The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

by | Feb 26, 2023 | Books, Thoughts, Writing

It's been a while since I've really came on to blog or post anything. I've been keeping myself busy. Staying busy keeps my mind off of things.

For one, we are just over a month before my book with Emilia is released and we have already received our advanced copies. I've posted an unboxing video on YouTube and have teased some things on social media.

While it's not supposed to be released until April 11th, it's already in stores in several places across the world, like Australia.

Besides the book, I've been busy working and working a freelance job with some friends that I know from college, which has been fun and keeping my mind off of things for sure. Plus, I feel like the more I do things, the stronger I get as a marketer.

I also took my Etsy store down this weekend for a while. I need to recharge on that and my heart isn't in it right now. There's some things I want to do for the shop and I can't do that when I have to constantly fill orders. It will be back, though. Just, I need a break from it right now.

My goal is to blog here more. I've slacked over at BSBFangirls.com and here, and I need to get back to who I am. A part that is going to help me is that I'm going to a convention soon with friends and that's going to be so good for me.

We have some pretty big things coming up on BSBFangirls.com with the 30th anniversary around the corner and it's 98.5% all Amber spearheading the charge and I can't thank her enough for that. It's some things we kind of wanted to do before we got the book deal, so we've rearranged a few things and still doing it. I'm being very careful with what I say right now not to give anything away. 🙂

I'm also going to work on my portfolio here on my site, but it will be listed under a password. I'm going to start on that soon and just get back to writing for the love of it. Now that I have a real book published, I hope to have something fictional published one day. That's my dream and goal. I want to get back to where I was writing fiction all the time and the stuff that people loved to read.

So look for more updates here soon. I promise, they are going to come. Plus, there's going to be something with some ultimate fangirling soon. I promise.

The secret is out: I got a publishing deal

The secret is out: I got a publishing deal

by | Sep 24, 2022 | Backstreet Boys, Books, Writing

Especially if you visit my Backstreet Boys site or follow my social media, you've already seen the news - I got a publishing deal to write a book with my friend Emilia about the Backstreet Boys for their 30th anniversary in 2023.

We wrote the book over an almost two month time period and it's insane to think about it now. During that time period, I also had a full-time job, had my Etsy shop, took care of my Mom, went to three concerts (2.5 if you count the Bristow cancellation and 2 were out of town), and had COVID! Emilia also dealt with some hospitalizations and had to have surgery.

But we got it done!

It's a dream come true for the both of us. I've self-published books before, but never had one actually and truly published. The idea of actually being a real published author has inspired me to continue my fictional writing and someday get that published besides on Amazon.

For the Backstreet Boys' book, we researched whether it was old Angelfire websites from 1997 to looking at newspaper archives from all over the world. We looked at other books (some were so poorly written) and the best part, we talked to fans.

This is how each chapter will start - with a double spread photo and a quote from that era from someone in the industry, journalism, or something similar.

There's this assumption that we only included fans in this book. Are there fans that we know in the book? Yes. Are there fans that we don't know in the book? Yes. Because Emilia and I have been in the fandom for so long, especially with websites and working with the fan club, it's hard to find fans that we don't know, or at least heard of. There's going to be feelings hurt by people who were not included in the book and we are truly sorry. We couldn't just put the people we know in the book. It wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't be an adequate look at the fandom.

Right now, this weekend, we are actually reviewing the book (it's already designed!) and going over captions (I speak newspaper so I still call them cutlines), and any mistakes. That's a part of the job I'm used to coming from newspapers and magazines.

Also, while I'm talking about books, I have republished some of my fictional books with my actual name (shocker - my last name isn't Brooks!). I plan on finishing the "How to Be An Adult Fangirl (And Not Ruin Your Life)" sequel soon and publishing that.

You can find those links, along with information about the Backstreet Boys book by going to my BOOKS page. The Backstreet Boys' book has a page of it's own that you can find the link to there.