How I published a book at 19: costs, advice process from start to finish, and more

Video version of this blog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkopLWi9AbA

Intro:

Hello everyone, my name is Rosalind B. Sterling and I’m an adult, crime/comedy writer, as well as an artist, and editor. And I’m here to talk about how I published my debut book at 19.

I may not have sold a million copies or hit any best seller lists, but publishing a book has been a huge achievement for me and I feel like I’ve learn a lot of valuable things that I’d like to share with you guys.

I’m going to be completely honest and transparent about this whole thing, and tell you the good, the bad, things to look out for and avoid, give recommendations and advice, and just have a good ol’ discussion.

Keep in mind though that I’m not perfect and I don’t know everything about publishing. What worked for me might not work for you, so don’t take everything I say as set in stone rules. I am also going to talk about a lot of my own opinions and thoughts on certain things, so it’s okay if you don’t agree. Make your own opinions and find your own processes and ways of going about publication. I’m here to just speak of my perspective and experience with everything, so you’re free to do what you will with it all.

Disclaimer:

Before I get into the nitty gritty, I want to say that I don’t normally mention my age online because I’m used to getting infantilized for it and either having my work put on a pedestal out of guilt or just get insulted.

I just tend to keep my age quiet so people can judge me and my stories with complete honesty and not make an opinion solely based on my age.

However, I am making an exception today because I remember, as a child, being very inspired by the teen and young adult writers online who would talk about their writing careers and publication projects. And I would love to provide that same inspiration to other young people. But this isn’t just for young people either.

This is for anyone of any age. No matter if you’re 8 or 80, I want to show that anyone can publish a book with the right knowledge, resources, and dedication.

Info about my book:

My book is titled: Villain Vs. Villain and the Revitalization of the Transtemporal case.

It’s the first book in my Villain vs. Villain trilogy and is an illustrated crime/comedy/sci-fi geared towards adults. Specifically older gen z folk.

It’s 100k words or 461 pages long with 56 illustrations total.

Don’t forget to check out the trailer which has a bunch of artwork, voice acting, and even a custom music track ;) Find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvLa1UVYh4I&t=1s

The story takes place in 2005 and focuses on the Transtemporal Case, a cold case involving a time travel/teleportation scandal that got revitalized due to recent activity.

We see the story through the POV of our three main characters.

Our primary protagonist, Jonathan, was blamed for a murder his brother committed and now lives in isolation as a black market salesman as he chases his sibling down to figure out what led his brother down a path of villainy, and why messing with the timeline is on his agenda.

Next we have Jonathan’s brother Nathan who shows the readers that he is actually part of a shady organization who uses time travel and its lesser counterpart, teleportation, to murder those destined to destroy the world. All he wants is to save his family and make the world a safer place for them, even if it means risking his reputation and painting himself as the bad guy to society.

And then finally there’s Katrina, a government agent and (sorta *wink*) eye witness of the death Jonathan was blamed for. Her goal is to stop the brothers, and put an end to the Transtemporal Case before the timeline is ruined. So she “tricks” Jonathan into helping her solve the case (he knows exactly who she is and what she wants) and stop his sibling while also gathering information from him. Except they end up having some unexpected relationship development in the midst of it all. (insert funny drawing of them kissing)

This book is long and complex but totally worth it if you stick around.

It’s got morally gray characters, sibling rivalry, Y2K themes, a shit ton of diversity, fun references, enemies to lovers and maybe even a bit of forbidden romance. It uses dramatic irony, it has its own version of the Mandela effect, there’s lots of heartbreak and humor including a cartoony writing style, fourth wall breaks, and plenty of spoofs. Specifically espionage spoofs, and much much more.

It’s got a little something for everyone, so if any of that interests you, then maybe you’ll enjoy reading it ;) or not. I can’t make you. (I can and I will)

Writing the story:

I’m not gonna focus too much on the actual writing process since this video is mostly about publishing the book. And also because my writing process is too messy for me to really describe. But here’s a quick overview:

I’m a panster with MaDD, so complex plots will just randomly pop into my head against my will.

I then make an outline shorter than my will to live which acts more as a suggestion than an outline because I never actually follow it. 

Then, finally, I vomit out my book onto a Google doc, and rewrite the draft over and over until I’m ready to show people and burn their retinas with unholy my mess of a draft. (shows me at my computer with an unholy bright light coming from it). That’s it.

The rest of steps I’m about to go over are listed from the ones I did first to the ones I did last.  It is recommended to follow that format, however, as a debut author, I know how it feels to do some things out of order. And even if you aren’t a debut author, sometimes breaking the rules and doing things differently is just how you operate and that’s fine. Just try your best and don’t beat yourself up if you end up doing things unconventionally. Sometimes it’s just unavoidable and I suggest doing what makes you comfortable.

Now onto the rest of the steps which mostly include hiring other folks.

I hired almost everyone on Fiverr which can be a hit or miss given not everyone on Fiverr has quality services, but if you’re on a budget and willing to do a bit of research, it’s possible to find some quality services there for a cheap price. I’ll go over all costs later in the video as well as link the sellers I bought from and personally recommend down below in the description.

Beta/alpha readers:

Beta readers (and sometimes alpha readers) are people who read your book during its early stage and give critiques on pretty much anything. They’re reading it from a readers perspective and telling you what they thought about the story, characters, world, prose, or whatever pops into their head.

These people are suuuper important and I don’t recommend skipping this step. The reason these people are so important is because, as writers, we get so used to our own story after writing and editing it over and over that we become blind to its issues and plot holes.

Betas help with this. My betas helped me decide how I should replot and rewrite my draft into what it is now, and I can promise they can help you too. My book wouldn’t be where it is now without them.

So I suggest getting at least two so you can have more than one opinion to compare and contrast.

I made a whole video on my beta reading process which you can find here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ldZ5TkHVvw&t=1s

But the basic gist of it is that I ended up doing about 3 rounds of beta reading.

The first one, two people got back to me. Though only one gave me criticism, it was still enough to improve my draft. The second round was better. I had about 4 people total and 3 who got back to me. I got a good amount of feedback that helped me shape my draft even more.

The last round was the best. I had utilized all of the people willing to read the book for free, so I ended up hiring about ten betas on Fiverr, and the combined feedback from all of them helped me completely reshape my story for the best. Especially since this book was one I started writing when I was like 14, so it needed a lot of work. I probably won’t need that much feedback for my future books since I’ve gained a lot more knowledge about storytelling since my debut, but all I can say is that no matter how good or bad you are at writing, the more betas you have, the more feedback you can have to study and the better chance you have of seeing what needs work in your story. I would suggest mostly hiring or finding ones who read your genre since they will know how your book should read the best, but finding a few folks who aren’t experienced in your genre can be good betas too since they can give you an outside perspective that experts of your genre may not know or notice.

