Daniel Tomyn

Recently, Daniel Tomyn—father of four—has written his first book for middle grade kids. Because of his full-time job and being an even fuller-time parent, it took Tomyn many years to finish his book. Tomyn has been a creative type from a young age and was thrilled to continue this journey. 

He took English classes in college but not any specific for writing; in fact, he was more educated in writing music than writing stories as he became the Director of Music and Worship at Hixson Presbyterian Church. Tomyn grew up creating short stories with little characters or characters his mom made up simply for fun; as he grew up, he started writing more. When he was about ten, he created a character called Parson Parsnip, a potato who helped in whatever mysteries came to Tomyn’s head. These days he continues to write his stories less plot-based and more character-based. Letting those characters be themselves helps Tomyn’s story go. 

Rather than getting the typical “writing block,” Tomyn would usually find himself getting pulled away from his writing because of family or work life. He took his time writing because he generally wrote when he was inspired and already had something in mind. With this, one issue Tomyn was careful of was making sure his story did not contradict itself.

He didn’t know exactly when he started writing his book because Tomyn would take little things he thought of, maybe even twenty years ago, and he would collect them now. He seriously started writing about five years ago hoping to get where he is today, with a completed book in hand.

Tiffany Hawk juxtaposes self-publishing and traditional publishing in her article “Self Publishing vs Traditional Publishing: A Thorough Side-by-Side Analysis.” She explaines that with traditional publishing, an author only has up to a 23% chance of being approved and has little creative control on how the book looks. This process takes longer but the company one publishes with would pay for marketing and the formatting and cover design. Traditional publishing also sells books almost anywhere books are sold. 

Self-publishing, on the other hand, is a quicker process and gives the author more control over stylistic choices. With this, the author also has to pay for designing out of pocket and mainly sells the book online. 

While Tomyn is done with the writing process, he is now working on creating what the book looks like and self-publishing. 

He had his parents edit along with his own family. He would sit in his living room reading the book with his family and stop and edit as he went. He hired an artist to create the front cover and the map and had a friend lay out the book. Once that is complete, Tomyn will self-publish through Amazon hopefully in December, 2025. He is excited to be so close to finishing his first ever book.

By Annabella Graffius