January 2023 Newsletter

Happy Heart Month everyone! This is Justin with our latest newsletter!

Current Events

February is Heart Health Month in the United States, a time to raise awareness of heart disease and focus on improving our cardiovascular health. It is a time when Ashley and I try to raise awareness of congenital heart disease or CHD, which are heart defects in young children and/or infants. We recently had the lovely opportunity to speak about Elliot's journey with heart surgeries on the Rx Healthy Habits Podcast so click that link if you'd like to listen in on our discussion.

Writing Updates

I've been continuing to push myself to finish Shades of Resilience and am now in the final stretch of writing. In last month's newsletter, I discussed some of the challenges of self-publishing as well as advantages. For this month, I'd like to share my process when it comes to writing and how we take a book from start to finish.

Our general timeline is in 4 phases:

1. Writing
2. Editing
3. Production
4. Release

The first step—and it may seem obvious—is to actually write the book. Some authors like to outline, others are vehemently opposed to it, for me personally I do have a rough idea in my head for a particular project, but I don't really write down an outline. For A Glimpse of Color, I had a rough idea of the beginning, middle, and end in mind so it was just a matter of filling in the gaps. I spent the fall of 2017 planning it out in my head, the majority of which was done at work. My mind is most creative when I'm doing something else! In January 2018, I started writing and finished most of it by June 2019. After sending it to my editor, I didn't start going back to the book until February 2020, right before COVID hit the U.S. It wasn't until the summer of 2020 that I forced myself to finally get back into the project and start editing.

Editing is the most grueling phase because it involves going through the book over and over again. From finding small grammatical errors to spelling mistakes, it often feels never-ending. While not easy, this is where the true writing starts. Getting the words onto the page is the easy part, the challenge is when you have to trim the fat and polish the work up to professional standards. As an indie author, you are competing against people who may be backed by a company like Simon & Schuster or PenguinRandomHouse, so polishing the book is a crucial part of getting sales and positive reviews.

Once I feel that the book is good, then the next phase is production. We've used EbookLaunch on almost all of our projects for cover design, formatting, and creating the final PDF and Kindle files for Amazon KDP. The first step is to know the size of the book. For A Glimpse of Color, I went with a 5" x 8" size whereas for The Head in the Sky, we decided to go with a 6" x 9" to showcase the included pictures. With a trim size in mind, you'll need to decide the type of paper for printing. Amazon KDP offers many choices, from cream to white paper with various options. We generally pick cream paper with black and white ink since it's usually the cheapest option. For Manju's Kerala Christmas, we had to go with premium paper and color ink since it is a children's book.

After the files are formatted appropriately, the next step is to get the final page count so that the book cover can be sized according to the thickness of the spine. If this is not done correctly, the book cover may print weird and get cut off in certain sections. Once all the files are received and get the final seal of approval, the last step is to upload everything into Amazon KDP, IngramSpark, or any of the print-on-demand services.

The release phase is simply building the listing for the book. You'll need to come up with a powerful and eye-catching description, set the price according to the genre or market of your book, and once everything looks good, the final step is to hit that submit button. Generally, Amazon takes a day or so to review the submission and will approve or reject based on their guidelines.

You'll receive an e-mail if they approve your submission, which is the time to post it up on social media, text the link to your friends, anything to get the word out. Some authors have release parties or hold special events in their community to create buzz and help increase publicity for their book. Launch parties also can help with networking and reaching out to people in your community. Having a social media presence, a consistent newsletter, and running Amazon Ads can also help in building sales momentum.

Writing Inspiration

Tying things back to Heart Month, a constant source of motivation is seeing how the human spirit can triumph over life's obstacles. When Ashley and I were at CHOP caring for Elliot, we would see all types of sick children. But they usually had a smile on their face or did their best to play with their toys in the hospital bed. While our minds were weary and depleted, these children kept on going as if nothing was happening, almost oblivious. They had something that many adults lose to the cruel nature of time—hope.

Working on Shades has been a combination of therapy and torture. Revisiting all these memories repeatedly is tough, but crucial to the healing process. I hope it serves as a source of inspiration to others facing similar difficulties in that they are not alone. In this way—considering all the help Ashley and I received from family, friends, and coworkers—we can pay it forward.

Happy Writing!

Elli Twy Publishing