Sensitivity readers:

This one is long and complicated so buckle up.

Sensitivity readers are equally important as beta readers, though technically optional since they only apply to sensitive content. If your book doesn’t have any sensitive content, then you don’t need them. But if it does, then pleaaase hire at least one sensitivity reader educated and experienced in the subject you are writing about.

And no I don’t care if you too are experienced and educated in said topic as well. As I have said before, we as writers are blind to mistakes in our writing. And also, getting the opinions of other people in our same groups can give us a broader view on the subject matter and help us catch mistakes we may have made while writing this representation.

I once again hired my sensitivity readers on Fiverr, but a few of my betas pointed out sensitive feedback as well. Your betas might do that too but they are NOT a replacement to actual sensitivity readers.

My sensitivity readers were the sweetest people and helped me ensure that I represented everything respectfully.

Though I do want to mention that no matter how careful you are while writing these things, no matter how much research you do, and no matter how many sensitivity readers you get, there is no such thing as 100% perfect representation.

Everyone has different perspectives on how representation should be done, so I wouldn’t stress yourself trying to make it perfect because that’s just impossible.

But that’s also not an excuse to skimp out on sensitivity readers either which is why this step is so important.

We may not be perfect, but we can try our best to represent marginalized groups. Which is why I also tell my readers, if you notice anything misrepresented in my book, don’t be afraid to tell me because it’s never too late to update my novel and fix my mistakes.

I have queer, trans, POC, and disabled characters, as well as a lot of various mental health rep which all got read by profesional sensitivity readers. Check out my series’ diversity list here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UqhtJvQUlyLlYn-gjLVBX1ebrpQv8h6Je1ue5A2XujY/edit?usp=sharing

The only thing I couldn’t get sensitivity read in my book was related to my character Nathan who has albinism, which I’m gonna talk about a little bit, so if you have this condition or know a lot about it and want to critique anything I say even critique the representation in my book if you’ve read it, then absolutely please do.

But I really, really tried to find a sensitivity read, and just couldn’t. That condition seems to be more rare and it’s harder to find sensitivity readers for that than it is to find sensitivity readers for something like queer representation.

So I researched it until my eyes bled, trying to ensure that I got all the side effects correct, and trying to avoid any stereotypes and harmful tropes related to it.

If worse comes to worse, and you can’t find a sensitivity reader, then deep research is your best bet. It’s not perfect, and a sensitivity reader will always be better since they can examine your story and customize their feedback based on what they read, but research is good enough if it’s your only choice.

And even if you do find a sensitivity reader, please still do research anyway. It’s very important either way.

The best thing I learned while going through this process is always follow your gut and do whatever you must to tell the story you need to tell while also being mindful and listening to the voices of people from the groups you’re writing about.

For example, while I was researching albinism, I found out that sadly, people with this condition are almost never represented in a positive light. They’re always represented as murderous, heartless monsters who are ugly, undesirable, and thirsty for blood.

This did worry me a bit because in my story, Nathan has killed people before, and society fears him because of that. However, most of the characters in this story have committed murder including other deplorable things, and hold images created by society that don’t fully represent their characters correctly.

We find out early on that his reasoning for killing are pretty understandable and was done to save his family and inadvertently the world, even if the people in this society don’t understand that…yet.

If I changed this part of his character in fear of falling into a harmful stereotype, then the entire story wouldn’t make any sense and his character would have no purpose.

We learn through this story how desperate people can get when lives are at stake, especially those of their loved ones, and how this character that people sometimes perceive as just another killer is actually one of the most kind hearted and loving people you could ever meet.

He was actually most of my beta’s favorite character for his goofy personality and loving heart.

We learn that things aren’t always as they seem and that human morals and what is considered right and wrong are often complicated and grayed out.

But I still wanted to listen to what people with this condition had to say.

I saw a lot of posts, videos, and comments from people with albinism who said that they don’t typically care if villains or bad characters have this condition, the problem is when it’s that's the only character type they fall under and/or it’s done with the purpose of harming people from the group and demonizing them which is absolutely not the purpose of my character.

He also isn’t the only character with albinism. His grandmother has it too. She’s briefly mentioned in book 1, but we’ll learn more about her as the series continues.

So I do have “good guy” representation of that condition if his character is too gray to be considered good. But again. I’m always open to feedback if Nathan’s character as a person with albinism needs work.

Which brings me to my next point. If you’re going to represent a marginalized group as a villain, it’s sometimes good to balance it out by having another character from that group also be a good guy.

I wouldn’t force yourself to do this for the sake of presentation because forced rep is just as bad as bad rep, but if it works, then go for it. It adds balance to it all.

Another example of this is something I have more liberty to speak on since I myself am part of this group. But let’s just say that I want to write a character who’s Hispanic but is in the same position as my characters from my current book who are obviously all criminals, murderers and villains.

Technically, being a criminal, gang member, or anything else of that sort is a common harmful stereotype we see amongst Hispanic representation in media, but that doesn’t mean I can’t write a Hispanic villain or criminal. I'd love to see some well written Hispanic bad guys as a Hispanic myself.

Bad Hispanic people exist. Representing them as bad isn’t the problem. Representing them as all being bad, and using this stereotype to spread harmful misinformation and encourage people to be bigoted towards us is bad.

It’s not the stereotype that’s bad, it’s the caricature that’s bad. If you’re doing it because that’s just the character's storyline, and you’re approaching it respectfully and carefully, then go for it.

Be cautious, research things, and find people to give you advice.

But if you’re doing it to make fun of people from a certain group or purposefully paint them in a bad light to continuously cause harm to them in real life, then that’s obviously a no no.

I could go on forever about this subject, and I might make a separate video covering it, but my over all point is, be mindful of harmful stereotypes and tropes while also being mindful of the story you’re trying to tell.

While it’s good to be cautious, it’s also good to not overly censor yourself either since sometimes certain tropes, stereotypes, and plot lines can’t be avoided depending on the story. And that’s why sensitivity readers are so crucial. They can help you tell your story even if it has controversial or sensitive elements, while also ensuring you are approaching it correctly and respectively.

But like I said, no matter what you do or how careful you are, someone out there will find a way to be offended anyway, so it’s best to listen to the people's advice and use your better judgment.

My perspective on it is that as long as you aren’t writing anything to be purposefully harmful and you're doing your best to approach these topics carefully with the help of people and research, then you should be able to do what you need to do to tell the story.

Editing:

Next in this list is editing. These, too, are recommended to be done in a specific order, but once again, some people don’t do that and I honestly don’t care. Just do whatever works for you. But here’s the recommended order that I went in.

