Launching Adrastea, An Enthralling, Tolkien-Inspired, Young Adult Fantasy Novel (+Tutorial for Mommi

You may have noticed, dear readers, that I have not been posting very much lately. The reason is Adrastea, Princess of the antlered Cievo people in the World of Orbis.

The Tolkien-inspired world of Orbis with its five races, the Cievo, the Humans, the Shefro, the Snow Sprites and the Elves, was created by our daughter Anastasia Vincent. Her suspenseful fantasy novel Adrastea, Book One in the Annals of Orbis, is about to be launched on Amazon.com, on April 5, 2020!

Here's a synopsis from Anastasia's website Green Forest Press.

Adrastea

A Heroic, Tolkien-Inspired Page Turner for Young Adults

Evil has entered Ellestar, royal city of the antlered Cievo people. The life of Adrastea, wilful and attention-starved daughter of the King, is shattered completely when she witnesses the murder of her parents by a scar-faced Human. Wounded and despondent, Adrastea narrowly escapes death herself and finds unexpected refuge and friendship in the remote cottage of a crippled Cievo. Soon the news spreads that Adrastea is wanted for the murder of her parents.

Five years later, the scar-faced killer strikes again. This time, however, he is pursued by an accomplished artist of the blade, the fierce Cievo Aleta, who hates Humans and who never smiles.

Aleta reluctantly joins forces with Daphne, the humorous Human girl acrobat on her own hunt for scar-face and the bitter Cievo almost learns to smile. Will Daphne, Aleta and a sampling of colorful characters from the World of Orbis succeed in installing Adrastea’s brother on the Cievan throne and in restoring the Princess to her people?

Adrastea opens the courageous combat against evil by the five peoples of Orbis, the Cievo, the Humans, the Shefro, the Elves, and the Snow Sprites, as recorded in the six Annals of Orbis. This fast-paced fantasy novel with a dash of subtle humor is set in a heroic, Tolkien-inspired world.

Well, here's the story of new book:

I must say, the Corona Virus quarantine has been a lifesaver for me. Anastasia wrote the book, but now the marketing campaign for her self-published novel turns out to be an almost full-time job for the author and her mother.

Fortunately, Anastasia is not only a writer but an artist. She designed her own cover, photo courtesy of little sister Irene, and built her own website her on WIX.com. She also created a Facebook page and a Facebook group for her Launch Team Members.

The Launch Team is an idea from a course Anastasia follows: How To Self-Publish Your First Book by Gillian Perkins. We bought the course for $33.00. It has lots of good ideas, but I think it needs an update. Things change so fast in the digital world and some of the information is outdated.

Gillian suggest assembling a group of people who will read the book two weeks before publication date. On launch day, they will download a free Kindle version, leave a rating and a review. This will cause the Amazon algorithm to kick in and promote the book.

If you would like to join the Adrastea Launch team, read a free PDF copy of Adrastea and win a Fire 7 Tablet, please sign up on Anastasia's website.

In order to find launch team members, Anastasia joined writers groups of Facebook. We created a great number of posts, emails and flyers. We wrote a myriad of teasers, synopses and blurps. Anastasia signed up for mailchimp to send out crowd emails. However, when we needed the program most, it decided not to work. We were in a hurry - no time for customer support. So, I made a flyer on my trusty Microsoft Publisher and figured out how to size it right to fit a Gmail window and look semi-professional. After all this work, I thought , I'd share it with you:

Mommy Tutorial: How to Create a Crowd Mail In Microsoft Publisher

I hope, the tutorial will be useful for someone out there in self-publishing land. The great advantage of using your personal email over programs like mailchimp is that there is less chance of your message being classified as spam. Gmail says you can paste in up to 150 recipients. However, I read comments talking about such large mails landing the recipients' spam folder, even with personal Gmail. We decided to send separate messages with 20 recipients each.

Stay tuned for more news of Adrastea, Book One in the Annals of Orbis.

Have a Blessed Lent and Easter. I hope you will be able to attend your church!