{"id":22354,"date":"2019-11-08T03:00:25","date_gmt":"2019-11-08T11:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writersfunzone.com\/blog\/?p=22354"},"modified":"2019-11-01T05:23:02","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T12:23:02","slug":"reflections-on-my-first-year-of-being-published-by-keri-kruspe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writersfunzone.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/08\/reflections-on-my-first-year-of-being-published-by-keri-kruspe\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on My First Year of Being Published by Keri Kruspe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Reflections<\/a>Let\u2019s welcome back monthly columnist Keri Kruspe<\/a> as she shares with us \u201cReflections on My First Year of Being Published.\u201d Enjoy!<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

October 2019 marks the one-year anniversary of my publishing debut.<\/strong> An Alien Exchange<\/i><\/b><\/a>. When I pressed the button \u201cpublish,\u201d to say I was nervous, scared, and overwhelmed would be an understatement.<\/p>\n

What if I did it wrong? What if the book got bad reviews? What if I was scorned\u2026mocked\u2026ridiculed?<\/p>\n

\"emoticon-thoughtful\"<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What if they didn\u2019t like me?<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n

I hyperventilate thinking about it.<\/p>\n

Being Published: A Look Back\u2026<\/h2>\n

Publishing my first book didn\u2019t happen overnight, which I know is pretty common.<\/p>\n

I actually wrote (and completed) my first novel in 2008 and even sent numerous queries to publishers. Needless to say, no one took a bite. And I had no idea why.<\/p>\n

Discouraged, I let go of my dream.<\/strong> It wasn\u2019t until ten years later I found myself ready to try again. But this time, I was determined to find out why my previous novel bombed so bad.<\/p>\n

One of the first things that was different was the industry itself.<\/p>\n

Self-publishing is a whole lot different today than it was in 2008. Now there are numerous avenues of training and publishing — various tools on how to write a successful novel and on how publish and market it.<\/p>\n

When the writing bug hit again,<\/strong> I spent two years stumbling around, trying to learn the art of writing fiction.<\/p>\n

Having only written in a professional atmosphere (no emotion, just the facts), fiction proved to be harder.<\/p>\n

\"horse-laughing\"<\/a>I arrogantly believed since I was an avid reader (I read anywhere from five to ten books a month), all I had to do was complete the first draft and I\u2019d have a masterpiece ready for the world to gush over.<\/p>\n

No\u2026that\u2019s okay\u2026I\u2019ll wait until you stop chuckling.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ahem<\/i>, anyway, thinking I was all that, I eagerly asked fellow authors to read my stuff and entered several contests.<\/p>\n

The main critique I got back was my POV (point of view)<\/a> was all over the place.<\/p>\n

That can\u2019t be right.<\/strong> I was following the example of several books I\u2019d read that had the point of view intermingle with each other. Why was that wrong?<\/p>\n

Groaning, I went back to the drawing board.<\/p>\n

In a fit of orneriness, in my new creation I labeled each scene whenever I changed POV. (If you read any of the three books in my An Alien Exchange series<\/a>, you\u2019ll notice the first name of each character at the beginning of a scene \u2013 with pretty curlicues and everything.)<\/p>\n

Next Up on Being Published<\/h2>\n

And then the next big critique was\u2026 you guessed it\u2026 SHOW, DON\u2019T TELL (huh?).<\/p>\n

I had no idea what that meant, much less how to do it.<\/p>\n

Even now, I\u2019ll find myself catching various opportunities to delve deeper in \u201cshowing\u201d as I edit.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I look for \u201cdescriptive\u201d words (i.e. overwhelm: if I see something like that, I know I have to \u201cshow\u201d what the character is doing\/feeling instead of using the word).<\/p>\n

To better understand my chosen craft, I worked with several online courses as well as enrolling in Barany\u2019s School of Fiction<\/a> (which I still take and participate in the bi-monthly calls).<\/p>\n

From start to finish, it took me three years to go from an idea to a finished product I could be proud of.<\/p>\n

Award-Winning Novelist<\/h2>\n

As a matter of fact, the first book won the SFR (Science Fiction Romance) award in 2018 for \u201cBest Dream to Nightmare\u201d plot and has received a 5-Star review from Readers\u2019 Favorite. Not to mention 11, 5-star reviews on Amazon.<\/p>\n

\"2018<\/a>\"5star-shiny-web\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

What\u2019s Been Accomplished Since Publication<\/h2>\n

Looking back at the last twelve months since I\u2019ve been published, what have I accomplished?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Published three full length novels.<\/li>\n
  2. One novella completed and used as a reader magnet<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  3. Finished the first draft on my next novel.<\/li>\n
  4. Newsletter up and running monthly.<\/li>\n
  5. Established Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter author accounts.<\/li>\n
  6. My website not only up and running, but I update it weekly.<\/li>\n
  7. Completed around 90% of the training courses I\u2019ve signed up for.<\/li>\n
  8. Created a way to keep track of my training, marketing, editing, and writing goals.<\/li>\n
  9. Built ads for FB, Bookbub, and Amazon.<\/li>\n
  10. Joined three blog tours; entered each of the books in several sweepstakes and newsletter swaps.<\/li>\n
  11. Increased my subscribers for my newsletter to 250+.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I do all of this while holding down a full-time job (see my previous article on writer\u2019s burnout<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

    What About Sales?<\/h2>\n

    I admit I\u2019m not going to quit my job any time soon. But that\u2019s okay\u2026I\u2019m in this for the long haul.<\/p>\n

    As Nicholas Erik says in his manual \u201cThe Ultimate Guide to Marketing,\u201d<\/a> on average it takes releasing 4-6 books a year for 3 to 5 years to become a full-time author.<\/p>\n

    Even so, I\u2019m proud of what I\u2019ve done, even though my sales have steadily gone down after the release of Ki\u2019s<\/i> Redemption<\/i><\/a> at the end of May.<\/p>\n

    Hindsight on Being Published for the Last Year<\/h2>\n

    \"look<\/a>Here\u2019s where hindsight is twenty-twenty. I should have had a reader magnet ready to go before<\/i> I published my first book. Instead I waited until the third book was published before I tackled that beast.<\/p>\n

    Working on the novella took me most of the summer and I released it late July. Too bad it wasn\u2019t a published book; it would have given me a needed \u201cboost\u201d at the various platforms.<\/p>\n

    However, the book has had 573 downloads year-to-date\u2026and that ain\u2019t nothin\u2019 to sneeze at.<\/p>\n

    A Forward Reflection<\/h2>\n

    I have to say I\u2019m looking forward to 2020.<\/p>\n

    Every day I get closer to realizing my dream of being a full-time author.<\/p>\n

    As I work on my brand awareness, I find there are some things I do enjoy more than others:<\/strong><\/p>\n