The Modern Book Tour, a guest post by Nate Friedman, Part 1

Mirror World Author, Nate Friedman, just finished his great Canadian book tour and he has some advice for any of us looking to follow in his footsteps. Here’s part 1 of his two-part article. Part 2 will be posted this time next week, so subscribe for notification.

Do you have a book? Then you can have a book tour! It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that. Some will tell you it’s a waste of time. While it is true that most things are done online nowadays, I believe it’s more important than ever to be out there in person, sharing your book with the world. How else will people know you and your mission personally? The amazing conversations you have with readers, fellow writers and the smiles are all icing on the cake. Writing can be a lonely endeavor at times and being out there allows you put all of your hard work into perspective. And the cherry on top: free market research! Ask someone working at a bookstore what the hottest new books are, or watch your target reader and see how they navigate the shelves. That is all information you did not have before. It’s not about becoming an overnight success, it’s each successful day along the way. The challenge: selling as many books as you can at each stop. You might never feel like you are selling enough,  however, what you get is information and learning, more than you ever could sitting at home or online. The most important part is progress – momentum. Remember this in all your creative endeavours: people want to get onto a moving train. Let me now outline some of the steps that will help you in getting your train started. I hope it helps you take that next step!

The Vision

The first thing you need to do is imagine your book tour and what you want it to be. Listen to your gut instinct and don’t rule anything out. Factor in time for yourself and make it just long enough to leave you wanting more. For some, this could mean taking a full year to peddle their book across the country. For others, this could be one event a week over a period of 6 months. For others still, maybe 10 bookstores in 10 days. Once your vision is created, that is what will help you sell the idea. People will feel you getting excited and will want to be on board. You’ll be the biggest party in town! Go to places that excite you, to places you’ve never been before, and even places you don’t want to go. Sometimes this resistance is exactly what you need to push through, to reach to the next level.

The Call

I am not talking about the call of the wild, but an actual phone call. Don’t think about it, just do it. We live in a time where we readily have access to copious amounts of information. Look up the phone number of bookstores near and far and call them (it’s free!). Don’t take any of these things for granted. The store managers you are calling want to say yes. They love you. They are probably as excited as you are, about having a new author at their store. Get a few no’s!? Good! That means you are heading in the right direction. You’ll feel even better when the next store you call is interested. If you’re the script sort here it is:

(smile: it comes through over the phone) “Hi I’m {name} author of {book name}. I was wondering who I would speak to about doing a book signing event. *gets person* “Hello there {say their name}. I’m {name} and I’m excited to be organizing a book tour! We’re looking to book {# of events} in {location} for the {insert tour name- makes it sound official}. We’ve already booked {insert stores booked already- remember moving train} and we’d love to have you on board. *wait, listen, really focus on the person you are talking to*

Final note: give them a date and time. If your vision is clear, you’ll know where they fit into your schedule. You’re not doing anyone favours by giving them an open calendar (it screams unprepared!) Also, have a backup date and time available, and if it doesn’t work out you still have a contact person for future tours. I always ask myself “How can I make this call fun?” before it’s made. Maybe you want to get an iced tea and sit on the patio with your legs up, GREAT! Life is about enjoying. Don’t just exist, THRIVE…. Oh, and at the end of the calls you’ll have a book tour.

Nate Friedman is the Author of “The Coffee Monster” and “The Last Hockey Fight.” He loves to travel and craves adventure in his free time. Along with making people smile and laugh, he is constantly pursuing his dream of being a writer on Saturday Night Live. You can find out more about his work at www.natetfriedman.com or www.facebook.com/natefriedmanauthor. Thanks again.

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The Windsor International Writers Conference is THIS WEEKEND!!!

So I have an incredibly busy week ahead of me, culminating in the Windsor International Writers Conference this weekend at the Holiday Inn Ambassador Bridge. If you’d like to join me, there’s still space available for last minute registration, wink wink.

