Heather Holmes's Blog: Cross the Teas and Dot the Eyes

I first conceived of Wings for Your Heart and Never Let Go in February. As soon as the idea came to me, I knew that I had to write it, but I put it on the back burner to focus on more practical and pressing matters: housework, making money, etc. One of my favorite YouTubers said something that struck a chord in me, "You're going to be stuck forever" (if you don't act on your goals and dreams now). The next time the inspiration nagged at me, I instinctively tried to shove the idea back into a drawer for later, and a funny thing happened: I heard her say that line in my head. Again, I tried to tell myself that I had other, more important things to do, and again, I heard her voice calling me out, "That's a scarcity mindset." So I sat down and wrote the first draft, and then I cried because I had finally done it, finally written a children's book as I'd always dreamt of doing--and finally found my voice.

Writing the book was the easy part. As a survivor of trauma myself, I knew already what words people needed to hear to find peace. I just wrote the words that I needed to hear. It did get a bit tricky as I moved towards preparing the print edition of the manuscript, as global distributors prefer a certain number of pages and I was about 20 short. I had to come up with another ten affirmations, which led me to choosing some quotes from writers who came before me for Wings. ChatGPT even offered up a good suggestion or two, and it contributed a couple of the images, too.

Most of the images came from Midjourney, although a few were generated in Canva, I think. The $15 tier just did not product the same results so I invested in the $30 plan, as the personalization it offers can't be beat. I also paid $9.99 for Adobe Express and $15 for Canva monthly. My subscription to these software suites was the bulk of my production costs, and they were well worth it. After generating the pictures in Midjourney, I used Adobe Express to edit and touch them up, ran them through an AI resolution upscaler and file compressor, and designed all my page layouts in Canva.

The first step was to get the ebook out on Amazon, which was easy and free to do in Kindle Create via a PDF that I extracted from Canva. Getting it to other outlets was trickier, as Draft2Digital's formatting was alien to me at first and took some getting used to. I used Google Docs to make a simple docx file, which was much less of a pain than PDF formatting at least. There was a small learning curve, but once I got the hang of it, D2D was almost as easy as Amazon--and also free!

I thought I was ready then to get print copies into bookstores, but I still had a lot to learn. I tried several PDF editors and fumbled around before ultimately choosing to assemble the manuscript in Scribus, which is free. I struggled with random errors for the first week or so, and by the second week, it was a breeze. ChatGPT helped quite a lot with overcoming the different error messages that Scribus threw out at me as well with formatting the jacket.

The jacket! Oh, what a nightmare. I thought the various distributor platforms would be difficult to work with, but it was fairly straightforward to work with Lulu and Bookvault (IngramSpark not so much). This is where the rest of my product costs went, as Lulu has a small fee and both companies requiring authors to order proof copies before distribution will go into effect. I don't blame them. Holding imperfect proofs in my hand made me notice things that I hadn't noticed on screen and made me more determined to perfect the books quickly before any orders were placed.

The majority of the imperfections involved the jacket, though, particularly the spine due to the small book size but also the sizing of the files and alignment of the text and images. This has delayed the release of the hardcover version by weeks. The ebook cover was easy to make, and I got the paperback jacket right the first or second time. It took a few tries to get the Lulu hardback jacket to look right. I finally finished the Bookvault jacket tonight, and it took 10-11 takes to get it right. I am confident that it is perfect this time and will be worth the work and wait.

The reason file formatting is such a complex task isn't because it's extraordinarily difficult or anything. It's not. It's because Lulu, Bookvault, and Amazon all have different guidelines. Lulu makes you add your ISBN barcodes to your book manually yourself, whereas other distributors don't. Bookvault adds the ISBN to the covers but wants you to leave a blank page for it to insert copyright information. Amazon insists that you use KindleCreate. They also use different printing equipment and materials, so the jacket sizing varies from platform to platform. Authors basically need a different manuscript and jacket for every distributor. For me, that was 3 manuscripts and jackets total.

Writers can publish through Amazon alone if we want, but their global distribution network isn't as strong as Ingram Spark, which is preferred by bookstores over Amazon. I found Ingram difficult to work with and chose to pay the small fee for the higher quality service offered by Lulu, which distributes through Ingram's network. Amazon didn't offer hardbacks in the size and shape I wanted, and Lulu is expensive so I also chose to distribute through Bookvault, which lets me offer the hardback to my direct customers at a lower rate than the bookstore Lulu version will cost.

