Five Year Author-Versary + Happy Birthday to Weapon Icean!

 Happy Sunday! 

I know this isn't the usual day I post stuff but today is special! Five years ago on this day, I hit publish on Weapon Icean. I published my debut novel using Kindle Direct Publishing and fulfilled my dream since I was a little kid to be an author. It's an amazing feeling and I'm really proud of myself for taking that leap and hitting publish. I can't even believe it's been five years. 

Since publishing Weapon Icean, I've published the sequel to it (Project Hellion). I've published a short story collection and a children's book. I've published an entire trilogy and two novellas. Without Weapon Icean, I wouldn't be where I am today. Without all the things Weapon Icean taught me, I wouldn't be slowly but surely getting to where I want to be with self-publishing. I'm so thankful to Nanowrimo 2014 that motivated me to write the first draft of Weapon Icean and I'm thankful for Weapon Icean in general, for getting me through the publishing door. 

To celebrate I want to share five things (maybe more) that I've learned about writing and publishing through the past five years. 

001 I learned that you can't just throw a book on Amazon and expect people to buy it. You actually have to put in the hard work of getting it in front of people. 

002 Marketing is so important! Learn how to market well, you won't regret it. 

003 I learned how much work goes into publishing a book well - especially when you're doing it all yourself! 

004 Sequels are really hard. Like really hard. 

005 Sometimes rewriting a book from scratch is the only thing you can do for that book. It's rough work and takes a long time and sometimes makes you feel like giving up, but man... it will pay off in the end. 

006 Baby steps matter. I started by writing a duology and then a trilogy and now have moved on to writing a 6 book series. Take things slow. Slow progress is still progress. 

007 Figure out why you write and hold onto it with everything you have. Money and sales will ebb and flow, but you're love and passion and commitment to writing will never fade. 

008 Writer friends and a community of writers is super important to have. Writing can be a really lonely pursuit. We're a rare breed and it can feel like we're the only ones in the world like us, so it's important to have that community. Writer friends really are the best. 

009 It's OK to unpublish a book. I unpublished Sterling Silver at the beginning of this year because I realized I had published it for the wrong reasons. The book wasn't ready and I had prematurely published it. So I took it off and that's OK. 

0010 In the same vane, it's OK to unpublish your pre-order. You might get banned from pre-ordering for a whole year but... you gotta do what you gotta do. If you know you're book won't be ready by then, it's not the end of the world to not have pre-ordering your book as an option. 

0011 A newsletter and website is super important. Invest in a newsletter and a website. It makes you look and feel more professional and helps to get the word about your books out there. 

0012 Never stop learning. Take as many free (and/or paid) classes as you can about everything from marketing to ideal readers and audience and the craft of writing in general. Find free resources (they're everywhere!). 

0013 Back up your work. Always. Always, always, always. Get into such a habit of backing up your work that you don't even realize you do it. It becomes second nature. 

0014 Say yes to every opportunity. Say yes to author visits and book events at the local library. You may be nervous or anxious about it, may think no one's going to notice you or show up or buy your books or be interested in them, but saying yes pays off every single time. Don't let your anxiety and fear and doubts win. Take the leap and try it anyways. 

0015 I know this is annoying to hear and I know I'm stealing it right from Hannah Brencher, but celebrate the one. Celebrate every follower, every sale like that's the one you've been waiting for forever. It's hard sometimes to celebrate the fact that you got one sale all month, but that's one more sale than you had before! That's one more reader who bought your book! 

0016 Most of all though, above everything else, I've learned to never give up. Even when I feel like I never want to publish another book again, even when I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing, that I'm going nowhere, my writing will never go anywhere... I keep going. Keep going even on those days that are so full of doubt and insecurity. On those days where you just sit and cry because you feel like no one cares about your writing, no one notices your books. 

Those are just a few times I've learned about writing and publishing throughout the last five years, all thanks to Weapon Icean. Five years ago at eighteen I never would have imagined I would be here in two different ways. One, I would have thought I my sales and books would be doing way better than they are. I thought I would be making a decent living off my writing by now. But on a different note, I also wouldn't have imagined I would have so many books published. I never would have thought I would have rewritten Project Hellion from scratch and published it after almost two years of working on it. I never would have thought I would have a YA Fae paranormal romance trilogy out. I never would have thought I would have a children's book or a short story collection or a novella set in my trilogy world out. I never would have thought I would finally get to write that novella about Astoria and Asher I had wanted to write after finishing Project Hellion. 

This journey has been different than what I thought it would be, in downer ways but also in a lot of really amazing ways. I'm so thankful for every single book I've written and published and where I'm at right now. I'm excited to see where I'll be when Weapon Icean turns ten in five years. Until then, I'm going to keep writing, I'm going to keep publishing and keep letting God lead me on this crazy journey. 

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To celebrate Weapon Icean is as an ebook for 0.99 right now! You can get it HERE! I also published a short story set after Project Hellion called Operation Revelry about, you guessed it, Astoria and Asher! That is also up as 0.99! Also to celebrate Project Hellion is officially in paperback now too!! You can get that Here! Actually, all my ebooks are on sale for the Christmas season for 0.99, so feel free to check it out!