publishing – Among the Authors

Waiting on Wednesday #1

As I am starting to look forward to blogging more and doing more reviews of what I’ve been reading, I’ve decided to also add a weekly Waiting on Wednesday post to highlight upcoming YA releases that I’m excited about.

And as with most things, I’m immediately breaking the rules…

By the time you read this post, the book that I’m desperately looking forward to getting my hands on will no longer be in pre-publication status. It will, in fact, have been published the day before. -BUT- I work for the public library, which means, it may be a little bit before this lovely book falls into my hands, so I’m saying it still qualifies.

The book I’m awarding the very first Waiting on Wednesday post just so happens to be…

The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch
By Daniel Kraus
Publication Date: October 27, 2015

Synopsis (via Goodreads)
May 7, 1896. Dusk. A swaggering seventeen-year-old gangster named Zebulon Finch is gunned down on the shores of Lake Michigan. But after mere minutes in the void, he is mysteriously resurrected.
His second life will be nothing like his first.

Zebulon’s new existence begins as a sideshow attraction in a traveling medicine show. From there, he will be poked and prodded by a scientist obsessed with mastering the secrets of death. He will fight in the trenches of World War I. He will run from his nightmares—and from poverty—in Depression-era New York City. And he will become the companion of the most beautiful woman in Hollywood.
Love, hate, hope, and horror—Zebulon finds them. But will he ever find redemption?

Ambitious and heartbreaking, The Death & Life of Zebulon Finch, Volume 1: At the Edge of Empire is the epic saga of what it means to be human in a world so often lacking in humanity.

Why I’m Waiting

When I first read this description, I was reminded of one of the most intriguing writing prompts I’ve ever found – “You’ve been dead for 67 days. You awake to the entire world watching the first human revival. Your revival.”
Playing with the concept of revival will always be interesting to me, as I was fascinated by stories like Frankenstein from an early age. The idea of a gangster receiving a second life and experiencing notable events throughout history has me ready to grab this book as soon as it hits the shelves.
If you happen to get to read it before I do, I hope you’ll post your opinions. I have high hopes for Zebulon Finch, and I can’t wait to see if they are met.

Add The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch on Goodreads

Order from Amazon

Order from Barnes & Noble

What are you waiting on this week?

Safe to Say

It’s safe to say that I’m perhaps the worst blogger in the history of blogging. It always seems to happen that I’ll think of something I should post about, and then life immediately gets in the way. What have I been up to lately?

1. I started grad school! – Huzzah! It’s well overdue, but I finally made the leap and started classes this fall. I’m almost to midterm now, and it’s certainly been an adjustment getting back into the swing of things. I’m taking all online classes through the University of Kentucky for my Master’s in Library and Information Science.

2. I bought a house! – What an adventure this has been… I’ve dreamed of owning my grandparents’ home since I was a child, and a few months ago I was finally presented with this chance. I jumped on it. It’s still a dream come true, but it is in need of so much TLC. Renters certainly have not been kind to it, so there are tons of repairs and remodeling, most of which we (my other half, Joffree, and me) are doing ourselves. It’s definitely an ongoing project.

3. Spellbound Scribblers – A short story blog maintained by myself and my two best buds and fellow librarians. Last month got a little hectic between house/grad school, but I’m looking forward to getting back to regular posting with these two talented writers. Check it out HERE.

4. Anthology #2 – The Wicked Wordsmiths of the West published our second anthology last month, Stories from the Stacks. All short stories are related to libraries in some way, and I have two stories published in this one – “Saturday Librarians” and “A Novel Change”. It’s available in Kindle and paperback HERE.

And so now we are here, the start of October, with November and NaNoWriMo looming just over the horizon. A little while back, I was browsing through some old files on my computer and located an outline for a book I’d always wanted to write. It was surprisingly good, and so it’s been sticking in the back of my head that maybe just maybe I could use it for NaNo. Sure, it’s probably insane to even be considering participating in NaNoWriMo this year between the house and grad school, but this will make my fourth year. I can’t break the chain now. This year I am fortunate enough to have a co-ML to help in the planning and implementing of write-ins, so I figure that’s a plus. And, if I don’t want to use the outline I’ve been dwelling on, I can always be a NaNo rebel and write a collection of short stories, which also sounds like something right up my alley. I can do it, right? Right?! Nothing seems to motivate me more than overwhelming amounts of pressure. *sigh* Here goes nothing…

A Wicked Signing

I’m a bit behind in making this post, but it has taken me quite awhile to put into words how I feel about the signing. In short, I am still in awe. On October 14th, the Wicked Wordsmiths had their first ever book signing for Wicked Words. A local bookstore hosted the event, and it was a success, to say the least.

