Happy weekend, everyone! I still have one more post to write about what I learned in the process of writing, editing, and publishing Bound, and this is somewhat related, but I wanted to take this weekend's post to tell you about the experience I had at my first ever book signing! To anyone dying to know the rest of what I learned putting Bound out into the world, stay tuned next weekend. I promise I haven't forgotten!

​Let's get into this experience, shall we?

It all started a couple of months ago, when I finally worked up the courage to make a phone call. I'd attended several book signings at Barnes and Noble - both incidentally and with purpose - and I'd learned through the authors I interacted with that Barnes and Noble is very supportive of local authors. When I spoke with one of the cashiers on my regular B&N outing (yes, I go to the bookstore regularly), she said the first thing I'd need to do is call and speak with a manager. So I took a deep breath, and I called. I started at my favorite location; the Orem B&N, where I visit so frequently that I know where everything is even when they move things around. 

And this is what happened: The manager provided me with an email address, to which I was to send my official event request. Thanks to My Book Launch Planner (Linked) by Mandi Lynn, and my previous event requests at other bookstores and libraries, I already had a template for what I wanted to say.

This time, however, I wanted to make it more mine. So I adjusted my request and included a picture of the book cover. Within 24 hours, the manager got back to me and scheduled me for January 11th, and even asked if I would like to sell books on consignment in the store in the meantime. Um... yes please! On release day, I brought in five copies, which were on the shelves when I went back that following Friday. My dream of selling my book on the shelves of Barnes and Noble was finally a reality after publishing my eighth book!

That first experience was so positive that I decided to call around to other locations in my area. I was able to schedule a couple more book signings before that January 11th event, and my first one was scheduled for October 26th at the Barnes and Noble in American Fork.

​So, how did it go?

You guys, I couldn't have asked for a better first experience. The manager, Jordan, and I had been in contact for the last couple of months, and she was incredible about answering all of my many questions leading up to the event. 

When I got there, I was all jittery, equal parts nervous and excited, but I had my husband and my little man with me, and a couple of my siblings came up and stayed around for the entire event, with my sister relenting to sit with me at the table and talk with me during the lulls. 

As I worked to get the table set up, the manager brought over the five copies of Bound that she had ordered to their location and noticed the extra copies I'd brought in just in case. She let me know that the books they had ordered needed to sell before I could put any of my copies up for consignment.

Well, within the first 45 minutes, all five copies had sold. I had so many wonderful colleagues, family members and friends show up to lend their support and congratulations, and I got to practice my elevator pitch. I got to talk about the book and some of the cool features and designs I got to create for the book, and had a bunch of people sign up for my email list. 

In the full two hour event, I signed twelve books - sold nine, three were brought into the store after being ordered online - and I talked with so many awesome people. There were several people I knew who couldn't attend the event but sent their congratulations and wished me good luck. I totally felt it! 

I didn't get as many strangers coming to the table as I would have liked. I think they might have been intimidated by all the conversations I was having with those who came, but I was having a blast anyway!

I have another signing coming up on November 23rd at the Murray location, and I'm psyched to go. In my future signings, I'm going to work on being more approachable and offering more free stuff to strangers. I brought a bunch of bookmarks, stickers, and book art to the signing, which I will do again, but I'm going to work on asking people if they'd like to come grab some free stuff. 

Overall, this experience was incredible. The American Fork Barnes and Noble is seriously gorgeous inside, and I had a wonderful time talking with everyone. I can't wait for the next one! 

Thanks for reading, and thank you to everyone who was able to make it to this event. If you weren't able to make this one, I'll be at the new Murray Utah Barnes and Noble location on Saturday, November 23rd from 12:00 - 3:00 PM. Have a wonderful rest of your weekend, and I'll write again next week! 

Hi everyone! I'd hoped to get this post out sooner than this evening, but it's been a very busy weekend! Today, I'd like to share part 2 of what I've learned in the process of writing and publishing Bound. Today, we'll cover the production process.

​
Cover Design
I've been designing my own covers in one form or another since my first book, but this is the first book cover in which I really took time to layer the art on there. I also used my own art in Accidentally External and Clairvoyance, but for this one, I took it a step further. I layered on an image of a red dahlia, which is supposed to represent strength and perseverance, as Lane and Alec have to persevere through a lot of challenges in the book. It's also meant to represent their strong bond. 

