Road to ePublishing: Fiona Ostler

Today I'm going to host my first ever author interview with Fiona Ostler, a friend and fellow writer who has just launched her first e-book, Guardian: Gold Rush.


This will be a two-part blog. First, a little spoiler about Fiona's book. Then we'll continue with a Q&A, including how and why Fiona decided to take the plunge into epublishing.

Here's the teaser for Guardian: Gold Rush:

"Sixteen-year-old Ivy Rogers has a strange gift. She remembers her experiences as a guardian angel and dreams about what will happen in the future. When she dreams of skipping her math test the next day to rescue a complete stranger at LAX, that’s exactly what she does. Why? Because the boy in her dream was totally hot and she knows that she’s the only one who can help him.

"The boy is dashing young Lord Donovan Wooster, who possesses his own unique talent of talking with ghosts. He is traveling to the US to find the lost treasure his ancestors hid during the California Gold Rush. He’s being followed by two Irish brothers who seem to know his every move.

"When Donovan and Ivy connect, they are catapulted into a supernatural race against time to find the gold before the Irishmen find them. Along the way, Ivy discovers if the stranger in her dream is the man of her dreams."

Question and Answer
Joshua: All right, Fiona, time for a little Interview. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Fiona: Well, that's a question. I am a mom. I just had my forth child in March and I love Mommyland. My passions include writing, drawing, music composition and movie soundtrack scores, travel, food, walking, religion, psychology, and especially right now I'm really getting those homemaking skills down. I'm completely serious, too. I've gone from being a chaotic artist to a somewhat organized domestic goddess. My mom keeps coming into my house and tells me what a surprise it is to see it so clean and peaceful. Given the state of my room and life when I was growing up under her roof I'd guess she thinks that aliens have possessed my body. I write books for young adults, well, twelve to eighteen-year-olds.

Joshua: Sounds like you're really busy! Tell me, how did you start writing?

Fiona: All my life I've had story ideas, characters, and conversations bouncing around my head. As far as actually writing them down:

In forth grade my teacher, Ms. Blair, produced a play I wrote and we had an assembly where my class put it on for the whole school. Then, I took a break. In college I took several creative, fiction, and playwriting classes which were amazing and got me tinkering around with one acts and unfinished manuscripts that were okay. Then, I took another break. Shortly after my third child was born, President Uchtdorf gave an amazing talk in Woman's Conference (2008) about how creating things bring us joy. I felt that desire to write the ideas in my head once again, and almost was given permission to do so. As a mom, you just sacrifice everything and feel selfish if you do something for yourself, but I was empty and so lost at that point that I knew that I needed something, and writing was the answer. If you think about it, we are commanded to develop our talents or they will be taken away. And we are also commanded to not hide our light under a bushel, so...

I haven't taken a break since fall 2008 and have finished 3.5 novels.

Joshua: That's quite the accomplishment. Tells you what motivation and hard work can accomplish. So, tell us about your current project.

Fiona: It's complicated. I have a YA sci-fi that is being looked at by a small publishing company in New York. I'll know more about that later.

I'm trying to finish my forth book - a YA superhero book of sorts. I just read an ARC of a book coming out in May called DIVERGENT by Veronica Roth which was awesome and really got me thinking about how much deeper my world building needs to get for this story so I'm in "what if" land with this project.

But, the project that you are interviewing me for is my YA supernatural-historical-romance-adventure story Guardian: Gold Rush - the first in a three book series.

Joshua: Cool. I posted your teaser above. I think it's an interesting premise. Why did you decide to epublish?

Fiona: I have tried so hard to get an agent for Guardian: Gold Rush and have shelved it for the better part of a year. It's my first novel, and I love it to pieces - it helped me find myself in the depths of a post partum depression. And it's really a good fit for my experiments in epublishingland because I just want to get it out there, and I don't care if it makes any money. I'm going to keep writing and I'll break in eventually. The ideas, characters and conversations have not run dry. They keep coming. It's not a matter of if, but when. I just didn't want to leave this book behind as I move forward with my writing and epublishing has been a good way to do that.

My husband, Bret, was really the one who helped me get this all going. He got the book up on Kindle, and is now figuring out Barnes and Noble and iBooks, etc. (He's really the brains.) Bret was also kind enough to design a cover for me and has started putting together my website. It's not perfect, but I'm sick of GoDaddy's thong adds on my domain name, that we had to do something. Everything probably looks more like a sandbox creation than an actual glossy publishing house produced book launch, but It's been a blast. I'm grateful to be married to a technical/artistic genius! The rest of you might have to pay someone.

I'm loving the feedback I get now like, "Fiona, I keep trying to remember that you're the one who wrote this and not some author. It's actually good."

I've learned tons and it's been a blast. It's nerve racking because as a novice writer you keep waiting for an agent or publishing house to give you permission to say that you're an author. At what point are you good enough to say that? I think it's a personal decision. Right now, I'm saying that I am and I've chosen to put myself out there.

Joshua: Personally, I think you've made the right decision. I've started down that course myself, as you can see in my previous post. ePublishing is definitely the future of publishing. You've got permanent rights, and a permanent shelf space. Plus all the control over creative rights, and that huge royalty possibility. But enough of that. Tell me again where we can find your book? (Hey, I know I'm shameless promoting here, especially since it's linked to all over the place, but hey, take a look and see what you think.)

Fiona: Just type "Fiona Ostler" in an amazon search and there I'll be - Guardian: Gold Rush by, Fiona Ostler. It's $2.99. You can also get the first five chapters as a sample. Kindle readers are free and download to any computer - just set up an account with them.

