by D.S. Murphy | Publishing, Writing Tips
To self-publish a book you finish it, edit it, give it a cover and format it for print and ebook. My own route was slower than I planned, and the steps are further down.
I started this site, Urban Epics, when I began writing fiction in about 2016.
I’d already worked as a book editor and book cover designer, plus I had a PhD in Literature, not that it helped when I started writing. I kept getting stuck in the middle, revisions were agonizing, and my stories were bigger and more complex than my skills or experience.
Still, I self-published a handful of “book 1’s” to see whether or not anybody wanted to read them, and then did my best to build an audience and promote them. The nice thing about self-publishing is that you can control all the elements, test everything, and change or pivot when things aren’t working… but with the vast sea of competition, visibility is a never-ending fight and challenge.
I’ve neglected this site, because I’m much slower than anticipated, only recently finishing my first ever series (working on the 2nd!) and I have a whole bunch of stalled out projects. But I’ve also sold a lot of books, and have an average of 1000 reviews across all my titles.
Self-Publishing (the process)
I’m not sure if I’ve really talked about self-publishing here, on my fiction site, because I like to keep things separate, but just in case you’re a writer and you’re curious, this is a very short version of how to self-publish a book.
#1 finish the story. I have a 24-chapter plot outline and a ton of writing resources.
#2 self-edit as much as you can or find a book editor. This isn’t just about editing; the craft of telling a satisfying story, is something you can discover on accident or study on purpose.
#3 book cover design is critical, but not all that hard. It can be expensive or cheap if you DIY, but I recommend some templates or premades. After your book cover is sorted, you can format your print and ebook with formatting templates or use something like Vellum or Atticus.
That’s basically it!
Write, Edit, Publish.
It’s tempting to overthink it and try to make everything absolutely perfect, but that can mean spending a lot of money, and until you get your book out there, you won’t really know what to expect or whether readers will even like it.
Book Marketing is something else entirely
I change my covers a lot; I spend a ton on ads and barely break even; and the occasional BookBub deal pushes me into the top 100 or so of Amazon. It’s incredibly hard to make your books stick and stay visible, and I don’t like spending the effort to promote or market my books, so instead I focus on organic SEO and passive marketing strategies.
It kind of works. But mostly, I focus on writing more books, because when a completed series is ready, along with ebook, print and audiobooks, then there’s more of a change to push your meagre earnings into profit, in a way that makes advertising a really viable option.
I have tons of resources about marketing, but it mostly all depends on whether you’ve packaged and positioned your book to appeal to readers, and whether your story actually satisfies them.
To that end, I do have some free books and courses to help authors who want to self-publish.
I also talk about writing and publishing on my YouTube.
by D.S. Murphy | Writing, Writing Tips
Three main characters in a YA book do not make a love triangle. Often those three stand for two warring sides and the hero caught between them, which is the case I make below.
I’ve made it no secret that I’m writing YA literature based on a template. Yes, a lot of YA is formulaic. Yes, there are some tropes that get annoying when they’re repeated. And you don’t want to annoy readers.
However, I maintain that writers shouldn’t just try to avoid all cliches. Writing popular fiction, like crafting any powerful story, is based on fundamentals of story construction that go back thousands of years.
Books need conflict. And a lot of bestselling young adult fiction really aren’t that innovative. They’re the same old stories, but retold in a fresh way. I want to give young adult readers what they’ve come to expect of the genre, while delighting or surprising them by remixing common themes in a way they haven’t seen before.
So it’s a little annoying to have all my future works criticized (as I know they will be) for merely having a “love triangle.” It’s as if a love triangle is a superficial thing, incidental to the story, that can easily be removed.
Most of the time, it isn’t. Because stories are built on character, not just plot events. In just about every cop show, ever, there’s a girl and a guy in a platonic working relationship. That’s so each of them can have multiple other partners, which opens up more plot events. In young adult fiction, the number is usually three. In my estimation, it’s because you need a representative of two warring races/classes, and a hero who is the medium between them. It allows for maximal conflict.
Examples: The 100, The Shannara Chronicles and Shades of Blue
Sometimes the heroine is a girl. In The 100, (if you’ve been watching season three) Clark is sort of split between Bellamy, who represents the SkyCrew, and Lexa, who represents the grounders. She needs to make peace between them.
In the Shannara Chronicles, Amberle is a princess elf, the last of her kind. Wil is a halfblood. He alone has the power to use a magic weapon. Eretria is a human orphan with a mysterious background. She has visions and “her blood is the key.”
In Shades of Blue, Jennifer xxx plays a dirty cop, pinned between an FBI agent who is trying to bring down her ring leader, and Wozniac. Neither, incidentally, is her love interest – she’s actually banging the lawyer who can keep her violent ex locked up for good. So sex isn’t necessarily part of the “love triangle” at all – although there’s something creepy and sexual brewing between her and the FBI agent, Wozniac is more like a father figure to her.
Yes there is some romance and dramatic tension happening between all the characters, which keeps things interesting, but they’re really not that important compared to the racial warfare happening around them.
Why the label needs a new meaning
So I find it a little flippant to discount any book since Twilight with the complaint that it has a “love triangle” anytime there are three main characters representing necessarily diverse points of view. The conflict shouldn’t just stem from petty jealousy, but the fear, distrust, hatred and desire should be structured around the more important stuff that has calamitous consequences for everyone else.