I’m currently working on a number of projects, the main one being preparing Karen McCreedy’s Unreachable Skies, Vol. 1, which releases August 17th and has a cover reveal coming up July 17th! I’m super excited for this release because it’s Karen’s first novel and she’s written a remarkable and beautiful blend of Sci-fi and Fantasy. Set entirely on another planet, without a human in sight, Unreachable Skies is the story of an apprentice fate-seer named Zarda who is tasked with guiding her people through a difficult time following a plague that has left the new generation of their kind without wings. This will be the first installment in a planned trilogy and we should see the second book in 2019. 

I’m also working on our September release, the much-anticipated Mixter Twizzle’s Breakfast written by Regan W.H. Macaulay and illustrated by the talented Lulu. I’ve just received the art and it is ADORABLE. Partner that with Regan’s really clever and unique writing style, and I just know you’re all going to fall in love with the egg-thieving Mixter Twizzle like we did!

And last but not least this year, I’ll soon be starting work on The Gimmal Ring by Windsor’s very own Karen Koski. I’m looking forward to diving in to this middle grade urban fantasy, but first it has to go through Robert’s very capable hands and I think it’s fair to say I have enough on my plate at the moment!

So this week I’ll be looking over some submissions I’ve received in preparation for meeting one on one with some conference attendees, and judging some contest entries, then on Friday I’ll be hosting a round-table intensive where I’ll help a facilitate a group of writers as we review and critique the samples of their work they’ve brought with them. I’m also looking forward to listening to all the great workshops and keynote speakers and of course, participating in the panel discussions. It’s going to be a lively weekend. So if you can make it, even to one of the days, I recommend it!

Thanks for reading!

Now’s your chance to submit to us!

I’m going to try and make this short and sweet because if this post is for you, then you’re likely going to want to get busy putting together your submissions package and emailing it to us!

That’s right, as of RIGHT NOW our general submissions period is OPEN!!!

We’ve talked a lot about what we’re looking for, which you can find here. We’ve also talked about how we review submissions and what sort of things we look at when reviewing them. You can find that information here. And, of course, you can find pretty much everything you need to know on our submissions page, here.

What we haven’t gone into detail about on this blog yet is what you need to send; so here goes!

1. QUERY LETTER

Please include a query letter with your submission. This can simply be in the body of your email. Your query letter must contain the following:

• Your name
• The title of your manuscript
• The type of work (novel, novella, short story collection, graphic novel, ect.)
• The genre (make sure it’s a genre we publish by checking our submissions page or our current list of titles.)
• The word count
• Your target audience (Adult, Young Adult, Middle Grade, Children’s, ect.)
• A brief description of your overall concept for the book. This is called ‘The Hook’ If you need help with this part, check out our blog post on pitch-writing here.

If your query letter does not give us all the information we need, we will not be able to review your submission and will send a reply telling you as much.

1. SYNOPSIS

Along with your query, please send us a one page long summary of your plot. Please make sure to include the following information:

• The names and brief descriptions of your main characters
• A brief description or explanation of the setting
• The inciting incident (what change in your character’s life gets the story moving?)
• A few examples of obstacles your characters face
• The climactic moment
• The ending (how is everything resolved?)

If your synopsis does not contain the information we need, we may not be able to detect if your manuscript is for us. Don’t make us guess, tell us what happens so we can make an informed decision.

1. SAMPLE CHAPTERS

Along with your query letter and synopsis, please send three sample chapters, or the equivalent so we can get a taste of your writing. When preparing this part to send, please take a good look at your sample to try and determine the following things:

• Is your opening line intriguing?
• Is your opening scene engaging?
• Is your sample relatively error-free?
• Does your sample make a reader want to keep reading the rest of the book?
• Is your writing active and engaging?
• Are there any points that might come across as confusing or unclear to a reader?
• Is the exposition, or any background information, woven into the story in a natural way?

These are some of the things that may cause us to reject your manuscript. If we detect any of these problems, we will let you know, so you can improve in these areas in the future.
Ok! If you’ve read all this and followed the guidelines, then you are ready to put that package together so what are you waiting for?! Go ahead and submit to us!

The Moment you’ve been waiting for… Submissions open November 1st, 2017.

