If you're a fairy tale fan... Golden Gown by Sarah E. Boucher (Guest Post & #Giveaway)



Welcome to my tour stop! I love fairy tales and I always love seeing how an author can retell a story and make it their own. Below I'm sharing this author's post about her publishing experience and the tour giveaway. There's also a Facebook event page and some ebook deals. Check them out...

Golden Gown
By Sarah E. Boucher
YA Fantasy, Fairy Tale
Paperback & ebook, 266 Pages
May 3rd 2019

Summary

Elyse has lost everything; her parents, her family home, and the village where she is loved and respected. Still grieving, she arrives in a new town where she must prove her skills as a seamstress. Overnight, she creates a gown stunning enough to catch the princess’s eye and win the community’s approval. With every eligible maiden clamoring for her designs, Elyse must do everything in her power to appease them. No one can ever know that in the moments when she doubts her abilities, a mysterious stranger with a talent for tailoring and a penchant for damsels in distress comes to her aid. If anyone ever discovers the truth, her reputation will be ruined.

Golden Gown is a blending of the classic fairy tales Rumpelstiltskin and The Shoemaker and The Elves. The magic of pure love woven through the tale will touch the hearts of all of its readers.

(Affiliate link included.)

Facebook Event Page & Deals!

Check out the Facebook Event Page for fun stuff and giveaways here.

During the Blog Tour, Becoming Beauty and Midnight Sisters will be $.99 each on Kindle!

Being a Hybrid Author
By Sarah E. Boucher 

I was nothing more than a wide-eyed idealist when I started publishing books five years ago. When a local publishing house accepted Becoming Beauty, I remember completely freaking out. Seriously, there was stomping and whooping and hollering. The same thing happened when I saw the cover art for the first time. I was euphoric. However, a couple of years later when the same publishing house passed on Midnight Sisters, I breathed a sigh of relief and jumped right into the world of self-publishing.

Here’s why:

Publishing a book is about as intuitive as bringing home a new baby from the hospital. Sure, it’s cute. Sure, you adore it. But as soon as that new baby smell wears off, you’re left questioning your ability to do what needs to be done.

Oh, and you’re tired. So, so tired.

I’m sure some people come to the publishing game with a lot more experience than I did, but as I’ve connected with aspiring authors, I’ve come to realize that few people know much rests on their own shoulders as soon as they enter into a publishing contract. Working with editors and cover artists to make your baby novel the most beautiful thing it can be and then marketing it is completely overwhelming when you have no idea what you’re doing.

I was definitely overwhelmed.

The first time I interacted with an editor, I didn’t know if I was allowed to say, “No, that’s not really what I wanted,” or if I just had to roll with it. I learned pretty early on that when editors make suggestions, following those suggestions generally strengthens the story as a whole. (That being said, I remember the day when I put my foot down and said, “Oh yes, dude editor, please bestow all your knowledge about beaded slippers.” I knew he would not win that argument!)

Marketing was the same story. I remember asking, “Who’s going to run a blog tour?” (Because I’d been to an indie writers conference and I had at least one intelligent question to ask. Hooray!) And the answer was that if I wanted a blog tour, they’d give me contact information for bloggers, but I’d be either hiring my own blog tour company or managing everything myself. Luckily, I’d taken great notes during that particular indie writers class, so I just did it myself.

And I learned that I was pretty good at it.

You live and you learn, right? Just as baby number three is no less exhausting than baby number one, you have a few tricks up your sleeve at that point. That’s what happened to me. I’d connected with a lot of writers on social media and chatted authors up at various writer conferences and I began to see that many of them had had experiences similar to mine whether they were traditionally published or self-published.

The bottom line is authors are expected to do most of the work. In other words, get used to changing dirty diapers, sweetie.

However, as soon as I realized that, I looked at my friends who were self-published. They’d chosen to do all the work themselves from the beginning. As soon as I realized that I’d be doing most of the heavy lifting anyway, I began to see the allure of publishing what you want according to your own schedule. As I was waiting to hear if the publishing house wanted Midnight Sisters, I began to quietly build a self-publishing team with editors, proofreaders, cover artists, and marketing gurus.

Thank heavens I had friends who had paved the way for me, because when Midnight Sisters was back in my hands, I was excited to take on the whole process.

I will always be grateful to that small publishing company for taking an interest in a no-name writer with a hopelessly flawed manuscript. I learned so much from that first experience with publishing. Today, I’m pleased to be my own woman. If my books fail or succeed, I have no one to blame but myself.

And I kind of love that.

Other Books by the Author

 Linked to my reviews.

About the Author


Sarah E. Boucher is a lover of fairy stories, romance, anything BBC and Marvel, and really, really cute shoes. On weekdays she wears respectable shoes and serves as Miss Boucher, the Queen of Kindergarten. On school holidays she writes stories about romance and adventure. And wears impractical super cute shoes.

Sarah is a graduate of Brigham Young University. She lives and works in northern Utah. Midnight Sisters is her second novel. Visit Sarah at SarahEBoucher.com or connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Amazon, or Goodreads.

Tour-Wide Giveaway

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Do you like fairy tale retellings? What do you like about this one?

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