Here is where everyone winces: the cost. The paperback is priced at $12.99 and the hardcover will be priced around $29.99. It sounds like I'm being greedy, but that's as low as I can get it. Merchants expect a 40-55% discount, and some distributors force that. The printing and shipping costs are low, only about $5-7 per book, but everyone involved in the sale has their hand out. I get only $0.83 from global distribution for paperback sales on Amazon. If I price it any lower, I get nothing. I wanted pricing to be as universal as possible, so that is the paperback price everywhere. I am taking a little more per book on the hardback because I'm marketing it as a premium product. It is, after all, eighty pages, forty of which are full-color, full bleed illustrations that span the whole page.

I think I deserve a little profit as compensation for my months of hard work and reimbursement for my monetary investments, especially considering that I am giving Never Let Go away for free at every major online outlet, have given away over 50 copies of Wings, and intend to ultimately donate as many copies as I can to schools and nonprofits at no cost to them once I have garnered the social proof needed to solicit corporate sponsors. That is the stage I am at right now: marketing, the final step of writing, the phase of book-publishing that never ends. Sales and downloads drive rankings. Reviews drive sales and downloads but also build trust the trust needed to secure donations. The first important milestone is 50 reviews, as this is the point at which algorithms at Amazon (and other literary corners of the internet) begin to notice, offer promotions and discounts, and recommend your book in suggestion carousels.

I have only four for Never Let Go, but I have not made much effort to change that as I have been focusing on the launch of Wings. Wings has at least 30 five-star reviews, a couple four-star reviews, and zero bad ones on Amazon for a rating of 4.9, which makes me feel very proud. It even ranks top 100 in one of its categories from time to time. I was so focused on Wings that I never really bothered to track Never's performance. Just this week alone, it has been #1 in two categories and top 5 in a third. It has slid up and down the ranks all week, nearly always staying within the top 10 for all three of its primary categories. I really can't describe what it was like to wake up to that. It really made me feel good about myself, like I'm on the right track and can succeed here. It is more success than most ebooks ever see and honestly the best outcome that I could have hoped for, much better than I'd expected.

I am concentrating my marketing efforts on social media, specifically Facebook (my base), Instagram, and Pinterest, but a little on Twitter and Bluesky. I will branch out to TikTok, YouTube shorts, and FB/Instagram Reels as I learn more about making videos in the future. FB groups are a gold mine, but my fans have been invaluable. I have managed to curate a small following, and direct communication has yielded the best results, just messaging them directly, sending the book over, and asking if they'll read and review it. I also attend in person events, like markets and fairs, where I keep physical copies on hand for customers to read and review, if they're willing. These efforts helped get the ball rolling, and then I started getting organic, unsolicited reviews.

The hardcover should be available finally in a few weeks. By then, I should have racked up the 50+ reviews needed to be taken seriously, and my focus will shift to community outreach. I will begin with counselors, librarians, and nonprofits over summer and go on to include elementary and intermediate schools in the fall. With any luck, I'll eventually make enough progress for the media to find it newsworthy, and businesses will someday be comfortable trusting me with donations. Then I can gift my books to as many libraries as possible and get my books into the little hands of every child who needs them. We can't save them all, but we can fill their precious hearts with hope.

It's been many years since I kept a blog, and I thought it might be a good way to connect with readers and build a loyal audience. As I get older, I find myself doing a lot of reflection but not a lot of talking or writing, and it seems like a waste of good ideas, although it has been a peaceful break from mining my own imagination for content. College was so much reading and writing that after four years I felt completely burnt out on literature. I didn't want anything at all to do with books, which are impossible to avoid as an English major because everyone insists on gifting us books for birthdays and Christmas!

I've written precious little and read maybe a handful of books since graduating five years ago, most of which were audiobooks. I have been busy weathering some tough life challenges and keeping my family afloat financially, which doesn't leave much time or energy for creative pursuits. Things are improving now that my oldest son is working full-time and helping with the household bills. I think I just needed some time to recharge my passion--a mental rest to create the space for inspiration to return. It has certainly come back in full force because I've been a busy bee these last few months!