It’s that time of year again! We’re pleased to announce that our submissions will open again for a brief window starting November 1st, 2017. How brief of a window, you may ask? Well, that depends how quickly we find what we’re looking for! But submissions will be open at least through the month of November, if not until the end of the year. However, if you’re considering submitting to us this year, I feel I must warn you that we expect the competition will be fierce. See, the thing is, we’ve almost got a full line-up picked out for 2018, so at most we’ll be looking to pick one, possibly two more books and that’s it.

If you want to see what kind of books we publish to see if yours fits in, please have a look at our store. You can try one of our books for free with the discount code: MWFREETRIAL

And if you want to see what new books we have coming up, take a look at our new releases page here. 

We’re looking for Escapism Fiction. Children’s, Middle Grade, Young Adult, or Adult, any target age will do, but please inform us in your query letter who the target audience is. We’ll also want to know the genre, either fantasy, romance, science fiction, adventure, mystery, paranormal, speculative, or some combination of those I just listed. Your manuscript’s word count is also important to include, because it tells us at a glance the length of the project we’re looking at. Is it a novel, a novella, or something else? Are you writing a series? If so, tell us. Tell us how many books we are to expect to receive from you if we take you on.

If you submit to us, we expect to see a query letter filled with the information mentioned above as well as a quick description of your book. We’d also like a 1 page synopsis that includes the ending of your story so we can see if you can craft a satisfactory ending. Send both of those things along with a 3 chapter (or equivalent) sample – Please do not send the full manuscript if it is longer than 25 pages.

When we receive your submission, we’re going to be looking very closely at your opening. We’re looking for stories within our theme and preferred genres that have strong engaging openings. In order for us to request your entire manuscript you will have to catch our attention and prove your writing is interesting, relatively error-free, and engaging in the first scene. If your writing compels us to read the whole sample and want to read more, you’re on the right track.

Regardless of whether we accept your manuscript for publication or not we PROMISE to send you our thoughts with advice for how to improve your manuscript or which direction to try next. Because crafting personal responses takes time, we ask that you allow us six to eight weeks to respond. We WILL respond to all queries we receive, so there’s no need to follow up with us. 

So get your submission packages ready! And remember, if you need help, to check out our YouTube Channel and this blog for writing and publishing advice!

For details on how to submit and what we are and aren’t looking for, please see our Submissions Page. Thank you!

How I sell books (Part 2) – A guest post by David McLain

Now that I’ve scared off half the readers talking about what hasn’t worked, let’s talk about what has. (See Part 1 here.)

So far nothing I’ve said has anything to do with you as a writer. I don’t know you, but if you are reading this, you’ve made it as far as finding my publisher’s blog. That’s a good thing- It means that you’ve probably figured out that self-publishing is, well, a crappy idea. Good for you. So, skipping ahead a moment, I can tell you that roughly 20 weekends a year I can be found sitting at either a booth or a table at either an art show, a steampunk convention, or a comic con, with copies of my last two books, in paperback and hardcover. This is the long, slow grind of indie book sales. People who come over to look at my book nearly always pick up the hardcover copy, admire it, and then buy the softcover, if anything. This is actually by design.

When you are working a show, you need to be able to explain your book in a sentence or two. This is called the strap line. It’s preferable if the strap line makes for a pretty good bit of dialogue, and I think it’s usually best if you keep the number buzzwords to a minimum.

Guy dressed as the tenth doctor: What’s this?

Me: That’s my book, The Traveller’s Resort and Museum.

10 Doc Guy: What’s it about?

Me: It’s the story of a Time Traveller who falls in love with three men- one from the present, one from the past, and one from the future. She misjudges them all.

I feel this compares pretty well with the line the guy at the next booth over was giving people: Okay, so strong female protagonist. Epic fantasy. Some steampunk. It’s a hero’s quest. The dwarves have lost the jewel of…. or something. I don’t remember. I don’t know how the book was written, but the pitch was surprisingly devoid of complete sentences.

