Wednesday, May 22, 2013

The Riverbend Trilogy Blog Tour ~*~Guest Post~*~

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Thank you for visiting The Riverbend Trilogy's Blog Tour! Here you will find an interesting article about Andrea's inspiration to self-publish, see The Riverbend Trilogy's new book trailer, and learn a bit about the author, Andrea Goodson! Don't forget to enter the giveaway at the end of the post and see where you can visit Andrea tomorrow!

My Inspiration to Self-Publish

First, let me start with saying that I have discussed with and gained permission from my child to talk about this issue. My novel, Riverbend, which is part one in The Riverbend Trilogy started out as something much different. I began writing it about 2 years ago as a sort of journal entry. The emotions and thoughts that occured during this process quickly turned into fictional characters in my imagination and I had to get it all out onto the paper. The process was so invigorating, so inspiring, I don't quite know how to describe it. Ideas just flowed out of my mind through my hands and onto the paper. Yes, paper. The first 5000+ words of my novel were handwritten in a notebook. I still write in a notebook. Somehow I feel more creative when I do it that way. I like to go outside and sit under the large Tulip Tree in my back yard with my pencil and notebook and just imagine. I almost envision myself as Anne Shirley sitting on the sandy banks of Avonlea with her pen and unbound manuscripts! Riverbend began as a single novel and I thought for a long time it would stay that way. I decided to turn it into a Trilogy after careful thought because I feel it will better impact my readers that way. It was not due to traditional publication rules, as the first book is fairly short. I just felt that at certain places in the novel there needed to be a definitive resolution, and "end" so to speak, so that the reader might better absorb the enormity of the character's realization and plight. Book one was completed in late summer of last year and inquiries were sent out to various literary agents. Needless to say, the rejections started piling in and I began to think that it just was not as good as I thought it was. The book is wonderful, to me, but maybe others didn't see it that way. Although, the majority of the rejections I received were due to not being an established author. Either way, I continued to furiously write, but was losing faith in myself as a writer. During this same year, my 9 year old daughter had been diagnosed with Dyslexia. She had been having an enormous amount of trouble with reading, writing, spelling, and being bullied at school for those difficulties. She ended up transfering schools and receiving the specialized instruction she so desparately needed. She is very smart, testing in the above average range for full scale IQ, so she has experienced much frustration with herself, not understanding why she couldn't achieve what other children were in school. One night, very late for her, about 10:00pm, we were working on homework and studying. This had become a normal rountine for her to be up so late trying to finish homework and staying focused had been so hard that I would allow her large breaks between tasks, to "freshen" her mind. Thankfully, these late nights don't happen anymore! Anyway, on this particular night her frustration was ruling over her, there were many tears and questions like "Why am I so dumb?" "Why can't I remember this?" "Why do I have to have Dyslexia?" Of course, while my heart was breaking for my frustrated child, I comforted her and explained that she absolutely was not "dumb", and that she has gifts that others don't, and that we all have different weaknesses and strengths. My final words to her on the subject were (I can't remember exactly, but something along the lines of...) "You can achieve anything you set your mind to, YOU are in control of your life. It may be hard at times, but you will only fail if you give up." Her response floored me. "Then why don't you publish your book yourself?" Why? Why? I didn't know what to answer! Why don't I? Because I don't believe I can? Because I am lacking the same faith in myself that I am telling you to have? How could I preach to my child to follow her dreams and to always try hard if I was going to give up myself?! And that's what did it. That's when I made the instantaneous decision to self-publish. I no longer cared what any literary agent thought, I even stopped searching in my email hourly for responses! I was going to do this myself and NOBODY could tell me I couldn't, not even me! So, here I am. A brand new, indie, self-published author navigating my way through this whole new world! Everytime I look at my child I feel thankful for her wise advice.


Author Bio
002 - CopyAndrea Goodson was born in 1982 and had a love of and fascination with writing since she was very young. Always imagining ways in which the world could be different, she began to write short stories when she was very young. It wasn't until many years later that she put pen to paper and began to work on what has become her first novel, Riverbend, part one in a trilogy. Upon completion of that work she found that writing was something she felt meant to do and would never be able to give up. Using her own experiences with hardship and tragedy Andrea uses her writing to reach others in an effort to show the world that we need not be victims of circumstance. Her main characters endure many conflicts yet find the courage and strength to better themselves.

Click here to follow Andrea on Facebook and Twitter!


All books are also available on Amazon as Paperbacks and ebooks on Nook, iBooks, and Smashwords!

For a complete listing of all books and venues, CLICK HERE!

You can also check out my reviews for 
Waking Tide


A note from me:

Andrea will be donating the proceeds from all sales of Riverbend (ecopy or print copy) throughout the month of May to Oklahoma Relief.  

Click on any of the above links and buy yourself a copy of the book, gift it, pick up a spare in case you wear it out.  Just go buy it.  Not only are you getting yourself an awesome book, but you're also helping those affected in Oklahoma.


Don't forget to enter the giveaway!

Thank you for visiting! You can see Andrea again tomorrow on Kat's Read!

1 comment:

  1. Thanks andrea you are so amazing what you are doing for ok

    ReplyDelete