The Changing Earth series by Sara F. Hathaway continues with book #2 Without Land. The novel was released on September 17, fifteen months after the first part Day After Disaster.
The dystopian adventure was valuated pretty high by the readers and received great feedback by Amazon’s reviewers. Now we’ve got a chance to meet one again with Sara F. Hathaway, who will unveil cool details about her writing and herself. Check out our first interview with her here.

– Sara, what is your book Without Land about?
– Without Land finds the heroin, Erika a young woman, wife and mother, from Day After Disaster struggling for survival in a new landscape. She thought America would let freedom reign forever but nine years after the Great Quake the reaction by the American Government was quite different. Erika and her family are left without land and confined to a refugee camp. They are caught between a yearning for the freedoms they used to take for granted and a will to fit in and excel in this new government construct that is attempting to maintain order amongst chaos.

– Was it easy for you to write a sequel compared to the first book of The Changing Earth series?
– When I wrote Without Land I knew exactly where the story was going. My first book was just a hobby, a project to fill spare time but Without Land already had a great prequel to draw from. As the words poured out of my head I quickly realized that the path to reach the destination I had in mind was a very long road and book two became book two and soon to be three.
Although Without Land is a sequel to the first book but I wanted to ensure that it would make a great stand alone novel as well. The story flowed through the pages and the characters were reintroduced in a way that ensured new readers could understand what was going on and fans of the series were not bored. For example, Erika tells her survival story, something that occurs in the first book, but I introduced new aspects to the story that were never know to her or the readers before, making it fresh again.
– Did you use some sort of outlines or marks during the writing process of Without Land in order to be 100% adjusted to the Day After Disaster?
– Picking up nine years after the first book did pose some challenges. In order to keep the ages of characters and the timing of events cohesive, I did use a timeline. Although my initial layout of events for the new book were evolving constantly as the story formed. I knew where the story was going in my head but as the words hit the pages and the writing demon took over the story moves to it’s own beat and develops it’s own tweaks and turns. As I wrote and wrote I realized that the story in Without Land was it’s own and needed to be told in one book, not included as part of a longer book. This meant that some areas of the initial story of Without Land had to be expanded and laid out in more details. I even created a character after the book was almost done that played a crucial role throughout the story. Who is this character? Give me your best guess and I’ll let you know if you got it.
– What kind of development and changes suffers your main character Erika Moore?
– Erika is one frustrated woman in this book. Her whole life was stolen from her when the Great Quake hit. She thought she could find peace in her beloved country but ended up in a climate refugee camp following rules she never thought America would enforce. Her survival instincts are challenged by her want to maintain the freedoms that once made America great. But what can one family do? She is asked to step into a leadership role to quiet her sole and she reluctantly accepts the position, unsure that joining forces with the very institutions she has been oppressed by is a good idea, her morals are challenged every step of the way.
– Did you expect such a positive feedback for your debut book Day After Disaster?
– Day After Disaster was a labor of love. A story I formulated because I wanted to and never intended to publish so to receive such positive feedback has truly been my honor. I never realized that so many people would want to hear my story and beg for the sequel. Their prodding was my motivation for getting the sequel out so fast.
– Did you make any changes in your personal daily routine after you published the first novel?
– My personal daily routine has been completely altered since I published my first novel. I found myself in wild world of book marketing that I knew nothing about. I went to work studying and implementing marketing strategies to try and get the story out to the world. My little hobby project has exploded into a full time job. One of the most incredible things has been meeting so many great people who love the story and want to support my efforts. I have had the opportunity to meet influential and irreplaceable survival professionals that have had a huge influence on my work. I have turned my book into a podcast called The Changing Earth Podcast where I share a chapter from my book and then provide an educational interview with a survival professional about the real world applications of a topic in the chapter. It is entertaining and educating. This way I get to help people along their way and give something back to the community.
– What you learned and improved in your writing and your publicity skills since the release of Day After Disaster?
– My imaginative storytelling abilities have remained the same but my writing skills have been severely enhanced after receiving all of the wonderful feedback on Day After Disaster. I removed a lot of repetitive language that I was prone to using. I learned how to show the story more than tell the story and I honed more of my ability to talk to people’s emotions.
In the publicity world I have participated in many podcast interviews. This helped me craft my speaking abilities as well. I was interviewed on Good Day Sacramento and I put all of these skills to use when called upon. I have tried many different marketing techniques and there is one I would like to share. The use of Pinterest.com as a primary marketing tool has skyrocketed my visibility in the author and survival communities. I fell in love with this site and I believe in it so fervently that I created a program called Simple Pinning to share with others how they can achieve the same marketing success.
– What is next for you?
– There are a few projects I am working on right now. I am working on book three but I am not sure the end of the story will fit into one book. We will just have to wait and see what the writing demons have in store. I am getting ready to put together season two of The Changing Earth Podcast that will feature Without Land. I have also had some interest from television producers on the possibility of turning Day After Disaster into a television show. I have my fingers crossed but only time will tell.
– The favorite question for most of our guests – Ask yourself a question and answer it.
– What makes the survival story in Without Land distinctly different from the survival story in Day After Disaster? Without Land steps away from my primary goals of showcasing individual survival skills and telling the story of how one human may adapt to a changing Earth. I am a believer in small government, working most effectively on a local level and I am deeply opposed to an all powerful government that has too much control over the freedoms of its people. Without Land was written as my ode to big government. It is the story of how one family has been affected by policies that were written to try and help a country stay safe at the expense of its peoples’ freedoms. This book showcases how a changing planet can effect groups of people and their power over others. I plan on blending the two concepts together in book three in an effort to keep the focus on the planet and not on governments.

To learn more about Sara F. Hathaway visit her Website
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Take a look at her books
Day After Disaster
Without Land