We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ellie Raine. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ellie below.

Hi Ellie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the story of how you went from this being just an idea to making it into something real.

My book series started with a single drawing in high school. It was a character I had named Xavier, a necromancer and reaper-in-training with the ability to manipulate souls of the dead. There wasn’t a real story attached to him at the time, but as I drew more characters along with him, I started creating an entire world with magic and knights and warrior princesses, and a story shaped itself the more I drew.

At first, I wanted to create this idea as a graphic novel. I drew various panels of scenes and scenarios when I was supposed to be studying math, but eventually, I decided I would turn the story into a video game instead. I was a huge fan of Final Fantasy IX and wanted to create something that would inspire others the way that game inspired me. So, I went to the Art Institute of Atlanta after high school to pursue a degree in Game Art and Design.

Things were going steadily until I took a course in creative writing for an extra elective. Because of my dyslexia, I never considered I could write anything of merit, but I needed the credits, so I signed up anyway. While I enjoyed reading, I was extremely slow and constantly mixed up words and had to reread multiple sentences and easily lost my place from line to line (I later learned I also had ADHD and Autism, so that didn’t help). During the class, I didn’t know what to write, so I transposed my game idea into a book instead and submitted chapters to the instructor for each assignment. I had so much fun with the story and playing around with words and phrases, I ended up loving it better than game design, and never stopped writing since.

After transferring to UGA and switching my major to English, I scraped what I had written for that class since I had to make a few adjustments to meet the instructor’s requirements at the time, and started from scratch. But I couldn’t seem to get past the first chapter this time around. Without a deadline, I wanted to make every word absolutely perfect, and kept deleting and rewriting that one chapter a million times over. Eventually, my boyfriend (now husband) told me to stop aiming for perfection in the first run and just keep writing until the whole thing was done. “You can make it perfect in editing,” he’d said.

So, that’s what I did. After months of constantly writing, I waited until I had the rough draft totally done before reworking the manuscript with edit after edit after edit. Because of that, I’ve been able to finish my other books with more efficiency, always reminding myself “You can make it perfect in editing”. It was the best advice I’ve ever gotten.

Once it was done, it took a couple years to find a publisher. I ended up finding two small houses for two different books. Though the publisher who had my main fantasy series couldn’t afford to print the sequel because it was too large. They suggested I either split the book in half, or publish it as an ebook only. Since epic fantasy had a huge market in paperback and hardcover formats, I knew I couldn’t publish it as an ebook only, so I split the book in half. But because they became two smaller books individually, I had to add scenes and chapters to fill them both up again. Once I finished those, I realized I would have to split the other three remaining books (which I had already finished writing two of while waiting for the first and second book to be published) since they were all bigger than the sequel. I’d spent years meticulously outlining each book from finish to start (I outline from the end to the beginning), so with each book I tore apart and reworked with padded scenes and useless chapters, I was heartbroken. My perfectly paced storyline had been completely derailed to the point I’d fallen out of love with it entirely. That’s when I decided to get the rights back for book 1 and 2, and self-publish the series myself.

It was the best decision I could have made. Once I got back the rights, I scrapped my broken books and started from scratch, going back to my original outline and kept the books whole. I fell back in love with my story again now that it was back to the way it was meant to be, and I’ve been self-publishing ever since.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m an award-winning fantasy author and graphic designer. My main series is the Epic Fantasy saga called the NecroSeam Chronicles, which has collectively won 5 awards for various fantasy competitions. I also design most of the graphics related to my books and merchandise, including the NecroSeam Oracle Card deck and my latest children’s illustration book, Ballad of the Ice Fairy. I love writing fantasy stories with epic adventures and magical worlds.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Conventions have been the best place to find new readers.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

My brand has been pretty consistent with a “gothic” aesthetic, so I’ve learned from my fans that that’s what they associate me and my works with.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.NecroSeam.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/necroseam
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/officialellieraine
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/authorraine