One of the most irritating pieces of advice given to me when I was starting out was that I should start marketing my book before I’d even finished writing it. I had no idea what that meant. How was I supposed to promote a book that didn’t exist?

The Wooden Ring began fourteen years ago with a question about Cordelia’s missing journey in King Lear. After finding an agent but not a publisher, the novel waited on a hard drive until its author was ready to rebuild it as a story of legitimacy, duty, power, magic, and pirates.

Marketing before publication doesn’t mean shouting “My book is coming!” for two years. It means knowing your reader, giving them somewhere to find you and building familiarity before asking for a sale.