We got chatting with Tanor Costa, author of Crown of Delusion to find out more about him and his writing.
Tell us something unexpected about yourself!
I've done all of this at the young age of 19.
What novels affected you the most growing up?
Lord of the Rings, by far. Anything Middle Earth made me feel at home, adventurous, and most of all, happy.
Where did the idea for your current book come from?
I've had the initial idea since 12, I believe. I used to write as a child but was told it wasn't a profession to pursue for one reason or another. Yet, here I am. I always wanted to do an adventure story with a grand cast of characters of different backgrounds, not species, just backgrounds. As I grew older, this single idea never left my head and branched out into a ton of different directions. It was finally last summer, I decided to write the damn book and I haven't looked back since.
Do you think there's any way you could ever run out of ideas for books?
I highly doubt it. I have 3 more books in my series including a spin-off as well as a few contemporaries. Even if ideas did falter, I created such a big world in my fantasy series that I could easily write more spin-offs, but only if I am truly passionate about the story.
What is your routine for writing and has this method changed over the span of your career?
I used to write in bulk. This made me take a lot of days off, which is taboo in the writing world but if I write, I can usually bang out 7,000-10,000 within 3 hours. In the start of my first novel, I wrote a chapter a day for 8 chapters. Each averaged about 6,000 words per chapter skewed by a short 3,000 word chapter. Now, I like to spread out my writing like short sprints. It helps with my prose, and I gained so much grammatical and prose knowledge throughout the first novel's creation that whenever I write now, it's much cleaner, which takes more time.
How important is marketing and social media for you?
Marketing is BEYOND important. Social media is honestly the best way to market something like a novel. If you don't market your book, it probably won't sell, in fact, it just won't, because no one will know it exists. Marketing is my make or break, easily.
What advice would you have for other writers?
I hear all the time about writers going back to their manuscripts and editing it countless amounts of times and then never doing anything with it because of fear, or something or other. My advice is simple: No one will buy a book if it's not available to buy. Fight through the fear, enlist betas, an editor, proofreader, get feedback, boost your confidence and release the book. Writers are self conscious, that's a fact. Even if you have to fake being brave to get it out there, do it. Don't live with regrets regarding your stories, then you'll never know if you could have done anything special.
What are you reading now?
Game of Thrones
What's your next step?
Finish book 2 in my saga and market book 1 with all the ability I have.
You can buy Tanor's Book, Crown of Delusion here
Interested in getting your book promoted? Have a look at http://yourbookpromoter.com