Developmental editing

Line editing

Copy editing

Proofreading (This will have its own section)

There's also something called an "editorial assessment" which is when an editor gives you general feedback on an early draft/guides you on how you should proceed with it and what editors you would need to hire. This comes before all those other edits but I won't be covering that today since I didn't hire one and they're typically not necessary. Though feel free to do your own research if that sounds like something you could use

Developmental editing:

Developmental editing focuses on plot, characters, world etc. This editing ensures there are no plot holes, inconsistencies, poorly written characters, bad world building, and the like.

I debated getting a developmental editor because I also work as one, and personally, this is my strong suit.

A lot of my betas also said that I didn’t need a developmental editor since my story’s issues, especially in the later draft after I had rewritten and restructured everything, laid more in the prose than the story itself. 

I've always been better at developmental aspects than anything. But I decided to still hire one anyway since this was my debut and I wanted to at least have the experience of working with a developmental editor once to see if it was something truly useless or if maybe I could find some worth in it.

I ended up hiring two, one that was decently expensive and another one that was dirt cheap.

The cheaper one ended up being surprisingly more helpful than the expensive one. I feel like the developmental edit stage wasn’t completely necessary but it did do a decent amount of good for my story so I wouldn’t consider it a waste.

 I’ll probably hire a developmental editor for my upcoming books, but will stick to just one this time and only do it if I have the funds since I feel like my books can survive without them.

They’re helpful, but not 100% necessary for me. But if plot, story, characters, world building etc is something you struggle with, then you might need one.

Subtle self promo, but I also do developmental editing myself so if you wanna hire me you know where to find me ;)

Line/copy editing:

Although line editing is technically supposed to come before copy editing, oftentimes editors (especially freelancers) will offer both services in one since they tend to go hand in hand.

But to break them down more specifically, line editing is when a person goes through your manuscript line by line and helps strengthen your prose. They make sure every sentence reads well, that your word usage is good, and that everything is tightened and readable.

While copy editors mostly focus on spelling, punctuation, grammar, etc.

The first editor I hired was a line/copy editor and I would say she did the bulk of the work in this area. My biggest issue with my book was the typos, errors, and clunky sentences. I mean, it was bad. Like bad bad. And yes I know that unedited drafts are bound to be horrible with their typos, but I have a reading disability and spotting these errors, especially in my own work, is hell for me, so I end up missing some of the most hilarious and embarrassing errors you’ve ever seen.

After the first round of line/copy editing, I went on to do a second round which typically isn’t done, but some authors, like me, struggle a lot here which means that not every single error will be caught after one round of professional editing. Remember, editors are people too who aren’t perfect and I also didn’t want to overwhelm my first editor with my monstrously mistyped wreck of a novel.

So I hired a second editor. I honestly would have hired more than two if I had the time and money, but I unfortunately didn’t. I was only weeks away from my publication date, my bank account had been mostly drained, and I still needed money for other things.

Now, the first editor gave me a very lengthy style sheet which is basically a list of how you spell certain words, how you punctuate certain things, what POV and tense you write in, what rules you break and when, etc. Basically a complex analysis of your writing style.

She, as well, gave me a bunch of long form notes going over a lot of the issues I struggled with which helped me spot them a lot easier so I could further self edit the manuscript.

After I did some self editing and tried catching all the reoccurring issues she had spotted, I handed the manuscript and the style sheet over to my second editor who did strictly copy editing, but helped spot issues that my previous editor didn’t fix.

That second round of editing was probably the most hectic because there were a lot of technical issues and the editor had to basically re-edit a bunch of things in the draft. And then Fiverr wouldn’t allow her to deliver it to me for like a month because the order page glitched out. It was a whole mess. But she was super kind and did so much amazing work.

Honestly, both editors were amazing and left hilarious comments on my draft along the way which they both didn’t have to do but made the experience very fun for me despite the stress of everything.

 Not everyone will need to hire multiple editors or have to rigorously self edit their drafts the way I did since, like again, that was just an area I struggled in the most. And the more you struggle with something the more help you’re going to need from others. When it comes to editing, I would suggest putting most of your money where it really needs to go. Ask your betas, critique partners, or anyone else who reads your stuff if they think you struggle more with storytelling or prose, and see if you can figure out what you need to focus on. This way you can ensure you're not paying for something you don’t need and skimping out on something you do need.

Proofreading:

Proofreaders are one of the last people to look at your draft before publication. They check for any last minute errors that your editors missed so your draft can be squeaky clean once you publish it.

I hired one proofreader who was super sweet and honestly pointed out more mistakes than I was expecting which was both good and bad.

Good because she was able to spot a lot of the straggling issues, and I was slightly relieved to see that my draft was finally in a state where there wasn’t a typo in every other sentence.

But bad because still seeing such a handful of mistakes at this point in the process worried me that there were too many for people to find and a few would make it through even after publication.

And I was right. They were very far and few between, but nonetheless I still managed to find some mistakes and typos after publication which made me want to bang my head into a wall.

Although I’ve come to find that this is a pretty universal experience amongst indie authors, so I wouldn’t beat yourself up too much for it if this happens.

BUT if you can avoid it, then avoid it. It’s not the end of the world if a typo makes it into the book after publication, especially when you are in a position like mine where you simply didn’t have the time or money to hire more editors and proofreaders. 

But it’s best to avoid that altogether if you can, so edit edit edit, and hire as many people as you need and can afford to help you out here.

There might still be errors in my book honestly and I don’t want to make any promises, but I’m hoping those were the final mistakes of the resilient bunch and I won’t have to worry about finding anything else like that in my book in the future.

Formatting:

Formatting is exactly what it sounds like. It’s formatting the book for publication.

Now, technically I think you can upload your draft to Amazon, Ingram spark, or any other platform with just the google doc or word docx, but it’s not recommended since a lot of the formatting will get messed up.

I worked solely with Amazon for publishing my book and highly recommend uploading it as an epub for kindle and PDF for paperback.

You can either hire someone to do it for you or download a formatting program so you can do it yourself.

I personally couldn’t afford a professional formatter so I downloaded Atticus to do it myself which was much more cost efficient.

I’ll go into the details of that cost breakdown later in this video.

I think that doing it yourself can sometimes be risky unless you’re a professional, but as long as you download a decent program, it should turn out just fine. Maybe not perfect, but doable.

My program let me edit a lot of things, showed me a preview of what the book would look like on different devices, and also how it would look as a paperback.

The preview isn’t 100% accurate and I found that things like the chapter titles ended up being much smaller after I uploaded it, but these aren’t deal breakers and everything looks pretty good.

My only other complaint is that there are certain things written into the codes of the format options that you can’t change unless you format everything from scratch, so I’m planning on reformatting some things in my book, and this time doing it from scratch instead of following one of their base options.

But I’m still trying to find a way to do that.

