Tag: self-publishing

My first school visit

Posted March 18, 2015 by Jennifer Ellision in Author business, blog, Books, IRL, Self-Publishing, Threats of Sky and Sea, Writing / 1 Comment

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending a high school book club, where the club read Threats of Sky and Sea this month. Equal parts nervous and elated, I left Day Job early and pulled up to a place that I don’t think I’ve been to since 2006– when I graduated from there. This was my first school visit and I tried to disregard the surrealism of the situation– along with the urge to cry out that “I DON’T EVEN GO HERE.” Not someone who is innately comfortable with attention, I was pretty dang nervous, but the informal setting quickly helped me relax. I’d estimate that about 20 students attended. We pulled together chairs in a loose circle around a table, and let the questions fly. The school visit was off, and moving fast. A lot of questions that […]

Defining Justice prequel short: announcement and cover reveal

Posted March 6, 2015 by Jennifer Ellision in blog, Books, Threats of Sky and Sea / 0 Comments

Heyyyy youuuu guyssss! You may remember that my Prince Caden short story, Defining Justice, was published about a year ago in Inaccurate Realities Issue #3: Magic. I’m so pleased to have been included in such a wonderful collection (seriously, the other stories are A+. I definitely recommend checking it out). But I’m equally pleased to announce that Defining Justice will soon be available on its own! With the story expanded slightly, Defining Justice will be coming to you in e-book form on May 4, 2015, and you can find the short blurb right here! One of Prince Caden’s earliest explanations of justice came from his father. But with an Earth Elemental’s life on the line, Caden learns to define it for himself. You can add Defining Justice on Goodreads here. And… check out the cover below! This cover is special to me […]

Announcing the Threats of Sky and Sea audiobook!

Posted January 9, 2015 by Jennifer Ellision in Author business, blog, Books, Threats of Sky and Sea / 1 Comment

Okay, first, the bad news: I am entirely unsure when Riot of Storm and Smoke will be available. In retrospect, I should have anticipated it would be longer than my target date of December. Threats of Sky and Sea took me a good year and a half-two years to write, revise, and edit. It was foolish to think that I could whittle the time frame down so drastically for Riot of Storm and Smoke, especially as it still needs to go through editing, formatting, etc., etc. But it is coming. I’ll get you an official date as soon as humanly possible. But let’s get to the good part of this post. Threats of Sky and Sea is coming to a set of earbuds near you! …That is, as February 10, 2015, Threats of Sky and Sea will be an audiobook, narrated by Misty Daugherty! You can […]

Turning a profit

Posted November 18, 2014 by Jennifer Ellision in Author business, blog, Books, Self-Publishing, Threats of Sky and Sea / 10 Comments

I have waited quite a few moons to be able to make this post– but this month has finally done it. Threats of Sky and Sea is finally earning a profit! (All you need for my emotions here are 0:20-026) Wait, what do you mean it’s earning a profit? You’ve sold books before now, right? Yes, thankfully I have! But between cover design, formatting, editing, and publicity, I tossed a good chunk of change into making Threats of Sky and Sea a success… roughly $2,000 worth. Though I released in May, it’s only now that I’m starting to actually profit, meaning I’ve earned back the money that I’ve invested. I expected that, and knew I was in this for the long haul, but man, it feels good to be officially earning from my writing. I’ve always found posts from fellow self-publishers regarding their […]

August Goals

Posted August 1, 2014 by Jennifer Ellision in Author business, blog / 0 Comments

My birthday is August 29th, and I really want to give myself a couple of presents this year! As this day job’s “new” status fades, I’m finding myself better at balancing things again. Don’t get me wrong– I’m still WAY busy, but I’m adapting to things, which means I’m a little less exhausted, and that I’m once again finding ways to squeeze author business into my spare time (lunch hours, right before bed, weekend, et cetera). And because I can get stuff accomplished again, I’m setting myself some goals. The first three are big ones: 1) Finish this draft of Riot of Storm and Smoke. I’ve been saying it for ages, but it MUST happen this month if I want to meet my self-imposed publication month (December). Elsewise, I’m looking at pushing back my date and I HATE that idea. 2) Do […]

