Today I am very honored to have Brittainy C. Cherry, the author of The Space In Between stop by to do a guest post for me. Check back a little later for my review on the book.
About the book:
She’s scarred by her past.
ANDREA EVANS is traumatized and guilt-ridden by the death of her fiancée. Tired of the gossiping small town, she travels to New York City to pursue her dream of dance. When her dreams don’t instantly come to fruition, she ends up working at a strip club with her best friend.
He’s uncertain of his future.
COOPER DAVIDSON is a famous photographer and reality television star trying to flee from his own life filled with paparazzi, mental health clinics, and a cheating wife who is pregnant.
When Andrea and Cooper’s paths cross, they realize how damaged and in need of escapism they both are. The two create an arrangement to explore the space in between chaos and order with one another. The rules are simple—no emotional connections, no talking about the past, no speaking of the future, and when one finds order, the other walks away.
All is well until Cooper falls in love with Andrea. Will Andrea open up and let someone else into her closed off heart? Can Cooper stop the tabloids and his crazed wife from exposing his past and painting Andrea as a prostitute to the world before her life spirals back down to the land of chaos?
Breathe in. Breathe out.
A lot of that breathing has been happening with me for the past few months/weeks. Back in April I made a choice. I decided that I would go down the road of the indie author!
*Hooray! Firecrackers! Bands! LOUD NOISE!* There was a point where I said ‘if not now, then when? If not me, then who? I knew I had a story to tell, these characters had been speaking to me for quite some time and I somewhat felt that it was my duty to get their story out into the world. So what were my next steps?
Step One: Confusion. Wait—what? How do I even begin the process of self publishing? Wait, I need a blog? Facebook page! Should I start a Facebook page? Twitter? Tell my story in 140 characters? Huh?
Yup. I had no clue where to begin…I was living in a world with no idea of what to do. So, I created my Facebook author page. And guess what I found? A million-billion-trillion other debut authors releasing around the same time as me! INSTANT FRIENDS! Because guess what? They were just as confused and nervous and ‘omg is this real life!’ as I was! On to step two!
Step Two: Editors…Book Covers…Formatting…OH MY!
I knew if I wanted to do this self-publishing thing, then I wanted to do it right. I’m pretty sure I searched for thousands of editors to track down until I found my ‘Fairy Editor Godmother’ and she helped make my work shine! I don’t know if I could have made it this far without her. If you are thinking of taking the indie route—FIND AN EDITOR! There are a TON of them, all prices, even for those writers who don’t have much to rub together in the money area.
Then I found my cover art…luckily for me—I had an amazing designer that I went to college with reach out to me and ask if he could do my first cover. And he was AMAZING!! I danced and screamed for days after seeing his work!
Next…formatting. I knew/know not that much about formatting…and I didn’t want that extra stress added onto myself—so I found a cheap, and amazing formatting team who helped me out so all I had to do was submit my novels online! Yay! Just because you are an indie author DOESN’T mean you have to do it all on your own! Isn’t that a wonderful feeling?
Step Three: The Freak Out/Hit Publish
This…is where all debut indie authors seem to panic. This is where you actually hit ‘publish’ and your story goes live! Ah! It’s such a crazy, all over the place, feeling of excitement, followed by nerves, toss in some more excitement, followed by ‘OMG I SUCK! THIS IS TERRIBLE! NO ONE WILL BUY THIS CRAP’. Then wash, rinse, dry, repeat.
This is where it’s best to take a moment and pause. Don’t overthink things. Take deep breaths. Don’t panic if someone says they hate your book. Remind yourself that you published it because you owed it to the characters to give them the story they wanted to tell. Then you stop. Close your eyes and…
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Congratulations on joining the crazy world of self-publishing! Get ready for a crazy-fun-wonderful journey.
Always,
Brittainy C. Cherry
**Brittainy thanks so very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to sit down and write this guest post for me.**
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