Anna’s book, King by Right of Blood and Might, is set in the eastern coast of the US. ‘It’s about a prince in a world that I wanted to be familiar but very different from what we all know. I chose the east coast so that the differences would be most visible and still be identifiable.’
Tell Suite101.com About Your Book
‘Prince Harris grew up knowing he would be the next king but he didn’t understand what that really meant. He was a smart boy; he did his homework but what his father did just didn’t fit with what he could glean from the family library, little that there was. Harris’s questions prompted the king to take what action he could and he sent his son to the neighboring kingdom to the south. Only then did Harris fully understand what was lacking at home.
‘I’m going to say that it took me two years to finish King by Right but a lot of that time was taken up by learning about all the different offerings the computer provided. I’d spend days drawing some map and then at some later point, redrawing it because of some change or event in the book or because I discovered a better way to draw it. There were other pictures too but most of them had to be dropped because they wouldn’t show up very well in shades of gray.’
How Did You Publish King by Right?
‘When I decided to start trying to publish, I did what research I could, which was very little at the time since I didn’t have internet and couldn’t just Google someone. I have a book that lists publishers and agents for all manner of writing so I started there with snail mail.
‘My next effort was to turn to the phonebook. AuthorHouse had a phone number and they were listed with BBB. Of the few companies I could get in touch with, AuthorHouse had a person on the other end of the line, not an answering machine or another email. They treated me well and answered all my questions, returning all my calls promptly when I came up with more questions. They went out of their way to work with me and my isolated situation [Anna lives in Alaska].
‘I was able to get a disk mailed out for editing before I got stranded here at the house; that was in the first part of September. When it was done, they e-mailed it to a friend of mine who flies fuel out and he was able to airdrop a disk back to me so I could work on it. The guys at AuthorHouse got a big kick out of that and dubbed him my carrier pigeon.
‘Other than working on the edit, I couldn’t do anything more until we went to Fairbanks shortly before Christmas where we spent six months with my son and his family so proofs could be sent back and forth through email far quicker than what I would have been able to do from home.
‘They mailed a book to my son’s address, so I got it far sooner than anticipated. Suddenly, here was this year’s long project transformed from my computer screen to a real book with my name on it. I think I was in shock. I pretty much didn’t stop grinning for days if not weeks. Almost immediately, my son’s neighbor went out and ordered the book. As soon as it arrived, she brought it over for me to sign. I seriously thought I’d forgotten how to write my name.’
What's Next?
‘Over the last ten years, I’ve written my heart out every free moment I had. Currently, I have another eleven full-length novels ranging in length from just over a hundred and fifty pages to just over nine hundred pages. I also have another dozen short stories ranging in length from eighty-four pages to five pages. That’s not counting the twenty some ideas waiting for some attention. They all cover pretty much all manner of fiction that didn’t require any technical research.’
 |
