July 4th, 2019, will forever hold a place in my heart. Not only because it’s America’s birthday, but also because it was the day my very first novel went live on Amazon for everyone to see.

I was driving down the road, my husband in the passenger seat, our kids loud and happy in the backseats of our minivan when my husband said, “Pull over, pull over!”

We’d just had lunch with my mother-in-law and were starting the long trip home when I happened to put the van in park outside some random teenage pregnancy prevention center in the desolate downtown area of some city I’d only ever driven through.

There it was, Beholden To Balance: Initiate by Cilla Raven. The novel I’d been working on for months was for sale right there on my husband’s cell phone screen where anyone could find it.

It started like this:

I love to write. There were times when I would get an urge to write, and I would, but those words were never destined to live anywhere, but my laptop or some random journal for the rest of eternity. They were just for my own enjoyment; a release of random thoughts and faraway places, escapism in one of its best forms.

But one day… multiple days and instances, if I’m being honest… my husband insisted I should write a book. After reading some of my crazy musings, he thought I had something worth putting out there. I didn’t believe him at first, of course, but it did place the idea in my mind to fester and grow until it could no longer be ignored.

Fast forward to when I’d scrapped the manuscript I’d been working on five times, and I was very close to giving up the dream entirely.

I’m a wife and a mother of five kids, you guys; five kids I homeschool. Handling all that entails, along with trying to write and publish my own book, was a monumental undertaking; one that seemed impossible at the outset.

I scoured the internet, hoping I’d be able to find some way of figuring out how to manage it all. There were a ton of helpful resources, but none more so than the vlog I found from one of my favorite authors, Sarra Cannon.

She has a plethora of information and videos for people looking to go the self-publishing route like I was. You can see her channel on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCasYwEzMc7tjKuAS-vtDYPw. I watched her videos and was so inspired, I took her HB90 Bootcamp. Basically, the boot camp taught me how to break down my goals into manageable tasks; ones that would eventually lead me to my ideal life being a published author. Using Sarra’s method, I was able to plan out how I was going to publish my manuscript from scratch. I can’t recommend it enough.

There are so many details and tasks that go into self-publishing. Ones that I had to learn because I had no idea what I was doing. Honestly, I still don’t, but I’m getting there, lol. It’s definitely not as simple as just sitting down and writing a book, that’s for sure. There’s writing the book itself, of course, but there’s also the matter of plotting, editing, and proofing it. Cover art and beta readers. Blurbs, keywords, launch strategies, and marketing. Plus, a million other things I had no idea about. If you want to learn more about the specific steps I took to self-publish, leave a comment down below, or email me through my contact page and I’ll make sure to do a blog and put that info out for you guys.

It took me about three months to pull everything I’d learned together and hit that publish button on Amazon. I was so nervous and scared, it was ridiculous. However, I also knew that I had accomplished something I never thought I could do. I’d written a book; one I was proud of.

It might not be everyone’s cup of tea or what they want to read, but it was what I wanted to read. It was the story I wanted to tell; the world I saw in my head brought to life on a page. Or a couple hundred pages as it were, lol.

I’m steadily working on book 2 in the Beholden To Balance Series, and I am going to continue to learn and improve my craft as I go. There are a gazillion stories and scenarios in my head just waiting to be put to use, and I can’t wait to bring them to life, to hit that publish button again and again.

I hope you stay tuned for everything I have coming up, and if you haven’t gotten your copy of Beholden To Balance: Initiate yet, you can buy the paperback version here on my website, or the digital version on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TSK5ZTT.

Thanks for reading!

Permalink