In my cover design, I drew Alec's falchion and one of Lane's arrows. The smoke and black texturing are meant to represent the magic within the book, and the kind of smoky white that surrounds the weapons is meant to represent the bond that ties the two of them together. 

This is the first book that I've designed my own title font for. It's the first book that I've had the opportunity to design a dust jacket for, and on that dust jacket I was able to incorporate some of the wonderful beta reader feedback I received. I also had the awesome opportunity of designing a laminate hardcover that would be under the dust jacket (see center book in last week's image to see what it looks like - or buy a copy and have a chance to admire it close up). 

This cover went through several versions before it ended up here, and I'm really glad that I didn't stick with one of my earlier designs. This one looks so beautiful on the shelf! 


Interior Design
There are a lot of things that I learned how to do when it came to designing the interior of this book. Some of these are things that I've wanted to do in the past, but I just hadn't given them a shot. Here's what I was able to do with the interior:

• In the process of writing this book, I drew a map to help me keep all the locations and timeframes straight as my characters traveled across the continent. I kept working to develop this map, and I was able to include it in the front and back of the book. (Not on the inside cover, but it's the first thing you'll see when you open the pages of the book). I love opening fantasy books to find a map of the world within, and I'm so happy I was able to do one myself!
• I used the same images I created for the front of the book to...
  • Create a title page
  • Create chapter headers
  • Create scene break graphics​
• In the interior design process for this book, I was able to express my appreciation in an acknowledgements page. There were a lot of people to thank! I was also able to add in additional materials, including...
  • Additional lore for the story
  • Instructions for the dice game I created for the story
  • An announcement for the tentative release date for the second book
  • A content warnings page 

Ebook Design
There's not a ton that I did differently for my ebook design. My ebook won't officially release for this book until March of 2025, but the file is all ready to go. In my ebook, I still hyperlinked all of the chapters so they are easily accessible. This time, I was able to add some additional layers of protection for my files, and I decided to do the ebook in full color, so all internal graphics and maps are bright, vivid, full color images. 


​Using IngramSpark
Boy, I could do a whole series of posts just on what I've learned from using IngramSpark, and perhaps one day I will. For now, though, I'll give you the quick version. In August of 2023, I was able to attend some sessions of an author summit that Eric Van Der Hope was hosting. In it, I heard a handful of speakers talk about using IngramSpark either in replacement of or alongside Kindle Direct Publishing. I decided to do some research, and with this book, I thought I'd give it a try. 

I decided to purchase my own ISBNs from Bowker rather than going with the typical free option from either KDP or IngramSpark, as I really wanted to be able to explore my options for marketing and distribution. Then, I made an account with IngramSpark, got the book files in, filled in all my metadata information (I'll definitely be talking more about this in a future post), and ordered my proof copy. 

Typically, I have some minor adjustments I want to make to the cover at this point, and I clear up any errors I catch. I also do a complete line edit with the physical copy, because I find I catch errors much more easily on paper than I do on a screen. This time, I still did my complete line edit, but I actually made quite a few aesthetic changes to my cover once I saw what it would actually look like in person. The cover redesign process was lengthy and arduous at first, but once I figured out how to use IngramSpark's cover design template tool, it was a breeze! 

I absolutely love using IngramSpark, and thought I'll probably be using it alongside KDP, I've really loved the experience, and I've found that going this route (with my purchased ISBN and utilizing IngramSpark for distribution) has allowed my book to become more easily accessible to retailers like Barnes and Noble. 

Okie dokie, that's about it for now. To those of you who read all the way to the end, thank you! I'm happy to have you on this journey with me. If you're interested in learning more with me, check back next week, where I'll share what I've learned in the marketing/PR world as I've worked to market this book! 

Have a wonderful week, and I'll see you next time. 

Okay, folks. This will be a long one, as I learned a ridiculous amount of things in my time writing, editing, publishing and marketing my new release, Bound. Because there is so much for me to write about, I'm going to split it up into (fairly) manageable chunks, and I'll try to squish the last year and six month's worth of learning into a few blog posts. Today, I'd like to start at the beginning: The crafting process.

Writing
For this book, there were a handful of things I learned how to streamline for my writing process. First, I started writing with a timer. I know this technique isn't for everyone, but the combination of writing with a timer and logging my word count every day made me ridiculously productive.

