Author of the Theo series, the Riders of Jade and Fire series, and contributing author to the Reign of Dragons anthology.

I am very pleased to welcome Melanie Ansley to my blog to talk about her writing process and the Reign of Dragons Anthology kickstarter.

Helen: Tell us about your contribution to the Reign of Dragons anthology.

Melanie: My story “Day of the Blood Dragon” came about from a question: what if the First Emperor of China united the kingdoms only because he had the help of dragons? I’ve loved history and fantasy for as long as I can remember, and the first emperor of China is both a fascinating and repugnant figure to me. In this story, his sorceress Lu’sha sets out on a quest to convince the queen of the dragons to support his cause, but neither she nor her king realize the price they will have to pay. I had such fun writing this and I’d love to turn it into a tie-in series.

Helen: How did you become involved in the Reign of Dragons anthology?

Melanie: Firstly, the co-host of this anthology, Jasmine Young, pitched it so well I couldn’t refuse. She is so fun to work with, and she’s an experienced Kickstarter organizer. It was also such an amazing line up of talent, and I’ve never been in an anthology so I immediately said yes. 

Helen: It is a wonderful anthology to be involved in, and each stretch goal we achieve will help make this book even more beautiful, which is so exciting. We’ve just got the draft art copy of the colour dust jacket which will also be gold foiled! Isn’t it gorgeous?

When writing your stories, do you prefer to write heroes or villains?

Melanie: I enjoy writing villains, because I’m fascinated by what makes them tick, what makes the darkest act you and I can imagine seem justifiable, maybe even morally superior, to someone else. Because no one believes they are evil, they just have a very different–and sometimes deeply buried–moral compass.

Helen: That is so true and characters that readers can relate to, whose motives although morally grey, are understandable, hook the reader even more. Do you plan out your books or do you let your story go where it will.

Melanie: I feel like pantser or planner is a spectrum rather than an “either/or”, and I think this is something I had to figure out by myself—it’s very personal, like how much salt or pepper you like in your food. I also do things a little “backwards”—I do an outline, write the thing, and then break it down chapter by chapter into an excel sheet to see what’s not working and why. Efficient? Probably not, but I get there in the end.

Helen: I think everyone should write in the way that works for them and everyone is different. Do you have any favourite authors?

Melanie: I love Peter S Beagle and Lian Hearn. Their writing is so exquisite I feel like I’ve been on some magical ship after reading their work. Plus one of the best things about this anthology “Reign of Dragons” has been discovering some of my new favourite indie authors!

Helen: There are so manay amazing authors, and every story shines on its own merits. I can’t wait to hear what our readers think. Do you have anything random you’d like to share about yourself?

Melanie: I’ve always wanted to learn to play the ukelele.

Helen: I hope you do! Thank you for joining me today, Melanie. It’s been lovely chatting to you. Just to finish, do you have any advice for aspiring authors.

Melanie: It’s not writing advice by one particular person, but as a film producer I often brushed up against the attitude of “no one wants to watch your movie”. It sounds terribly discouraging, but I found that embracing it was very freeing. When I first started publishing, I suffered the common paralysis of worrying whether my work was good enough. But then “no one wants to read your book” is like the advice to “dance like no one’s watching”—it frees you. And being good enough also becomes a moot point, because really at the end of the day, I would write even if no one read my work. This took away the pressure while also forcing me to examine my book: WHY would someone want to read it? I try to answer that question for everything I write, and I think that helps me with story, focus, and marketing.

Who are the authors in the Anthology?

About the Anthology

Reign of Dragons: An Illustrated Anthology blends some of the most beloved self-published fantasy authors with top-tier artists to bring you a first-class reading experience centered around dragons.

Venture into luxurious epic fantasy, where master crafters of dragons give you an epic blast of short stories and illustrations from a rich cross section of the fantasy genre. From romances to rip-roaring battles to LitRPG adventures, think of this anthology as your next first-class experience. 

We invite you to treat yourself to this delicious charcuterie board of talent—with every story centered around dragons!

About the Author – Melanie Ansley

Melanie is an award-winning author and filmmaker of Chinese descent, now based in Australia. Over her 20 years of film producing, she has been lucky enough to work on award winning feature films and also written for some Oscar winning producers.