So all in all it’s a bit difficult and time consuming, and your options may be limited, but doing it yourself is a decent option if you’re on a budget. Your book should still look pretty professional by the end.

Cover art:

Although I’m an artist, I’m not at a skill level that’s high enough where I can trust making a decent looking book cover. So I hired someone who is much more professional to draw the front and back cover of my book. Oh my God she did an amazing job. Better than I could have ever imagined and I still, all these months later, just stare and gawk at it sometimes. 

She captured everything about my characters and the background setting so perfectly and I am so so happy I hired her. I made a few touch ups here and there that you honestly can’t even see, which I did because I’m ultra picky and felt like I had bugged the artist with enough revisions.

I also extended the cover a bit which I honestly think I could have done a better job on, so I might go back and clean that up and then update the cover at some point.

Lastly, I drew the spine myself for the paperback version since I needed to connect the covers together seamlessly. So I decided to draw a sorta metal plate with bolts in it to fit the theme since a lot of weapons and locations in my book are made of this material. You can also see a similar material drawn into the book’s title and text which leads me to my next topic of discussion.

I wanted the title and text to be custom so I hired a really talented graphic designer to draw it for me. And just look at that thing. It’s giving me early 2000’s science cartoon vibes. I am so fucking in love with it.

The reason I went with the style cover I did is because of a very complicated reason that I don’t have time to fully cover.

But the basic rundown is that I’ve noticed a trend in adults books, especially recently, that have very unfitting, boring covers. It doesn’t mean those covers are bad or low quality. They just don’t fit the book. 

People seem to equate minimalism with professionalism when that’s not always a case.

People find colorfully cartoony book covers to only be a kid’s thing when adults can like that too.

I see sooo many opportunities for amazing book covers go down the drain because the publisher or author thinks that having so much as a character or colorful element on the cover is unprofessional and childish.

I see book covers for adult novels ranging from blank colors with a random photoshopped element and boring text, to literal stock images with nothing nice to look at. If that sorta thing fits your book, then absolutely go for it. But I feel like overly simple book covers are pushed onto adult books to look less “unprofessional” or “childish.”

But unlike the famous phrase recommends, I, like many others, judge books by their covers and I am personally more inclined to read adult books that have more lively and fun covers that display color and fun elements than covers that hardly put in the effort to even use something other than an empty background and a text style that's not a default font.

Which is why I wanted to do something a little different. I do see illustrated book covers for adults, but they usually all have similar styles and I wanted something that resemble that of a webtoon, or some sort of art you’d come across scrolling on social media.

One made by a fanartist, since, as a fandom kid, I can confirm that those artists always have the most unique and fun styles you’ve ever seen and they really inspired me and fit what I was going for perfectly.

But I also didn’t want it to be overwhelming with all the color and elements since the more cluttered a cover is, the worse it will look as a thumbnail in search results. Plus, cluttered book covers make it hard for your eyes to look at one thing. Book covers require a proper focal point.

But I still wanted it to have enough details and references that people can look at it for a while and be like, “oh! That’s that thing from that one scene!”

 I used to do that with the Harry Potter books as a kid and think that’s a genius way to make book covers. Don’t overload it with elements, but throw some things in there that can catch the reader’s eye and make them recognize it as they read the book.

Like a scavenger hunt. This doesn’t work for everyone but it’s my favorite approach to book covers and I’m sure other people would like to see more things like that on adult book covers as well.

I feel like this is giving “not like other girl” vibes and, “I’m so quirky and different”, when obviously my book cover is not the most unique thing in the world and I’m sure other people have done something similar to me as well. (which, if you have book recommendations that have covers like mine, I’d love to read them)

But I just didn’t want it to look like a cover that resembles too many other covers and get lost in a sea of kindles. I wanted it to be visually different enough that it would be refreshing to look at and easier to spot in search results. I don’t know if this was 100% perfectly achieved, but I certainly tried, and I think this is a good piece of advice you should take with you.

The more unique your book cover is, the easier it will be to spot and the more likely people will be drawn to it.

Moving on, a major issue I ran into with this cover was the fucking DPI. Maybe not everyone experienced this, but I for one uploaded my cover with all the correct settings

It was very high quality and had the correct DPI and everything. Yet Amazon still cut the DPI and quality down for some reason.

So my technician boyfriend, bless his heart, took the cover and fucked with it until his thousand dollar high speed gaming PC was on the verge of exploding so I could finally get Amazon to accept it. And yet even STILL the cover looks like shit on Amazon.

It looks amazing when you download the book or order the paperback, but on the website itself it has the quality of an image printed on a toaster oven which is a whole other issue I’m still trying to figure out.

You can tell I’m a debut author because there are still so many things I’m trying to understand lol.

Illustrations:

So, continuing my earlier tangent about boring book covers for adult books, something else I hardly see in adult books anymore are illustrations.

And yes I know that some books are better off looking simple. We’ve covered this already. Just like how some simple book covers are better for certain books, some books just don’t need illustrations, and that’s fine as well.

I’m simply saying that I always see opportunities for certain adult books to have drawings, maps, or other fun things in it, and don’t do it simply because it’s “not meant for adults” and apparently you’re supposed to turn into a black and white business suit wearing fun sucking disappointment after the age of 18 according to society.

I know kids are more likely to be attracted to an overly colorful cartoony cover with loads of drawings inside more than an adult would, but who’s to say that ALL adults wouldn’t like that either? I think adult books deserve to have fun drawings in them. Have fun covers. Have fun formatting and the like. Plus, my book was written with a very silly, cartoon style that breaks the fourth wall and often has slapstick comedy which is why making cartoon illustrations in it was a great choice. Both these reasons made illustrating my book sooo important to me.

Though my biggest worry with my illustrations was the change in style. You have one style on the cover and a different style in the book. But I've seen books do that before so I’m definitely not the only one. And the reason the art styles are even different to begin with is because I couldn’t afford to hire someone to illustrate my book, so I did that part myself. Plus, illustrating my own book felt like such a personal experience and helped me connect to it very deeply. I’m a good enough artist that I could trust myself with the illustrations since they aren’t super complicated and well within my skill level. I tried to make them look like black and white storybook illustrations. Except make them adult ;) On top of that, having a variety of art styles in my books pretty accurately represents my eclectic interests and my story’s eclectic styles, so I think it all worked out in the end.

Marketing:

This is another complicated one so buckle up again.

I’ve been marketing my book for 2 years and it is single-handedly the biggest blight of my life.

I’ll go more in detail about what I wish I did differently later in the video, but I just want to say that you are not going to get much advice here, just a long list of things that went wrong for me that you can hopefully learn from or at least be prepared for if this also happen to you too.

Marketing feels like it relies on pure luck because no matter what I did or how “correctly” I went about it, none of it worked.

