Why now?
With a full-time job, a toddler and everything that comes with adulting in 2025, what on earth inspired me to self-publish my debut romantasy novel this year?
The one New Year’s resolution that I might actually keep.
I promised myself, on 31st December 2024 that I would get my debut novel published in 2025. Naively, I thought all that would be involved would be polishing off my manuscript and finding an agent. Two simple steps. Easy peasy. Well, neither step has worked out exactly like I planned.
Step 1: Finishing my manuscript.
I started writing my first draft in March 2024, finished it in June 2024. Just as I went back to work full-time. The second took me until the end of the year. So I assumed, that New Year’s Eve that I was pretty close…
Then I attended an editing course, the Advanced Summer School course ran by the Cheshire Novel Prize. It was eye-opening. A whole host of new concepts to understand and explore. Interiority, dialogue, ‘show not tell’, filler words and more. Over the course of a couple of months I interrogated my whole novel and whole sections were re-written again and again.
Interiority (detailing a characters inner thoughts and feelings) became my nemesis. Too often I’d skipped over the emotional reaction to get to the action. And working within a tight word count in order to keep my novel commercially viable was a challenge. But I persevered. In fact, I’m still not 100% sure I’m done - I think I could keep improving indefinitely - but I do know that I have a stronger manuscript as a result.
In April, I decided that enough was enough. I wanted to get the ball moving on publishing so on to step 2.
Step 2: Find an agent
Agents have wish lists. Quite prescriptive ones. So, as I scoured the internet, collecting webpages and details of potential agents, I set up a spreadsheet to keep track. This is back in my comfort zone; excel and colour-coding, research and strategy. I thoroughly enjoyed detailing out a plan of attack.
Once I had twelve agents listed and all of their requirements, I sent off my query letter, sample chapters and synopsis.
Within three days, I had my first rejection. By the next week I had another and a third by the end of the month. Halfway through May and I was still waiting on another nine responses and had half-heartedly starting drafting book two. Instead of committing to writing regularly though, I was browsing the internet for more agents to query. But doing more of the same and expecting a different response is madness so when my local writer’s group had a literary agent give a talk about what they look for so I turned up to the meeting, ready to learn what I could change for round two.
The talk was eye-opening, the value of an agent abundantly clear. They are masters of the industry and can be an author’s strongest advocate. However, there were two clear issues for me. One, a significant amount of creative control is given up when you agree to a contract with a publisher via an agent. The publisher will have the final say on the title of the book, suggest potentially large edits, even changing the story. Two, the timescales involved, it would take years, not months for my book to be published - that is if I sign with an agent and then sell my book to a publisher. But my novel is a ‘romantasy’ novel. The genre is exploding at the moment, thanks to ‘BookTok’ where books are going viral. I couldn’t afford to miss out on the trend. So these timelines wouldn’t work for me, despite me appreciating the value of an agent. Plus, after pouring my heart into this novel for over a year, I couldn’t bear to place it into someone else’s hands just yet…
Pivot to Step 3: Self publishing journey
Deciding to self-publish felt easy but I had no idea where to start. Thankfully, the chair of my local writer’s group put me in touch with some amazing professionals to kick start the journey. I have an editor, a type-setter and a graphic designer who will be designing my cover, marketing materials and website branding. As I speak with all these talented people, it’s starting to feel like it all could come together.
So what’s next?
I’ve set myself an ambitious goal of publishing my novel by September. Why September? Honestly, because September always feels like more of a fresh start to me than January. It’s the start of a new academic year and as the nights get darker, the days draw shorter, I’m hoping more of you will want to dive deep into the moody, tempestuous, politically charged world of Trevesiga.
Until then, I’ll be posting about my writing journey, starting from the very beginning and teasing spoilers and updates on my debut novel: Aubade Rising.
