Guest Post: Adam Jay Epstein & Andrew Jacobson authors of “The Familiars"

“A Bunch of Random Things We’ve Learned Since Becoming Authors”

ADAM JAY EPSTEIN spent his childhood in Great Neck, New York, while ANDREW JACOBSON grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but the two met in a parking garage out in Los Angeles. They have been writing for film and television together ever since. The Familiars  is their first book.

One day, Adam asked Andrew, “Are you familiar with what a familiar is?” And from that simple question, Vastia was born, a fantastical world filled with the authors’ shared love of animals and magic. They wrote every word, sentence, and page together, sitting opposite each other.

Adam Jay Epstein lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Jane, their daughters, Penny and Olive, and a black-and-white alley cat who hangs out in their backyard. Andrew Jacobson lives with his wife, Ashley, and their dog, Elvis, four traffic lights away.

THE FAMILIARS will be produced for film by Sam Raimi and Sony Animation.

It turns out “The Familiars” is not a YA book like we first thought.

It’s actually an MG book, or middle grade. We didn’t even know there was such a thing. But yes, tween and teen lit are sub-divided into picture books, MG, and YA.

We learned what those Amazon sales rankings actually mean.

And #479,505 is not good.

Naperville, Illinois has a pretty dope hotel.

While on our pre-pub tour we stayed at Naperville’s very own Hotel Arista, an ultra-modern, eco-friendly hotel. The rooms were gorgeous, there was a TV in the bathroom mirror, and there was an incredible restaurant downstairs. It would have been even better if the two of us didn’t have to share that bed (jk).

There is a difference between an MS, a galley, and an ARC.

What that is exactly we still don’t know.

They will let you speak on the airplane intercom if you ask nicely.

At least they will on Southwest Airlines. You can watch Adam doing just this at our blog thefamiliars.blogspot.com.

We learned what “stacked words,” “orphan words,” and “widow words” are in copy editing.

They all have to do with setting the type in the final book so that there isn’t an imbalance on the page. It’s kind of like feng shuing your novel.

You can learn more about “The Familiars” at www.thefamiliars.com

The Familiars Book Trailer:

Meet the authors:

The Familiars releases on September 7th!

Thanks Adam and Andrew for visiting The Fiction Enthusiast! Best of luck with your debut novel!