And I know what you’re probably thinking. “I just didn’t do it right.”

And while I admit there were definitely things I could have done better, it got to a point where I could follow all those “how to market your book” guides step by step, put my blood sweat and tears into it, and sacrifice my first born child, and it still wouldn’t have worked. 

Yet somehow I see folks who don’t even try to market go viral and it makes me scratch my head wondering what the key to getting your stuff out there is. Obviously, things like an eye catching book cover, hooking blurb, and professional, visually appealing graphics and marketing material are all must haves. 

You can even try doing giveaways, contests, or Q&A’s to get people interested. But I did all of that and more with little to no results and I don’t really know where I went wrong.

I mostly advertised on social media since it’s free and easily accessible, yet pretty much all the social medias I’m on experience the following problems:

24/7 glitches. And no it’s not my device. I’m referring to in-app glitches that I learned quite a lot of other people alao experience.

Shadowbans

Erasure of important features

shitty algorithm

And other various things that purposefully hinders small creators.

Here is a list of  the social platforms I use and why none of them worked for me. Or at least work well.

Starting off with my main platform, Instagram. Instagram was good a few years, but recently they’ve gone to shit. For me,  it started when Instagram gave me two strikes for two separate stories I posted, neither of which violated guidelines, and they wouldn’t repeal it.

This hindered my account significantly. I couldn’t use half of their features and I was shadowbanned from almost all tags, plummeting my reach.

Not only did this strike take over a year to go away, but it went away after publication day which meant I was shadowbanned during one of the most important moments in my career so I couldn’t advertise my book with many good results.

And right after the strike went away, Instagram got rid of the recent tab on hashtags so literally no one can view your posts unless you’re mega popular and can reach the top of the hashtag.

Another thing too. Instagram has been, for the longest time, removing followers whenever I gain one. So if someone follows me, a previous follower will randomly disappear soon after. I have gained over 60 followers since July, none of which have left, yet my number hasn’t moved.

I’ve also tried using Instagram ads but they didn’t give me any results either.

Next is Tumblr which I’ve pretty much stopped posting on because the only thing that gets seen by people there is my fanart. Nothing else I post gets notes. Maybe 1 or 2 notes if I’m lucky and they’re usually from friends.

Onto Twitter. I stopped posting there for the same reason I stopped posting to Tumblr.. Plus Twitter is just a hell hole anyway and i don’t like going on there very often.

YouTube is a hit or miss. Regular YouTube videos reach very few people. YouTube shorts do a lot better but only sometimes.

There are other times where no one even sees my video. Or times where people do see it but don’t interact, or they do, but it’s not good interaction.

I once posted a youtube short that got 75 views, 0 likes, and 1 dislike.

I then reuploaded it to give it another chance, and that time it got 159 views, 0 likes, and 1 dislike. Talk about a stab to my ego.

And on the off chance my video does get a good amount of views, it doesn’t really bring any traction to my business, and there will also be a war zone in the thumbs up section so like 50% likes and 50% dislikes and I never know what I didn’t for so many people to hate it.

YouTube short comments are also very rude and very disrespectful and I’m really starting to hate posting there.

Next is Tik Tok.

Tik tok will randomly remove followers as well, and recently, they shadowbanned me despite me not receiving any violations or using banned hashtags, or spamming, or literally anything that would warrant that. So for a while, all my videos were hidden from hashtags and the FYP, and the only people that can see it are like 3 or 4 of my followers.

I also can’t add my website link or any link for that matter to my bio until I hit 1k followers so I have to keep redirecting people to my Instagram which is complicated and annoying. And I doubt I’ll be reaching 1k followers any time soon.

I truly don’t understand how I can follow all the rules, study SEO, post decent quality content and still get nowhere or get shadowbanned, yet other accounts can violate guidelines every five minutes and post content with the quality of a five year old throwing their mom’s phone in the toilet and reach astronomical levels of fame.

I don’t want fame but I'd at least like to understand what I’m supposed to do to reach any sort of audience that’s not my boyfriend or a few friends.

It’s quite saddening to see all your hard work go down the drain like that by either getting ignored, or getting hate.

Those are the only social platforms I’ve joined so I can’t tell you about any others, but can assume they all probably have just as many flaws.

This doesn’t mean social media is all bad, but the cons almost always outweigh the pros. At least in my experience.

And if you’re wondering why I even still use social media if it's such a flop all the time, it’s because I don’t really have any other choice.

I also hired some folks to help market my book on their websites, newsletters, social pages which also got me nowhere. No hate to those folks since they were all super kind and offered very professional services. I just didn’t see results.

Aside from social media, there are other ways to advertise without it, but I can't do those either.

For example, book festivals.

I can’t go open tables anywhere at those events because they cost hundreds to thousands of dollars on top of the money you have to spend on supplies and book copies only to make back a fraction of that money if you’re lucky. I am just not in a financial position to be able to do that.

Another thing is business cards. I’m not expecting business cards to really do much since that’s not really their purpose anyway, but I thought I’d throw it in there and say that leaving them around places and passing them out (when appropriate) hasn’t done anything.

I have a newsletter but I can’t get people to sign up to it because in order to get people to sign up I also have to advertise, and if you were paying attention to anything I said you’d see why that’s not working.

The only thing that has actually sort of worked for me marketing wise is meeting friends.

Just joining online groups, in real life groups, talking to people at events and get togethers.

My writing friends and mutuals are pretty much the only people that really got me through this and are the reason any of my content have interactions at all.

But even then most of the people I’ve met and mingled with don’t even interact with me so it’s only a small percentage of the ones I’ve met that do. But still, better than nothing.

I feel like it’s partially my fault that my marketing has failed for maybe not posting every single day or not hoping on every trend, but still, it definitely feels like some of the fault can be put on social media just not being great for small creators, as well as other issues like finance that are out of my control, and also audience issues.

My book is very niche and trying to find a niche audience is a lot harder than I expected.

So I’ll take the blame on certain things, but marketing in general truly feels like a losing battle sometimes no matter how good you are at it and I know I’m not the only one struggling with it which makes me feel a little better.

My point of all this is, this is the area that I failed in miserably and I am still trying to learn the secret to marketing a book. Or marketing anything really.

I wish I had better advice but all I can recommend is make quality content, try out different posting schedules to see when your followers are most active (like my content tends to get more interaction during the afternoon and evening) and interact with your audience a lot.

People will be more inclined to follow your journey if you are warm, welcoming, and conversational with them.

But also be prepared to try your best and do everything as right as you can and still get a lot of nothing in return.

Marketing is hard and there is no guarantee that you’ll easily build an audience.

Maybe you’ll have better luck and I hope you do, but the competition is ruthless out there so don’t expect instant virality unless you’re really lucky. And if any of you have better words of advice, I’m all ears.

