Today we welcome Andrew Chilton to YABC! Andrew’s book, The Goblin Puzzle, is filled with twists and turns and a manipulative Goblin! This magical novel will leave readers dazzled and delighted. Read on to learn a few things about Andrew, his book, the top five scariest things that happen when you publish a book, plus a giveaway!
Meet Andrew.
ANDREW CHILTON drew inspiration for The Goblin’s Puzzle from a wide variety of sources, ranging from The Hobbit to Monty Python to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. As a kid, he gobbled up fantasy novels and logic puzzles, and as an adult, he spent over ten years as a practicing lawyer before launching his career as a writer. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This is his first novel.
Now meet Andrew’s book.
Brimming with dragons, goblins, and logic puzzles, this middle-grade fantasy adventure is perfect for readers who enjoyed The Princess Bride or Rump.
THE BOY is a nameless slave on a mission to uncover his true destiny.
THE GOBLIN holds all the answers, but he’s too tricky to be trusted.
PLAIN ALICE is a bookish peasant girl carried off by a confused dragon.
And PRINCESS ALICE is the lucky girl who wasn’t kidnapped.
All four are tangled up in a sinister plot to take over the kingdom, and together they must face kind monsters, a cruel magician, and dozens of deathly boring palace bureaucrats. They’re a ragtag bunch, but with strength, courage, and plenty of deductive reasoning, they just might outwit the villains and crack the goblin’s puzzle.
Sounds great, right?
TOP FIVE THINGS SCARIEST THINGS THAT HAPPEN WHEN YOU PUBLISH A BOOK:
When you start to write a novel, you embark on a voyage of discovery. You’ll discover new ideas and explore new possibilities. Mostly though, you’ll find new ways to terrify yourself. Here’s just a few things to be scared of when you publish your first novel:
1.) Editorial letters
When you sell your book, your editor will send you a letter, outlining “a few small changes” you need to make to your book. This is called an editorial letter. They come in three types: long, very long, and very, very long. At first, you’ll tell yourself that it’s probably just a lot of typos and spelling errors that need to be fixed. You’ll be wrong. Your editor will give you a detailed analysis of why certain parts of the book have to be cut. These will be your favorite parts. Your editor will be right.
2.) Reviews
People who aren’t published sometimes ask about the possibility of getting bad reviews. What they don’t realize is that it’s not a matter a possibility. It is a great big world, and someone somewhere will want to tell everyone in it how they really feel about your book:
And it doesn’t matter how good it is. Charlotte’s Web has over a thousand onestar reviews on Goodreads. Charlotte’s. Web.
(Andrew making confused face)
3.) Public speaking
Once your book is published, you’ll need to promote it. That’s what they’ll tell you. You’ll think this sounds fine and sign up for a lot of it. Then, they’ll tell you it’s public speaking.
4.) “Did you base the main character on yourself?”
When you write a book, everyone will ask if the main character is you, even if the main character of your book is a nameless slave boy who runs away from his cruel master to learn the true secret of his fate, all the while being tormented by a trickster goblin. It seems pretty obvious to me that I’m not a runaway slave desperately trying to discover my destiny, but apparently, it isn’t.
For the record, this isn’t me.
I’m actually the goblin.
5.) “Do it again, but faster.”
Writing a book is hard work, and it takes a long time. You come up with a brilliant idea. You write the first draft, then you rewrite, edit, polish and work it over until it is perfect. You sell it to a publisher, and then it’s more editing and rewriting. Going from writing “Once upon a time” to holding up your printed book and screaming “Look! Look! LOOK! It’s here! It’s here! It’s here!” rarely takes less than five years. And just when you’re all done and ready for your well earned break, your editor says, “Great work! To meet our publication schedule, we’ll need the next one in six months.”
We’d like to thank Andrew for sharing ALL about what it’s like to publish a book! And here is another BIG thanks for the following giveaway of The Goblin’s Puzzle!
The Goblin’s Puzzle
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By: Andrew Chilton
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Release Date: January 19, 2016
*GIVEAWAY DETAILS*
Two winners will receive a hardcover copy of The Goblin’s Puzzle when it debuts in January 2016. US addresses only.
Entering is simple, just fill out the entry form below. During this giveaway, Andrew has a question for entrants. Here is the question they’ll be answering in the comments below for extra entries: What would scare YOU the most about publishing YOUR first book?
*Click the Rafflecopter link to enter the giveaway*
What a great interview. This books sounds really fun!
Honestly, I would be scared that people wouldn’t like my book and that I wouldn’t make any money off of it. That would be depressing, if I worked really hard on publishing a book then nobody liked it.
I would be scared that I didn’t have another book in me to write–I’d be a one book hit wonder.
not sure
I would be worried about creating an interesting story with interesting characters that people would want to read.
I would be most worried about spelling all the words right.
I would be scared that my first publication would be rejected so many times before being published. I’d also worry about whether kids would relate to it in the way that I wished.
I totally dig this cover. And the book sounds really awesome!
I think the deadline would loom….and then….it would be all up hill to ecstasy from there!
I’d be scared that no publisher would be willing to publish it or that the editors would want me to change it so much it was hardly mine anymore.