New Word Whore Checks In - Introduction & Self Publishing

Hi! No you’re in the right place even though this is Veronica Scott signing in! I’m your new Word Whore and happy to be here…

Only the fact that my co-workers would not have understood kept me from squeeing up and down the day job’s halls late last week when the Word Whores    e mailed to tell me I was now one of them. I’ll be holding down the Saturday slot, wrestling weekly with the knotty questions this group ponders.  (On my personal blog I have a tendency to talk about Titanic, Ancient Egypt, vintage chandelier earrings, LEGOs,  old science fiction movies, gladiators, Mars rovers….in short, anything but writing and so it’ll be fun to talk about the craft here.)

In addition to the day job, I write science fiction romance and paranormal romance – two genres I also love reading, not-so-coincidentally. More on that in a minute! I’ve been writing since I was a little kid...the library in our house was equally full of science fiction books (Dad’s influence) and tomes on ancient history (I think Mom wanted to be an archaeologist) so it’s no wonder I write novels that blend aspects of the two. The first movie I ever remember seeing (other than “Bambi”, long traumatic story there) was “Forbidden Planet,” on television, with Leslie Nielsen in his serious heroic acting days. So science fiction imprinted itself on me very young!

I have two grown daughters and a wonderful grandson - I’ve made sure all three share my love of SF and ancient history. I am supervised by two cats (not as fluffy as Jeffe Kennedy’s Jackson, but who is, I ask you?)….pictures of them will no doubt appear here from time to time.

Priestess of the Nile was my first published work, in January 2012 from Carina Press. I was still basking in the excitement when it dawned on me that the 100^th anniversary of the Titanic sinking was fast approaching. This was significant because I also had a completed science fiction novel loosely based on the Titanic disaster, but set in the far future on a spaceliner.  There was no time to submit it anywhere, not with the 2012 anniversary being only three months away at the time.

And so I fell into self publishing, which is the Word Whores topic for this week. I actually enjoyed the self publishing process. It was nice to be in total control of my book, Wreck of the Nebula Dream, but also a bit scary. I worked with a free lance editor – my first piece of advice is you must have an editor. You’ll never catch all the issues in your beloved manuscript on your own. I commissioned a professionally done cover –  my second piece of advice is you need a kick ass cover (am I allowed to say kick ass here???Guess so LOL!).

I found it mildly stressful to be in charge of all the technical aspects of getting the book properly formatted for the kindle and Nook, and uploaded. (I’ve been told I still have some backward quotation marks in the ebooks – sorry!)  Getting formal reviews has been something of a challenge since many book bloggers and reviewers don’t welcome self published books. I think that’s the place I most wished I had a publisher standing behind me, but there were tradeoffs involved with going independent and I really wanted to tie in to that 100^th anniversary and all the attention and interest in Titanic. (And the book was picked as a 2013 SFR Galaxy Award winner, if I may sneak that fact in.)

I then took the next step in self publishing and had an audio book released. Now that process was all kinds of fun. I loved collaborating with the talented actor Michael Riffle who narrated and produced the book for me. He embodied my hero so perfectly, and portrayed the other characters with elan – it was a personal joy to hear each new chapter as he finished recording. Next best thing to having the book made into a movie! I’ve talked extensively about the audiobook process on my blog, starting with a fun interview with Michael, so I won’t go into it here.

 

Will I self publish again? Most likely at some point. It was overall a good experience. Let me hasten to add, I’m thrilled to have my Ancient Egyptian paranormal romance series published by Carina Press, really enjoy working with everyone there. (The next one is Warrior of the Nile, coming in September 2013.) But I can definitely see myself going the self pub route again under the right circumstances, as I did with Wreck of the Nebula Dream.  Never say never!

Future posts will be shorter, I promise! Had to do double duty today what with introducing myself AND addressing the weekly question….

Any questions for the newest Whore?