Author Signing with Kristy Boyce
WWW #97 Author: Kristy Boyce
Author Event & Signing with Kristy Boyce
I recently had the pleasure of attending Kristy Boyce’s signing for her newest book, Dating & Dragons, a companion novel to the adorable, Drama & Dungeons. I was luckily one of her advanced reader copy reviewers (ARC) and got to read a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review online. I enjoyed this work so much but today I'm going to focus on what she shared with us during her event because I think there were many wonderful examples of writing advice and tips about her life as an author.
If you want to read my review, check out on my Instagram!
The Book Signing Event
Boyce’s signing took place at a Barnes & Noble bookstore and it was a packed event, which is especially exciting for a local author. She was an absolute delight. Her stories come from her love of Dungeons & Dragons from back when she met her husband in high school and made many friends playing those games throughout the years. Her books are by no means a biography of her life and are completely fictional, but they shine with the joy of young-heartedness and of teenagers falling in love, making friends, and experiencing life’s challenges for the very first time. At that age, everything feels so new, and it definitely comes through with such a lightness in her works, they are enjoyable at all ages.
Boyce had us all sign a copy of her book. She’ll take this copy with her to each event!
Boyce was dressed in a D20 patterned dress that was purple to match her book. “I love a good theme!” she exclaimed. She wore a matching necklace and brought tons of supplies for us all to make friendship bracelets with beads and D20 dice as the characters do in her book.
But she did not only bring us wonderful stories about her life and her book, she had many amazing comments for writers and readers alike to glean a little bit about the life of being an author.
Pictured left, Kristy Boyce; pictured right, Kerry Winfrey.
Kristy’s Boyce’s Writing & Book Advice
Boyce had many wonderful tips to share. I want to share them each one by one here for you to enjoy.
Picking a Book’s Genre:
When you want to write a book, it is important to pick what genre you want to write. Boyce said she always had a heart for fantasy but started writing about the real world and the fantastical things in it when she wrote about a romance abroad and then stumbled into the YA genre with contemporary romance.
When you are marketing and publishing your book, it is very important to know and plan ahead what genre and audience you are writing for. That will help sculpt your story and aim for the literal audience you and your publisher will be marketing toward in the future. Without this, books can be hard to place.
Planning Her Stories:
Boyce said she is in the middle when it comes to planning and writing. She will sculpt a simple outline and use it to guide her writing. But once she begins writing, she will write the entire book from beginning to end whether that be handwriting and then typing, voice notes, or even typing with white fonts in Microsoft Word to force the words out despite the many typos along the way.
Once her work is complete, she will go back and move things around and make corrections as needed. When working with the publishers, she will have many rounds of editing with her copy editors and line editors to polish her work.
Advice for Beginning Writers:
An audience member asked a wonderful question that I'm sure most of us would like to have answered. The question was: How do you begin writing? Boyce’s advice was on point. She advised to give yourself grace as you write. It is important to just write, and it is not meant to be good or great when you are just starting out. Challenge yourself to write 100 words in a sitting and work up from there. We all have to start somewhere but it is most important to be kind to yourself and let yourself creatively explore the world of writing.
The Book Cover:
When traditionally publishing, authors only have as much control as their contract allows them when it comes to book covers. In Boyce’s experience, she had a wonderful cover artist that worked with her team and allowed her to come up with ideas and submit notes about what she would like to be featured on the cover. She even sent in her Pinterest boards to show her inspirations for each character.
The artist created a mockup, and they went back and forth altering the cover until it is perfect. I agree with Boyce, these covers are amazing! She sang praises of her artist and said they did a wonderful job bringing her ideas to life, even more so than she could have imagined herself.
Boyce also shared that she keeps these Pinterest boards private on her Pinterest account while working on her books but once the books come out, she marks them as public so if you are a big fan and want to see a little bit of her inspirations, be sure to check out her boards here:
Conclusion
It was such a lovely event! I had a great time getting to meet her in person and not only be able to say I loved her book but to say I was one of the early readers too.
Attending events and meeting authors has always been the backbone of how I learned about my job as a writer. When I started aiming for a career in writing all those years ago, I started by talking to authors and it is the most important thing I think a writer can do no matter what stage you are at in your journey or career. There are so many different ways to write and complete your books and talking to the people who have done it—multiple times!—are invaluable resources. And of course, generally amazing people too. I’ve really lucked out with the authors I’ve met!
And of course, here are some pictures!
And a big group photo for the end! We definitely had the perfect front row seat for this!
A story post on Instagram by Boyce at kristylboyce: “I need to make an actual post about my launch today but OMGGGGGG you all came out. Thank you so much!!!!”
Also, be on the lookout for WWW #100! It’s going to be HUGE!!