Releasing Legally Undead

By Margo Bond Collins.

Today, I’m supposed to write a guest post about what it’s like to release Legally Undead.

Part of me wants to just say SQUEE! and call it a day.  (But I won’t.)

This release has been a long time coming.

Ten years ago, my friend Bill suggested I give National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo.org) a try—for anyone who doesn’t know about it, the goal of NaNoWriMo participants is to write a 50,000-word novel in a month. I did that, and more, ending up with what was then a 100,000-word novel in six weeks.

That novel—edited and revised and edited again, but still at heart the same book—was just released by World Weaver Press as Legally Undead.

There are no words for how exciting that is. This book is my first novel-baby, my first novel-love, the first world in which I immersed myself completely as I created it. I went to bed at night thinking about the next scene and sometimes woke up in the middle of the night with words to put down on paper. I’ve done the same since with other books, but as the first, this one holds a special place in my heart.

I love this book.

I love this book so much that I couldn’t stand to see it rejected. It gathered dust for a very long time (so long that I had to go back in and change all the tech references!). I was terrified to send it out. But I finally took a deep breath and submitted it.

And it couldn’t have ended up in better hands. The cover art is perfect. The interior design for the paperback is great (check out that cross between sections!). The blurb rocks.

Perhaps even more important, Eileen’s editorial direction gave me a much stronger sense of where Elle is headed next, and I’m pleased to say that I’m once again immersed in Elle’s world. We’re hunting down vampires together, and Elle’s snarky comments fill my mind.   

I couldn’t be happier.

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Margo Bond Collins lives in Texas with her husband, their daughter, several spoiled cats, and a ridiculous turtle. She teaches college-level English courses online, though writing fiction is her first love. She enjoys reading urban fantasy and paranormal fiction of any genre and spends most of her free time daydreaming about vampires, ghosts, zombies, werewolves, and other monsters. margobondcollins.com

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