The Fenrir Chronicles: The Prince by Nanishka Torres is a fantasy book that combines romance with adventure. The Prince makes a societal statement about the dangers of religious factions and their part in maintaining peace and order. It also contains relatable characters faced with adversity, who fight for love and righteousness. It took Nanishka many years to create her masterpiece, now she shares her experiences.
- How do you think book publishing has changed in recent years?
I feel as though only twenty or thirty years ago, book publishing had to be done through a professional publisher. If a writer couldn’t find a publishing house or publisher that was interested in their work, they had a house full of manuscripts. Now it is so easy to self-publish that writers can get their work out for audiences to enjoy. It’s fantastic that we don’t have to hunt for a publisher to get our stories read, but we can do that ourselves and build our audiences on our own.
- How did crowd funding help with the success of your book?
Luckily for me, I was able to publish “The Prince” without crowd funding. However, once I did publish the first book and learned how much it cost to do so, I created my Go Fund Me page to help fund the next book. It was lovely to see how many people were contributing to the page in support of my book and my writing.
- What are some writing tips or advice you have for new authors?
Keep writing! I feel slightly hypocritical saying that because with work, family, and the endless projects to be done around the house, it’s tough to find time to keep writing. But it truly is so important to keep writing. Flexing those muscles, getting story ideas out on paper, developing characters, building worlds, all of that is useful. Even if you have a character with no story, a story idea with no trajectory, those are all writing exercises. Even if you write something you later hate and delete entirely, at least you were writing.
- How did you make your book into a reality?
The biggest challenge was completing it! Almost ten years after the idea originally came to me, I finally saw how the story would go, how it would end, and what would happen with these characters. Once I finished writing, I started researching how to self-publish, and it turned out to be easier than I had expected!
- What does literary success look like to you?
Literary success looks like people wanting to read your work. Having people you have never met enjoying your work and hoping you write more is success to me. Knowing that I am creating something audiences are interested in reading, and that I am presenting it in a way that makes them interested in what story I create next is success. Legendary literary success is when people start dressing up as my characters at comic conventions!
- What do you consider the best way to market books?
Marketing books online and via social media is the first thing that comes to mind. So many people are using social media and learning about new topics and products through it, marketing books would be best done through that avenue.
- What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?
The most difficult part is working through writers’ block. I hate when I hit a part of the story that I don’t know how to push through. When I have step A and step C but I don’t know what Step B will be, that is such a struggle. It’s as though I’m trying to swing from tree to tree, but don’t see the branch to grab to get there. I am always aware of keeping the story interesting and engaging because nothing is worse than when a story gets boring halfway through. I always want to keep the interest level high and keep audiences interested in what happens next, so the times when I am struggling to maintain that are the high-points of difficulty for me during the entire process.
- What are common traps aspiring writers should avoid?
Succumbing to negative reviews is the first thing that comes to mind. It’s tough to read through negative reviews of your work and keep writing, but that is the most important thing. There will always be negative reviews, there will always be audiences whom are not fans of your work, but that doesn’t mean you should stop writing. I always remember that Meryl Streep and Beyonce receive negative reviews, and if they can power through it, so can I!
- If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
I would tell my younger writing self to pursue writing as my career. When I was younger, I didn’t believe writing could be my full-time career, so I didn’t pursue it through college. Looking back on it, I would love to have majored in English or creative writing, and put my focus into becoming a full-time writer. While I am happy where I am with my amazing job that allows me to write during my spare time, I would have loved to have majored and focused my studies on writing, and learning all I could about becoming the best writer I could be.
- How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?
Publishing my first book has put more of a requirement on me continuing to write. Because I published one book and people have read it and are interested in reading more, I feel compelled to continue writing. I feel as though I owe it to those whom enjoyed my first work to continue writing and give them more to read. It’s wonderful to have strangers interested in reading more of my work, and I am happy to feel obligated to them to continue producing more stories for them to delve into. It’s a huge honor!