Arc readers and how to find them:

ARC stands for Advanced Reader Copy. ARC readers are the ones who receive free copies in exchange for an honest review of your book.

Although certain platforms like Amazon have been cracking down on their rules, so its better to let the ARC reviewers leave the reviews at their own choice instead of telling them too because Amazon might flag that as a fake review and take it down or even come after you.

Leaving a review now as an ARC reader is kind of like a kind gesture now, or an unspoken rule of generosity. It’s not necessary, but rude if you don’t since that’s sorta the whole point of receiving an ARC copy.

Typically the draft you send is the copy you will be publishing, though I, like many authors, tend to edit our drafts all the way up until publication day so it's common for ARC drafts to still have some typos, formatting issues, or missing images. So don't feel bad if the version they get isn’t 100% ready.

As long as it’s pretty much good to go save for some minor things, then that’s all that really matters.

I got a total of 40 some ARC readers and only 3 reviewed my book. So what is that, like 7 something percent? Yeesh.

I have 4 total reviews on Goodreads now and 0 on Amazon, although to be fair, one of my ARC readers that pulled through tried to review it on Amazon but couldn't because Amazon has certain requirements you have to meet before you can review anything there and they’re hard to meet sometimes.

I thought maybe I had gotten really unlucky here, but after speaking to some author friends and doing some reserach, this seems to be a common thing.

It sounds really sucky, and it is, but this is just a common experience.

I also don't want to judge since I don't know why so many people ghosted me.

Maybe there was an emergency or some people just didn’t like it and would have rather said nothing than leave a bad review.

Just be prepared in case this happens to you too, and don’t be afraid to get as many ARC readers as possible. In some cases it may feel like over kill to send out so many, but if only a small percentage actually plan to review it, then the more you send out the better.

How to find ARC readers:

There are multiple ways you can find ARC readers. 

One of the most common ways are just asking around. Ask your friends. Post about it online. Make a sign up sheet and direct people there.

There are also lots of groups on Facebook and Goodreads where you can find ARC readers. Though from my experience, very few people on sites like Facebook actually sign up unless your book is a romance or erotica since that seems to be the main target audience there.

Alternatively, you could sign up for programs like Voracious Readers Only.

I got 28 sign ups from voracious readers, though actually left a review.

Book Sprout is another ARC reader program. I got 4 sign ups there, and one review.

The other two that reviewed my book were the ones that signed my personal applicant sheet.

Like I said. There are lots of places to find ARC readers, but you’re not guaranteed to actually get a lot of reviews from them.

So your best bet is to just gather as many ARC readers as possible and keep your fingers crossed that a few actually pull through.

Publishing:

We are now onto the section you’ve all been waiting for. The publishing part.

My orginal plan was to get my book onto multiple publishing platforms including IngramSpark, but all of them were so complex compared to KDP and I was so exhausted by this point that I just gave up and decided to make my book Amazon only. For now.

I still plan on getting it on other platforms but I have more important things to focus on right now.

I decided to publish the kindle first since it was easier and also the only option that allowed pre order.

(Side note, I won’t even be making a section discussing pre-orders since the set up is pretty easy and I only got 1 and it was my boyfriend so big woop).

You can set up the pre order before you add the manuscript but you will have a time limit which is based on your book’s publication date.

You must upload your manuscript 72 hours before the publication date or your pre order will be canceled and you won’t be able to set up another pre-order for a year.

I barely made it since I was cramming in a lot of last minute edits to the manuscript.

After my book was live, I worked on getting the paper back out which was delayed by a month because of life stuff, but I eventually got it out and here I stand today.

The actual publishing part and uploading it to Amazon wasn’t the hardest part of this whole process but it was still very much a hassle with the whole book cover DPI thing, Amazon making it hard for me to edit the description at times, and then this one thing where it wouldn’t allow me to add my middle name onto my author account until I published my paperback.

Which then caused issues with my account on Goodreads because it thought I was two different authors and I temporally lost access to my account while trying to fix it and had to get support involved.

So if you have a middle initial in your author name, do your research and make sure to add it properly.

Book Trailer:

Just like movie trailers, book trailers are short videos that summerize your story to gain people’s attention and interest in your book.

My book trailer in itself was like it’s own massive project. I could do a whole video on just that alone, and I might. But for now, I’m going to go over all the major points in it’s production.

I know that sounds like an exaggeration for anyone who hasn’t seen my trailer since most book trailers are about 30 seconds long and consist of some stock photos, stock videos, and text to tell viewers about the book.

However, because my book is illustrated and very cartoon like, I felt it would be best to animate the trailer. Or at least try. I’m not great at animation so very few parts are actually fully animated. 

It’s more like an animatic that has been fully rendered instead being left in the sketch stage.

I hired 4 voice actors, hired a music producer to make a custom track so I wouldn’t get copyright striked, drew over 80 drawings in procreate on my refurbished Ipad 6th gen, with over 200 separate frames total, and edited it all in fucking CapCut somehow. 

This was my first time doing anything like this and the trailer release was delayed numerous times because I continuously realized I had bit off more than I could chew, but it was ultimately worth it.

I’m decently proud of it considering I’ve never done anything like that before and am so incredibly happy to have worked with such awesome actors and creators.

Hearing my characters come to life was honestly tear jerking, and I love that the soundtrack is inspired by Hey Baby by Pitbull which is my absolute favorite song ever and one I heavily associate with my book.

All in all this was a big passion project and I’m really happy with how it came out.

But if you don’t have the time, money, or resources to do something like that, a simple, short trailer with stock videos and pictures can do just as well. But you will have to purchase the stock videos and photos as well as find a royalty free song and/or buy rights to use it since book trailers are commercial use and it would be better to buy the rights to the content up front than to get in trouble with copyright laws and have to pay even more in fees.

Total costs breakdown:

Now I will go over the total costs breakdown for everything I spent on this book in order of when I spent it, and together we can see how my broke little ass became even more broke.

I want to also mention that these costs include tax and tip which was a little difficult for me to factor out so if you want to know how much it would have costed without that, I would suggest knocking about 20-30% from the total number give or take. But taxes and tips are pretty important when hiring people so don’t expect to not pay them.

Starting off with beta reading. I hired a total of 17, most of which who read the whole book through, and a few ones that read just a few chapters which obviously made the cost cheaper.

In total it came to:

$314.47

The total costs of 6 sensitivity readers came out to:

$147.80

The total costs after 5 editors (only two edited the whole book. The other 3 edited very short sections) including developmental editing, copy editing, and line editing came to:

$911.07

So neraly 1k for the editing alone, and that was me going the freelance route. Remember, editing is likely going to cost the most no matter how cheap you go.

I hired one proofreader which came to:

$160.76

The formatting software I used was $147.00 for life time access.