​Writing with a timer also helped me understand my process a bit better (I now know I tap out at about 45 minutes, but that I can come back to it after about a 15 minute break). It also helped me avoid writer's block and keep the flow going during my drafting process. I think this strategy also helped minimize the amount of notes I needed to leave myself so that I could go back and fill things in later. Yes, I still had a handful of these, but in comparison to the other books I've published, these notes were few and far between.

In my drafting stages, I also set a weekly goal of 10,000 words, which I often exceeded. Each day when I was finished writing, I'd check to see how many words I'd written and put it into a little spreadsheet to track my progress. Doing so kept me highly motivated to reach my goal, because my little pie chart told me how much I still needed in order to "succeed" for the week. 

The last thing I did with this book that I haven't necessarily done with the others was setting a goal to write something every day. In the past, I've written often, but I would frequently go at least a few days (sometimes a few weeks) without writing anything, and I always found it was more difficult to come back to the story after such a break. For this book, after reading Morgan Gist Macdonald's "Start Writing Your Book Today," I told myself, "You can do this. Just write something. Ten words is better than nothing." And I did write nearly every day. Once I got my kiddo to bed, I'd always take 30 minutes to an hour and just put words on the page. Now, Friday nights are sacred in my household, so I made a habit of scheduling little to no writing on those days. Still, the consistency and the mindset of "Just do something" helped me finish both my rough draft and my developmental rewrite in weeks instead of months.

Re-Writing
I typically do my own developmental editing after some initial feedback from people in my life who know my writing and where my biggest downfalls are. Why? Because editors are so expensive, and it can be difficult in a world so saturated with scammers to know who's legitimate and who will give you the feedback you pay for. But! For this book, an author I follow on Instagram posted their editing availability, and I thought, "You know what? Let's try it." Here are some things I learned from this process:

1. My developmental editor did much the same thing I always do with my books, but she had some amazing insight and questions that I hadn't thought about. She made me really rethink and deepen the world building at the beginning of the book, and she questioned my character motivation throughout, which allowed me to really strengthen the story 
2. My editor was super professional throughout the entire process, and just a joy to work with. Thank you, @djharringtonwriter!
3. Hiring an editor allowed me to rethink my re-writing process a bit. I used to just start at the beginning and work my way through, adding, cutting, or changing things as I went. And I still did that with this book, but now I had my editor's feedback to read through beforehand and consider the best ways to make those changes.

 
Editing
Aside from the changes made to my developmental editing process, not a whole lot changed in my editing processes. I edited like this:

Once the first draft was written, I did a quick edit to address the notes I'd made and did a rewrite of the first chapter. Then I sent it out to my developmental editor. When I got that feedback, I did a complete rewrite of the story. After that, I did another quick edit to catch glaring mistakes before sending it out to beta readers. 

I compiled data a bit more differently this time with my beta readers, keeping all answers to their questions in a spreadsheet that I could easily access and find what I needed for marketing purposes. Then I implemented their suggestions. I got AMAZING beta reader feedback for this one, and thanks to my beta readers, I was able to even further strengthen the story. 

After my beta read implementation, I did another quick edit, then formatted the book. I'll talk about the formatting process a bit more in my next post. Then I submitted the book and ordered a proof copy, which I used to do my final proofreading and line editing. Once those changes were implemented, the book was good to go!

Character Development and World Building
I had a handful of developmental documents running while in the process of drafting and editing this book. 

I had a character development document to keep track of my main characters, their backstories, their interest, and their fears. 

I had a world building document where I kept track of all of my locations and their cultures, and I paired this with a map that I designed and drew that helped me keep my locations, distances, and times straight as my characters traveled. 

I had a lore document to keep track of the history of the continent my characters are from, as well as to keep track of the political systems of that continent. I used this document also to keep track of the witch's story and the game I developed for this story: Fates. ​

​I have had an incredible time writing and producing this book, and in today’s post I’ve only scratched the surface. Check back next weekend for more recounting of my writing journey. 
 
People I have to thank for their support in the writing and editing process for this book:
Brandon Evans
Danielle Harrington
Imogen Escotto
Gilbert James
Zulema Lockhart
Morgan Gist Macdonald

To those of you who are new here, welcome! This website has gotten some decent traction this week, and I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you (new and returning folks) for checking out the website. 

I'm going to be spending the next few blog posts going over everything I've learned with my most recent release, Bound. I've learned so much in the process with this one that I've had to split the information into categories in order to figure out how best to share it with all of you. Before I get into that, though, I wanted to take this post to just kind of give you a recap of this website and how it ties into my writing journey.

