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Laura Thalassa:
Hi! Sorry to bother you, but I have a few questions about the writing process! What was something that you were surprised by, while publishing a book? What are some tips for writing well crafted characters? Thank you so much! I LOVE your books!
Laura Thalassa
Thank you for the book love! As for the questions:
Tips for writing well-crafted characters—give them really fleshed-out backstories and personalities, which basically means writing up character bios, just so that you get a good idea of who this individual is, and how they would approach various topics and situations. Once you get a feel for who they are, then it’s pretty easy to know how they’ll react to certain situations.
What was one thing that surprised me while publishing a book? I think being an indie author, the entire process of publishing a book was pretty shocking. I started self-publishing back in 2013, so ten years ago, and back then, being an indie wasn’t a very established route. There weren’t many cover designers and formatters, and the marketing options, both on Amazon and on social media were very limited. (I don’t think there were ads on social media or Amazon at the time.) So back then, the entire process of getting a book polished and published and making it look as professional as those published by traditional publishing houses was something I wasn’t really prepared for until I just went for it. I think now, the most shocking thing is how quickly the publishing landscape changes from year to year. For instance, BookTok is really big, and it’s a way to market books, but that really wasn’t the case a few years ago. Likewise, indie books would never be carried in bookstores up until a couple years ago, and creating hardback books only recently became an option on Amazon’s publishing platform. And it used to be that free giveaways were a great way to get marketing for your book, but now that’s not as widely used. So I’d say that as someone who’s been in the industry for 10 years, the rate at which the industry changes has continually surprised me.
Tips for writing well-crafted characters—give them really fleshed-out backstories and personalities, which basically means writing up character bios, just so that you get a good idea of who this individual is, and how they would approach various topics and situations. Once you get a feel for who they are, then it’s pretty easy to know how they’ll react to certain situations.
What was one thing that surprised me while publishing a book? I think being an indie author, the entire process of publishing a book was pretty shocking. I started self-publishing back in 2013, so ten years ago, and back then, being an indie wasn’t a very established route. There weren’t many cover designers and formatters, and the marketing options, both on Amazon and on social media were very limited. (I don’t think there were ads on social media or Amazon at the time.) So back then, the entire process of getting a book polished and published and making it look as professional as those published by traditional publishing houses was something I wasn’t really prepared for until I just went for it. I think now, the most shocking thing is how quickly the publishing landscape changes from year to year. For instance, BookTok is really big, and it’s a way to market books, but that really wasn’t the case a few years ago. Likewise, indie books would never be carried in bookstores up until a couple years ago, and creating hardback books only recently became an option on Amazon’s publishing platform. And it used to be that free giveaways were a great way to get marketing for your book, but now that’s not as widely used. So I’d say that as someone who’s been in the industry for 10 years, the rate at which the industry changes has continually surprised me.
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