One of the most exciting parts – next to getting the book in your hands, of course – is revealing the cover of the upcoming book. And that time is ALMOST here! I have been having a good time teasing out little bits of info over social media, getting everyone ready for the big unveiling.
The big day is almost upon us: COVER REVEAL DAY!
Want to see it FIRST? First reveal will be for my supporters on Ko-fi. Because of their help even before my book is here, they’ll get to see it before anyone else. [want to be one of those people? https://ko-fi.com/threeravenspress is where to go!]
The next folks who will see it are those who are signed up for my MAILING LIST. If you sign up there, you’ll get an email on the big day with the image and some exciting news!
Or you can come here to see it on Saturday, April 3rd, anytime after 1pm EDT! As mentioned above, I’ll have some BIG news to go along with the cover reveal, so you won’t want to miss this. [best to sign up for the newsletter, just to be sure…]
aka: What parts of Baltimore are fiction in your novel, Christiane?
Using a real city as the setting for In Sleep You Know was a fun challenge! I am a firm believer in building off of what I know when it comes to writing – even if it’s Fantasy that I’m crafting. I also believe that Baltimore is a treasure trove of undiscovered magic, often overshadowed by its reputation. [Ask me how I feel about The Wire. I have opinions.]
There was no question in my mind that I would be using Baltimore as the backdrop for where my Fae, the Eleriannan and Gwyliannan, lived. But trying to decide on what version of the city I would build from? That took a bit more thought. When I started writing about these characters originally, it was the late 90s, and the way I saw the city in the story was built on my memories from the 80s and 90s. Looking over the story as the platform for In Sleep You Know, I realized that I needed to unmoor the tale a bit from a specific time in order to give it the feel I wanted. It also meant that I could blend experiences, fashions, music from different eras and have it feel cohesive and timeless.
Some of the places mentioned in the story are based specifically on real-life analogues – the nightclub is definitely based on a well-known club that caters to specific subcultures in Baltimore [one that I DJed at for a while, shhh] – but it also draws from some other clubs with which I’m intimately familiar. I wanted that feeling of familiarity for readers who have haunted those sorts of clubs. Same for the Frisky Bean – if you’ve been to this sort of non-corporate community coffee shop, the kind with comfy chairs and bookshelves piled with tattered paperbacks to read and board games, you will picture it in your mind right away. The Frisky is also built on the memories and experiences of so many coffee shops like it, in Baltimore and other places I’ve lived in and visited.
There are other places featured in the book In Sleep You Know that are actual locations, but may not quite resemble the Baltimore of this consensual reality. I talk about the Gwynns Falls area, for example, but I paint the scene with a bit of a muted brush, leaving the exact location unidentifiable. It is absolutely based on a few houses hidden away there, but none specifically. Maithe House is indeed exactly as advertised, but only on the outside. I have a lot of tidbits about The Maithe, but I’m saving them for a future blog post. 😉
The first place we go in ISYK is a party at a big house. Traveling outside of the city, down Falls Rd – which runs from close to where Club Marcada is located in Midtown, almost to the Pennsylvania border – it’s obvious that the house isn’t a place one can just stumble upon, it is off the beaten path. I’ve again softened the border between our reality and book reality when it comes to exact location and the ease of getting there without a vehicle. If you’re in the know and driving around the Greenspring Station to Ruxton Road area, you might find yourself traveling the road that Merrick takes to crash a party.
Both Merrick’s apartment and Lucee’s place are based on places where friends lived, in the Mt Vernon neighborhood. Sousa’s place isn’t too far from there. The pic above shows a little of what that area looks like. It is a great neighborhood for artsy types, though perhaps a little more affordable in the fictional version of Baltimore!
Using a real-life place, even one I’m familiar with, gave me some things to think about before I proceeded. I’ve seen it done really well, and also not quite as well. It can be easy to let the setting overwhelm the story by putting the city’s character and descriptions too far forward. For me, Baltimore is an important part of the tale, but not the most forward part. I wanted it to lurk in the background in some ways – interesting but ignorable in detail until the right time. And of course, it is all about timing!
I can’t wait until you travel to my version of Baltimore, and you get to meet the folks that live there.
They say that good things come to those who wait, and I am taking that advice to heart as I get through the final processes of getting In Sleep You Know ready for its big debut! The chances are good that you don’t really know what it entails to get a novel from idea to manuscript to proof to book. Add in all the various forms in which one can release a story – hardback, paperback, epub/mobi, audiobook – and the work really starts to stack up. And if you aren’t versed in this, it can feel like a daunting task… especially if all you really wanted to do was write stories for people to read.
I’ve found that I already had some of the “extra” skills that one needs to publish a book independently, which gave me a good start. I am used to creating my own graphics, marketing copy, and press, thanks to my other job as a fiber artist at Three Ravens Studio. I can also take passable photos, thanks to years of shooting my yarn and fibers. That’s definitely more than a lot of writers have in their skill sets when starting out.
The key to success, in my mind, is getting an understanding of what I don’t know, and then either learning how, or hiring someone skilled in those areas to be on my team. In this case, I am both taking my time to learn more about formatting and proper setup/layout for printing and publishing, and I hired a fantastic designer and book coach to help me through the process. I can’t say enough good things about Leesa Ellis of 3 Ferns Book Design and all the work she’s done to make In Sleep You Know go from a weirdly formatted .doc* to [almost!] finished book. If you are an aspiring author looking to self-publish, do yourself a favor and invest in hiring someone like Leesa to help you though these steps. You need editors, advisors, designers, and other professionals on your team. It’s important that these people are not you! Getting that outside input is vital. Trust me when I tell you: you are too close to your work. You need a team. Even if that team is Beta readers and trusted friends – though don’t rely on them to do your heavy lifting. You truly do get what you pay for. *I add a lot of extra paragraph breaks and spacing when I write, because it can be difficult for me to differentiate dialogue, etc in my working manuscript otherwise. Finding all those things to fix them later is a pain and my editing team are saints.
When I get stuck, creatively, I often go to the Sovereign Oracle and expansion packs for a kickstart. It never fails to apply to the situation!
In the coming weeks, I’ll talk more about the tools I use, what I’ve been doing during the pre-launch-countdown time to prepare, and of course I’ll be sharing some more short works. By the way! I am writing a short story that goes along with In Sleep You Know and will be offered for FREE to those who join my mailing list! It won’t give away the story, but you will learn more about one of the characters and get a feel for the world of the Eleriannan before In Sleep You Know hits the shelves. Want in? Just sign up for the Mailing List and as soon as it is ready, you’ll get it in your inbox!
