I’m thankful for everyone who’s picked-up and made possible ‘The Wilderlands’
Despite a rather rough November in many regards, this year has managed to be a modestly good year for me personally. Principle among the things I have been thankful for is the support I’ve gotten from friends and family for The Wilderlands as well as the long lasting help of the people who helped make it.
The book has been out for a full month today and I’ve been so happy to see how people have reacted to it and how encouraging they’ve been.
While I have self-published prior to The Wilderlands — that previous book was one I’d already technically published before. I was also able to get it spruced up largely while locked inside during the height of COVID-19. So, this time around, I think I got a much higher appreciation for the effort that goes into the project of self-publishing.
While I love Light Keeper Chronicle with my whole heart, I am so happy that I now have a book I can recommend to my adult friends without having to add in, “by the way, I wrote it in high school” or “It is a middle grade fantasy novel, so if that’s not your cup of tea…”
The Wilderlands is a book I can happily recommended to 95% of the people I know and feel comfortable asking total strangers to invest their time and money in.
There are acknowledgements in the the back of the book, but I really do need to thank Aimée from A.J. Editorial Services; I thank her in the book, but (especially in hindsight) she deserves a much bigger shout out than I initially gave. For example, the entire frame narrative of The Wilderlands came at her recommendation and — while my knee jerk reaction had be lukewarm on the idea — I think it was a genuinely inspired recommendation on her part. On top of that, she introduced me (in one way or another) to 60% of the other people involved in the process of making this book.
Similarly, I can’t say enough good things about Wendy at White Stone Pages who did the interior and exterior design. It was an eight month process and she was phenomenal the whole time. I could not fathom a better person to go through this process with. For a long time I considered just doing the interior and exterior design myself again, but her expertise really made the difference in making the book look and feel closer to something you might find traditionally published.
I also need to thank Sabrina — a local artist who created a cover that’s breath taking beyond what I could have hoped for. The period she spent working on the cover was a tumultuous time for both of us and she did an beyond incredible job. I especially need to thank her for reaching back out to me simply after I’d interacted with her profile. I was still on the fence about who to tag as an artist and it’s a toss up as to whether I would have reached out to her for the project if she hadn’t gotten in touch with me. Because of her, I absolutely made the right decision.
I also need to thank Kelsey at The Fox & Pen Editing for coming in for some relatively last minute edits. Truly, she made the time crunch go as smoothly as possible and couldn’t have been better to work with. Also — while I’ve yet to hear the finished recording — Rae Witte has done a phenomenal job as the narrator for the chapter I’ve so far heard and I can’t wait to hear the rest.
A massive thank you to the beta readers: Kaity, Hannah, Casey, Zephin, and my brother. Thanks as well to the people who have helped promote the book like Susan, John, Nicholas, and Tyler for a stunning recent review.
And a thanks to all the people who have read/bought the book or expressed an interest in reading the book. I can’t list them all, but to Perry and Linka, Ryan and Claudia, Max and Celine, the folks at Beaverdale Books, Alyssa, Alison, John, Leon, John (a different one), Drake, my sister, my mother, and my grandmother.
That’s not everyone by any means, but I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this if it wasn’t for all of the above and many many more.
Self-publishing is an exhausting task. In many regards, it is also a silly task — something that often costs more money than it makes and often takes up more hours than a full time job.
The numbers are small by most metrics, but the fact that even this many people have been willing to support in any way this silly thing I decide to do, I think, means more to me than even I know.
If you’re not one of the people listed above, thank YOU as well for reading this and giving me a reason to keep this silly little hobby going.
*****
The Wilderlands is available for physical purchase now from Barnes & Noble and Amazon. The Wilderlands ebook is available now on Kindle here, on Nook here, on Kobo here, and on Apple here.