I set out to produce a simple free ebook to soothe sad children. As I formatted the manuscript for print publishing, I ended up expanding and renaming the book. Now I unintentionally have two books (admittedly just two editions of the same book, an affordable basic version and a higher-priced premium version, but still) and three more planned by the end of the year: another self-help book for kids and inner children and two short fiction stories for children. I also have ten business nonfiction books planned for next year, and then I plan to write romance for a while, a new frontier for me.

Not that I'm crazy about business nonfiction. I just want to get into a position where writing pays the bills as soon as possible so that I can dedicate my efforts to my true passions, fiction and memoir, unfettered by financial woes. The nonfiction and romance genres offer the highest return on investment for my labor and seem like the fastest way to build a steady stream of income. My ultimate goal is to write novels, but I don't think I'm quite there yet skill-wise. All of this is just practice, really, gearing up to face the final boss. I've learned so much already about the self-publishing industry, book formatting, the ins and outs of royalties and rights, etc., but I know I still have a long journey ahead of me.

It's really helped my confidence just getting a finished product out there, finally, a printed book that people can physically own. This is my lifelong ambition, a moment I've dreamed of since I was a little girl falling in love with words through beautiful books like Stellaluna and The Rainbow Fish. It is my secret wish to author a book that wins a Caldecott medal. I have zero artistic talent, though, and I know I won't be winning any awards with AI-generated images. But perhaps someday I will be able to afford a professional illustrator or join forces with a traditional publisher stacked with resources, and then maybe I shall have my coveted prize!

For now, I'm doing my best with the resources available to me. My first two titles turned out great, and you can certainly see my improvement as an author and publisher when comparing the two. Neither tells a story, for they are juvenile nonfiction, meant as self-help for kids and inner children. The books are a healing journey for survivors of all ages who are recovering from abuse, trauma, or loss, pairing affirmations of hope and self-love with soothing scenes of childhood wonder and innocence to guide readers through their difficult emotions to a place of peace.

Never Let Go is available as a free ebook from Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Apple Books, Everand, and many other online outlets or for $1.99 on Amazon. Wings for Your Heart which is priced at $12.99 for paperback and $29.99 for hardcover due to its 80-page length. Originally intended as a deluxe edition, Wings expands upon and magnifies the message with twice as many illustrations and affirmations in a more visually immerse format. Wings for Your Heart is available now as a digital download on Amazon for $4.99 or free with a subscription to Kindle Unlimited, which offers a free 30-day trial. Paperback and hardcover copies go on sale at bookstores on 05/15/2025!

The project is very personal to me because a lot of my family members and close friends had traumatic experiences as children that continue to haunt them as adults. I personally endured physical and verbal abuse as a child, and as an adult, I've experienced SA and DV. I struggled with depression during my teens, primarily due to my mother's mental illness, and well into my twenties, during which time I was a single mother of two weathering the greatest recession since the Great Depression. I am diagnosed with PTSD, OCD, social anxiety, and bipolar disorder--although I suspect this is a misdiagnosis given how prevalent autism is in my family and I meet every diagnostic criteria in the DSM5. My family history is also rife with anxiety disorders, and my mother was bipolar with paranoid schizophrenia. Awareness and support for neurodivergence and trauma recovery are very important to me.

I think people shy away from discussing mental illness and trauma with kids, preferring to leave it to professionals like psychologists and school counselors, who were never much help to me, my children, my brothers--or anyone else in my family, really. Books saved me as a hurting kid who felt isolated and alone. Fiction was my preferred method of escapism, slipping into magical new worlds with feminist princesses and talking dragons. Those stories didn't heal the pain inside of me though. They only distracted me from it. Like many survivors, I was plagued by self-blame and poor self-esteem. I needed a lot of reassurance and validation that I was not getting from the world around me. I had to find it within myself, and it took many years. I really needed a book like this as a kid. Hell, I still need to hear these words as an adult sometimes.

It means a lot to me to share these words with others. I cried while writing them, and I'll probably shed more tears when I finally hold the books in my hands. I never thought I'd actually make it here. I really didn't. I wanted to and certainly believed I was capable, but it just seemed that life was determined to stand in my way and derail every plan. Now here I am. I am a writer. I am a children's book author. I have become who I set out to be. Even if I achieve nothing else in my whole life, if my light burns out tomorrow, I will still have left something behind, this one thing, my love letter to the world, to the children within us all. You really can do anything if you work hard enough long enough. We are magical beings with divine power in every heart.