I self-published my first book, Azure Light, back in 2017, and I've been fortunate enough to be able to publish about one book per year since then. When I started, there was very little that I actually understood about the publishing process, and with every book I release, I've made it my quest to do better (learn more, create higher quality work) than with the last. 

My love of writing extends far beyond just writing and publishing my own books. I've been able to take what I've learned and use it to support other authors on their writing journeys, utilize it in my work as a reading intervention specialist, and get out of my comfort zone to further my writing career. 

I started this blog in January of 2022 as a landing place for expressing and exploring my passion for writing in a different format. I didn't do much with it, until February of this year, when I made it my goal to post once a week as often as I could, sharing what I've learned along the way with others interested in writing and reading.

Since I started posting to this blog, here are some of the amazing things that have taken place.

I had my son. I've always wanted to write and illustrate children's books in addition to my other works, but I've always been so afraid of the illustration and formatting process. Having my son gave me the push I needed, and since he was born in 2023, I've written, illustrated, formatted and published two children's books, with more on the way. (I've also had the absolute pleasure of collaborating on a collection of 26 phonics readers for the University of Utah Reading Clinic). 

I hired my first developmental editor. I've always gone through various different (free) sources for my editing, and this small, obvious step was huge for me. 

I ran my very first KickStarter for my novel that released last week. Through the KickStarter, I was able to learn to design bookmarks, stickers, and art prints. I made my book cover so much better than I could have hoped, and I got the sequel written. Through this KickStarter, I sold books outside the country, and sold a total of 27 books to those who pledged. I ran my first two social media book giveaways, and I got all the orders sent out. I was also able to design and create Fates - the game I invented for the book. 

I was able to get out of my comfort zone and talk with bookstore managers at various Barnes and Noble locations. Through this process, I was able to get my book on the shelves in store for the first time, and I was able to schedule a handful of book signings for October, November, and January. 

Through this blog, I have been able to start an email list where I send out regular blog posts and book updates. (If you're interested in joining, fill out this form on my homepage: https://breyannailevansauthor.weebly.com/ ).

I've also been featured in two articles in the last month: 
As seen on MSN.com: https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/parenting/15-authors-to-look-out-for-in-2025/ar-AA1rvRXm?ocid=BingNewsSerp 
As seen on Medium.com: https://michellewhitingsocial.medium.com/discover-breyanna-evans-the-self-made-author-uplifting-the-literary-community-in-utah-83fc2134720e 

Here is a list of the posts I've written here to date. 
Please note - some of the images in these posts have shifted.
​I am working on going back and replacing them with their original files. 
Three Things I Love About Writing
To Sequel, Or Not To Sequel, That Is The Question
My Message To You
How Learning About Structure Helped Me (and My Students) Write Better
WRITING SKILLS I LEARNED IN SCHOOL THAT MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN MY TEACHING (AND STILL MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN MY WRITING)
What Elements Do I Enjoy Writing the Most?
How Do I Make Time For It All?
Three "Obvious" Things I Didn't Know When I Started Publishing
"Why am I learning this?" How I Use the Plot Structures I Learned About in High School to Get Through Writer's Block
3 Books That Have Improved My Writing and Publishing Process in the Last Year
What Kind of Writer Are You?Getting Past the Fear of Judgement
Writing - Little Things that Make a Big Difference: Varying Your Sentence Length and Watching Your Default Words
Using Travel Experiences to Enrich Writing
One Book or More?
Writing - Little Things That Make a Big Difference (Re-Writing Dialogue)
Writing - Little Things That Make a Big Difference (Showing Vs. Telling)
What Do I Ask My Beta Readers?
Breaking Down My Editing Process
Answering FAQ's About My Writing Process
Recounting My Writing Journey - Chapter 7
Recounting My Writing Journey - Chapter 6
Recounting My Writing Journey - Chapter 5
Recounting My Writing Journey - Chapter 4
Recounting My Writing Journey - Chapter 3
Recounting My Writing Journey - Chapter 2
Recounting My Writing Journey
Season Cycle
New World

I've learned and grown so much over the course of the last several years, and I'm incredibly grateful that I've been able to find a place to share this knowledge with others, and that through these experiences, I've been able to meet and connect with so many incredible people on the same journey. I look forward to continuing this adventure with all of you! Thank you for reading!