A Kansas Author Talks About Her Book

The author reading a section of her book

Sunday afternoon, Tracy Million Simmons came to our Kansas Authors District meeting to talk about the recently published Tiger Hunting, her debut novel.

Being an audience of writers, the questions addressed were of a somewhat different nature than those of an audience of purely readers.

She told us that the original idea for the story came from a dream she'd had. One of those kind that leave you wondering about where it came from, the how and why of it. She wrote the basic facts of the dream in a journal and then left it for some time.

Then a friend challenged her to join her in writing a novel in a month for the NaNoWriMo program. She agreed and managed to write the required 50,000 words in the 30 days of November using the bits she'd written in her journal about the crazy dream revolving around circus animals roaming free on a country road.

She edited it, had a few other readers edit it again and made the decision to publish both a digital version and a print on demand. She felt her way using both Smashwords and then createspace at Amazon. Tracy feels that both have definite benefits. I would urge anyone interested to study what each offers carefully.

I asked her about the design of the book cover. She said that she'd used a photo one of her daughters had taken and then implemented some graphic art tools to add the tiger to the picture. It's always possible to pay a graphic artist to design a bookcover, but when you know the ins and outs, you can do it yourself.

Indie Publishing is the new trendy term for those who self-publish, be it in print or ebook. I ran across an interesting article that shows why some traditionally published authors are switching to Indie Publishing. Take a few minutes to read it here to see the benefits and keys to publishing this way. More and more writers are taking the plunge and becoming an independent publisher. Each of us must decide if it is for us or not.

Most of those in attendance at today's meeting purchased a signed copy of Tracy's book. Including me. I'm looking forward to reading it after hearing the many favorable comments from those who had already read it.  You can learn more about Tracy Million Simmons and her book along with reviews at this Amazon page.