The front and back cover plus the cover text and commercial fees came to $195.21. It probably would have been slightly cheaper if I hadn’t commissioned the graphic designer for the cover text twice. But I ended up not using the orginal concept I commissioned and had him redo it because I’m fucking picky.

The illustrations didn’t cost anything since I drew them myself, unless you wanna count the $200 I spent on the refurbished iPad from Back Market, $40 on an Apple Pencil that I got off of Facebook market place, and the $10 I spent on procreate, then we would be at $250, but I won’t be counting those today since I bought those things for drawing in general. Not just the illustrations. I had planned on getting all that stuff anyway whether I illustrated my book or not.

Marketing was only 47.11 total. I probably could have put a little more into that clearly

The ARC readers costed mostly nothing except for a book sprout subscription which costed $9 but I ended up spending $18 because I forgot to cancel it the following month lol.

Publishing costed nothing since I went through Amazon but not all self publishing companies are free.

Proof and author copies came to a total of $93.41. I ordered two proof copies and four author copies at various stages in the process to ensure everything looked okay. And because of how long my book is, and factoring in the images, their print costs alone are quite pricy.

The book trailer, after hiring 4 voice actors, 1 music producer, and commercial fees came to $145.98

And then I’m throwing on a miscellaneous section to cover the $17.83 I paid someone to help write my book blurb and another $7.78 I spent on a Spanish to English translator.

Which, side note, I had three different languages get briefly spoken in my book including Spanish, French, and Hindu, but my first editor translated the French for me for free, one of my sensitivity readers translated the Hindu for free, bless their hearts, and then this one guy I tried to commission to translate the Spanish for me said he’d do it for free as well since it was only a few words.

But he didn’t get back to me for a while and I was on a time crunch so I ended up commissioning someone else, who then delivered the order at the same time that the guy finally got back to me, so I technically didn’t even have to pay for it but I did anyway because I was in a rush and had no idea the guy would get back to me so late.

Both translations were slightly different so I ended up picking and choosing which ones to use both from the guy that did it for free and the woman I paid.

I also want to mention copyright, which, at a minimum, costs $45 which is the one I chose. Technically anything you make is copyrighted and people can’t steal it without getting into trouble. But if you want to register it at the copyright office you can. It adds an extra layer of legal protection in case you need to go to court for copyright infringement which isn’t usually necessary, but if it makes you feel safe, like it does for me, then you can go with that.

This all brings us to a grand total of $2,251.42

That might sound really expensive and a daunting cost for some folks, and I totally agree.

If you’re like me and basically poor, it’s going to be hard to afford this. I spent almost my entire savings on this book and also didn’t have all this money at one time.

I would slowly spend the money I got from my paychecks as I received them and did this over a course of about 2 years. And again, this was after going the cheap freelance route.

I spent a lot of time trying to find people in my budget that also matched the quality of work I was going for which was really hard but totally possible if you put in the effort to research.

Book costs can actually go up into the tens of thousands if you don’t hire strictly freelance like I did.

But please remember, if you want to publish a high quality book, you’re going to have to spend a lot of money, even if you go the cheap route. I’m not saying that the more money you spend the better your book will be.

Spending a lot of money doesn't automatically make your book a best seller. But if you want an interesting, readable book with an eye catching cover amongst all the other things, you’re going to have to spend a pretty penny.

Only do certain things yourself if you're capable.

There were some things I knew I couldn’t do myself, like the book cove. So I put in the effort to spend the money because I would rather spend money and get a good result than to do something that’s out of my capability to save cash and fuck up my book.

Launch day:

The big day wasn’t as big as I had wanted it to be.

I worried about this day for months, but by the time it came around, I was just too exhausted from everything to even care if I had a good or bad publication day.

 I just threw together some announcement posts, then went about and got some well deserve relaxing time. 

That day wasn’t anything exciting or special. Unless you count going out for lunch and getting your car keys stuck in the vehicle and having to wait in 90 degree weather for a cop to arrive and break you into it again.

That actually happened.

I made a total of 3 sales that day, and ya know what, I’m happy with it.

I wish that day was better, But I was just so overworked and tired, and still am to be honest, to fuss about not having an extraordinary debut day.

I know that sounds odd since obviously having your debut day flop after years of dedication sounds horrible, and it does suck to some extent.

But a time comes where you start to realize that you’re not gonna be the next Stephan king no matter how harde you work, and you just gotta appreciate the little things.

This was easier for me to come to terms with especially since publishing a book had always been more of a personal goal. 

So just doing that, even without major success, is a win to me. Others may not feel that way, but that’s just my perspective.

Aftermath 5 months later:

There’s nothing to really report aside from the fact that I’m constantly updating the manuscript on KDP because I’m a perfectionist and am always fixing minimal details that don’t need fixing. Regarding sales, I’ve since made 8 in total, all of which were friends and family I believe.

Things I wish I did/didn’t do:

One, underestimate literally everything. Whatever expectations you have for for publishing a book, chuck them out a window now while you still have time.

Because no matter how much preparation and research you do you’ll always be thrown into a whirlwind of panic and confusion. Especially if this is your first time. So expect the unexpected. Things never go as planned.

Two, I wish I started marketing earlier. Although I doubt that really would have helped all that much given all the issues I have with marketing.

I know that some people will say that you just need to keep going, keep posting, and eventually something will take off.

But I’ve been working my ass off every day for over two years trying to market this book and have gotten nowhere.

I do regret not posting as often, but as I’ve said earlier, marketing feels like a losing battle. If there’s anything I wish I did differently aside from just posting more and starting my marketing strategies earlier, I would say it’s networking.

Connecting with others was the only thing that really helped, so I think I should have gone deeper down that path.

But I unfortunately didn’t realize this until much later and was just so exhausted and frustrated by the end of it all that I didn’t have the energy to even try to network anymore.

Three. Save more money.  I truly didn’t expect to spend so much money on this book, so I would suggest planning ahead and budgeting more money than you expect to spend since it’s better to have a little extra than to not have enough.

How being a young writer affected me and how I worked around it:

Being a young writer in this day in age is a mixed batch of emotions since it’s difficult, but there’s also sooo many resources for us to use that didn’t exist years ago. 

Like the fact that technically anyone can publish a book just using Amazon, or having access to so many affordable freelancers and writing information online to help us improve.

But I think that, in general, the hardest thing about being a young writer, especially one who writes fiction geared towards adults, is trying to write about experiences of people much older than you.

All my characters are about 27-32, at least in the first book. So obviously their mindsets are a bit more developed than my own.

And I don't necessarily equate physical age to mental age since I honestly believe that some younger people are mentally older and vice versa, but it’s still something I have to consider.

I have to write from the perspective of someone who’s lived longer than I do and has more life experience. 

