I found a house that offered me an advance. Yay! We had some amazing talks, I felt so freaking good about this. SO. GOOD. I was getting a book trailer! It was AMAZING.

Until it wasn't. The week of my ebook release, the publisher went silent. I emailed about once a month asking if everything was okay. I'm generally an understanding person, you know? But nothing. No response. Six months in, I'm told "I'll explain soon." Nothing.

About a year in, we communicated again.

Part Thirteen

After leaving, I wondered if I did the right thing. Often. My mental health was suffering majorly from this formula, and I couldn't keep up. But I thought "maybe I just can't hack it." All of the terrible self-doubt.

Lesson 7: SERIOUSLY. Trust your gut. Don't write what everyone else wants you to write. Book trends are cyclical. Just do you, boo.

Finally, while all of this was happening, I had my biggest CF of a house at the same time.

Part Twelve

Then we were encouraged to write to trend. To trust that the really low quality covers were industry standard! That the object of the game was to pound out a book a month and to keep them between 20k-30k. Maybe 40k at most. To spam the social media with links because that's how you get sales!

I started drowning trying to fit all of these expectations. Drown. I lost my will to write because I was trying to do too much at once. I lost my voice. I bailed.

Part Eleven

This was one of those started out great places. Then the red flags appeared about six months in. There were a lot of favorites and cliques in that house. I was told my book was great, then later one of the beta readers complained it was "too long" at 80k length, so the publisher said: WE NO LONGER ACCEPT BOOKS OVER 60k! Which meant I had to gut my later books in the series that were already written. Lots of story content was wiped out.

But wait...there's more!

Part Ten

From there I met a wonderful publisher for that book and that book is still at home with them today. Sales are terrible, but that book has been nominated for awards and it has a firm fanbase all the same. I mean, in the indie world.

I dabbled in self-publishing for a little bit after that. It was fun. Then a friend recommended a publishing house with one of her other writer friends, so I decided to throw some of my old stuff back out there. Cautiously...

Part Nine

Why? How? Because they had done work on her book and then dropped it out of the blue, much like mine. And they wanted compensation for the work they did. She told them to screw off. But it's always made me wonder. Maybe this company was a scam and it wasn't just me?

Lesson 5: THEY WILL TRY TO SCAM YOU.

Lesson 6: You will make AMAZING friends.

I rewrote the manuscript back in 1st POV. I kept my male MC. The book ended up better that way.

Lesson 7: TRUST YOUR GUT.

Part Eight

I was told "we're going in a new direction" and "this just isn't what we thought" and I thought for SURE that I was a failure and I sucked at life and writing. I was the worst. I was a shame of a woman for writing something offensive. Etc.

Then I met one of my local writing buddies who also had contracted through them. She messaged me out of the blue asking to meet for coffee. A beautiful friendship began that way, but she told me her abuse story. They tried to get $1500 from her.

Part Seven

Something about wanting to be on trend and how books about guys don't sell that well, even though they told me they wanted to publish books for teen guys to try to get them reading more?

Later this company would focus only on the girl power.

From there, the editor slammed my manuscript, called it unfeminist because I had a jerk MC who said things that weren't always PC. And then I was just...dropped. No ask to fix/defend the comments. Nothing. Just...dropped.

Part Six

I think I stayed with them for maybe a year. Sales were bad because I didn't know how to market.

Lesson 4: Did you know you have to do your own marketing pretty much ALL THE TIME? They won't be selling your book for you. So either hire someone, or do the work yourself.

Publisher 3 was a potentially abusive situation. They acquired me on a concept. They didn't actually read my samples. They demanded I change from 1st POV to 3rd. Go from male MC to female.

Part Five

Anyway, some stuff happened on a personal level and I decided we weren't a good fit anymore. I took my rights and pursued an agent. Alas, the agent wasn't interested in that particular work. Probably because it was already published.

Lesson 3: Once it's out in the world, it's out. No take backs. Think carefully before hitting that publish button. Think about those overall goals.

Then I moved on to publisher number two... Nothing big happened here. Just not a good fit.

Part Four

Anyway, things weren't terrible, but I cried through all of my edits (totally normal). Then my book was released and stayed with this house for a while until they rebranded and started putting out more books than they could actually support. I didn't feel like an author, I felt like a number.

Lesson 2: Sometimes, they do just want the numbers. Be careful and make sure you get the attention you deserve.

Part Three

We went back and forth about that for a while. I refused, she refused to accept my refusal. I almost lost the contract, and that's her perogative, so that was fine and all, though confusing.

Lesson 1: They don't always read your book when they acquire you. Sometimes they are just happy for the acquisition and have other ideas.

After a back and forth, I finally won, but I had to make him a LITTLE more masculine, then smut up my romance scenes (keep in mind this was a YA book).

Part Two

Okay #writingcommunity , I've decided to share my story. My publishing journey began in 2010 when ebooks were really starting to boom and indie publishers were changing the game. I'd done a twitter pitch to a company, and they wanted me. I was soooooo excited. Contract wasn't terrible. My book went into editing, and that's when things started to go south. The owner of the house edited my first book. She demanded I make my cinnamon roll beta male into an Alpha.

Part One

S2: Day 134 (499)
Word Count: 0
Total: 43607

S2: Day 135 (500)
Word Count: 0
Total: 43607

Did a lot of reading! A lot of thinking.

Let's see how many books i can finish this weekend, shall we?

Cuddling with this tiny fluff ball this morning.

Today I'm anxious about the day job. I get this way a lot for no particular reason. I think it's because I just want to do well, you know? Because I like my job and the people I work with.

My agenda for the day is to get through that, then clean my house a little, and then it's off to go see my parents.

I'm not even going to think about words until Monday. Even that will be a big "maybe".

@Dita Yes, I have a lot of excess, and I've lost a chunk of it over the past year. The last thing I want is to rush the process by doing a fad and have the results not stick. Because if I can't do it for the rest of my life, chances are I'll be reversing progress.

We'll see. I don't want to bog everyone down with my "to do" lists, and all that other stuff. I thrive on lists, but I understand for outsiders they can be tedious and annoying.

But I might talk more candidly about things like fitness progression and other accomplishments. I've got 30-40 pounds to lose, and I need somewhere to talk about it where I'm not shamed or told to do Whole 30. You do you, but it's just not a good fit for me, K?

I'm thinking of checking in with more daily accountability things. Because that's one thing I like about SM. There's someone to share with, and those people--usually--are encouraging, etc. One reason I've always shied away from sharing too many goals is because people I know in the real world are usually on my SM, and I don't want them to know how much I weight, how messy my house actually is, and other embarrassing details about me.

On CoSo, I only know 1 person. And she's the coolest. So...