At this point I have an advantage in that my book is surprisingly beautiful. It as a beautiful painting of a woman with red hair drinking tea and holding a pet triceratops on a leash on the cover. It has two dozen black and white pictures in it, and every chapter begins with a font indicating the location the chapter is set in- so if the chapter is set in the Stone Age the first two words look like carved stone. (By the way, people don’t judge books by their covers. But they do judge book covers by the pictures on them, and when they first pick up the book, all they have is the picture and the title.)

Now, if you ever been to one of these shows, you might have seen someone doing this. Most of them are going it alone, and have basically opened the one author book store. This is a good way to distribute your books to the public and attract a little attention for your work. It’s also financial suicide. So, to make this work, you’re going to need to have something else to sell along with your books. I don’t know what that is, you need to figure that out yourself. If you’re at my booth, you’re usually more likely to buy one of my wife’s embroidered bags with steampunk animals on them than my book. This is OK. The bags are the reason my wife doesn’t have another job, and that I can keep doing this. They’ve made the whole thing sustainable. Sustainability, and a good quality book is the reason I am still signing copies of my second book five years after it came out.

So, someone is holding a book of mine, they’ve looked at my beautiful cover, and they’ve heard my pitch. Maybe they’ve read the back of the book. (This is good. The back of my book is pretty funny.)

They now get that idea in their head- I can get this signed by the author. I think a lot of people picture themselves on the antiques roadshow. “I bought this copy of The Time Traveller’s Resort and Museum from David McLain in 2017 at the East Aurora Barn Art Festival, and I got both him and his wife to sign it. She did the cover.”

And then they buy it! Although I must admit, they don’t usually buy it in huge quantities. I don’t care though. My book gets out there, little by little, and I get to go to shows, and sign copies of my book, and do readings, and sometimes, just sometimes, meet a fan. A real genuine honest to goodness fan, who thinks my work is awesome and wants to read more. Not only that, but over time, the money adds up. Sales of my books are already over 7000.00 gross in the last five years. Maybe that doesn’t sound like a lot to you, but would you turn it down if someone handed it to you? I thought not. I wouldn’t either.

When I go to shows, I frequently ask other writers about the best line from their work, their ‘To be or not to be’ if you will. You know what the most common answer is? ‘I don’t know.’ Think about that. ‘I don’t know.’ I would suggest that means something- that we’re all making this up as we go. Writing isn’t easy. Even Shakespeare quit and became a landlord. Keep at it, and good luck.

David McLain studied writing at the University of Massachusetts. He is the author of the two novels: Dragonbait, and The Life of a Thief. His stories have been published in the anthologies Metastasis, Penny Dread II, and the upcoming Doctor Who Anthology Time Shadows, as well as over two dozen magazines, including Harvard’s Dudley Review. He has been featured on NPR’s Off the Page and the History of England podcast. He lives in New York.

So Many New Worlds to Explore…

I know I just did one of these update kind of posts, but I’ve been so busy there’s more to tell. Here’s what we’re currently working on at Mirror World in no particular order:

Sandra Unerman’s Spellhaven: I got my first shipment of Spellhaven paperbacks yesterday and they look phenomenal. I can’t wait to share the cover with you on July 13th! Spellhaven is now also available for pre-order. You can order your copy from your favourite book retailer, or directly from us. Or, if you’re a reviewer, you might be interested in the copies we’ve allocated to Library Thing to give away as ARCs. You can claim one of those, here.

Leigh Goff’s Bewitching Hannah: This book is next on our new release list, launching September 17th, with a cover reveal coming in August. I’ve just finished creating the ebook and formatting the print interior and I’m now working hard on finalizing the cover layout. Again, I’m really excited to share this one with you! You can read about this book on our website, or subscribe to this blog or our newsletter to be the first to hear more details as we announce them.

Rita Monette’s Nikki Landry Swamp Legends Series: We’re pleased to announce that Nikki is back again! Author/Illustrator, Rita Monette, has outdone herself with The Mystery on Lost Lagoon, the fourth installment of the series. We’ve tentatively scheduled this for a November 2017 release and we’re currently working on ideas for the cover.