And people have told me that this could be a major issue and that I could fail at it miserably because I’m trying to write about people who have life experience I’m not even close to gaining.

I actually got pretty bullied for it when I was younger. Bullied by adults ironically who said that my book would be shit and I should force myself to write about characters my own age because I would never succeed in writing about anyone older than me.

I felt really sad about that and stopped writing for a while actually because of how disappointed I felt. These characters of mine, despite being adults, are ones who I love dearly and I enjoy telling their story.

I don’t want to change their age or make up new younger characters just because someone said so. I want to write what makes me happy yet doing that got me bullied.

And while struggling to write adult characters as a younger person is a real thing and I definitely wrote them pretty immaturely back when I was a kid, it’s not necessarily impossible to write accurate adult characters as a young person.

Research is still a thing, talking to people of those ages is an option, and, in the end, this is a fictional story about a bunch of people investigating a time travel scandal.

There is no universe where I plan to be a government agent or attempt to invent time travel.

Fiction is about writing the fantastical. The fake. The unworldly. There’s a reason it's called fiction.

No fiction writer writes about stuff they know 100% about. That defeats the whole point of writing.

Are fantasy writers secretly elves and dragons who overthrow their king on a day to day basis? I mean, maybe, but not always.

Are horror writers secretly monsters who stalk the woods at night and put fear into children? Again, maybe, but not always.

You get my point. If I was to limit myself to only write about the things I knew, I’d be writing pretty boring books.

Writing is about taking challenges and writing about stuff you don’t know. People you don’t understand. Lives you’ve never lived.

Fiction and realism can still go hand in hand (realistic fiction is literally a thing) and you can still write about relatable and realistic things. But my point is that fiction gives you the option to explore completely unrealistic and fantastical concepts

if you want to.

Will it be perfect? No. I doubt my characters are perfect adults, but neither are real adults, and by the end of the day, I had fun and wrote the story I saw in my head, and maybe even brought a smile to one of my reader’s faces. I think that’s a win.

Plus, I’ve always been fascinated with writing characters much older than me because I looked up to them.

I was always so frustrated as a child struggling with child things and being infantilized. Being undermined all the time.

So writing from the perspective of characters who have more life experience gave me an outlet.

It helped me cope and gave me a way to see the world from the perspective of people who knew what they were doing which is a type of secure feeling I desperately crave and still do.

But this also brings up the topic of, every adult acts different. Not every adult is some wise old owl with infinite knowledge.

The older I get the more I start to realize these 20-30 year olds that I idolized as a child struggle with virtually the same things anyone of any age does.

We’re all just fighting to survive in this sucky world. Adults just know how to regulate their emotions and approach situations better. At least most of them.

Some of them do truly act more like children than actual children. I should know. I lived with my mother for 18 years, and despite being her young child, I ironically had to parent her a lot. But that’s a story for another day.

And other adults, like the ones in my story, may act over the top and silly on purpose because that’s the style I was going for.

Sure they may not act mature all the time, but I see my story as a cartoon in my head, so that’s how they act in the book sometimes. Over the top. They do things  adults may not do irl, but that’s the point.

Do you see the adults in Rick and Morty acting all wise and mature. Fuck no. But that’s the point. That’s what makes it funny.

Although I did try to find a balance between having them act their age while also giving a silly cartoon vibe since I like both of those aspects in characters.

I could go on forever about this topic since maturity is a broad spectrum and everyone I spoke to about this had different opinions on how a person of a certain age should act, but it was something I did and still do struggle to understand sometimes.

And though I think this is a harder concept to understand when you’re young, I feel like this is a concept anyone could struggle with since I’ve read adult books written by people double my age, and see the characters acting super unnecessarily immature for no reason.

And I’ve also read stories written by kids and teens where the adults actually act pretty accurate to real adults.

But hey. That’s life. We learn. We grow. And we improve. And that’s all we can do.

Another thing too is facing fear of being judged. Like I said, I got bullied for writing older characters, by other adults no less.

And I’ve always feared that being a young writer would give people an excuse to undermine my abilities and assume that because I’m young I must not have enough experience or skill to be an author or talk about the topics I like to talk about.

And while me and my creations may not be perfect, I enjoy what I write and I’m sure someone out there can find worth in my work.

Which is why I say, fuck all of ‘em. Write what you want no matter your age, gender, sex etc.

Have fun and allow yourself to improve over time rather than fussing over things like, am I good enough to even attempt this story. The answer is probably no, but we all start somewhere.

Don’t stop yourself from writing a story because you think you’re not at the skill level to tell it. Maybe you’re truly not at a high enough skill level to properly achieve what you’re going for, but we can’t improve if we don’t try.

Skill isn’t something that magically comes to us one day. It’s something we learn and hone over time.

What you make may seem like shit now, but keep going and don’t give up. I promise you you’ll get better eventually.

Moving forward with my book/what’s next:

My current goals right now go as follows:

One, make a few edits to my book’s illustrations and formatting. Just to improve some minor details which aren’t inherently bad, but I’m a perfectionist, and if I can find a way to make everything look closer to what I see in my head, then I will certainly try.

Two, I want to get my book into other retailers outside of Amazon. But in order to do that I will have to work on redoing the cover spread since I made it in the KDP cover creator, and if I want the covers to looks the same on all platforms, I will have to make one outside of the KDP cover creator and upload that to all of them. So that will take a tad of time.

Three, I want to make a hardcover and audiobook version, which are much more difficult to do and also very expensive, so that’s a goal I’m keeping on the backburner until I get some time and money.

Four, I want to get back into the promoting grind because I can’t make sales if I’m not promoting my book. And as much as I hate marketing and want to give up on it entirely, I really need to get back to doing it anyway since I don’t really have a choice.

Five, I would love to find a way to get my book into some book fairs, but those are very expensive to get into as i said earlier, so that’s definitely another backburner idea.

Lastly is book 2 which is currently in the works. I don’t have a release date yet because I’m currently lacking the money and motivation to publish it right now, but I promise it will be out as soon as possible. My goal is 2025 but don’t count me on that. What I do know for sure is that I will be publishing it sometime at the end of July. What year? I don't know, but we’ll see if 2025 gives me enough time to save up money and get my shit together.

Honorable mention to some miscellaneous projects I’m working on that are unrelated to my series including some possible short story publications and even an animated pilot for a show idea I've got cooking up in here. There will be more voice actors and music talents involved in it just like my book trailer, so if you’re interested in seeing that, stick around. I don’t have release dates for these projects yet but they are currently in the works.

Closing:
I hope some of you could find some use in all of this and have an amazing day!

Check out the people I worked with:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LUrLRePZ_feq5tlqlvS7FxM7sMlVYp8wKF9No-Tvhqk/edit?usp=sharing