What advice would I give to newcomers?

What advice would I give to newcomers?

Ah, I sometimes wish that well-known authors in my

home country (France) would not gatekeep their journey. Somehow it feels like a secret no one should be sharing. Fortunately for us, indie authors share their knowledge with the rest of us and exchange tips, which honestly helps a lot when navigating the world of publishing.

My journey has also just begun, but I want to give as much as I have learned, and I will continuously share with everyone the things I have learned while navigating this journey. As some of you might know already, I wanted to go through traditional publishing for my novel, No More Tears. I have queried my book, and I am waiting for a reply from them. In the meantime, I also tried self-publishing with my poetry anthology. It's a rough path to be completely honest with you, especially when marketing is not your forte. It's a rough path. It's so disheartening because you feel that whatever you are doing is for nothing, but I promise you that it's necessary legwork in order to build your brand, make yourself known, and be able to speak about your stories to people who want to read them.

The first step is always going to be the hardest to take. You will think that it’s overwhelming and maybe impossible, but trust me, it’s not. You will get the hang of it; you will get familiar, and you will learn along the way. It will become easier and better. You will fall into a schedule, perhaps even get better and quicker at it, and you will start to enjoy it. You will be able to meet new people, connect with them, and find a community of people who will support you. I have been given the advice to open up and join Threads, TikTok, and Instagram. I started with Instagram and then moved from there. I would not add more as it is extremely time-consuming, and I want to devote my time to writing. However, it is important to participate within the community, regardless of what you do. It is important to talk to others, build genuine connections, and make sure that you are actually involved without it becoming another job. I don't want you to become cynical. I don't want you to think that you're losing your time or your mind doing stuff. It is also good to have StoryOrigin as it helps a lot with marketing tools.

Is it easy? Heck no! I'm an introvert and would rather hide and write and hand over the marketing stuff to someone else. But I quickly realized that it was not going to happen that way. I had to put in more work to get my novel out there and make people know me. I had to overcome my issues and my desire to be left alone so I could meet my desire to be known by people. So I did it. I did it, and I put faith in people to actually be kind to me. They don't have to like me or even like what I am doing, but I am fine with them respecting me, and so far I have been blessed with good-willed people. I think it's refreshing to see that we are not struggling alone and that we actually can form a bond with others. I definitely hope to be able to build a community of readers and people who would want to follow my work.

So please, my advice to you would be: don’t give up. Put yourself out there. Be brave. The world deserves to know your inner world and the stories trapped inside your head.

Stay lively, dreamers. ⭐