It Starts With An Idea

Hey avid readers! For those of you who don't know by now, my name is Andreya Lombardi. I'm the author of the debut book Dessa, a novella that caters to action, adventure, drama, sorcery, and romance. I've been told countless times that my books don't follow the norm, the script of epic fantasy and reverse harem, and even I have found it difficult to label my series in a specific category. Well, that's because it doesn't really fit perfectly into a specific category. It has many different elements to it, a wide scope of themes and tropes and character types. People have compared it to The Witcher, others some light novel they see it relating to.

When I wrote my first book, all I really had in mind was the idea of something I would absolutely love to see as either a movie or an anime series. So my books are written in 'episodes,' which are then further broken down into scenes. I won't deviate from that format for the entire series, although I have toned down the pov to follow Cabil and Syreene mostly: Syreene being my main heroine. As you could imagine, for a story so complex (dark fantasy, epic fantasy, reverse harem, swords and sorcery, demons, nobles, vampires, demon gods, goddesses, oh the list goes on!) it would be even more difficult to advertise and reach my prime audience.

Sure, I know folks who would love the tropes and the character designs, but I have too many friends who are immune to cracking open a virtual book . :)

Yeah, crazy isn't it?

With that being said, I wanted to start my blog with my journey through the entire process from start to current, while also intermittently showcasing some plot and character reflections within my books. Again, I am not an expert, far from it, actually. I'm just an indie author noob writing about my experiences to those who would care to listen.

So to start, I want to outline what I'll be tackling within the next few posts for part one:

The Foundation:

· purpose of writing (fiction)

· what are you trying to achieve? what's your ultimate goal?

· how do you size up against your competitors?

· how do you size up against your complimentary authors?

· budget for everything: editing (developmental and copy editing), proofing, book covers, formatting, newsletters, promos sites (don’t, and I’ll go into it further), website, publishing, marketing (I will go into depth about marketing and how FB is a social network site not a sales site)

· formats you are are willing to produce in: ebook, paperback, audio,

· the different mass distributors like draft2digital, smashwords, ingramspark

· your categories and censorship

· considering your time and organize accordingly

· asking yourself if it's all worth it? the reality of the truth.

Part one is pretty hefty, but it is the overall bulk, overall outline of the scoped beginnings. Again this is my perspective. I've read over seven books and over two dozen youtube videos on marketing (which is easily where I struggle the most), so I will be focusing on that more than the other topics. If you're interested, stick around! I will try to upload a section of part one once every two weeks, and hopefully will remain consistent with my releases. See you soon!

Don't forget to snatch your copy of Spirit of Vengeance, Dessa book one, for free on all major retailers. Limited Time Only!

To New Beginnings

Hey! Wow, thanks for dropping by! This is my first official blog post, on my first official blog! For those of you who don’t know, my name is Andreya Lombardi. I’m a first-time author, with a debut novel that came out in July of 2020. The accursed year. Well, I was on furlough from my job and figured I should do something with this precious time (all of three weeks before I was pulled back to work). So I decided to publish a book I’ve been on and off with since 2017. So many revisions, so many challenges. Between that time I was pregnant, lost a job while pregnant, caught a new job, and planned on moving to another state. Wowzers what a ride! But through it all, I’m glad I decided to make that transition from being a non-published writer to an indie author.

I want to dedicate a personal space to draw out my ideas, my journey thus far as an independent author, and to have a place to talk about my books, my new releases, my trials and tribulations with the entire process of writing, editing, marketing, etc.—just everything writing-related really. It’s actually something I’ve been against for years, given I absolutely abhor having the spotlight on me, but I do want to finally reach out to my readers and my audience in the best way I know how (or at least the second-best!), and that’s through opening up and letting people know me for who I am.

I plan on making more of these entries split between podcasts and journals. The reason why I would lean toward podcasts because it’s a lot easier for me given my lack of time, and I feel better being able to relay my thoughts through articulation. First and foremost, I want to emphasize I in no way am a pro author. I’m still trying to partner up with a publishing house, big or small, to open my doors in the author world. With that being said, I know I’m not perfect and that I’m not only a flawed individual, but a flawed author as well. I consider the feedback I get from my readers (valid actual feedback), and strive to do better in my next books. I have so far gained a followship of about 1k subs in the two and a half months I’ve decided to push my efforts into marketing, and I only hope to learn and grow more from here on out.

So if you like what you hear, and want to learn more about me, stick around! This is a personal blog, I will tackle a lot of subjects about writing, and about myself. I’m not being endorsed, nor paid to say or write anything. So it’s all coming straight from the heart.

Stay tuned, and stay safe!

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