Indie Author Awesomeness!!!!
This year seems to be slipping though my fingers. I turned 28 last December, and since then things have felt…slippery. I’m creeping up on 30. I’m supposed to be established in a flourishing career right now. I’m probably supposed to have kids. I’m sure at least a few people in my life think I’m supposed to have grown up a little and given up on my “unattainable” dream of being a writer. I haven’t really accomplished any of the goals that I thought I would have as a panicked teenager, when asked what I would be doing in ten years time.
I was going to be a lawyer. I was going to have built this perfect house, smack in the middle of some woods, where no one would ever bother me. I was going to have lots of money and super cool, funny friends who looked up to me. I was going to have it all figured out.
Didn’t really happen.
I’ll tell you why: Change. I need change in my life. And I wasn’t going to get any change by going to university for four years, or building a house somewhere which meant I had to stay there and actually live there for, like, forever. If I’d done any of the things I’d dreamed would make me happy as a fourteen-year-old, I have a sneaking suspicion that I’d be miserable as all hell right now. Instead, I travelled the world. I saw Europe, and America, and Canada. I forewent a traditional education to learn other lessons that I really did need to learn. And I wrote the whole time.
Writing has been the only constant in my life, apart from my awesome husband, of course. It’s given me so much over the past few years- so much passion, excitement and feelings of true achievement. But it’s also been hard. The hardest thing I’ve ever done, by a long chalk, is learning how to become a self-published author. The process has taken so much work, and pushed me to learn so many new skills. I never thought I’d have to learn how to format or design webpages, or figure out how best to market my own products.
I always thought I’d get more sleep.
Thursday 31st May 02.48 am
The stuff in my head…
…I wonder if Sam and Dean ever do ordinary things. Do they have to go to the dentist? They’re teeth are pretty good. Maybe Cass gave them super teeth powers…
…I should check my email….
…I can smell burned toast. That means I have a brain tumor, doesn’t it -if I can smell burned toast? Great. I’m probably going to die now, and I’ll never see my books published…
…what if that attachment didn’t send? I should probably get up and check…. Should I get up and check? Yeah, I probably should…
…I hate the Australian internets. Makes me want to kill people. I just need to find out who’s in charge…
….Oooh, three more friends on facebook…
…how come people look at me like that when I tell them I’m self published? It’s a lot harder to be a successful self published author than it is to be- ugh, never mind. They clearly have no idea…
… Must. Write. Down. Amazing, Ideas. Immediately!…
…did I remember to eat today?…
…Only two weeks ‘til book launch. Am I ready? What if no one buys it? Oh great, I think I’m gonna throw up….
Other than thoughts of the Winchester boys and my fears of untimely death, I’m sure this nightly monologue of worry plagues most self-published authors. We write to make others happy. We write to give people a gift that we enjoy so greatly ourselves. Mostly we do it because we need an outlet for all the weird things we imagine, or for the people we’ve dreamt up in our heads. We just want our work to be out there, and we want people to like it. And if we can find a way so that we can pay our bills and get our hair done occasionally along the way, then fan-freakin’-tastic!
I’m proud to call myself a self-published author, because that means I’ve never given up. In the end, after I’d done most of the work myself, anyway, I made the choice to self-publish, even rejecting an offer of traditional small publishing, because this process has empowered me and made me who I am. It’s made my writing stronger, and I’m proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish.
I hope…
I hope for a lot of things. Sure, one day I hope I’ll be able to walk into Waterstones or Barnes and Noble, and my books will sit on the shelves alongside my peers.
That would be cool.
Mostly, I hope people will realize that the publishing world is changing, and being self published is incredibly awesome and rewarding! Should anyone out there require evidence of Indie Author Awesomeness, check out these three equally astonishing books, by the equally talented Tammara Webber, Colleen Hoover and Jamie McQuire! If you haven’t already read them, you’re really missing out, people!