Blog Tour | “5 Things I Didn’t Know About Being A Published Author” Guest Post by E. Latimer

Hi everyone and welcome to my stop on the Witches of Ash and Ruin blog tour hosted by The FFBC! Today I’m so excited to be having a guest post by author E. Latimer on “5 things you didn’t know about being a published author” Keep reading for the behind the scenes life of the published life and then an amazing giveaway!

5 THINGS I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT BEING A PUBLISHED AUTHOR

S 1) Waiting is everything.

I absolutely underestimated the amount of waiting that being an author would require. I think I pictured furiously typing away at my laptop, and then looking at the bookshelves proudly as my book was displayed. It just sort of clicked from one picture to the next in my mind, like a slideshow. There was no long, drawn out period of agonized waiting in between.

But one thing I’ve learned over the years is that publishing moves like a herd of turtles stampeding through molasses. First you wait while your book is on submission with publishing houses, then for your contract to come through, then another few months until you can announce. Then you wait two years for the book to come out. Repeat.

And that’s not counting all the waiting you do while people are reading your manuscript. Beta readers, your agent, that reviewer you really hope will love you. That author you hope will blurb you. It never really ends.

2) The bar can always be raised.

Before I was published, I got into this terrible habit of dreaming about life “after I get published”. Things along the lines of, “I’ll be truly happy when I get published” and “I’ll be more confident when I get published” and, “my hair will be super shiny and fall in perfect Disney princess waves at all times after I get published”.

Spoiler, none of that happens. I’m more satisfied, yes. And I’m even a little more sure of myself. I confidently write in “author” at the doctor’s office when they make me fill out the forms. I no longer flinch when I’m at a wedding and someone asks, “So what do you do?” But the problem is, once you reach the bar you’ve set for yourself, you tend to reach up and give it a little nudge. You know, just push that sucker up a little higher.

Maybe I won’t be truly happy until I sell the next book. Maybe my hair won’t be super shiny until I hit the NYT bestseller list (I hear that’s a common side effect).

Eventually I learned to catch myself thinking like this and now I attempt to put a stop to it. To coach myself to savour every milestone I reach, and to look back on the journey once in a while, to see how far I’ve come. It’s good to be driven, but it’s also good to celebrate your achievements.

3) Seeing your book on the shelf never gets old

I knew seeing my published book on the shelf for the first time would be exciting, but I didn’t know I would tear up the very first time in the middle of Indigo Books. I also didn’t know the feeling would never fully go away.

With Witches of Ash and Ruin out on the shelves now, I have two books out, and it never fails to make some kind of impact when I see them out in the wild. Sometimes I’m just wandering the bookstore and it almost takes me by surprise, other times I’m honing in on the “L” section like my cat going for that slice of cheese on the coffee table.

Either way, seeing my book there always feels a little surreal.

4) Imposter syndrome doesn’t go away

Maybe this is a symptom of above, but the same way I can never fully believe I made it onto shelves, wow, I also regularly wonder if at some point the people at the bookstore will realize I’m a total imposter and throw my books out.

Or that my publisher will wake up one morning and think, “Wait, why did we publish this person?” and the jig will finally be up.

Every time I’m in front of an audience, or on a panel, I wonder if I really have any right to be here. The first time a reader came up to me and said I was her favourite author I was completely stunned. My friend later told me that I just stared at her like a deer in the headlights. It was like my brain just stalled out, I couldn’t process it. Thankfully the poor kid’s mom had the presence of mind to ask for a photo, and my brain coughed back to life and I became a functioning human being again.

5) Each book is different, and it never stops being exciting.

The same way that seeing my book on the shelf never gets old, the writing process doesn’t seem to either. I don’t even know how many books I’ve written by now (many of them will never see the light of day) and every time I start another one, the process seems completely new. In a way, it’s a bit scary, I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. But it’s also exciting, because I never know what’s going to happen. If this book will be even more fun than the last one, if it will be even better. If the writing process is going to transcend every experience I’ve had up until then.

I thought things would be scarier when I got published, like maybe I’d be writing for other people instead of myself after that, but thankfully at this point that hasn’t happened. I still write for myself. I still write the story I want to tell and the one I’d want to read if I could pick anything in the world off the shelf.

I hope it keeps being that way no matter how much I publish. That no matter how many books I have on the shelf, the writing process will stay fresh and exciting. That I’ll always be eager to discover new worlds, and the potential the blank page has.

E. Latimer is a fantasy writer from Victoria, BC. Her middle grade novel,The Strange and Deadly Portraits of Bryony Gray was published by Tundra Books, and was recently nominated for the Red Maple Fiction Award.In her spare time, she writes books, makes silly vlogs with theWord Nerdsaboutwriting, and reads excessively.Her latest novel,Witches of Ash and Ruin, will be released Spring/Summer 2020from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

AUTHORLINKS

About Witches of ash and ruin

Title:Witches of Ash and Ruin

by E. Latimer

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Release Date: March 3rd 2020

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, LGBT, Queer

Synopsis: Modern witchcraft blends with ancient Celtic mythology in an epic clash ofwitches and gods, perfect for fans of V.E. Schwab’s Shades of Magic trilogy andA DISCOVERY OF WITCHES.Seventeen-year-old Dayna Walsh is struggling to cope with her somatic OCD; theaftermath of being outed as bisexual in her conservative Irish town; and the returnof her long-absent mother, who barely seems like a parent. But all that really mattersto her is ascending and finally, finally becoming a full witch-plans that arecomplicated when another coven, rumored to have a sordid history with black magic,arrives in town with premonitions of death. Dayna immediately finds herself at oddswith the bewitchingly frustrating Meiner King, the granddaughter of their covenleader.And then a witch turns up murdered at a local sacred site, along with the bloodsymbol of the Butcher of Manchester-an infamous serial killer whose trail has longgone cold. The killer’s motives are enmeshed in a complex web of witches and gods,andDayna and Meiner soon find themselves at the center of it all. If they don’t stopthe Butcher, one of them will be next.With razor-sharp prose and achingly real characters, E. Latimer crafts a sweeping,mesmerizing story of dark magic and brutalmythology set against a backdrop ofcontemporary Ireland that’s impossible to put down.

BOOKLINKS

Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42773037-witches-of-ash-and-ruin

Amazon:https://amzn.to/2Tunj6P

B&N:https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/witches-of-ash-and-ruin-e-latimer/1132410677?ean=9781368052252#/

iTunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/isbn9781368054317?mt=11

Bookdepository:https://www.bookdepository.com/Witches-of-Ash-and-Ruin-E-Latimer/9781368052252

Kobo:https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/witches-of-ash-and-ruin-2

Google Books:https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/E_Latimer_Witches_of_Ash_and_Ruin?id=AQAAAEAsPW99UM

TOUR SCHEDULE

Be sure to check out the rest of the tour stops by clicking here!