Tess Duck's Blog

Hey guys,I decided to resurrect this old dinosaur to do some cover commissions for NaNoWriMo. If you're interested, send me a message on the NaNo site (I'd say you can send here, but I really don't use this website any more)Here is my first design:

Because it's important for all authors to know, whether or not you doing it yourself. Book design is a complex art. Actually, I would highly recommend NOT doing it yourself. There is a lot of knowledge and expertise that goes into designing a good looking book and there is no way I can cover it all in one blog post.  But your still not convinced it's important for you to learn book design skills. You are a writer, after all. Won't your publisher set you up with a design team. The answer is yes.

Hello all! And thanks for everyone who attended my and Nikki's panel at Animazment. The room was packed. It was incredible. Thank you all for coming! So, as promised, I have uploaded the resources sheet below  Also, big hugs to all the folks that purchased my book at the event. Hope to see you all again next year! 

I consider an ensemble story is a work of writing that features a group as the protagonist, as opposed to one main character.  I really love ensemble stories. Whether it's "Guardians of the Galaxy" or the later books of Marissa Myers "Lunar Chronicles." It's wonderful to have more than one character that is developed and focused on throughout the piece. That being said, an ensemble story can be very hard to write. How many characters should I work with? How do I keep the characters from sounding

Seeing as half of CKDC takes place in NC public restrooms and involves it's fair share of cross-dressing, I feel it is my duty to make a post about the recent House Bill 2 that was passed. I won't go into too much detail on what HB2 entails, since ya'll have probably heard about it by now. Know that, in a nutshell, the bill makes it illegal for trans people to use the restroom of their preferred gender. They must go off their birth certificate, is dumb for a number of reasons. Other than that,

Sad news about the ebook. It won't be out for another month. Turns out the fixes weren't as easy as I thought they would be. I won't go into the details, but after much crying and getting angry at the Ingram people (sorry Jana), I'm just paying to fix them. This might mean an increase in the price. Again, I'm sorry to anybody who bought the messed up copies. Please notify me with a picture from the file and I will send you a replacement copy. Print.  Anyway, with the coming finals, I might not

Amazon messed up the files. You guys have probably noticed if you checked the "look inside" preview option. I'm working hard to sort everything out right now. Please be patient.

For those of you who do not know, my book comes out this Friday.  That is tomorrow.  (I am FREAKING out) Anyways, there is a release party happening at Pomegranate Books in Wilmington. For those of you in the Wilmington area, get your but to the event! 8-10 with maybe some board games at Jimbo's afterwards. It sounds like there is going to be a lot of people there, and I'm not sure how many books the store actually ordered, so get their early to receive a copy. If copies do run out, just place

So I've been chatting with this girl online about the writing program at my university. For those of you who have not visited my about page, I go to the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Its MFA is ranked at #3 in nonfiction (poets&writers) and both its MFA and BFA are unique in the fact that they are separate from the English program. We get our own building, our own professors, and our own publishing laboratory upstairs where we can print our own books. It’s a pretty awesome school, but

So I know I've missed posting for the past week, but I'm back on schedule baby! If you are wondering why I'm so late, it's because last week was spring break. That also meant my books were in, my giveaway ended, and I needed to ship out some copies as well as visit a bunch of different stores to see who will carry it.  Being a Self-published author is depressing So far, only The Chapel Hill Comics and Two Sisters in Wilmington have both graciously promised to carry my book. They both had very