Today, we have a very special announcement, and it’s for a project I’ve been working on for the past few months, and I’ve had so much fun doing it. I am pleased to announce that I am releasing a ‘special edition’ of Paper Forests in honour of its first birthday. This edition will include new cover art, illustrations, bonus content, and has a few minor edits to make your reading experience a little more enjoyable.
So, why did I want to do this?
It started with Samantha Shannon. I saw her posting on her Instagram stories that she was revising her first novel for an anniversary edition, and it just clicked that editing books after their release was something I could do. You see, I love this book. I’m proud of this book. But I’ve learned so much about editing and formatting and interior design and books in the past year since its release, and I wanted to revisit it and make it better, partly for book awards and competitions, partly for future releases. I wanted to be free from typos that I only noticed after publication, and to update the interior to higher quality images, and to commission an artist whose work I recently fell in love with.
I’ve been thinking about this book a lot recently because I’ve been adapting it into a script for a university project so I’ve been spending so much of my time going through it line by line, scene by scene, and just noticing little details that I wanted to change. This was also around the time when I was thinking about submitting the book for competitions, so I knew I had to make it as polished as possible now that I was aware of these details.
The course of events is roughly the same, but many sentences have been tweaked, cut or rewritten, and many scenes have been changed in some way. This also meant that I could clear up some plot holes and add foreshadowing for the sequel, now that some time has passed and I have a clear idea of what will happen in that book. If you want to jump into the eventual sequel without reading the new edition of Paper Forests, you shouldn’t have any issues as I’ve tried not to affect the overarching story, but you may notice some minor detail inconsistencies.
It’s not just the edits that I wanted to do for this edition. After releasing the Paper Ghosts short story, I knew I wanted to include it as bonus content if there was ever the opportunity as it takes place directly after the events of Paper Forests. I plan to write a few more short stories in this universe, so I can include one or two in the novel instalment that it relates most closely to.
Aided by tinges of classic fantasies, Paper Forests makes for a creative, mysterious, and engaging narrative.
The BookLife Prize
I also knew that I would have to revamp the cover art and design eventually if I wanted consistency across the future series, as I no longer have access to the original cover designer. I took this as an opportunity to commission one of my favourite independent artists whose Twitter profile I will link [here] as I’ve been in love with her art for months and I really feel like her style captures the dreamlike fantasy vibe I want. Also, I’ve recently received a review from a Publishers Weekly reviewer as part of the BookLife Prize and wanted to include a quote on the cover so I can continue role-playing as a very professional author.
The final reason I wanted to rerelease this book was due to how much I’ve learnt about book distribution for indie authors since its release, and mostly just realising that most self-publishing companies rely on IngramSpark for their distribution, so it was more convenient to work directly with them than these other companies. I also just really enjoyed how much more customisation I could have with my books, especially choosing what goes beneath the dust jacket and the option to print something on the inside of paperback covers.
Hopefully, I’ll have finished copies to show off and a video about the process soon but, until then, I can’t wait to welcome you back to the Forest.
TandeWrites 