Pre-History: How did I get here?
Jun 16, 2020 by Andrew Walbrown
So, you wanted to know more about my blog, eh? I can't blame you, it's going to be pretty awesome (or lame, depending on who you ask). But before I get into my vision for this space, let's talk about everything I had to do just to get here.
First of all, I had to write a novel. That was probably the easiest part for me. I know what some of you are thinking, "how is writing a novel easy?" I didn't say that, I said it was the easiest part for me. I have no problem sitting down and just writing; it probably comes from my upbringing. The family I was born into, for better or worse, were a "fun" mixture of loud, talkative, and intrusive. The only way to survive such an environment was to learn how to tell stories or to talk nonsense for hours on end; I became adept at both. So as an adult, when it came time to sit down and write a story I wanted to tell the world, I was well-versed in the art of just talking for the sake of talking. And over the span of 7 years that included 3 colleges, I learned how to research and edit papers like a champ. So yeah, writing has been the easiest part of the process for me.
Where do I have trouble, you ask? Literally anything else.
Late one night in January 2020, I was Googling how to find an artist to do the cover for my book, not because I was going to hire one, but because I wanted to know what was out there. During that search I came across 99designs.com, which is a website where you put out details about your book and artists from around the world submit their work in a "bid" to win your "auction" (you have to pay hundreds of dollars, because you are paying artists to do your cover, after all). You get to work with your favorite covers/artists, and eventually when you're ready, declare a winner. To be honest, I was not going to sign up that night, but after checking my bank account I decided to do it, because then I'd have a cover at least.
There is one important aspect about myself that I learned in the following weeks: I have no vision whatsoever when it comes to design. When asked by friends what I was looking for in a cover, I couldn't tell them because I myself did not know. But that's alright, because on 99designs artists around the world sent me their vision based on the details about The Mad Raven's Tale that I provided. And even though they had never read the book, some of them were downright amazing. At final count, I received around 130 covers from around 90 artists (some submitted multiple entries). After a thorough poll from a panel of friends and coworkers (as well as gut feeling), I decided the person who should win the contest be a brilliant Romanian artist named Cristina Tănase. And I don't call her brilliant because she did the cover for me, I call her that because she was able to somehow extract this cover from me and bring it to life. Let's put it this way: if you saw someone build a functional airplane from a potato and a piece of styrofoam, you'd call them a genius. That's pretty much Cristina did, and because of that, I'm eternally indebted to her.
But Cristina did more than that, although not intentionally. Part of making a design is getting the barcode and ISBN numbers ready, which she needed in order to finish the cover. She also needed to know how many pages the book was going to be, and the size of the pages. Because she needed all this information, it forced me to get all this info. And after I bought an ISBN, registered it with the Library of Congress, started Oldtown Creek Publishing, and edited my book for the last time, finally I was able to get her the information she needed. And then just like that, I had a cover. All I had to do was put it together and check out the proof copy. And on February 7th, 2020, The Mad Raven's Tale was published, and thus began my author career.
So with my book published and people buying it (thanks everyone!), the next step was to start a Twitter account and a website. Twitter was easy enough. I joined. Hooray! Although, remember when I stated that I had trouble with everything other than writing? Yeah, that includes Twitter for sure. I came out of the gate running, getting 60ish followers in the first week. Then? Ehhhhhhh I kind of stopped tweeting. Why? Because I hate self-promotion. I really don't like talking about myself or how great the things I do are, because it comes off as super shallow and narcissistic to me. I get that it's a necessity in this world to have an online presence, but I feel dirty any time I tweet about my writing. I'd much rather post images of my cat doing adorable cat things. I've been better lately about consistently tweeting and trying to self-promote, so let's see if I keep this going.
That brings me to the next part of this blog: my website. Four months after publishing The Mad Raven's Tale, I decided to create this website. I found Pub-Site through a deep Google Search (i.e. the first page) and decided to go with it. And now, I finally have an author website dedicated to my writing career. It's exciting! Or at least to me, it is. But it didn't come easy, because once again I had no idea what I wanted. Blog? Okay. Bio? Sure. Books? Probably. It took days to get here (yes, days), because I obsessed over every little part. Background color, text color, banner, design template; you name it. It took hours to choose every last detail.
