Hello y'all!
Now usually when I just want to say something I either post it on my Facebook or DeviantArt profile but since two of my best friends have a blog, I thought, "What the hay?" so I created this one, seeing that it wouldn't hurt. I'm no stranger to blogs and since I'm going to be a coathor soon, I thought a blog would be a great way to get the book out there and gain an audience.
So I should probably introduce myself. My name is Tracy Holman, a young girl livin' in the state of Missouri which explains my slight southern writing voice-I never really noticed it before but now that I'm a serious writer and pay more attention, I've been seein' it in my writing. Anyways, I wrote a book called, "The Last of the Demigods: The Missing Symbols" with my best friend, Jessica Willis. It will be out sometime next month for it only has a few steps left before it hits the shelves. It's a trilogy but there will also be a part two. The both of us are VERY excited to seeing are dreams coming true. But it wasn't all fun and games.
Now I don't know who will read this blog but I thought I'd share my wisdom over publishing a book just incase you want to do the same.
Every author has a story so I'm goin' to tell you mine:
A few years ago, I picked up a book called, "Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief" written by Rick Riordan and from page one, I fell in love it with it. I devoured that book in a matter of days and instantly became a fan. From then on I knew I wanted to become a writer. Rick Riordan inspired me. He opened my eyes to make me see my true passion in life. Now when I told my parents I wanted to become a writer, they said that's great but I heard the false enthusiasm in their voice. At that time (and now) I didn't have a job or a life so I had all the time in the world to write a novel, silently deciding that I was going to prove to them that I WOULD be an author. I was seventeen then so of course I never wrote one before but I have read tons of books. So I got to thinking. Soon I came up with an idea but it wasn't original enough from "The Lightning Thief" so I decided to turn it into a fanfiction. Over the following weeks, I came up with characters, a plot and so on but after plotting everything out and writing a few chapters, I realized how great this fanfiction was so I decided to take out everything Percy Jackson related and turn it into my own novel called, "The Missing Symbols". Once everything Percy Jackson was taken out, I began to re-write what I've already written but not too long after that, it dawned on me how hard this was. So I decided to call up my best friend, Jessica and ask for help. Then next thing I knew we were writing a novel together.
That took over a year-probably three once I think of all the times we've re-written it, including the publishing process which is about finished. Also in those years, we've written the other two sequeals but when we decided to change "The Missing Symbols" from first person to third, we had to do the same for the other two. So once the first book was all re-done and cleaned up, Jessica and I finally dived into finding some publishers in our area.
Now that it's the 21st century, we were hearing how a large portion of authors are doing what's called, "self-publishing". Once we did our research and found one that sounded nice in our ears, we both agreed to self-publish our very first novel.
Boy, were we wrong...
No way in Hades will Jessica and I ever self-publish again. You don't want to know all the hell and arguments this journey had boiled between me and my mother. The company we chose was awful. In the beginning it sounded nice but as we drove further down the road, we knew that we had to spend money to make money but our company's prices were just rediculous. They had all these fees and hardly anything was cheap. In the end, we've spent more money then we wanted to but I just kept telling myself, this will all be worth it once I hold the book Jessica and I wrote in my hands. But a while ago, the two of us agreed that we'd NEVER do this again. From now on we're going old school. It may take longer but since our first book would already be out by then, maybe finding publishers for book 2 won't be as hard. Who knows, maybe some publishing houses will come to us.
Right now you're probably wondering what this book is about. Well, let me tell you.
"The Last of the Demigods: The Missing Symbol"
Ben Erringtone and Paul "Stain" Austin thought they were just two normal teens living in San Francisco, California until they arrive on a mysterious island, ignoring Mr. C.'s orders to stay on the boat. When they come upon a cave where torches light up themselves, they knew something was strange and after they stumble upon a snake-haired lady named Medusa, she tells them something that they just couldn't believe: they're demigods.
Being the first to survive her stare, Ben demands from Mr. C. who confesses that she was right. He and Stain were demigods. He explains that the gods on Olympus need these symbols in order for the great prophecy to take effect and that Ben and Stain are the last of the demigods, the only ones who could even accept this quest. If they don't then the world would be doomed.
Well I think that wraps up this first blog post. I'd love to hear from you all on what you think of the book so don't be afraid to comment!
Until next time...
:) Life's good