The self-publishing cover process: Creating a cover for Threats of Sky and Sea

Posted July 25, 2014 by Jennifer Ellision in blog, Self-Publishing, Threats of Sky and Sea / 3 Comments

Hello, friends! Long time, no talk. I’m at a new job these days and it’s much busier than the last, leaving less time for authorly things throughout the day. But enough about that! I’m gearing up to begin working next month with my amazing cover artist Nathalia Suellen for the cover of Book 2 in the Threats of Sky and Sea series: Riot of Storm and Smoke, and this made me realize that I never shared the self-publishing cover process for Threats of Sky and Sea. I found Nathalia Suellen through some of her other work, so I knew that she was extremely capable of a beautiful cover– especially one with a person on the cover. And she was a dream to work with. I had only a vague idea of what I wanted for the cover of Threats of Sky and […]

Lady Kat’s Story: Sisters of Wind and Flame Release Day

Posted June 30, 2014 by Jennifer Ellision in Author business, blog, Books, Threats of Sky and Sea / 0 Comments

Happy Release Day, Lady Kat! While writing/revising Threats of Sky and Sea, I took a step back to try to get inside Lady Kat’s head. I imagined I’d sketch out a brief scene, but once I began writing it, it was clear that Lady Kat had more to say. (I should not have been surprised.) That quickly turned into a short story titled Sisters of Wind and Flame and I’m so excited that, as of today, you guys can see Kat develop into the antagonist we meet in TOSAS. I had so much fun writing Sisters of Wind and Flame and getting Kat, expanding on a couple of other characters that you’ve met before, adding a few others that you haven’t… and I’m very pleased to say that (for less that the price of… well, many things) Sisters of Wind and Flame can be yours […]

Cover reveal and publication date: Sisters of Wind and Flame (A Threats of Sky and Sea prequel short)

Posted June 5, 2014 by Jennifer Ellision in blog, Books, Threats of Sky and Sea / 5 Comments

Hello everyone! With BEA over (read my recaps over at The Bevy Bibliotheque: Part 1 | Part 2), I’m hard at work with Book 2 of the Threats of Sky and Sea series (Book 1 is available now). And I’m also hard at work with editing something else… Today, I also wanted to talk to you all about the e-short I’m releasing later this month– on June 30th, 2014 to be precise. Those of you who have already read Threats of Sky and Sea have also met Lady Katerine. Kat got in my head in a way that I didn’t expect during Threats of Sky and Sea. I stepped back from the ToSaS manuscript and wrote what was supposed to be a short scene in Kat’s teenage years in an effort to understand what made the character tick. It quickly became several scenes. And […]

Looking back on release week

Posted May 26, 2014 by Jennifer Ellision in blog, Books, Self-Publishing, Threats of Sky and Sea / 1 Comment

Threats of Sky and Sea release week was kiiiind of the bomb. I was ecstatic to be releasing Threats of Sky and Sea in general and release day would have been great regardless. But a few things made it stand-out fantastic. Like all of the tweets and Facebook posts supporting me and linking to buy Threats of Sky and Sea. Like an awesome release day Twitter chat, with fun questions from great participants. Like the paperback breaking the top 5K of books on Amazon. Like ranking in THREE categories on Amazon. Like breaking the top 7K of all Kindle books. We also threw a book launch celebration! There was cake, I signed a few books, and we set up a table with swag to grab. There were friends, family, food and drink. MOST excellent. Basically, I couldn’t have asked for much more […]

A love letter to Threats of Sky and Sea on its release day

Posted May 20, 2014 by Jennifer Ellision in blog, Books, Threats of Sky and Sea / 5 Comments

Dear Threats of Sky and Sea, TOSAS (may I call you TOSAS?), you and I have been through a lot together. Way back from the time when I was consistently getting your name wrong and calling you “Apparent.” (What, oh what, was I thinking?) We’ve been together for years now, ever since that first scene jumped into my head way back in 2011. But I was only flirting with you then, TOSAS. It wouldn’t be until about a year later, in 2012, that I was finally ready to commit to you and only you. To take you seriously. We had our struggles. Sometimes, I just couldn’t understand you. You wanted to go everywhere– you wanted to go nowhere. You were overly dramatic or you fell totally flat. You made no sense! Sometimes, I wanted to break up with you. But […]