Local author publishes first of series

SUPERIOR – Earlier this year, the town of Superior was able to add another claim to fame, adding a new published novelist to the list.

Nolan Webber published his book, The Pride of Alar, on May 28 of this year. Though a relatively recent publication, he said he worked on it for a long time. He began working on it in 2009, while living in Arizona, and had a rough draft after approximately six months. A year passed, during which he moved to Superior, before he was able to look at it again.

He sat down and read through the draft, becoming inspired by the Western Montana scenery. He explained how many descriptions of scenery were inspired by what he saw living in Montana.

Pride of Alar tells the story of Devin as he is discovered by a dryad searching for the Forgotten – descendants from the parallel world of Midgard, which is hidden by a magical veil. He is given an emerald which hatches into the griffin Alar. When Alar takes him to Midgard, Devin’s life is changed as he becomes embroiled in the elves’ struggles for survival.

Webber recalled how frustrated he would become as he wrote because his written words were not a good description of what he saw in his mind. He said this was the biggest obstacle.

“What I struggled with the most is how much or how little I detailed something,” he said. “Because I want [the reader] to see it their way, but I want them to catch a glimpse of what I see.”

According to Webber, the novel is targeted for young adult audiences. However, he said he has received feedback from adults who loved the story as well. One review on the Barnes and Noble website said the book was “comparable to Harry Potter” and deserved to be made into a movie.

Webber took the route of self-publishing. He ran into problems selling his book to a mainstream publisher because he was unknown. For three years he called and emailed publishers to pitch his book.

“The problem with breaking into a mainstream publisher is all your work is unsolicited,” Webber said. “[Many publishers] won’t even think of looking at unsolicited work.”

While he was able to find some publishers who looked at his work and enjoyed it, he still ran into problems. Because he was a new author, one publisher said he would be restricted to a certain number of pages, while others only took a certain number of unsolicited manuscripts each year.

Another problem he encountered was in the book’s art. All of the artwork on the cover and throughout the book was done by Webber. Most publishers have artists on staff and would not have let an unknown author use his own artwork if they published the book.

Self publishing would put the book into the market and maintain artistic purity. Though it put the book on paper, self-publishing is not a perfect route. The publisher makes and prints the book, but the author is responsible for everything else involved in getting the book sold.

Webber hopes to become a big enough name to be noticed by a mainstream publisher or an agent. He explained how doing so would free up his time allowing him to spend less time on the business aspect of selling his book. The selected publisher’s office would get the book into stores and into advertisements.

Webber plans to continue to write and said a sequel is well under way. He has mapped out a timeline of events to continue the story and planned out a possible prequel. He said he has enough material planned to cover a minimum of three books.

“There’s no way I can keep it to one book,” he said.

Shades of Alar is available online in all formats and has a Facebook fan page.