hey friends today we are celebrating the fact that the paperback of my debut novel on wings of
ash and dust is finally publishing at the end of this month January 25th and i thought what better
way to celebrate than by doing an unboxing of the proof copy that i actually filmed back in november
when i got it okay you guys it's here and not only do i show you its epic cover but the full cover
wrap as well as how big the book ended up being and spoiler alert it ended up being pretty big
i'll also show you my brand new fantasy map of Faylan which is my world of fairies in the
book and a bunch of other really cool interior details that i ended up adding and i think you
guys are really gonna like it so let's get into it look what i got oh you probably can already
tell from the title of this video that we're gonna do an unboxing or i guess an unbagging
of my first ever printed novel a lot of you guys know that my series first came out as ebooks
and that the episodes in my what i was calling a serial were short enough to all fit into one ebook
if you want to learn more about cereals definitely check out the videos i the link down below
but this came in today i ordered the proof copy on this past sunday it was supposed to come in in
a week next sunday but it came in on a wednesday and so i'm doing a very impromptu unbagging and
usually i script my videos like crazy i'm gonna try very hard to just be super authentic i will
say that um whatever is in here probably won't be the final final because that's why you order
a proof copy so that you can tell if anything needs to get changed before you publish it and
actually i was gonna do like a long preamble about different details about the book before you even
see it but you're probably really really excited to just see the book and then we can talk about it
as i open it so anyway i'm like sweating um i'm kind of nervous there's also like a rip in the bag
i'm really hoping that that doesn't mean that the book is damaged um but i guess we'll see
i'll just start ripping oh my gosh i'm gonna see my book i'm gonna be able to put it on my shelf
um i will say that it is going to have a watermark from KDP like a band all the way across the book
which is very frustrating KDP but we understand um so just know that that's gonna be that oh my
gosh oh my gosh it's here and um yeah there's gonna be things that that need to change oh
my gosh okay let's just get the reaction out of the way i'm gonna cry um i shouldn't cry
i could put makeup on but oh my gosh oh my gosh it's huge oh my gosh okay all right you guys um
i'm going to show you what it looks like in a second but i just want to take it in
oh it's like a real book you guys okay all right so the cover itself is gorgeous um it's a little
darker than i wanted so i think i might uh see if there's a way for me to be able to brighten
it up a little bit but if i if you haven't seen the cover anywhere else probably my newsletter
subscribers and my patrons have seen this um and i might have shown sneak peeks elsewhere but here
is the cover you guys oh my gosh ah it's here um this is my book on wings of ash and dust
and it has all six of the episodes um so if you haven't again heard anything about the story so
far bunch of videos down below that explains what a serial is and why they're divided into episodes
and why they were only e-books to begin with but um i put them all into one novel because it
was originally written as one novel and then divvied up into uh a series and um this is
this is the cover and you can see um my five main fairy uh main characters on here which is so
exciting we've got Quinn and Hickory and Alice and Aeron and Vale and oh my gosh my name um i hope
you guys like the font and just the arrangement i'll show you a screenshot at some point too
of what it originally looks like in photoshop and for some reason when i exported it it got
a little dark so i'm gonna try to fix that again this isn't scripted so i'm gonna be all over the
place but this was again designed by the wonderful @reebardin Hillary Bardin over on instagram i'll
link her down below she did all of the covers for all the other episodes and we ended up mostly so
that i could save a little money uh adapting some of the artwork from the episodes onto the cover
and she did just such a beautiful job they look like they were originally like meant to be there
together um and you can see i'll show you the side so this is on wings of ash and dust let's see can
i do yeah i can do this like a professional um so obviously it's very frustrating that that um band
is right there but that's what it'll look like like on the shelf with every everybody else and
this is the back and i'll just kind of show you a little bit of a zoomed in with our tagline uh five
fairy clans compete for the crown one pixie pirate could ruin it all and uh the blurb right there
and then at the bottom um full of action and intrigue with a unique world and fresh take on fae
this fast paced y a fantasy adventure is perfect for fans of six of crows and the cruel prince and
then the complete novel that's what this is the complete novel episodes one through six and then
i even featured all of the the episodes here and oh my gosh it has a barcode and and everything i
think that's not like the final final barcode but um it's a real book you guys and look how thick it
is so let me give you some stats on this i'm like i thought i would cry i don't know maybe i'll cry
later um especially seeing some of the interior because there's some really cool interior stuff
that i did in here that i want to show you but i'm really excited to like tell you some details
too so how big is this how long is this so the putting all the episodes together plus the front
and back matter which i formatted on vellum which if you guys want me to do a video tutorial on how
i used vellum i just i love the program so much it was so easy to learn and i think i'm going
to be using it for every single book going forward but all together it is a little over 159 000 words
and um each episode is about 30k or less and i got it down to 500 pages like exactly so if i
compare it to if i compare it to a book called the starless c which is about 500 pages um i think it
it looks pretty substantial i think that's nice and i decided to go with a 5.5 by 8.5 size which
is what my friend savannah jay goins did with her series the gwythinian and um so i really liked
that size and actually when you put it next to i'm just gonna keep grabbing books a smaller heart
cover book um it's pretty much that size so it's gonna look real nice next to those kind of books
which i love and um if you take like a smaller eight by five i think this is eight by five or
maybe it's yeah i think this is eight by five this is the jenny key one of the books of the stolen
kingdom series by Bethany Atazadeh and um it is a little bit bigger than that so just to give you
some uh stats on how big it is do you guys like big books and you cannot lie let me know um but
