Local author soon to release second book

Times Reporter

 

Strathmore author Kati Ward will soon to releasing the second installment of her Changer Series. Ward released the first book ‘Shifted’ last July and is hoping to see ‘Tamed’ make its debut this summer. 

Ward has always been an avid reader, but had never really considered writing a novel until her friends kept asking her to write one. 

“I kind of wrote it for my friends and then they read it and were like it’s really good and so more people read it,” said Ward.

“My manuscript made its way around my family and friends and you still kind of think, well they love me so they’re just being kind. So then I sent it off and apparently other people have liked it and it’s going well.”

Publishing had been a long tedious process, but with the second book it should be easier and each one should get easier as she goes. 

She said the publisher does a lot of edits, then they want you to read through it to make sure you’re okay with their edits. 

Ward published through Xlibris, an American publishing company. She was looking for submission addresses for different publishing companies when she came across Xlibris. She submitted her manuscript and someone contacted her within a couple of weeks and set her up with a team to begin the publishing process. 

The first book in the trilogy follows the story of Jack and Lily. Lily is attacked one night and left for dead, but little did her attacker know that she would survive. With the help of Jack and his brothers Lily, learns to begin controlling her new shape shifting abilities when she’s abducted. Jack and his brothers go on the hunt to find and rescue her before it is too late.  

Tamed will leave behind the story of Lily and Jack and will instead follow the tale of Hunter who is mentioned briefly in the first book. 

“With pretty much all of my characters they’re slightly based off of people I know, even to the point their names are a little bit close. I kind of recycled a bunch of my friend’s names and then I based my characters off my friends I guess,” said Ward. 

“I think that’s the best way to build a character is if you can familiarize yourself with them. Then they seem I guess more real, to the writer anyway.”

When her friends read the manuscript they knew right away that Lily was being referenced after Katie herself, something she hadn’t intentionally done. Ward said Shifted took her about three weeks to write, but she is finding that it is taking more time and more effort to complete her second novel. 

“I think because I wasn’t stressed out about trying to write it for other people, because it was just for my friends, that made it easier. Because I wasn’t concerned with making it perfect and I think that in the end helped, because it was just for fun,” said Ward.

“I’m finding my second book a lot more difficult because there’s more expectations than there was with my first book.” 

For now Ward is working on seeing Shifted make its way into Wal-Mart and Chapters. Making writing a full time career would be ideal for the budding novelist, but something she deems as unrealistic. 

“You really see how hard it is to make money selling it, I mean I think I get like 10 per cent from certain places and then I get 50 per cent of e-book sales, but they’re like $3, so you have to really sell a lot of books,” said Ward. 

“Even just to see my book in print, I didn’t care how many sell, it’s just exciting to see my name and picture on a book and know that there’s a few people out there reading words that I wrote, it’s very surreal I guess.”

Once she completes the Changer Trilogy, Ward would like to explore different genres. She is considering writing a historical romance series. She would like to branch out and try a couple of different genres and see where it takes her. Shifted can be purchased through Amazon.ca.