I won’t lie, in the days leading up to the signing, I started having my doubts about how many people would show up. It was entirely possible that it could only be our mothers, fathers, and significant others. We’re just a small, local writing group… we shouldn’t expect a crowd, should we? As it turns out, the supporters showed up in droves. For an hour and a half, there was a constant line of readers making their way along the table to visit with each author. Of course, the mothers, fathers, and significant others were there. In fact, my father was the first person in line (adorable). But on top of that, there were people that showed up that didn’t have any prior connections to any of the W3 group, and THAT was what truly shocked us. It’s amazing to know that we managed to write this anthology, jumped headfirst into publishing it despite our nervousness, and that there are people out there that want to share in what we created. AMAZING. We can’t thank everyone enough for their support.

I am beyond proud of this group. Wicked Words was definitely a learning experience for us all, and I think it has given us the drive to continue doing bigger and better things, including our own individual WIPs and more anthologies for the group. I know that personally, I now want to strive even harder to finish the book that’s been running wild in my mind and bring it to fruition by seeking publication. Publishing the anthology has done wonders for proving to me that I CAN do this, and I certainly won’t be losing that motivation any time soon. Especially not since we continue to receive promotion from the press. There have been several local news articles published regarding the anthology, and next week, a few of us will also be interviewed on a cable access show that reaches about 37,000 homes daily. Pretty sweet stuff, if you ask me.

We’ve also been invited back for another signing in participation with Small Business Saturday, which is extremely exciting, especially when you factor in that some big names like Craig Johnson and Marie Manilla are also in talks of attending. With November less than a week away, we Wicked Wordsmiths have had to shift our focus to our participation in NaNoWriMo, but we will continue to be grateful for all the opportunities and learning experiences that Wicked Words has given to us. This also certainly won’t be our last anthology.

Oh, and for anyone wondering, why yes… I did end up signing my own book. Sometimes, you just need to give yourself a reminder.

Wicked Words – OUT NOW!

I’m a little late to the party, but WICKED WORDS is finally out! Actually, to be honest, we were able to release the anthology a few days before our official release date of October 1^st, but the insanity that followed kept me from posting the update here. Pretty exciting though, yes?

I had ordered my copy the moment it was available, then sat in agony at work the next day after receiving the text alert that my book was at my local postal carrier, but wouldn’t be delivered for another 24 hours. If there’s one thing I have zero patience for, it’s waiting. On my lunch, I drove to the post office and begged and pleaded until the exceptionally kind postal worker searched through the packages in back just to find mine. There was a long period of time where I just sat in the car holding the unopened package, nervous to look inside. Finally, shaking all over, I held in my hands my very first venture into publishing.

Sure, I’m still critical of my own work…there’s a giant glaring grammatical error in my story, but DAGNABBIT! It’s PUBLISHED! It happened! I can search my name on Amazon, and something I’ve written comes up! It’s real, and there are actually people out there in the world buying our book. That’s an amazing feeling to me, something I don’t have adequate words to describe, but that I won’t soon forget.

Want to get your own copy of this spooky collaborative effort from Wicked Wordsmiths of the West? You can buy the paperback copy HERE and the Kindle edition HERE.

I can’t express just how grateful we are to all of our readers! Thank you all so, so very much.

Wicked Words

While writing my bio for the Wicked Wordsmith anthology, I realized two things:
#1 – I need a more professional twitter account with less “colorful” language than my personal account. Thus, you can now find me @JulianneTillis
#2 – If I’m going to list my blog in my bio, I might want to actually start posting on a more regular basis. So, here we are!

I started a writing group about three years ago after my first NaNoWriMo experience. The Huntington region at the time did not have a ML, and so I unofficially took over and found a core group of local writers to participate in the write ins during November. At the end of NaNoWriMo that year, we’d all enjoyed the camaraderie so much that we wanted to make our meet-ups a regular occurrence. Wicked Wordsmiths of the West was born, and have met every month for the past three years to discuss all aspects of our craft and participate in creative prompts and activities. At the beginning of this year, we had the wild idea to start working on an anthology. A loose goal of a collection of creepy stories in time for Halloween was set, and we began drafting all varieties of horror. It has definitely come down to crunch time, but I think we’ve just about got it! Our cover release happened just the other day, and I’m pretty excited about it:

The cover for our first anthology - due out October 1st! — The cover for our first anthology – due out October 1st!

The photo in the bottom left corner happens to relate to my short story, “Flesh and Blood”, which you can read when Wicked Words is released October 1st. It will be available in both paperback and kindle format through Amazon, and I will be sure to post the link as soon as it’s available. For anyone who happens to be in the Huntington, WV area though, we will be having an in-person signing and release party October 14th at Empire Books and News in the Pullman Plaza. Hope to see you there!

Oh, and don’t forget to like the Wicked Wordsmiths of the West page on Facebook to keep up with all of our updates!