Mistakes I've made in my publishing journey: Amar edition

 

Well, you guys, I think it's about time for a new blogging series. This one about mistakes I've made along the way. Which isn't exactly the most cheerful subject, but ah well, we wouldn't be where we are now without our mistakes right?

You see, I've been writing for well over a decade, and I've been a published author for going on eight years now. Due to this fact, I have a boatload of experience. Most of it gained from things that I did wrong. So I thought I would share some of those things I did wrong with you today.

I had absolutely no idea what I was doing when I started out. I went from a total novice who thought every press was essentially a Vanity Press (meaning that you the author had to pay the publisher to have them publish your work) to where I am now. I will first off say that I absolutely do not know everything there is to know about publishing, I learn knew things almost every day. But I will say that over the years I have developed a relatively advanced knowledge of the inner workings of publishing. Primarily self-publishing, but I also know a good deal about how traditional publishing works now. I know what all is needed to publish a book (it's not just a completed manuscript unfortunately), the pricing for certain services (such as editing and cover design)so I know if something is a good deal or not, not to mention how much I've learned about the process of writing the novels themselves.

So, I thought I would share part of the journey that got me here, by revealing the mistakes I've made as a published author. And there are a good deal of mistakes, and they are some doozies let me tell you. I'm a little embarrassed tbh, but if my sharing can help you know not to repeat them then I will count my time well spent.

So first of all, I'm going to point out that I published my first book when I was fifteen years old. And I knew nothing about anything. I'll readily say that I probably published way too early, but on the other side of the spectrum if I hadn't published then I wouldn't have made those mistakes and I wouldn't have learned to stop making them. And I could very well still be doing the same stupid stuff today if I hadn't already learned not to do it back when I was 15.

So anyway, this series is so that you can reap the benefits of my experience without having to actually live through my mistakes. I'm going to be doing a different post for each of my different series, explaining what I did wrong with each release. This post is focusing on the My Time in Amar and Return to Amar series.

These were two of my first series. I published the first MTiA book, A Week of Werewolves when I was 15, book two A Time of Trepidation came out when I was 16, I rewrote Week of Werewolves at the age of 17, and then RtA book one A Certain Sort of Madness came out when I was 18, then I republished A Time of Trepdiation at 19. That was it for those series until this year (I am now 22) and I finally published the third book in MTiA A Season of Subterfuge, and the final book in RtA A Matter of Curiosity. So anyway, keep this in mind because the way I published them and when I published them is a large part of how I messed up.

Mistake Number One:

I did not get a professional cover when I first published

Ugh, I hate even dragging this up back into open daylight, but this Week of Werewolves' first cover.

I apologize if it is a poor quality picture, I downloaded it off of Goodreads because I didn't even have a copy on my computer, that's how ancient this thing is. I'm like three computers down the road from when this was my cover. Now don't get me wrong, the picture isn't actually that bad... as an art piece. But there's no way this picture that was drawn by my sister and colored by me could really pass as a cover.

Okay, here's the new cover to cleanse the pallet.

Seriously though, unless you are insanely talented in graphic design, just hire a professional cover designer. Some of them can get pretty expensive, but there are far less expensive options that will still look really good and professional. My second and current Week of Werewolves cover cost me $75 dollars. Affordable, gorgeous covers are out there. You just need to know where to look.

Mistake Number Two:

I did not have all the covers done by the same designer

Now, I'll preface this by saying that I think that I did a really good job choosing and designing covers that look good together. And I really, really like my MTiA covers. However, with that said, I will point out that all four of my MTiA covers were done by four different artists.