Her first novel, “Theo and the Forbidden Language”, won Best YA at the 2018 IndieReader Discovery Awards, and its origin story “The Lost Child of Willago” is currently being developed into a video game. Her latest series, “Riders of Jade & Fire,” is an action-packed dragonrider academy tale set during Empress Wu’s Tang China, and perfect for fans of “Eragon” or “Temeraire”. When she’s not writing and filmmaking, Melanie is raising two children (which involves lots of magic and luck). You can find her at www.melanieansley.com

Follow Melanie:

Author Website
Instagram
Amazon Author page

Back the Reign of Dragons Kickstarter

If you enjoy epic fantasy then check out my award winning Sentinal series, which is now complete. If you like fantasy books with a touch of romance then you will love my SoulMist series, start with SoulBreather. Prefer Dystopian Science Fantasy? Then try Harmony. Start the adventure and stay for the journey.

Sign up to my newsletter and download a free novella called Sentinals Stirring and get notified when my next books are published.

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Author of the Epic Fantasy Realm Breaker series and co-host of the Reign of Dragons anthology.

I am very pleased to welcome Jasmine Young to my blog to talk about the Reign of Dragons Anthology kickstarter she has just launched. I am also very excited to be a participating author along with seventeen other fanatsy authors who have contributed a 10k word short story based on drgaons.

Intro to Reign of Dragons Kickstarter:

Reign of Dragons: An Illustrated Anthology blends some of the most beloved self-published fantasy authors with top-tier artists to bring you a first-class reading experience centered around dragons.

Venture into luxurious epic fantasy, where master crafters of dragons give you an epic blast of short stories and illustrations from a rich cross section of the fantasy genre. From romances to rip-roaring battles to LitRPG adventures, think of this anthology as your next first-class experience. 

We invite you to treat yourself to this delicious charcuterie board of talent—with every story centered around dragons!

Helen: Not only are you organising this anthology, you also contributed a story. Tell us a little about your contribution.

Jasmine: My contribution, “A Birth of Breakers,” is an origins prequel story from the Realm Breaker universe. Rich with LOTR-style lore, it was written especially for those who dig their story lore! It foretells how the Bael, world-breaking titan dragons, came into being, and how the Velen Tyr gods would go onto wreak the ancient galactic war, The Breaking of Realms. This divine holocaust, which sundered the boundaries between worlds and caused magical beings to fall into the world of men, was also known in the late days as “The First Breaking.” As a result of this event, elves, dragons, and dwarves dwell today with men in the last habitable world. It’s the very world where our female main character picks up the series story when she bonds with a Bael hatchling that mysteriously falls from the shattered realms above.

Early sketch of The Birth of Baelaeryx, ca. 3,000 years before the series begins, as done by by Ertaç Altınöz.

Rather than have “A Birth of Breakers” as purely exposition, I framed it as a light-hearted and touching fable between a Harry Potter-inspired house elf (called “ha’elves” in my universe) and an ancient Elderdragon. In discussing ancient lore, we also get to explore the pursuit of immortality and the surprising truth about living a mortal life.

Helen: Such a powerful image, and for those who have read your Realm Breaker series, an amazing opportunity to get this prequel story set in the same world. We love Bael, so knowing more about his origins is great. There are multiple amazing creative artists working on the artwork to support the stories in this anthology, how did that beautiful foiled cover came to be.

Jasmine: The foiled case laminate was designed by the brilliant Rachel St. Clair. She was the obvious choice because of her known talent and reputation among indies, and for her ease of doing business. We wanted to emphasize the powerful reign vibes as per the title. Thus, you’ll see motifs like a sword front and center, along with a dragon breathing fire over the “Reign of Dragons” title!

Fun fact: Rachel knows I really like Fourth Wing-style art for my special editions, so some of the little dragons on the back cover share that style.

Helen: It is such an eye catching cover. A wonderful design and readers can grab their own copy by backing the kickstarter today. The kickstarter runs until April 14th, 2025, though this project funded on the first day! So it will happen, and the more backers we get, the more beautiful the book will become as we hit those stretch goals!

As a succesful fantasy author with many books now published, what would be your advice to aspiring authors?

Jasmine: When you need to hire, hire. Don’t do it all yourself.

I recently had a major mindset shift and made the decision to level up Dragonfyre Books. That lead to hiring my first wonderful team member, Bri. While she helps me grow my social media channels, particularly direct sales, I have more time to focus on my own writing and even special projects like this anthology.

The key here is for the author to already understand how to market their series. i.e. You need to have already invested in R&D and have a thorough understanding of what tropes and hot keywords resonate with your market. As the business owner, you can then provide that guidance to your assistant while being open to them bringing fresh ideas.

I don’t recommend a marketing assistant to authors who are struggling with marketing and are hoping a PA will save their sales. You’re setting them and yourself up for failure.