Joshua: Awesome. I can't wait until mine is right up there with yours! So, what's next on tap?

Fiona: Potty Training my three-year-old.
Waiting to hear back from the Editor about the Sci-Fi book.
Finishing the sequels to GUARDIAN and epublishing them.
Trying to deeply build in my new superhero world thanks to Veronica Roth.
72 hour kits.
Read through and critique a few books from authors in my writing group.
Figure out better ways to market myself (yucky, crummy, hateful)
Start walking in the mornings again.
That's what's up.
Thank you so much for the interview and putting in a good word for me. And thank you to anyone who reads this interview and gives GUARDIAN a try.

Joshua: Thanks, Fiona, for a great interview, and best of luck to you on your first epublished title, just released today (April 18) on Amazon. And for the rest of you, if you haven't considered epublishing, get with it!

E-publishing model

I've been following a discussion about the merits of e-publishing over the traditional print model. Here are some of my thoughts:

1. This is not an either/or game. It's not print publishing versus e-publishing. I think the smartest plan is to do both simultaneously using either print-on-demand or low-cost local distributors. Joe Konrath explains this in his blog, Newbies Guide to Publishing. He does both, but he's moving huge numbers digitally, a lot less in print relatively speaking. But the print model is still very strong and viable. So you do both.
2. As Rebecca Shelley, a friend writer of mine (note link is to her website, not the comment), pointed out, there are lots of kids who read e-books. My neighbor's kid is reading my novel on his Kindle. I sent it to him as a Word doc and they converted it for ease of reading.
3. Speed and Volume are key for e-models, and very lucrative. Speed allows super-vast distribution. Think about it. Once you feel confident in your writing, you can realistically go from conception of a project to launch in 6 months, 3 if you are very quick. That's just the writing, rewriting, copyediting, and formatting. Plus you get much more out there much more quickly. Part of Rebecca's success is having multiple volumes out there.
3. The power of the e-model is far greater than just the simple black and white models the big distributors are doing. It's a multimedia campaign like nothing we've ever seen before. I'm still in the very beginning stages of gathering information, but let me share with you my marketing strategy for a Christmas season launch. It's very ambitious, and perhaps I'm in way over my head just thinking about it.


My Crazy Ambitious Plan
A. I'm hoping to launch my Lizzie Peterson middle grade series in the Legends of Kyreo by November for the Christmas season, including (hopefully) a late summer/early fall launch for book 1, and 2 more to follow, with books 4 and 5 next spring.
B. Audio. Recording audio for your books is cheaper now than ever, especially if you feel confident enough with your voice to do your own. You can always update later with a better voice talent and distribute again. Before, audio was just for the blind or for ebooks on CD. But many, many people like to listen to their books now as they commute. And kids, especially middle grade, will love an interactive experience where they can easily move back and forth between audio and just print, or print with audio. This enhancement will be huge.
C. Color. I'm planning on 5-15 color illustrations and high concept, professional-level art for the cover. This will help me compete with the big national companies, and allow me more freedom in my own image concepts. Plus, it's not nearly as expensive as I once thought. Think about how many books you've read that would be so enhanced with illustrations. Plus you can use color in  your text, titles, etc. Also, maps galore. I get excited just thinking about it.
D. Games. OK, more expensive here, but here's a link to a guy who's doing some simple game tie-ins that: www.themag12.com (no comments about the quality of his materials, which I haven't read. I just found this while researching), while not the most educating, are gaining a lot of traffic. And the level is low-sophistication, so the costs are probably not astronomical. I'm just looking into that, but it's a great tie in.
E. Author commentary. This could be big for adult audiences, but for kids, depending on the kind of content, especially world building and such, could be a great offer.
F. External links to other content, including web pages and such, have vast potential for growth.
G. Music, video links, etc. The sky just keeps opening up.


Summary
So, with the possible exception of music/videos (except I have several professional contacts to make book trailers) and games, I can do all this for under $1,000 a book, including formatting, copyediting, and the like. Just imagine all you could offer this way. Beats the socks off print books that take 2-3 years to get printed with a traditional publisher, and keeps me as a writer exited, engaged, and really motivated to produce. And what I produce will make me 70% profits at Amazon, and closer to 100% off my own web site. Think about it. This is no longer just a print experience. I'll provide more as I move along. I'm weeks away from producing the video trailers, hiring the illustrators, and beginning voice overs. And that's just for starters. And I can keep throwing up more and more, including short stories, and...well...need I say more?

Lizzie Peterson Book 2 Chapter 1

High praise: my daughter could hardly stand it after reading chapter 1 of Lizzie Peterson book 2 (in the Legends of Kyreo). She was hopping up and down at the dinner table pining that there was nothing else yet to read! I just gave her the chapter I wrote this morning! I gotta say, I was feeling proud.


Dave Farland is right: after a while, some of those years of practice, lessons, and learning pay off, and you write something kinda decent on the first fly. Not saying it's awesome or anything--that's not for me to say--but it passed the most important first test. Whew!

How Do You Handle Rejection?

So Shadow Mountain, the publisher I've been working closely with, provided me a glowing review of my middle grade manuscript, Lizzie Peterson and the Places of Naming, and said it's definitely a book they would consider publishing. Unfortunately, their slate for series is full through 2013. They will keep this book on their 'wish list' and stay in touch, but encouraged me to actively promote it to other publishers. Both exciting and a little disappointing. Gearing up for the next step. I'm going to target more national markets and research ePublishing.

So, what do you think? What should the next step be? How would you move forward?