This week has been a wonderful week. I’ve been taking some time to chill, and let Otherside: The Serenity hang out on Amazon, but it turns out talking about your book after it’s been published is just as important as talking about it before it was published, and I know, it’s like…who knew?
I think most authors would agree that marketing does not come naturally to us. We like the writing process (well, I mean, we TOLERATE it…there’s usually some hair pulling involved), but we aren’t really into sales. If we had been into sales, then we would have gotten a business degree like everyone told us we should. But alas, we are dreamers, and creative, and so goes the territory of reconciling our creative desires with the capitalist grind. C’est la vie.
I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, this book is my baby, and I’m super proud of it. I’m even more excited this week because the eBook of Otherside: The Serenity went to #1 on the Bestseller list for all its categories! It’s hard to believe that a book I first wrote when I was 15 years old has made it to this point, and I’m excited to see how much further it goes. Most of all, I hope people who read it are impacted by it.
And while this is my hope it occurred to me that maybe I should re-introduce myself, so people who haven’t discovered me before get a chance to know me, because this is the internet, and everyone is clamoring for attention to the point that it feels a little like piranhas after the same food. I prefer to order take-out, but my book marketing person says I need to put myself out there, so here I am.
I’m H.J VandeRiet, and I’ve been a writer since I was nine years old; this is the age when I crafted my first cheesy story of 27-pages, which was both imaginative and highly embarrassing as I grew and got better at writing (I mean, in the book my friends and I get lost in the mountains for a whole month and when we get back to camp my parents are just relaxing as if this is no big deal…but it was the 90’s, so anything is possible). In any case, a love of writing was born, and since then I’ve written books and short stories over the years. Some of my poetry has been published in small presses and online zines. But this is my first NOVEL for sale, so it’s a big deal. I actually went to school for writing, so I have a Master’s degree in it, and I write in other aspects as well. I do content writing (including copy and blog writing), as well as poetry, but ultimately fiction is my bread and butter. Fiction is what I love.
I tend to write a lot of different stuff, but I do have an affection for YA Fiction specifically. One of my favorite series is the Great and Terrible Beauty series. I, of course, was a HUGE Harry Potter fan when it was popular (I actually created my own quill by taping a giant feather to my pen). These days I read everything from poetry, to eco nonfiction, to faith based books, to YA Horror and Fantasy. Currently I’ve started about 6 books, but I’ve been enjoying The Haunted by Danielle Vega.
When it comes to the YA genre specifically, I love what it has done for teenagers. I love how it speaks to them, and the issues they’re dealing with. I relate to the awkward feeling of being misunderstood, the desire to be invisible and at the same time well-liked. And I especially love the direction that the genre has taken the last few years, with more diversity and more vividly flawed characters, and I’m so excited to be part of that. Hopefully Otherside will speak to some people the way other YA books have spoken to me.
Otherside: The Serenity has gone through several changes over the years, off and on as I’ve worked on it. I didn’t work on it consistently the whole time (I think that would have been a little unhinged to be honest.) No, the book just kind of came in and out of my life. I remember going back to the first draft during a dry spell in my writing. I wanted to see if anything I’d written in the past was worth fleshing out and exploring. When I looked at it, I felt it had potential in a way the other books didn’t. I felt a connection to the material, and I felt like people would enjoy it; that they would love the characters. That they would identify with them.
What was most enjoyable though was taking the world I’d created and filling it out. The first draft had very little in the way of backstory as to HOW the world of the Otherside came to be, and that was something I got to dig into. I researched about angels and demons, and as my faith changed over time, aspects of that got put into the story as well.
Next week, I’ll dive into a little about my main character, Alanis Laundale, and tell you about the time I discovered my first book about teenage rebellion, and how that led to the disillusionment one eventually finds when they actually research about the artists they admired as teenagers.
Otherside: The Serenity is currently available on both Amazon and online at Barnes and Noble. You can get the book in both Kindle and Paperback versions. If you have read the book, and would like to review it, you can do so on Amazon, Goodreads, and Barnes and Noble.
H.J VandeRiet 