This is the first time, though, that I’ve published an entire series in the same year (my life keeps getting in the way, doesn't it? This year, Covid 19 tried to interfere). Nothing went to plan in 2020 but at least this series is out there. I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for reading, commenting, sharing, and retweeting my blogs and tweets this year (some of you have been doing so since 2012!). I really appreciate it. I don't always get to thank you all personally (I just RT you back, don't I?), but that doesn't mean I’m not thankful. Thank you and good luck with your writing and publishing endeavors *hugs*
I almost delayed the release of the series finale, Keys to the Realm, until next year due to the global pandemic, but in the end, I didn’t want the people that pre-ordered Book 3, to wait that long. And I wanted it out of the way so I could move on with my other projects. A series doesn't feel done unless it’s out in the world!
I almost delayed the release of the series finale, Keys to the Realm, until next year due to the global pandemic, but in the end, I didn’t want the people that pre-ordered Book 3, to wait that long. And I wanted it out of the way so I could move on with my other projects. A series doesn't feel done unless it’s out in the world!
So, how’s release day going? Good, thanks. Would have been better if it wasn’t the year of the COVID 19 pandemic, but I’ve consoled myself all year with these words: It wasn’t meant to be.
I may not even have written this series in the first place if it wasn't for a stock image! A stock image got me writing epic fantasy for the first time in my adult life. Of course, there were a number of other factors that helped shape the premise and plot of the Heir to the Throne Trilogy, but what put things into motion for me was the image of the girl on the original cover of Book 1, Heir to the Throne. I saw it on Pixabay in March 2018⬇️ and downloaded it immediately:
Obviously, the girl wasn’t appropriate for the covers of my contemporary romance novels or my urban fantasy books. “I’ll just have to write a book about her, then,” I’d joked to myself. Almost instantly, my brain came up with various ideas for how to go about it. I couldn’t stop thinking about a story that my mum used to tell me when I was a kid, and I wondered if I could do a retelling of that bedtime tale. Fairy tale retellings are in at the moment, aren't they?
“Once there was a very vain King,” my mum used to say. “And he would always ask his daughters how much they loved him and why. One day, when he asked his daughters this question and they started likening their love for him to sweet things—sugar, honey, syrup, molasses—one of the Princesses said she loved him like she loved salt. The King threw a tantrum at that and banished her from the kingdom.
“She was taken in by a family in a faraway land and didn’t see her father until years later, when he visited the people that she lived with. The King didn’t know that the daughter he disowned years ago was a part of the household that had invited him for dinner, and the ex-Princess took the opportunity to teach her father a lesson. She cooked an inedible banquet using sugar, honey, syrup, etc. in the place of salt, and the only dish that the King was able to eat and enjoy was the last one brought to the table: The only one that used salt for seasoning and nothing sweet.
“He remembered the daughter that had loved him the way she loved salt and understood her point of view. The King told his hosts about the daughter that had obviously loved him just as much as his other children and openly regretted banishing her.” Which was the cue for the chef/Princess to reveal herself. Overjoyed, the King took her back with open arms.
As a child, I thought my mum had made up the story, or her mum did, or her mum’s mum. In my teens and young adult days, I convinced myself that it must be a classic bedtime story that Bangladeshi women have been telling their daughters for generations, to drill in the importance of seasoning our food: The amount of salt in a curry can make or break the dish.
Now that I was contemplating doing a retelling of this bedtime story, I thought I should Google it. If I'm going to tell people that my book is inspired by a classic Bangladeshi folk tale, I thought, I should do a fact check, shouldn’t I? What I found was that this story is typically referred to as “The King and his Daughters”, and various cultures around the world have their own renditions of it.
A message to my fellow Throne of Glass fans: Heir to the Throne can be put into the same bucket as Throne of Glass because both of these series are set in alternate historical fantasy lands and revolve around Kings and Queens and Princes and Princesses—hence the cover of Heir to the Throne was designed to say, “Yes, you’re right, this cover is reminiscent of the Throne of Glass covers, and that’s because this book might provide a similar experience to the Throne of Glass series. So, if you liked those books, you might enjoy this book, too.” My series has a completely different story line, though, different characters, and is not a re-hash of Sarah J Maas’s work. You'll see that very quickly when you start reading it.
If Heir to the Throne had started off as a retelling of The King and his Daughters, the series would still have ended up as something else entirely. Most of the books I write evolve into something much bigger than I expect, and this trilogy was no exception. Believe me when I say that the series finale, Keys to the Realm, is EPIC, so give this trilogy a try if you’re interested in this genre.
Thanks to the pre-orders at the Apple Books Store Australia (all but one of those pre-orders being placed before the lockdown period, though; pre-order and post-release price: 4.99), Keys to the Realm charted at no. 1 in the Sci Fi & Fantasy category in Australia.
