Art, ARCs, and actions to take!
A newsletter sent from the depths of the editing process
Hi, and welcome to new subscribers! It’s great to have you!
As some of you have already heard, we are nose to the grindstone right now on making final edits on Direbound. I think (hope!) we are making some truly excellent changes that should make the read even more fun and more pulse-pounding. Beta readers, once you have the ARC in hand, you’ll have to weigh in!
In the meantime, I have something special to share with you today. My co-writer and I grew up as major fantasy nerds, and like most fantasy nerds, we looooove a good map. (Which, speaking of, if you haven’t read the recent NYTimes piece about fantasy cartographer Karen Wynn Fonstad, it’s quite excellent!) So when we started fleshing out the world of Direbound, we knew that a world map was something we desperately wanted.
This week, our amazing illustrator/cartographer Andrés Aguirre Jurado delivered sketches for the map, and I am too excited about them to wait to share until we have the final version. Voila, for your viewing pleasure: a teaser of the Direbound map in progress!
The level of detail on Andrés’ work is just incredible. If you want to see more of his work and get a preview of what the finished map will look like, check out his site.
One more teaser, of the gorgeous icons Andrés is creating…
When the map is complete, you will be the first readers to see it — stay tuned!
Meanwhile, edits are going well for the most part (everything always takes longer than I think it will! but such is writing life.) However, it looks like we are on track for our goal of sending ARCs sometime next week.
We’ll be using BookFunnel to distribute the ARCs, which is a great platform—the link to get the ARC will be sent right to your email when it’s ready. By following a few simple steps you can get the ARC straight onto your personal e-reader. BookFunnel also has a great support team in case you get stuck. Each reader gets a unique link for their use only, which is fun. But if you want to share the ARC with a friend who might like it too, just have them fill out the ARC form; we’re still accepting new readers!
I’ll also be sure to send an update via the newsletter once ARCs are out, just in case anyone doesn’t receive it for whatever reason. (Email is great! Except when it isn’t….)
ARC readers, I’ll be sending some fun social media graphics along that you can share with the world, designating you as an official member of the team. Watch for that soon.
There are some other fun announcements coming up soon for beta readers, ARC readers, and newsletter subscribers exclusively…! And LOTS more art on the way, too.
(Did we go overboard on commissioning art? Yes, okay, maybe so. Do I have regrets? Absolutely not.)
If you haven’t already followed me on instagram and TikTok, I’d love to see you over there too!
Finally, one more callout that the link to sign up for the Direbound ARC team is still live, so please feel free to share it: https://tinyurl.com/direboundARC
Until next time,
Sable
p.s. If you’re new here, psst, check out a few recent newsletter posts that you might find interesting:
I love maps so much. Excited for this
I love a good map!! I'm so excited!!