Sunday, March 25, 2018

Why I decided to unpublish Zombie Bite, and why I'm going to publish it again

I don't know if I've written a blog about this before, but I feel it needs to be explained. In 2016 I was going through a rough time. I had just gotten out of a bad relationship. It was the type of relationship that had expired long before we said our final goodbyes to each other. During that relationship I hadn't been able to put much time into writing. I felt like I always had to be with him. I felt smothered and unloved all at once. It's a feeling that's really hard to explain unless you've been in that situation. When the relationship finally ended I felt two things: relief and a sense of worthlessness. When you spend a lot of time with someone you can grow used of having them there. I went through a period of trying to adjust to normal life without him. I started to revisit things I liked to do, and that's when I went through my old word documents. I wasn't sure when I'd started writing Zombie Bite, but there was something about it that cause me to go back to it. Maybe I was putting myself in Zoey's shoes. She'd lost a lot throughout the short story, and I felt that I had too. I also felt like I was getting too old to not have a book out there, so I rushed it. I sent it into the world with a crappy cover and little to no real editing. I actually don't think I ever edited the ending. I didn't feel the best about my work so I never promoted it.
The original cover for Zombie Bite. 
I didn't think of Zombie Bite much. A friend of mine asked me if I was planning to write a sequel from Hailey's point of view, but I wasn't sure. Around September 2017 something happened that brought my attention right back to Zombie Bite and my writing in general. An author posted something using a hurricane as a way to promote her friend's book and I reacted. Honestly, I shouldn't have reacted, but I'm a Louisiana native who had to evacuate during Katrina and it hit a nerve with me. I had put my characters through hell but found myself getting annoyed with a few words. The author decided to bring attention to my posts to the attention of her fans. They started messaging me on facebook, leaving me rude tweets on twitter, and rating my book on amazon. They even rated my nonfiction book that I'd made just so that I could have a physical copy of my repeat customer's information. I wish I could say that it didn't bother me, but it did. I've wanted to be a writer since I was in second grade. I knew other people would look at the book and not want to buy it, or my future work, because of the ratings. I had already been thinking about unpublishing Zombie Bite, so I just went through with it. I wasn't sure what I would do with it. I considered throwing it away, but decided to edit it instead. It needed something else too, a cover. I know my book will start out with negative reviews that had been left in anger, but I really hope that people can see past that and give Zombie Bite a chance. Thank you for reading the story behind the story. 

Zombie Bite's new cover. Isn't it pretty?

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Publishing Goals

Now that I'm about to publish a new book, and an old book that wasn't ready at the time of release, I've been thinking about about my goals as an author. I have always had a love of writing, which started when I was a little girl and has helped me grow into a woman. I've always kept a journal (which I don't use as much as I used to), and I've always written. Most of my books are set in Louisiana because that's where I'm from and where I currently live. In reality, I would love to sell a million copies of each of my books. I would love to go on book tours, and I would love to meet fans and sign their books. I would love for them to tell me how much they related with my characters, or how a certain passage drew them in. That's my dream, but my goal is just to get my books out there. My goal is to take a chance; to honestly promote my books. Zombie Bite wasn't ready the first time that I unleashed it on the world and I knew that. I didn't promote it, other than a few twitter posts. I was letting my dream pass me by, and I don't plan to do that again. This time I knew I have to work hard and I have to sell my books and myself as an author. I've learned a lot from Zombie Bite, and a lot from the jobs I've worked. During the past few years I've found myself placed in commission based jobs. I know a lot of people don't like to earn commission, or work at a place that can't guarantee them a paycheck at the end of the week, but it was the best thing for me. I'm not saying that because I always earned a massive paycheck. There were some weeks and months when I failed, but I did learn more about building relationships. I honestly think that sometimes that's the most important part of the selling process. People have to take me seriously as an author before they'll spend money on my books. I plan to start by building relationships within my own local area. I'm going to pass out the old business cards that I still have (see, I've done an awful job), and then order new ones that are double sided with one of my book covers on the other side. I'm going to leave copies of my book at the local coffee shop. I have big plans, but this time I'm not going to rush my work.

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Zombie Bite cast

When I originally released Zombie Bite I didn't do much to promote it. I made the mistake of not engaging the readers, so this time I decided to make a cast of characters who I think look like the characters (at least a little bit), or people that I could see filling the roles. You can check out the cast here. Also, it's perfectly fine if you picture the characters to look different, I just decided to do this for fun.

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

I have decided that I do not like wix and it does not like me.

One of the first things that came up when I googled self publishing was that we need to bring an online presence. We need to be on social media and we also need to have websites. Today I decided to try and build a website using wix and I feel like I just wasted a big part of my day. The website would crop my picture, taking my name out of almost every cover photo that I posted. I think I just have to find another layout that may work better for me, or maybe just stick with blogging and update the look of my blog.

Monday, March 12, 2018

Zombie Bite's New Cover

I remember the place I was in when I launched Zombie Bite, and it wasn't a good one. I had pushed myself to work on the book so that I could get over an ex, but to be honest I pushed out junk. It was junk with potential, but that doesn't make it any less bad. I took Zombie Bite down, and I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it. I finally decided that I needed to fix it, which means editing the content. I also thought that I should get a new cover, because the old cover was very bad. Here's the new cover (I think it looks much better):