yeah you get a substantial story in here and so 500 pages oh my gosh i'm looking the inside i'm
freaking out but let's actually talk about the inside because i did some pretty fun things um i
think if i do say so myself first of all let's just let's just look at some of this because
it's just so pretty so um we've got the cover and then we're gonna open it up and we see the opening
title page and uh so that's the second title page that has my um publishing company Fablesong Books
then we've got the copyright page and the dedication to my husband and then
oh my gosh this looks so cool so i commissioned my friend kara from cartographic underscore reverie
on instagram i'll link her down below too um who actually does cartography like within her job as a
like a real person and she started playing around with map making she actually did i'll put here
this map um of my fantasy world after she read my book sort of inspired by it but it wasn't
exactly like how i pictured it in my mind but i loved her style and everything so i was like Cara
um would you can i like commission you can i like work with you to make my final map
of Faylan of my fairy world and my favorite world has like three different levels so we've got the
mainland which is where most of the fairies live um and there's five different clans so they all
live in different parts of the world then there is the sacred vine in the mid that grows it's like a
really big kind of jack and the beanstalk kind of vine that grows from the middle of the world
up into the clouds and on top of the clouds and the sacred vine is Eldore where the Sylphs live
and then so that's level number two and then level number three is below the main world where
the kobolds live underground in the tunnels where the pixie dust is mined but oh my gosh
this is the map and i might again have to throw in like a screenshot or something so you can really
see this but oh my gosh she did such an amazing job and maybe at some point i'll have to like do
a video just walk through of the map i was really kind of nervous that um some of the detailing and
like important things would get lost within the crevice i think we might have to move one thing
but besides that everything uh looks so cool so Cara if you're watching this it looks beautiful
thank you so much and then the last thing i wanted to show you guys oh my gosh this looks
awesome okay so last thing i still wanted to show the dividing episodes in the book and have some
fun artwork from the original ebooks to show that and so um i was inspired by two different books
from two different authors first is six of crows by leigh bardugo and within the printed book she
has the she doesn't have episodes but she has um different parts like part one part two part three
in her book and she um had a little bit of like a dark kind of a little bit of illustrated um
dividers which i really loved then i picked up elise kova's deal with the elf king and she
doesn't have parts but in her second title page she has the front artwork in kind of grayscale
a lot lighter with the title on the side and sort of taking both of those inspirations i
was like i really really want to do that for the episode dividers in my book and so oh my
gosh this looks so cool these are the episode dividers and i will make sure you can see it
um but this is episode one wings of betrayal with quinn on the right there and so oh my
gosh that just looks so cool and so for each episode we get um a brand new this looks so cool
a new page with the artwork and um yeah it just has it for each of them and because the pages are
black i don't know if you can see that but there you can see where each episode divides huh so it
looks so cool and then for each episode as well at least for right now i also picked a little graphic
that goes with each episode so that's for episode one we have a little pirate ship
uh for episode one and um i won't spoil all of them just so you can see the different ones but i
will let's show a different one so this is forest of blood episode three and for episode three
we have a vine right there to signify the forest and like the sacred vine and stuff that's going to
be important in that episode so it just it looks so good the formatting was just so easy to do in
vellum so again if you guys want me to do a video about vellum at all let me know because it was
definitely worth the money and i'm probably going to update all of my ebook formatting uh to match
what's in here again i thought i would cry i thought it would be like super emotional i'm just
really excited if that's okay um i'll probably like i said before i'll probably cry later maybe
when i start showing like my husband and just like really take it in that it's like here like
i'm holding my book like these are my words and um it's a real book this is crazy ah so i'm sure the
final question you guys are asking is when can you order this bad boy and editing Brittany is
coming back in here to confirm with you guys that it is publishing at the end of this month january
25th this time around i actually won't be having pre-orders because unfortunately kdp does not
offer pre-orders for physical copies and i really didn't want to work with ingramspark just because
i've heard a lot of very frustrating things about working with them but in the meantime
what you can do if you want to be alerted when the book goes live is sign up for my newsletter
on my members page on my website and just make sure that you click the option that says you want
my book updates and you guys are going to want to order right away because all during release
week i'm offering a bunch of exclusive goodies just for those who order in that first week these
are gonna be things like a behind-the-scenes guide of when you finish an episode in the book
you can read a bunch of behind the scenes like what inspired certain things and what kind of
things change from the first draft to the final draft i'll have some other digital offerings
like digital wallpaper of all the characters a spotify playlist you can listen to as you read the
book and i'm also working on some physical goodies like a signed book plate that you can stick right
in the book so technically you have a signed copy and maybe some printed character art maybe
in the form of a bookmark or a postcard but again these will only be available to those that order
in that first week you can also add the book to your goodreads right now so i'll leave that link
down below and make sure you're subscribed because we're going to be doing a couple other really fun
things on my channel leading up to the book's release anyway thanks for watching this unboxing
i hope you guys enjoyed it um i hope you guys are excited to actually own a physical copy if
you've read the ebooks you're gonna have your physical copy or if you've been waiting for the
physical copy to come out um it's gonna be here soon so if i forgot to say anything i will be
post editing brittany and add it in at the end but for now thank you guys so much it's real it's real