Joshua Pantalleresco’s The Wandering God: Joshua was the first outside author to join the Mirror World family with his epic poem, The Watcher. Last year, he followed that up with Stormdancer and this year we’re bringing you the stunning conclusion to this epic post-apocalyptic tale. Currently in the editing phase as we wait for Florence Chan to work her magic, we expect this will be ready to launch October 2017.

In addition to all this, we’re also already looking ahead to 2018 with the children’s book, Mixter Twizzle’s Breakfast by Regan W. H. Macaulay and the quasi-sequel to Spellhaven, Ghosts and Exiles by Sandra Unerman. We’re also looking forward to Book Two of Sharon Ledwith’s Mysterious Tales from Fairy Falls, Blackflies and Blueberries.

And last but not least, we have Mirror’s Deceit by Justine Alley Dowsett and Murandy Damodred, the third in the Mirror World series. Currently Mirror’s Deceit is being given a once over by our Editor, Robert Dowsett, but will soon be available for beta readers. Whether you’ve read Mirror’s Hope and/or Mirror’s Heart or not, if you’d like to beta read Mirror’s Deceit, please get in touch with us. We expect to be able to have the beta readers start in August.

Here’s the description:

Mirror’s Deceit by Justine Alley Dowsett and Murandy Damodred

Dark Fantasy/Romance – Coming in 2018!

In a seeming utopia, Mirena, a gifted student of majik, is on the verge of graduating from a secret college that will give her a leg up in her political career, when her achievements are overshadowed by the arrival of a mysterious woman with an unknown agenda.  Desperate to keep what she sees as her rightful place in the spotlight, Mirena goes to astounding lengths including taking it upon herself to pose as a double agent to investigate a rebel force plotting to destabilize the government. Unfortunately, her actions cost her the trust of those around her, so when she is proclaimed the Dark Avatar of the Destroyer, she finds she has nowhere to turn.

Public Speaking for Authors

 

Lately, this has been the topic I’ve been tackling in my day-to-day life, so I thought I should tackle it here as well.

Like most writers I know, I’m an introvert. I prefer to write, read, edit, and generally work behind the scenes. When I go out to network, sell books and meet people, I often find myself needing to hole up and recharge afterwards. It takes a lot out of me. But, it’s also a big part of what I do as a publisher and a published author.

Especially this month. Somehow this month’s schedule got filled with speaking engagements, and opportunities to read my book aloud in public. And all of those opportunities happening to fall within the same week and a half have caused my nerves to fray terribly.

So, how, as an introverted person, do I deal with this?

Be prepared

This might seem like a no-brainer, but picking out what section you’re going to read in advance and/or writing out your presentation or speech beforehand and editing it as thoroughly as you might edit your query letter to a publisher will help you feel more at ease with what you’re doing and it will make you more familiar with what you’re going to be reading or saying.

Practice

Once you have your words picked out, practice saying them out loud. Read to your cats, or like Murandy did, your baby. Read alone, or to someone you trust. It’s all about practicing in a judgment-free zone until you feel more comfortable.

Try not to dwell on it

Whenever you start thinking about it and you feel that anxiety creeping up on you, try to force it down, or will it away. Find something else to focus on and whatever else you do, don’t wallow in that feeling; that will only make it stronger. Find a friend to distract you, or play a video game or something, it will pass.

Speak confidently and slowly

When you get to the actual moment of reading or speaking start loud and keep that pitch, then make sure everything you say is said with emphasis and that you don’t speed up out of nervousness. Speak slowly and enunciate, just like you practiced.

Make jokes

If you can get the audience to laugh, you’ll feel loads better. If your subject warrants it, or if comedy helps you feel more comfortable, then use it. Engage with your audience and make eye contact with them when you can so speaking to them feels more like a conversation and less like a speech.

Celebrate afterwards!

Never underestimate the value of rewarding yourself for a job well done. If you got over your fear and accomplished what you set out to do, then go celebrate. You’ve earned it.

Planning for Pantsers

I’m a pantser. What does that mean? It means that I’d rather ‘write by the seat of my pants’ than plan anything beforehand. However, with my latest book Uncharted, written with my co-writer Murandy Damodred, we did more planning than I’m used to and I think it helped us.

