Author - Dana Lockhart

It's official. About an hour ago I submitted my novel, The Un-Life of William Moore, to Kindle Scout.

I'm ending 2017 on the hopes that just a few months into 2018 that I am going to be a published author.

I'm not sure how long it's going to take before my novel is live and ready to be viewed and voted on, but I will certainly let everyone know! I'd hope it wouldn't be much longer than a week or so.

If you haven't read my previous blog post about how to possibly get an early, free copy of my ebook, here's how it's going to work:

Once my submission goes live on Kindle Scout, I have 30 days to receive nominations on my story. The more nominations I get, the more likely that my novel will be noticed by a Scout, who might offer me a publishing gig.

Everyone that votes for my novel, The Un-Life of William Moore, gets an early, free copy if I succeed in getting published with Kindle Scout. All you need to vote is an Amazon account!

For more information Ki…

-Everyone Has to Start Somewhere-

I suppose my start began with a love of books, as it probably does for a lot of authors. My love for books likely came from my mother, because it sure as sugar didn’t come from my dad. He adamantly stays away from books. I was pretty much an only child in a rural area so I spent a lot of time on my own, and before I had internet and satellite TV, books were my only company, and they were great companions. Whole worlds to explore in the relative comfort of my home.

There was one book in particular that stood out to me, a book that had me hooked from the first sentence:

“Wind howled through the night, carrying a scent that would change the world.”
In a way, it changed my world, too.The book, Eragon, was an amazing adventure of magic and dragons and sword fights.It swept me up and never did let me go.I re-read it multiple times over the years, wearing out the edges of my paperback copy.I put a tally mark in the corner of the first page each time I fi…

Multiple times this past month I’ve had to stop and smile because this is actually happening. I have put my foot down and determined that this time, this time, I was not stopping until I published a novel. Even when confronted with the costs of editing and cover design, I did not let myself stop. I had to get over my fear of failure and really, truly try.

And here is my proof. Here is the official cover for The Un-Life of William Moore.


This cover was designed by Zakaria Nada, who was very polite, prompt, and professional through the whole process from beginning to end, as well as extraordinarily patient with my indecision and bombardment of questions. I didn't really know what I wanted as far as an actual design and image; I only knew what I wanted the cover to convey, what I wanted the cover to make a viewer feel.  I only had some minor color, font, and an additional image request, and in two revisions we got it to it's final version, which I think coveys the feeling tha…

One of the greatest compliments I ever received was from one of my high school teachers who said he thought it was great that I took it upon myself to stand up for the unpopular opinions, even when I didn’t believe in them myself.

-Dare to Say No-
At my school there once was a local essay writing contest that a teacher made everyone in my class submit an entry for.The prompt was “Does your generation have a role in America’s future?”
Well, you see, their mistake is that they phrased that as a question.And me, being the cynical person I was, I dared to answer the question with “No, they do not,” if only for the reason that I knew nobody else would.
What resulted was a fabulous essay with colorful metaphors and quotes by Homer to prove my point that my generation were like encroaching vines that couldn’t survive in the real world except by tearing down those above them.As one such victim who got torn down by peers with years of bullying, I had plenty of ammunition to fire at this essay.I …

For those of you that don't know exactly what my plans are, I'm going to outline my new few months so you can perhaps anticipate when your support is needed and when you can get a book!

As of right now, my 50k+ novel The Un-Life of William Moore is done.  I plan to submit it to Amazon Kindle Scout by the end of the month. 

Currently, it's being reviewed by an editor.  She anticipates she'll be able to meet my time frame goal.

I ordered a book cover, and assuming I like what I get, that should be wrapped up in about 10 days from now, also meeting my goal.

According to Kindle Scout FAQ, once I submit my story, it will take a couple days before it hits the website.  So, I'm aiming for the ballpark of the last week in December or the first week of January for The Un-Life being up and ready to be voted on.  An except of approximately the first 5k words are then available to read. 

Once up, the book has 30 days to generate buzz.  In that time period, I will be marketing…

As I come closer to self-publishing my first novel, the very important question came up: Should I use a pen name?

-I Have a Weird Name-

My given name isn’t easy for your average person. I’ve come to get used to it. I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that my name was misspelled no less and probably more than ten times during the process of buying my first home. You’d think with something that important that everyone involved would double check an odd name and make sure it was right before they printed out cashier checks, sale contracts, HUD statements, and insurance and remodeling estimates (yes, these are just a few examples of the documents that had my name spelled wrong).

After that fiasco, it was very clear to me that if I published, I needed to use a pen name. I can’t have people not being able to find me because my given name is too hard.

Do I want to use a pen name? Well, no. I’m not ashamed by my name, I don’t hate my name, and I really would like to see my na…

My name is Kalyn Surls, but you will know me by my pen name, Dana Lockhart, from here on out.  I'm an aspiring author working towards getting my first novel published in the next couple months. I'll be carrying out my adventure from now on here at Blogger, but for any previous posts, you may view them at Wordpress. You may also follow along on my facebook page.