Before today is quite over, I do want to wish my mother a Happy Mother’s Day one more time! She has given me so much support for my writing; not just encouragement, but also her own considerable English skills, as she read several drafts of The Wizard of Suomen to find problems for me. It is definitely a better story because of her help.
So, Happy Mother’s Day, and thank you so much for your help, Mom. ❤
While I don’t post as often as I’d like to anyway, I’m going to be especially busy for the next couple of months (mostly with fun things, fortunately!), so posts may be even leaner than usual. But I’ll still try and get in a couple of reviews and some writing updates.
Things are getting nice and green outside, though, and it is finally spring! It’s nice to listen to the birds and the frogs calling while I work on things.
I will say that print copies of The Wizard of Suomen will be available soon! The ebook is $2.99 on Amazon, if you are looking for a good sword-and-sorcery.
~Ethelinda
I have now officially written 116 words of Book Two of the Land of Winds series!
…yeah, no one hold your breath. XD But still, a start is a start. While I know the basic plot of this one, I’m excited to figure out exactly what happens! Title is still very TBD. ^_^;;
While I will admit that I thought it might be nice to get snowed in once this year, I was thinking something like late January or early February rather than…mid-April. Midwest weather being what it is, however, we don’t really get to pick the timing of our blizzards.
So, I spent a nice day inside, watching the snow pile up on my balcony and watching more of Dragons: Defenders of Berk. I’ve really been enjoying all of the How To Train Your Dragon spin-off TV episodes, and will probably write something up about them later. It would have been hard to go wrong with another 100+ episodes of Toothless, of course, but they’ve been genuinely enjoyable apart from that.
And of course, a snowed-in evening is a great time to get some more writing done! More Land of Winds stories in the pipeline, and I should be starting Book 2 soon (I do at least have a rough outline done, and have been letting that stew for a bit).
I’ll probably be mostly snowed in tomorrow too, so hopefully I can make some good progress. 🙂
~Ethelinda
There’s definitely a learning curve to this self-publishing business, even if you’ve done your research beforehand! I’ll post some tips as I figure stuff out. Something I ran into (publishing as I currently am on Amazon) is to be careful with what categories your book gets placed into. This is undoubtedly a rookie error on my part, but I will learn more about this process and get better at it. 🙂
For this, I’m especially referencing the categories that Amazon chooses to put your book into based on keywords that you select during the uploading process. They have a chart in the Help section on KDP that helps you pick these. For example, I wanted The Wizard of Suomen to appear in the Fantasy>Sword & Sorcery category, so not surprisingly I had to have the words “sword” and “sorcery” appear in my keywords. So far, so good.
My mistake was in not paying enough attention to the other keywords I was using, and whether or not Amazon used them to determine any other categories. Because of this, TWoS ended up in Fantasy>Myths & Legends>Norse & Vikings.
The first problem with being in the wrong category is obvious: I don’t want to give potential readers a false impression of what my book is about. Although it is inspired by Finland to a certain extent, TWoS is definitely not a Vikings kind of story, so this was not a good category for it from that perspective.
The other problem was one that I had not considered, though, which had to do with the sales rankings, and how I viewed them. “Norse & Vikings” is a fairly small category on Amazon, with not too many books in it. Because of this, even my few early sales were enough to boost me into the top 100 bestsellers in this category, which in turn pulled up my ranking in “Sword & Sorcery,” etc. For this reason, it was tempting to leave TWoS in the smaller category, in the hopes of that trend continuing! But having the categories be accurate is more important, so I changed my keywords so Amazon would remove it from the “Norse & Vikings” category, which they duly noted and did. And then my sales ranking took a BIG hit, which was very disheartening to watch!
So, if you’re getting your first book up on Amazon, be careful of the keywords and categories. That way you’ll not only show up to the right potential readers, but also you won’t have to go through the disappointment of seeing your sales rank improve, only to have to undo it all!
~Ethelinda
I am delighted to announce that The Wizard of Suomen is now available on Amazon! If you like a good sword & sorcery fantasy, this one is for you. If you enjoy it (which I hope you will!) please consider leaving a review and sharing it with your friends!
When Elof Kálmári arrives at the border in southeastern Suomen, he hopes that rumor has exaggerated the trouble he is walking into. He has heard that this conflict with their neighboring country is serious, and that his new commanding officer is a magic-user. To his dismay, both rumors are true. Elof struggles to deal with the unfamiliar, destructive magic wielded by their enemies and his own leader, General Virtanen. Then disaster strikes: the enemy gains access to the very heart of Suomen, Suomen’s King makes a series of increasingly unwise decisions, and uncertainty and mistrust divide their allies. General Virtanen, Elof, and his comrades must put everything on the line to keep the King alive and give their people a fighting chance against a powerful enemy. Come find out which way the Winds will blow…
Draft 6 of The Wizard of Suomen was finished on August 10, 2017, at 12:46am. 158,005 words.
The seventh and final draft was finished at 12:45am on December 3, 2017, with 157,934 words. At the size and type of font I was using at the time, that was 374 pages in Word.
Happy New Year! Further updates shortly!
~Ethelinda