Making Notes:

Since Murandy and I co-write, we use Google Drive to keep everything straight. If you’re not familiar with Google Drive or Google Docs, it’s an open platform where you can share your documents and multiple accounts can work on the same document at the same time. It also serves as a cloud drive, so your work is saved and backed up automatically and anyone you give access to the files can open them up and work on them. This helped us with planning because while writing we always had access to our notes file, which became a living document, changing as the story expanded.

Setting and Worldbuilding:

Usually I do a lot of the world building in my own head, but since Uncharted is an adventure story that takes place in a variety of settings and cultures, I made a point of writing down a handful of things to keep in mind about the settings, so I would make sure to include them.

Characters:

This is where the planning really came in handy. Before we started writing, Murandy and I wrote out detailed backstories for each of our main characters and at least a sentence or two about our minor characters as we invented them. This helped to flesh everyone out and make sure we knew where they had come from and what was important to them because of that.

Plot:

This is where our best of intentions sort of fell apart, but in a good way. Before we started writing, we formed a point form list of plot points then we proceeded to ignore them. As we wrote, we went back and added new plot points to our list and kept adding to that list to stay a few steps ahead of the story, but ultimately this was a form of pantsing more than planning.  

Editing:

Where the notes really came in handy was when I went to write the second draft. All throughout the first draft, instead of going back and fixing things that needed changing, I took notes instead. Then, when I went over the finished first draft, I applied the changes or checked for the problems I’d indicated. It saved me a ton of time and it also meant that Murandy and I could write quickly, without feeling like we were making a mess of things.

All in all, if you’re a pantser, like me, I suggest trying to apply some planning to your process just to see what you can learn. And if you’re a planner, take a risk and try a little pantsing! Thanks for reading!

How to co-write your novel

Murandy Damodred and I wrote our fantasy / romantic comedy novel, Uncharted, together. This is not our first co-written novel. In fact, it’s our fifth, so we’ve got a system worked out. There are lots of ways to divide the work, but here’s our method:

First we split up the characters:

Since we write primarily romance, our stories have at least a male protagonist and a female protagonist, so for Murandy and I what works best is to divide the characters by gender. Murandy tends to write the female main character or characters and I write the male ones. This way, we split up the work and while writing, it’s easier and more interesting to have conversations with each other.

For Uncharted, that’s Meredith as the protagonist and Reginald and Grey as the lead male characters.

We discuss the story and the world and decide where we want to start:

Generally speaking any planning we do as far as coming up with the concept of the story and who the characters are has been done before this point, but now that we know who’s who, we can flesh things out. We bounce ideas off of one another to decide where the story begins and where the inciting incident is.

In Uncharted, we started with the prologue. We wanted to show the moment that sets Meredith on her journey, as that journey was going to be central to the plot.

I set the scene:

As the narrator, it’s my job to describe the setting and to set the scene for the character(s).

From the prologue of Uncharted:

Noiseless on slippered feet, Meredith darted swiftly to the oversized double doors of the Celestial Chamber. She glanced once quickly over each shoulder to make sure she was still alone in the Great Hall before she gave the wide gilded handle a tug and felt the latch give way. With a grimace of effort, she pulled the heavy door open just enough to allow herself to squeeze into the chamber beyond.

Expecting darkness, moonlight dazzled her senses. The silvery light pooled in the middle of a wide and perfectly round central platform, serving to bring focus to the reason for this room’s existence: an ethereal-looking blue bowl lined with silver and filled with glittering water.

The Celestial Bowl beckoned to Meredith from its place on the solitary stone pedestal in the centre of the chamber. The sound of rushing water from the underground river that surfaced briefly in this room filled her ears as she let the heavy door fall quietly shut behind her.

Murandy decides what her character is thinking, doing, or saying:

In response to the information I’ve given her in my description of the scene, Murandy decides what happens next based on her character’s motivations.

I shouldn’t be in here, a small voice in the back of her mind reminded her, even as she took a step toward the glittering artifact. It’s only that I just can’t help but question if this life is for me. I want a family, a home…and a husband. I owe the Order for what they’ve done for me, but if I stay here and become a Priestess, I can’t have any of those things.