Twilight is an excellent book, because it did the love triangle well. Which is exactly why I think the phrase “love triangle” needs to be assigned a new definition. As is, it has come to represent amazing, well told stories that should not be discounted out of hand – where the alleged love triangle is really a necessary and interesting center of conflict between three major players.
This is simply good construction.
Love Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Three decisions.
Peace, War, or aligning with either team.
It’s not fair to say, “Oh look, there are three characters, that must be heading towards a love triangle because they’re there” and then discrediting the book for that reason. If a book has a romantic interest flippantly, for no reason at all, which isn’t connected to the larger circumstances, then yes, that should be criticized. But that’s bad writing. It has nothing to do with the love triangle.
And I hate comments like “the love triangle was well done” or “poorly done”. Not everything is a fucking love triangle. If a girl has a love interest and another friend who likes her, but she doesn’t like him back in that way, is it still a love triangle? If she finds out one is her brother? If he’s actually an assassin sent to kill her or a prince in disguise? The story matters, not how many main characters there or how they feel about each other or whether they’re male or female and might develop feelings for each other.
What readers and authors can do
Readers, stop hunting for love triangles and enjoy the story. If it’s poorly told, say so. Don’t discount it out of hand because some other critic says there’s a love triangle in there.
Authors, don’t avoid love triangles just because you think readers are sick of them; and don’t write them just because you think readers want them. Write what’s necessary to tell a great story, fill it with as much conflict as possible, and do things that readers have never seen before.
by D.S. Murphy | Writing, Writing Tips
You’ll see this in a lot of YA fiction, TV series, etc – it’s easy and effective.
It’s the “hunt for the missing family member.”
One of the main characters has missing parents, or a mother or father, or a big brother or sister, or younger sibling that has gone missing. Maybe even an uncle (although uncles generally turn out to be the bad guy).
It’s easy to introduce and explain, and justifies having good, smart characters make stupid decisions. You need conflict, and the plot should be character driven, which means your characters sometimes need to do stupid, desperate things that aren’t very safe.
Why would they risk it?
Why would they press on when their friends tell them to stop?
Why would they throw their life and current relationships away?
To find the truth.
This is Mulder chasing his abducted sister.
It not only helps us understand the character’s devotion to the cause, it also helps give the character a motivation to take deliberate, if reckless, action, without losing the sympathy of the reader, which makes it very effective.
Why a missing person works better than a dead one
A dead parent gives a character grief. A missing one gives them a job. Grief is something your hero carries; a search is something your hero does, and doing is what moves a plot. That is the whole trick in one line: the missing relative turns an emotion into a task with a direction.
It also buys you sympathy for free. Readers forgive a lot of bad decisions when the character is looking for a brother. They forgive almost nothing when the character is just curious.
A YA book that runs on this trick
You can see the device working in a book your readers already know:
- The Mortal Instruments: Clary’s mother disappears in the first act and the search for her is the engine that drags Clary into a world she did not know existed. Note how the search gives her permission to do reckless things in a city she does not understand.
How to plant it and pay it off
The trick only works if the reader believes the search matters before the character does something stupid. Plant it early, then pay it off. Five questions to check your draft against:
- Who is missing, and does the reader meet them (or the hole they left) before the search starts?
- What does the character lose by searching, and does the reader see that cost?
- Does the search push the character into a choice they would never make at home?
- Is there a moment where the character could stop, and chooses not to?
- Does the payoff answer the question the search asked, even if the answer is bad?
If you can answer all five, the trick is doing its job. If you can only answer the first, you have a missing person and no plot.
If the first chapter still feels quiet, this guide to conflict in the first chapter shows where to put the pressure.
The limit: when it turns into an excuse
The device fails when the missing person is only there to justify bad decisions the writer wanted anyway. Readers notice. If every reckless choice in the book can be explained with “because my sister is missing,” the search stops feeling like a wound and starts feeling like a permission slip.
The fix is to make the search cost something the character cannot get back. Time, trust, a friendship, a place at home. A search with a price is a plot. A search with no price is a reason to keep turning pages, and not much more.
Using it on a side character
Strangely, so far in most of my fiction, I haven’t used this technique, which is a mistake. Most of my characters are only children. Nobody goes missing. They don’t have a burning quest to find them. My characters are usually motivated by external opposition and trying to protect loved ones.
But this doesn’t have to be used by a main character – maybe you need a marginal character or friend to do something to jumpstart the plot into action at the right time… the “missing relative” gives them a reason to do so which is honorable, without turning them into a bad guy.
For a bigger plot that needs a quest engine, the fantasy novel guide covers how to build one.
FAQ About the Missing Family Member Trick
Q: Does the missing person have to be a parent?
A: No. A sibling, a grandparent or an uncle all work.
Q: What if I do not want to write a search plot?
A: You do not have to. The missing person can be the reason your hero is already on the road when the book starts.
Q: Can it work in a standalone?
A: Yes, as long as the payoff lands inside the book. A search that never resolves reads as a loose thread, not a trick.
More craft posts like this one live in the writing and publishing advice hub.
