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"BURN. MAY THE FIRES OF RETRIBUTION CONSUME YOU, AND MAY THAT BE THE ONLY LIGHT YOU SEE IN THE DARKNESS YOU'LL FACE." HIS WORDS SUCKED ALL WARMTH FROM ME. "AND THE DAY YOU RISE FROM THE ASHES, PHOENIX, IS THE DAY I WILL TRUST YOU."
IT IS OFFICIALLY RELEASE DAY FOR
Collector: The Phoenix Edition!!!!!!
I am BEYOND EXCITED to finally be able to say the new and improved, "Collector" is available on Amazon + Barnes & Noble in E-book, Paperback, and Hardback formats! I've been working so hard on this new edition, spending roughly a month editing and re-formatting my Christian dystopian novel.
I've learned so much throughout this very long (and mistake-filled) journey of publishing my debut, and while I applied everything I'd learned to formatting clients' novels, I never wanted to go down the long road of editing and reformatting my book. I knew it would be a lot of work, and after spending seven years working on the same story, I was a little burnt out.
This new year, however, my mind was renewed and I was ready to get rid of the "good-enough" aspects of my novel and make it GREAT!!! So that's exactly what I did. And, today, I'd like to talk about everything that's new in my novel, "Collector: The Phoenix Edition."
Let's dive in, shall we?
First Off, (The Boring) Edits:
Not many people have read Collector yet, but those who have ended up contacting me or reviewing the number of typos still within the book. I'll be honest, I was a bit frustrated at first, especially after re-launching Collector last June, after what I considered a "big edit."
I'm not upset about this feedback, however. While, yes, it did sting a little, it lit enough of a fire under me that I decided to not just "settle" or hope that it was good enough, but to work like crazy until I was satisfied with EVERY aspect of Collector. That includes a lot more than just edits, but the edits are a big thing.
For the last month, I have read through chapter by chapter. I read chapters at random so I wasn't so engaged in the story and was looking at it from an editing standpoint, I read it on my e-book in a new font and new color, and I also read it again chapter-by-chapter while formatting. I also had my parents and brother read several chapters that, after working so much on them, I wasn't effectively editing. After all of that, I ran it through Hemmingway Editor to help with readability and get rid of some of those, *he he,* complicated, authorly sentences. Then, I ran it chapter-by-chapter through Grammarly and MS Word editor as a final check while formatting the new ebook.
Let me tell you... there are a ton of edits, and I could probably recite my book, word-for-word, in my sleep! I discovered a lot of my writing "quirks," such as my overuse of colons and dashes (but I really like the dashes, so it was hard to get rid of those!!!! There are probably still too many....) Anyway, I found several typos that got cut, as well as punctuation mistakes that needed to be fixed. And this probably isn't the last time I'll run through it! (Because now I'm paranoid!)
Anyway, that is a huge part of what's new in Collector, but that's not everything!
Two New Scenes! (Oooh, Fun!)
I contemplated taking these out in the first place and contemplated adding them in again. Ultimately, I decided that, with where Book II is going, these scenes would help explain things and make them less of a surprise when you read Book II (and hopefully you will because I would love to hear what you think - love or hate it!)
These scenes do not change the story whatsoever; they just leave tiny little hints and explanations for some things that happen in the future. (And, I'll be honest, one of them is a really powerful conversation I think needed to be put in the book - as another catalyst.) There are a few other reasons why I decided to add them in there, but I don't want to get too authorly with my explanation. Long story short, these scenes are added, and Collector is better with them.
New Interior Formatting & Hierarchy
I might get a little "formatty" here. Originally, I had Collector formatted through MS Word, which isn't awful. You can make wonderful books there, and I probably was doing some things wrong that just messed me up. But....... I hated it. It felt like every time I went in to make an edit or even just open the document, something would go wrong and I'd spend hours fixing it. Or, I'd realize there was a pre-existing formatting/document mistake that needed to be fixed. Word just doesn't like me, and I don't like Word, so I decided it was time to just cut my losses.
Well, sort of... I used Word to format my e-book, which is way easier than a print book, so I'm okay using Word. However, I'll never format a print book with Word again....