If I can just have a look at my destiny tonight, then maybe the path I should take will become clear. Besides, she countered the nagging sound of her conscience, if I wait until tomorrow’s ceremony to see my future, it will be too late to change it.

I let her know how the world or the characters around her react:

Her decision made, Meredith closed the distance between herself and the bowl with purpose, crossing the small, railless stone bridge spanning a gap over the rushing water beneath. As she neared the bowl, she kept her eyes fixated on the calm, reflective surface of the water within, not wanting to chance missing even the slightest bit of whatever vision it might grant her. Moonlight glinted off the silver interior of the bowl, making the room seem brighter than it actually was. As if in a trance, she lost herself in the beauty of the dancing light and that was when she saw it.

A man, no…only his torso, wearing a dark grey suit coat buttoned over his left breast. He stood with pride in his bearing, but beyond the grey coat and a single purple flower in his lapel the image cut off at the neck and didn’t show his face. Meredith leaned forward, trying to get a better angle.

The vision, if that’s what it was, continued and she saw herself from behind, unmistakeable with her lengthy waves of chocolate brown hair cascading over the hood of her light grey Priestess cloak. The vision of herself flung herself at this man and his arms reached up to hold her. Engrossed now, Meredith leaned directly over the bowl, determined to get a glimpse at the face of her mystery man when the image in the silver-lined water abruptly disappeared.

And so it goes:

Back and forth, the action and dialogue unfold as control of the scene is passed between us. And when one scene ends, we repeat the process, deciding where to start, setting the scene, adding thoughts, actions and dialogue, and responding. This is what works for Murandy and I, but there are lots of ways to co-write and divide the work. The trick is to work with someone you can rely on, trust, and generally get along with because co-writing takes a lot of compromise and being on the same page.

Thanks for reading! Have any thoughts or questions about co-writing? Have you tried it? Leave your comments below!

Up next: Uncharted by Justine Alley Dowsett and Murandy Damodred

In anticipation of our 2017 releases, I wanted to interview each of the authors, but I’ve tried, and I simply can’t interview myself. So, instead let me just tell you a little bit about where I’m at now and what my upcoming new release is all about.

There’s less than two months left until Uncharted is released into the world and I’m excited and nervous and experiencing all the other feelings that come with sending a labour of love out into the world.

Next month, on March 20th, we’ll reveal the cover right here on the blog. I can’t wait to show it to you. Sara Biddle, www.salizabeth.net, is the extremely talented digital artist behind the Mirror World series, Unintended and now, Uncharted. As always, she has gone above and beyond any expectations we had and created something truly lovely.

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Uncharted, in case you’re wondering, is a love story set in the multi-cultural historical/fantasy world of Ismera (the same as Unintended). In it, a woman named Meredith questions her future as a priestess of the Order of Saegard and runs away. On the night she leaves, a legendary artifact is stolen from the temple and she’s blamed for it. Suddenly a fugitive, Meredith stows away on a ship belonging to an off-duty naval officer and a ex-con man posing as his business partner. Together the three of them must evade the law while they work to clear Meredith’s name and track down what was stolen and why.

Uncharted will soon be available for pre-order and will launch on April 17th, 2017. We’re in the midst of planning what we’ll do to celebrate, so subscribe to this blog or our mailing list to be kept informed.

As you may or may not know, Murandy, my sister and co-conspirator… I mean, co-writer, is on maternity leave with her four-month old, but we’re still writing. We’re in the middle of this years’ #85K Challenge (that’s 85,000 words in 90 days) and we’re a little over halfway through two different projects. The first is the next installment in the Mirror Series, working title, Mirror’s Redemption. And the other is the much-anticipated sequel to our first novel ever written together, Neo Central.

With a passion for media and sales, Murandy has a strong background in public relations and promotions as well as an education in Drama and Communications. Justine is an author herself and has worked in a multitude of industries, including publishing. She comes to Mirror World Publishing after acting as Producer and Business and Marketing Director for First Age Studios, a video game design company.