-time job and having a full slate of classes. My younger self had this near boundless energy to learn new things and take on new challenges. Flash forward ten years, and a lot has changed. I'm a bit heavier and overall slower at getting things done. When you combine this current state with my tendency to bite off more than I can chew, I've set myself up for a world...
2 months ago • 2 min read