And no. 66 in the overall Apple Books Australia chart ⬇️. Not bad for someone that writes on her phone while lying in bed (degenerative lumbar spine disease, chronic back pain). And only when the Toddler is napping or has gone down for the night. Plus, it was only on pre-order for a couple of months before release :)
Unlike Amazon, which has over 3,500 categories, Apple Books only has 14 category bestseller charts (+ the overall chart, of course) in each territory, with seven of them being fiction categories. A book can only chart in one category: the primary category selected during publishing (so my book couldn’t chart in the YA category chart as well as the SFF chart, even though YA is one of the non-primary categories tagged to it). And as far as I know, chart positions are based on the number of sales/downloads; Apple doesn’t use any other method to calculate chart positions. No fancy algorithms and whatnot.
The pre-orders for the finale mean that the Australians that read the first two books liked them; at the very least, Heir to the Throne and Tied to the Crown were 3-star reads for them. Reasonable assumption, right? But look⬇️ no ratings or reviews for Book 1 at the retailer at this time. See, I told you—my readers seem to fall into the group that just don’t rate or review books—the 99% of readers that don’t rate/review books they read. I accepted this a long time ago *shrug*
The thing is though, if I’d known back in 2019—or even in January 2020—that 2020 was going to turn out like this, I wouldn’t have released these three books in February, March, and July respectively. Or even in 2020. This trilogy deserved to be launched under better circumstances. I genuinely believe it has the potential to become more successful than my Poison Blood Series. And if I’m completely honest, I would have given into my husband’s nagging and queried literary agents for these novels.
With every reader DM I get about my books, my hubby nags me to pursue traditional publishing. No matter how many times I explain the whole right of first refusal thing to him. While I was writing this trilogy, though, he was pushier than ever about me trying to get an agent—seen as these books weren’t published yet. Confession: I did give in and do some research on agents and I even thought I had one very suitable agent I could query. Out of all my books, I thought I was writing one that might fit the trad pub model. “Just let me polish up Book 1,” I kept telling my husband—and myself.
But then, this dream agent suffered bit of a tragic twist in her life and I took that as a sign that perhaps I wasn’t meant to pursue that avenue at all. And I put the first two books in the series up for pre-order when I was done writing them.
~Print copies arrived last night :)
One of the best things about self-publishing is getting to market fast. Capitalising on reader appetite and market trends, but with the people of the world slowing down due to the pandemic and lockdown, getting to market fast in 2020 became irrelevant. That’s why, if I hadn’t released Books 1 and 2 in the first week of February and the first week of March respectively, I think I would have started querying agents with this series during the quarantine period.
Anyway. I didn’t know last year what I know now, so again, I tell myself this: It wasn’t meant to be.
What I’m doing now—rambling on release day, July 3, 2020, this is what was meant to happen all along. And it’s okay. I’m so thankful for what I’ve achieved, and for all the things I have in my life at this time, the what ifs are forgotten almost as soon as I think of them.
~The Dungeon Keeper’s Rhyme
I may not even have written this series in the first place if it wasn't for a stock image! A stock image got me writing epic fantasy for the first time in my adult life. Of course, there were a number of other factors that helped shape the premise and plot of the Heir to the Throne Trilogy, but what put things into motion for me was the image of the girl on the original cover of Book 1, Heir to the Throne. I saw it on Pixabay in March 2018⬇️ and downloaded it immediately:
Obviously, the girl wasn’t appropriate for the covers of my contemporary romance novels or my urban fantasy books. “I’ll just have to write a book about her, then,” I’d joked to myself. Almost instantly, my brain came up with various ideas for how to go about it. I couldn’t stop thinking about a story that my mum used to tell me when I was a kid, and I wondered if I could do a retelling of that bedtime tale. Fairy tale retellings are in at the moment, aren't they?
“Once there was a very vain King,” my mum used to say. “And he would always ask his daughters how much they loved him and why. One day, when he asked his daughters this question and they started likening their love for him to sweet things—sugar, honey, syrup, molasses—one of the Princesses said she loved him like she loved salt. The King threw a tantrum at that and banished her from the kingdom.
“She was taken in by a family in a faraway land and didn’t see her father until years later, when he visited the people that she lived with. The King didn’t know that the daughter he disowned years ago was a part of the household that had invited him for dinner, and the ex-Princess took the opportunity to teach her father a lesson. She cooked an inedible banquet using sugar, honey, syrup, etc. in the place of salt, and the only dish that the King was able to eat and enjoy was the last one brought to the table: The only one that used salt for seasoning and nothing sweet.
“He remembered the daughter that had loved him the way she loved salt and understood her point of view. The King told his hosts about the daughter that had obviously loved him just as much as his other children and openly regretted banishing her.” Which was the cue for the chef/Princess to reveal herself. Overjoyed, the King took her back with open arms.
~My warrior Princess <3
As a child, I thought my mum had made up the story, or her mum did, or her mum’s mum. In my teens and young adult days, I convinced myself that it must be a classic bedtime story that Bangladeshi women have been telling their daughters for generations, to drill in the importance of seasoning our food: The amount of salt in a curry can make or break the dish.