I do recommend a PA if you’re purely wanting help growing your social media presence and don’t have the time and/or savvy. My assistant is much savvier than me when it comes to bookish communities and social media.

And I always recommend an assistant if you’re ready, both mentally and financially, to let go and look for help. Be strategic with finding the talent that suits what your individual business needs!

Bri has seven years of experience with Youtube and vlogging, and you can find her below!

Instagram: @4pawsandabook

Youtube: @fourpawsandabook

TikTok: @4pawsandabook_

Website & Services: https://www.fourpawsandabook.com/services

Helen: Great advice. Who are your favourite authors, those who inspired you to write fantasy?

Jasmine: Christopher Paolini, now and forever. His book, Eragon, first made me fall in love with writing as a tween. If not for him, I might not be an author today!

As for indie authors, I have a deep appreciation and sense of loyalty to Michael R. Miller, who’s been very gracious with my and Melanie Ansley’s Dragon Riders Guild Facebook Reader Group. Not besides, Realm Breaker’s closest comparable series would be Songs of Chaos, as mentioned by my friend, Michael Webb!

J.D.L. Rosell is another author whose brand I have felt a kinship with for years. I just vibe with how he communicates, what he writes, and how he presents himself on social media. As someone who followed him when I was still an obscure author, it’s been a small dream come true getting to interact with him on a much closer level nowadays.

Last but never least, if Michael Wisehart ever asked me for pretty much anything, I’d give him anything. He’s a gracious author who, long story short, went through a lot of hoops sending me a personalized signed hardback at my request! Not the least, as a fellow Christian, I admire the openness of his faith and how he weaves it into his mega-successful brand. He’s my personal model and author hero.

Helen: Thankyou for joining me today, Jasmine. It’s been lovely chatting to you. Just to finish, if you didn’t write in epic fantasy, then which genre would you like to try and write in next?

Jasmine: If I didn’t write epic fantasy, I would venture into more romantasy! It’s something I’m already exploring. There seems to be an unexpected amount of crossover between epic fantasy and romantasy. The challenge for me, though, is figuring out a way to write low/no spice romantasy because of my personal beliefs and brand values.

On the wild opposite end, I discovered in 2022 that I have a secret crush on progression fantasy. As a former gamer, I know all about Pokemon stats and evolving and levelling up and all that gamer goodness. Although Realm Breaker has progression elements, as inspired by Michael R. Miller’s wonderful book, Ascendant, it’s on the light side. I just don’t know as much about it as I do epic fantasy. But that’s also an area I’m growing my knowledge on!

I also have a growing curiosity with scifi, but very specifically, science fantasy and/or dystopian fiction. The Hunger Games is probably my all-time favorite series, at least in tandem with Eragon. It stole my teenage brain away when I first read it in high school. Awhile back, I wrote a dystopian science fantasy that I haven’t yet published but was very passionate about. As of this writing, I’m planning a potential dark science fantasy-romantasy after Realm Breaker.

Who knows? No spoilers from me—we’ll see!

Who are the authors in the Anthology?

About the Author – Jasmine Young

Jasmine was thirteen when she first dreamed of becoming published after devouring Eragon in a few days on Grandma’s couch. As a nerdy introvert, her exposure to fantasy started with hiding out in the library with a great book.

Thirteen years later, her tomboy dreams came true.

Today, she is known worldwide as a part time beach hermit and a full time rebel. She is also the proud mother of two young children, Bubble and Mochi. Both happen to be little birds. The happy family currently resides in paradise, aka. Florida.

When she’s not reminiscing about her gaming days or getting lost in old epics like LOTR, Jasmine writes epic fantasy to entertain and empower, especially the underdogs.

Follow Jasmine:

Author Webstore
Instagram
Amazon Author page

Back the Reign of Dragons Kickstarter

If you enjoy epic fantasy then check out my award winning Sentinal series, which is now complete. If you like fantasy books with a touch of romance then you will love my SoulMist series, start with SoulBreather. Prefer Dystopian Science Fantasy? Then try Harmony. Start the adventure and stay for the journey.

Sign up to my newsletter and download a free novella called Sentinals Stirring and get notified when my next books are published.

By clicking the sign up button above, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and the newsletter platform provider to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

By signing up to my newsletter, you agree to receive commercial information from Helen Garraway, located at 61 Bridge St, Kingston, Hertfordshire, UK (Data Administrator). You can withdraw your consent at any time. The data will be processed until the consent is withdrawn.