The first two covers (Week of Werewolves and Time of Trepidation) were Premades meaning that they were already created and up for sale and I happened upon them and decided that they would be a good fit for my books and purchased them. I then had the colors of clothes and hair switched around and my title and name slapped on it. I don't even recall who the designer of my Week of Werewolves cover was, I'm sorry I was like sixteen at the time and that was forever and an age ago. Time of Trepidation was designed by someone called Betibup33. The third cover was custom made by Victoria Cooper who has done a bunch of my other covers, and it was made to try to resemble the other two as much as possible, but obviously there are stylistic differences between designers. And then the last book's cover was done by GetPremads (which makes it sound like it was a Premade but it was actually custom made by a company that usually makes Premades and yeah that definitely sounds confusing when you say it out loud). All of my covers are gorgeous and I love them, but they don't quite fit together as seamlessly as I would like. So, now I only ever go for one designer per series.

But like I said, I still think that my covers look really good together. And they even for the most part look like they are in the same series.

But both of my Return to Amar books were done by the same artist (Victoria Cooper) and they are clearly in the same series. Even straight down to being able to have the same model on the cover. Not to mention all of the same fonts. It just makes that much of a difference.

Mistake Number Three:

I released them before they were ready

As I stated when I mentioned the release schedule of my Amar books, I actually ended up having to rewrite Week of Werewolves and Time of Trepidation and republish them becuase my writing style had changed drastically since writing them and I realized that the way they currently were just wasn't good enough. It was a very infamous decision at the time, I don't know how many times I was asked why I had pulled my books and was rewriting them, but it was a lot.

Mistake Number Four:

I published without anyone else having read my novel

I think my dad read it before I published, but that was about it. No beta/alpha-reader feedback. No editors. After rewriting both Week of Werewolves and Time of Trepidation, I remedied that mistake. I had a crazy ton of beta readers, especially for Week of Werewolves. And even got myself an editor.

Now don't get me wrong, this is less of an issue for me now. I absolutely won't publish a book unless I've had an editor go through it. But I don't always get beta or alpha readers for all my books. And this is because I've really developed as an author and I am confident in my ability to write a story that is cohesive and makes sense. But as a first time teen author, I really just absolutely needed those extra critiques on style and plot.

Mistake Number Five:

I took forever to release the follow-ups

This is the only mistake that I really made for RtA as well as MtiA, but what a doozy it was. Even if I ignore the first versions of Week of Werewolves and Time of Trepidation (published in 2015 and 2016 respectively) since no one really even read those at that time, that still has Week of Werewolves releasing in 2017 and Time of Trepidation in 2019, and Season of Subterfuge not coming out until 2022. That's multiple years between each release, and in that time, people forgot plot points, they forgot what the series was about, they forgot why they were invested in it.

It was even worse for A Certain Sort of Madness that released in 2018. It's sequel A Matter of Curiosity didn't come out until 2022.

In 2017-2019 my Amar books were really quite popular, but by the time I released the next installments in 2022 interest had dropped incredibly. That was quite the mistake on my part. I should have written those books sooner.

And now I'm having to prove to my readers that I can indeed write and publish books in a timely manner so that they aren't left hanging forever for the sequel. To show that what happened with my Amar books was because I was still in the process of even learning how to write.

Mistake Number Six:

I had no online presence

This one isn't actually my fault. You see, I wasn't allowed online till I was seventeen. I first published when I was fifteen. So yeah, there was a rather large gap of time where the only thing I did online was occasionally write posts for my mom's blog. Hard to market a book like that. If I could do it over, I probably would put off releasing either of those books until I was at least seventeen (which I sort of did in that I relaunched Week of Werewolves at that age after I had finished rewriting it), focus instead on getting the rest of the series written in that time so that I don't have to have so much time between releases, and grow in my writing so I don't have to keep rewriting everything I put out there. I wouldn't have worried about publishing until I had a stronger online presence where I could really push my debut, since you only ever really release a debut once (unless you take on another pen name or something).

But ah well, I was young and impatient. And I suppose I wouldn't really be the author I am today if I hadn't made those mistakes then. Still, hopefully this blog post can help keep you from repeating the same mistakes I made so that your releases can go smoother than my first ones did.

Next week, I'll discuss my Winter Cursed era mistakes.