Now that I was contemplating doing a retelling of this bedtime story, I thought I should Google it. If I'm going to tell people that my book is inspired by a classic Bangladeshi folk tale, I thought, I should do a fact check, shouldn’t I? What I found was that this story is typically referred to as “The King and his Daughters”, and various cultures around the world have their own renditions of it.
I’m glad I did the research, not because I can now say that Heir to the Throne is a retelling of The King and his Daughters. Technically, it’s not a retelling or a re-imagining of that story, but I did take inspiration from certain elements from the tale my mum told me—a King with quite a few daughters, the favourite Princess wrongly getting punished—and the stock image helped me make a few other decisions about genre, setting, etc.
Within the space of a couple of days, I had a mental outline for the book and started fleshing it out the plot on the MS Word app on my iPhone—when I wasn’t running around after The Baby (Toddler now). I can’t remember when I actually started writing the book (maybe September 2018, or end of August?), but the bulk of the drafting took place in October and November 2018 (my first NaNoWriMo!).
~Our brooding love interest <3
~Alternative cover editions (ebook)
Here are five things you can expect from these books:
One) This series revolves around mythical sea creatures. Think Game of Thrones/Throne of Glass with “mermaids” (but with my own spin on the mythology).
Two) I love a good origin story—I like to explain how the magical beings in my stories came to exist—so this trilogy has one, too.
Three) No corsets. These books are set in a completely made up fictional world—they’re not inspired by a particular time or place in history—so why would I include something that I don’t believe in? There’s no mention of corsets in this trilogy because they don’t exist in this world. (Nor do guns or bullets!)
Four) There’s forbidden romance, enemies-to-lovers (hate-to-love), and friends-to-lovers, too. But I won’t tell you which couple gets which trope :)
Five) The lead character’s body shape is not typical for YA. Usually, the girls are “tiny” compared to the big, bear-like love interests, or they’re “of medium height, have a small waist and great boobs”. Aaryana—like all her sisters—is very tall, flat-chested, hardly has any curves, and her training has helped her gain a strong, powerful, muscular, athletic body.
I really hope readers take to Aaryana like they have to Ellie, Mukti, and Shell from my other three series and that they enjoy a trilogy that was inspired by just a single image.
Get the series from your favourite ebook store:
One) This series revolves around mythical sea creatures. Think Game of Thrones/Throne of Glass with “mermaids” (but with my own spin on the mythology).
Two) I love a good origin story—I like to explain how the magical beings in my stories came to exist—so this trilogy has one, too.
Three) No corsets. These books are set in a completely made up fictional world—they’re not inspired by a particular time or place in history—so why would I include something that I don’t believe in? There’s no mention of corsets in this trilogy because they don’t exist in this world. (Nor do guns or bullets!)
Four) There’s forbidden romance, enemies-to-lovers (hate-to-love), and friends-to-lovers, too. But I won’t tell you which couple gets which trope :)
Five) The lead character’s body shape is not typical for YA. Usually, the girls are “tiny” compared to the big, bear-like love interests, or they’re “of medium height, have a small waist and great boobs”. Aaryana—like all her sisters—is very tall, flat-chested, hardly has any curves, and her training has helped her gain a strong, powerful, muscular, athletic body.
I really hope readers take to Aaryana like they have to Ellie, Mukti, and Shell from my other three series and that they enjoy a trilogy that was inspired by just a single image.
Get the series from your favourite ebook store:
>>Click Here<<
So, what’s next for me? Well, I have another release scheduled for this year—I’m thinking September time, but I’ll actually have to sort out my dashboard with a concrete date! The project needs just a little more polishing, but it should be ready for the first week of September if I stick to that date. A few more surprises in store for 2020 too, so keep your eyes peeled.
Also, I am finally, finally, trying to finish the highly anticipated—highly anticipated by the readers that have DM’d me about it over the years, that is, LOL—conclusion to my Love & Alternatives Duology. And to ensure that I don’t stray from this project as I have since If I Say Yes came out in 2017, I will put it up for pre-order, with a tentative release date of... drum roll please... last week of January 2021! Hopefully, that will give me the urgency to finish this story at last. Now, I actually have to put it up for pre-order... Maybe this weekend...
There are a few more projects I have planned for next year, but I won’t divulge too much about them just yet. Things never go to plan in my life—or my writing/publishing journey—and it’s best that I just take it one day at a time.
With regards blogging, I hope to continue posting new content every week, as I have been so far this year, but once I run out of ideas for articles... it will probably be on an ad hoc basis :)
Until next time, cheerio xx and here are those links again to my trilogy :) and some cool artwork reflecting the series finale ⬇️.
Get the series from your favourite ebook store:
>>Click Here<<
~Aaryana Vijkanti
~Seth Fresdan
~Aaryana
~Aaryana
~ Aaryana
