Friday 25 December 2015

Happy Christmas - Welcome to the Debut Celebrations

Firstly - MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL!!!!

I hope you are all enjoying Christmas Day. I know this is a strange day to blog on as everyone will be celebrating with their families, but I kind of had to, in order to get in all the fabulous debuts from this year before we welcome and celebrate the debuts of next year. 

So from today through to New Years Day, it will be all about the Debuts of 2015.

Each one has answered questions about their debut and were willing to share them with us all. I thought it would be good for any unpublished authors to get a real idea of what debuting is really like. 

So sit back with your glass of mulled wine and mince pie and enjoy the first of the debut authors we are celebrating.

Tatum Flynn
Tatum debuted in April of this year with the first book in her MG series, The D'Evil Diaries, published by Orchard Books. 
The second book in the series will be published in January 2016.
So here is what Tatum had to say about her debut in 2015. 
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What has been the easiest thing about being a debut author? 
Hahaha. There is nothing easy about being a debut author, apart from that one joke I wrote about monsters, which I quite like and which only took me about six hours to think up.

What was the highlight of your debut? 
​A tie between getting my book illustrated by the excellent Dave Shephard, as it had never crossed my mind that that might happen, and seeing art of your words is amazing - and my launch party, where I had the best time and which loads of lovely people came to, plus on that day I found out my book had gone to a second printing which made it extra celebratory.

What was the low point of your debut? 
Top tip for debut authors: you will feel unhinged by stress and nerves in the couple of months running up to your first release. 
​Especially if you are simultaneously writing or editing book two, planning a huge launch party, and doing a bunch of online promo. I was so frazzled I couldn't even read any books that were vaguely exciting. If you know everyone feels that way, though, at least you don't worry it's just you, and I promise things will quiet down afterwards :)

What kind of reaction have you had from readers? 
They haven't thrown things, which is nice. Actually I may be one of the few authors who likes Goodreads, as the very-much-not-in-the-thousands-or-even-hundreds of reviews I have there have almost all been lovely which makes me happy because I'm a deeply shallow person who's a sucker for flattery.

What was the best quote about your book that you received? 
It's a tie between book blogger Minerva Reads who said: Once in a while a children's book comes along that is so inventive, and witty, and different, that you want to hug it. which made me want to hug *her*, and your fine self who also said some rather nice things about my sense of humour and world building skillz.
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Thank you Tatum for talking about your 2015 debut. Come back tomorrow to hear from another of our successful debut authors. 

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