And now, as I sit on my couch with my exhausted girlfriend sleeping beside me (poor April had to listen to my whining and complaining through this whole process), fantasy author Andrew Walbrown has an official website.
And this friends, is only the beginning.
First of all, I had to write a novel. That was probably the easiest part for me. I know what some of you are thinking, "how is writing a novel easy?" I didn't say that, I said it was the easiest part for me. I have no problem sitting down and just writing; it probably comes from my upbringing. The family I was born into, for better or worse, were a "fun" mixture of loud, talkative, and intrusive. The only way to survive such an environment was to learn how to tell stories or to talk nonsense for hours on end; I became adept at both. So as an adult, when it came time to sit down and write a story I wanted to tell the world, I was well-versed in the art of just talking for the sake of talking. And over the span of 7 years that included 3 colleges, I learned how to research and edit papers like a champ. So yeah, writing has been the easiest part of the process for me.
Where do I have trouble, you ask? Literally anything else.
Late one night in January 2020, I was Googling how to find an artist to do the cover for my book, not because I was going to hire one, but because I wanted to know what was out there. During that search I came across 99designs.com, which is a website where you put out details about your book and artists from around the world submit their work in a "bid" to win your "auction" (you have to pay hundreds of dollars, because you are paying artists to do your cover, after all). You get to work with your favorite covers/artists, and eventually when you're ready, declare a winner. To be honest, I was not going to sign up that night, but after checking my bank account I decided to do it, because then I'd have a cover at least.
There is one important aspect about myself that I learned in the following weeks: I have no vision whatsoever when it comes to design. When asked by friends what I was looking for in a cover, I couldn't tell them because I myself did not know. But that's alright, because on 99designs artists around the world sent me their vision based on the details about The Mad Raven's Tale that I provided. And even though they had never read the book, some of them were downright amazing. At final count, I received around 130 covers from around 90 artists (some submitted multiple entries). After a thorough poll from a panel of friends and coworkers (as well as gut feeling), I decided the person who should win the contest be a brilliant Romanian artist named Cristina Tănase. And I don't call her brilliant because she did the cover for me, I call her that because she was able to somehow extract this cover from me and bring it to life. Let's put it this way: if you saw someone build a functional airplane from a potato and a piece of styrofoam, you'd call them a genius. That's pretty much Cristina did, and because of that, I'm eternally indebted to her.
But Cristina did more than that, although not intentionally. Part of making a design is getting the barcode and ISBN numbers ready, which she needed in order to finish the cover. She also needed to know how many pages the book was going to be, and the size of the pages. Because she needed all this information, it forced me to get all this info. And after I bought an ISBN, registered it with the Library of Congress, started Oldtown Creek Publishing, and edited my book for the last time, finally I was able to get her the information she needed. And then just like that, I had a cover. All I had to do was put it together and check out the proof copy. And on February 7th, 2020, The Mad Raven's Tale was published, and thus began my author career.
So with my book published and people buying it (thanks everyone!), the next step was to start a Twitter account and a website. Twitter was easy enough. I joined. Hooray! Although, remember when I stated that I had trouble with everything other than writing? Yeah, that includes Twitter for sure. I came out of the gate running, getting 60ish followers in the first week. Then? Ehhhhhhh I kind of stopped tweeting. Why? Because I hate self-promotion. I really don't like talking about myself or how great the things I do are, because it comes off as super shallow and narcissistic to me. I get that it's a necessity in this world to have an online presence, but I feel dirty any time I tweet about my writing. I'd much rather post images of my cat doing adorable cat things. I've been better lately about consistently tweeting and trying to self-promote, so let's see if I keep this going.
That brings me to the next part of this blog: my website. Four months after publishing The Mad Raven's Tale, I decided to create this website. I found Pub-Site through a deep Google Search (i.e. the first page) and decided to go with it. And now, I finally have an author website dedicated to my writing career. It's exciting! Or at least to me, it is. But it didn't come easy, because once again I had no idea what I wanted. Blog? Okay. Bio? Sure. Books? Probably. It took days to get here (yes, days), because I obsessed over every little part. Background color, text color, banner, design template; you name it. It took hours to choose every last detail.
And now, as I sit on my couch with my exhausted girlfriend sleeping beside me (poor April had to listen to my whining and complaining through this whole process), fantasy author Andrew Walbrown has an official website.
And this friends, is only the beginning.