But that meant I had to completely REFORMAT MY ENTIRE BOOK!!! I've been dreading doing that because, again, I was so burnt out and didn't have the energy to do it beforehand.
Anyway, after several long, mental arguments with myself, I decided to bite the bullet and reformat my book. So... I reformatted Collector with my favorite (and inexpensive) software, called Affinity Publisher. (Thank you, Valerie Howard (author) for telling me about this! It is a GEM!) It is not quite as complicated as InDesign, but still has a lot of the same features. (Plus, the layer effects are just better, imo!) It works great for me.
Curious about Affinity? Well, I'm offering virtual classes that will teach you everything you'll need to make a gorgeous book (hardcover, paperback, or ebook!) To learn more, visit the Academy page or hit me up at wolframwriting@outlook.com.
I'm happy to say, the interior of Collector has been 100% reformatted, and I LOVE IT!!! (The smoke on the chapter pages is one of my favorites, and it looks SO MUCH BETTER! Before, it looked like a smudge, especially when printed. This new smoke is darker and prints much better!)
In addition, the visual hierarchy (flow) is cleaner now, bringing special attention to the information before each chapter. I'll show you what I mean:
ORIGINAL:
For one, the smoke just isn't as good! As I said, it looks more like a smudge, rather than smoke - especially when printed. And secondly, the visual hierarchy isn't the best. The chapter title is smaller and is directly followed by information. This isn't bad, per se, it's just easy to skim over and ignore. Readers want to get straight to the story. They don't care about what chapter they're on, so vital information could be missed if that info is right underneath the chapter header, as "part of the header."
REFORMATTED:
So I put the information (Evelyn Foster, September 18th, etc.) "with the story" rather than underneath the chapter header. Having it down with the story makes the reader think: "Hey, this is part of the story, I need to pay attention."
There are several time jumps throughout this book as well as scenes that follow different characters, so I wanted to mitigate the chances of people being lost or confused. Book formatting isn't just about design and what looks good. It's about considering your readers with the visual hierarchy, contrast, what's focused on, what's important, etc.
I also got rid of the lines because I didn't like them, and made the chapter header bigger, which allowed me to take away the bold text because I actually hate that font bold, lol. See, there's a lot that I settled with when I first formatted Collector. But it was my first book, so I really didn't know what I was doing. Now, I have formatted and published several books for clients, and I'm a little more particular when it comes to the quality of what I format.
NEW BLURB:
This one doesn't take much explanation. The original blurb had sentences/phrases that didn't really fit with the story. Again, I settled because I was just rushing my publishing process. So... I re-wrote it, especially that second paragraph. Here it is:
What is One Person Against The Dangerous Traditions that Refuse to Die?
Fueled by the deaths of those killed in the recent Valence Fires, seventeen-year-old Haylen Alter ignores her parents' objections and joins the Guardians of Civilian Affairs agency. There, interning as a Collector, she is trained to hunt the elusive terrorists that have polluted her country since its very inception... and destroy all remnants of their existence.
But every new assignment unravels a painful truth. Now intrigued by the entries of a terrorist’s journal, she realizes there is more to the GCA’s mission than they dare let on… and more to her father’s past than he’s willing to tell. Suddenly, Haylen finds herself walking a thin line between becoming a Collector and becoming the enemy she vowed to fight. As her beliefs crumble and her allegiance is tested,
one burning question remains:
Could One Person Truly Change It All?
And then... BRAND NEW COVER!!!!
This is the part I am probably MOST excited about!!! The brand new, redesigned cover! I loved my original cover, it just never felt like it fit Collector. I settled, I figured it was good enough because I didn't know what I wanted. But now..... I not only have Collector's cover, but I also have the next two book covers designed!!! (THEY LOOK SO GOOD!)
I'm not ready to reveal those quite yet, but here's a look at Collector's brand new cover!
WHAT DO YOU THINK????? I am so in love with this cover! The fire, the black and white, the gorgeous lettering! I'm so excited for this and it looks SOOOO amazing printed!!!
I'm definitely happy that I decided to reformat. What is a lot of work? Yes, it absolutely was, but it was worth it!
There you go, guys, that's the full run-down on what's new in Collector! Thank you so much for being on this journey with me! If you'd like to check it out, here's that link!
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