#WritersLife: My Publishing Journey from 2021 to 2024

 

Welcome to #WritersLife, where I talk writing in real life.

Well friends, it's been a while.

I started this blog just before I graduated college in 2014, was active for three years, gone for four, briefly touched base, and disappeared again. This time, I'm not as lost as I was in 2021 with my writing and publishing journey.

I don't know what capacity I'd like to use this space just yet, but if nothing else, it will be the written version of my Author Tube series over on YouTube (the OGs will remember that "obsessed with YouTubers" was one of my "About Me" inclusions because really, is there anything more remarkable about me than that?). But firstly, let me dive into a bit of what I've been up to.

2021

This year ended nearly the way it began: still lost and without a shred of writing to add to my experience. I remained lost as to which direction to take or how to jump back into this world. Let's face it, trends are real, and trying to understand the latest trends in YA lit after distancing myself from it for years was far more daunting.

2022

I decided to embrace my new sales position and self-published my first ebook (since unpublished and now no longer available) centered on sleep. I made three sales and was ecstatic, unsure of how this would play out long term but pumped to be working with words again.

That same month I got my first editing client on Fiverr. I started out offering beta reading, copywriting, and job description services (spoiler alert, only one of those gigs is still live). By the end of the year, I made my first $1.05 from self-publishing and my first $52 from freelancing. 

I also dabbled in poetry a bit as well as pieces of stories, the first few poems creating what soon became an 8,000-word poetry manuscript. 

2023

I published my second sleep ebook at the start of the year, doing a week-long pre-order and dabbling with marketing on a new Instagram account created in the same month. I marketed myself as Orange Rose Editorial.

I decided by spring I wanted to publish the poems that had now amassed into a collection that spanned 100 pages. It was also in spring that Fiverr promoted me to the next level of seller, and I curated my services to only involve books: beta reading, copyediting, manuscript critiques, and query letter assistance (all for young adult and middle grade, naturally). 

I made a book cover, had colleagues from college read my story, and self-published my poetry, titled The

Ones, on Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), IngramSpark, and Draft2Digital (D2D). I announced it three months before it's release and somehow sold 81 copies by release day. I still don't know how I did that. The sales I made by the end of 2023 covered the publication costs. 

I was promoted to the next tier of seller on Fiverr, and July saw my first 4-figure month from editing services. I also wrote the first draft of my next poetry collection while brainstorming an additional two. For NaNoWriMo, I wrote 23k words of a YA cozy mystery (that has yet to be completed, but I have no intentions of letting it go). 

I met Alexandra Bracken, Patrice Caldwell, Adalyn Grace, and Jessica Olson. 

Lastly, I started posting on YouTube regarding self-publishing, writing, and editing. 

2023 had shaped up to look suspiciously close to what 2017 could have been had I not lost sight of my dream in 2016. 

2024

In February, I self-published my second poetry collection, Missed Arrows, to a whopping 9 readers. I also experienced my first annoying experience with IngramSpark and testing out the waters with Kindle Unlimited. Spoiler alert: I made zero sales in three months and will be publishing the ebook wide. 

March saw my second 4-figure month with editing jobs, and it hasn't slowed since. I'm on track to earn the Top-Rated Seller badge's qualifications before the end of May. 

My third poetry collection is slated for release in August 2024. My YouTube channel just hit 250 subscribers. I've assisted 90+ clients on Fiverr. 

I've faced disappointment this year as well as tremendous glee, and I can't wait to see how the remainder of the year plays out. I'd love to get a website up and running (but this will be my main spot until I figure that confusion out). I want to get better at book marketing and making videos. I want to build my writing community.

I think that's how I'll divide this blog with my YouTube channel. The videos will highlight editing and publishing news while this will only cover my writing journey and thoughts I don't share anywhere else. Of course, I might end up combining the two at some point, but for now, this will revert to being my reading and writing nook.

Thanks for joining me. My last post ended with me wanting to write again, and now I'm publishing every year. Keep on writing, friends.