An Author’s Journey To Independent Book Publishing

On The Table Read, “the best book magazine in the UK“, author Eren Viau shares her journey from idea to publication with her books, and her experiences with independent book publishing.

Written by Eren Viau

www.ravenandbutterfly.com

First I want to thank everyone for the opportunity to talk about my journey as an author.

First Steps Into Publishing

The first time I was published I was seventeen years old and I had no idea what I was doing. I sent our query letters to multiple publishing houses and accepted the first publishing deal I got. Thankfully I had a kill clause in the contract because they took advantage of my age and inexperience to try and change my book into something that it wasn’t.

My first book War of Silence is about a strong woman who lost everything and had to fight to get it all back and to be free. Romance was a part of it as a subplot where found family was much more important. The developmental editors wanted to strip it all away and make her a damsel in distress. I killed the project because that is not who the character is. Xai was my inspiration to write, she was my childhood imaginary friend and I wanted to tell her story.

After that I stopped pursuing publication for ten years. I went to college for creative writing, I became a ghost writer and helped many friends with the story lines of their individual work. But I no longer had the confidence to release my own work and let someone else possibly ruin it again.

Independent Publishing

My wife finally looked at me and told me to try again, even if I wasn’t ready to re release Xai’s story that people deserved and wanted to read my work. So I finished a project that I had been working on privately and released it. In the first month ‘The Voyage of the Demota Novia’ sold over 300 copies. I got so much support as I launched my returning debut into the published world. But I returned as an indie author. I got to say who beta read the book, who edited the manuscript, and whose ideas I actually listened to too.

The indie author community has been so wholeheartedly supportive in helping me learn to navigate without a traditional publisher but I couldn’t be happier. I am not at all saying this is or ever will be easy but if you have a passion in art there is always a way to find your spot and get your pieces seen. I would love to be able to see the indie author community grow with more amazing stories and characters that were always classified as less desired in literature.

Representation Matters In Story

Personally I try and include nero divergent, various types of person of color characters, and queer characters into my books in a way that makes people feel included but also that is not forced. Some day it will be more common to see these characters and we will no longer have to make it a point to broadcast the character types inclusion.

I would like to add in disabled and chronically ill characters into my future books as well but am still working on learning the language needed to describe the conditions but not make everything about the conditions.

As a queer, nero divergant, and disabled author myself it is very important to me that the characters created have personalities that are seen and loved that do not revolve around their sexuality, gender, skin color, or disability. I explained it to a friend before as “I never want a single piece of a character’s being to be their entire personality. I want them to be a character, not a token character.”

The Voyage Of The Demota Novia

To use ‘The Voyage of the Demota Novia’ as an example since it was released recently and has been well received. One of the two main male characters, Alluca, is a dark olived tone Pirate Captain. His darker skin tone is mentioned a few times as a descriptor but it is never made out as a big deal, neither are the other POC members of the book. Instead he is talked about for his character and his personality. The same goes for his partner, the very andryognous Mirida. Not to say there is not racism in Demota, or homophobia, or even shaming for looking provocative but through the eyes of the characters those people are the outliers and get labeled as bigots.

In Demota the pure love between the characters and their found family is more important. They never make the nuro divergent characters feel less than nor is there any true distinct focus on sexuality. Yes, there are differences in cultures that lead to unlearning bias and deconstructing generational hate and racism but skin color and sexuality was never used as a plot device to get the characters or readers to learn a lesson. Demota is more about one person trying to understand, questioning racism, and pushing to learn the truth.

War Of Silence

I am excited to say that I am also re-releasing War of Silence this year as an indie author. Xai will be returning in a rewritten story that I am incredibly proud of. To be able to come back ten years later in an industry that used to be incredibly difficult to get seen if you were not traditionally published to publish by myself and be able to keep the integrity of my work.

If not for things like bookstagram, booktok, and the other social media gathering places for authors I might not have returned. I do not want to give too much away about War of Silence but please know that it was be as sassy as I always wanted it to be, with a vast world of its own and a story of a strong female lead who will stop at nothing to make things right and bring a sort of justice to those who wronged her. If she stops a genocide in the process it was unintentional.

Unlike Demota, which will be a duology, War of Silence is a Trilogy that will have a sister series. Once the War Trilogy is over it will not be the last anyone will see of Chemerica and that is something I never thought I would get to say.

Please keep an eye out for other works I will be releasing in the coming years, I have plenty of works that are in progress and stories I can not wait to share with everyone.

Find more from Eren Viau now:

Currently out on Amazon and KU is ‘The Voyage of the Demota Novia’ in paperback, hardcover, and ebook.

In November ‘War of Silence’ will be back making it’s return to physical form.

Readers can find me on tiktok, instagram, twitter, goodreads, and facebook at @authorerenviau.

You can also find signed copies of the books when they are in stock at www.ravenandbutterfly.com which is my site for my small business and my books.

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