Hello! My name is Heather Kirchhoff. I am the Young Adult author of Fading and The Last Night. Today I’m doing a collaboration with Jacinta Hudson. We are talking about the mistakes we made when we first started out with our writing career. Don’t forget to check out her great post.
Self-publishing started to become a thing when I was a teenager. It’s super easy to do, so I decided to jump in. I realize now that I should have waited. I should have researched and talked to other authors about their experiences. But I didn’t do that. When I published The Last Night I didn’t stop to think about the fact that I should do some research where self-publishing is concerned. It’s important to research everything—from the editing process, to marketing, to beta readers. Book structure is another good one. I’ve had plans to write a book about suicide in hopes of saving some lives since I started writing. It wasn’t until I almost lost someone to suicide that I decided I should get to working on a book that’ll show readers what can happen to someone after one commits suicide. Once one of my classmates killed himself sophomore year of high school—about eight months after I almost lost someone to that—I realized I needed to get to it as soon as possible. I wasn’t following any of the YouTubers I am now for advice. I didn’t know that what I was doing was wrong. I didn’t have anyone in my corner in the publishing world. I was young and didn’t know any better. I was just so excited to publish a book dealing with depression, anxiety and bullying. Now I wish I didn’t jump instead of crawl. The only thing I can do, though, is fix my mistakes. I went through all of my books and fixed them up. I’m slowly learning about how to make an author platform and market my books. I made a lot of mistakes when I started this journey. Not only did I fail with researching, I also didn’t market my book. I talked about it a little on my author page and in a few groups, but that was about it. That doesn’t cut it. You need to have constrictive feedback, and a lot of it. That’s something I didn’t do before I published. I sent TLN to beta readers, but didn’t get a response back from any of them. I figured that meant I was good to go. I was wrong. Next time I publish a book I’m going to be doing things differently. I’m going to market it like it deserves. I’m going to make sure I get plenty of feedback. I’m going to get reviews and people interested before the book is available. If you’re thinking about self-publishing, I strongly encourage you to do your research. You won’t be sorry. Also, make sure you get feedback. Make sure you put your book through critique partners, beta readers, a cover designer, formatter, and a professional editor. Don’t take the short cut. You’ll regret it in the end. Trust me. It’s what I did, and now I’m correcting it. Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! I post every Wednesday. My debut novel is about a girl struggling to cope after a love one dies. It deals with mental illness. You can check out The Last Night here! Feel free to check me out on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. I’d love to interact with you!
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11/21/2018 0 Comments Writing Community TagHello! My name is Heather Kirchhoff. I am the Young Adult author of Fading and The Last Night. Today I decided to join in with the Writing Community Tag that was created by Brittany Wang and Peggy Spencer.
1. What drove you to find a writing community? So I can have support from those who understands what I’m talking about and is willing to help. 2. How did you first start getting involved? By being supportive to other authors. 3. What has been your favorite online platforms for writing community? I love using Instagram. I love all of the pretty pictures. 4. What are some best practices for connecting and interacting with other writers online? Be yourself. Be encouraging. Be supportive. Share your experiences as well. 5. Are there any other platforms or ways to connect that you want to try next? Nope. I’m happy with the ones I have. I don’t need a bunch. 6. Have you made any writing friends in person? If so, how? I haven’t made any in person, but I’ve met a few of my writing friends. It was an amazing feeling. 7. How has the community helped you in your writing journey so far? It shows me that I’m not alone. I have author friends I can talk to who understands my struggles. 8. On what other platforms can people connect with you? (Share your handles/accounts) I’m on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 9. Shoutout some friends and positive forces in the writing community that you think we should connect with! I love Nadege Richards, Bree Vanerland, Kate Marie Robbins, Line F. Nielsen, Genevieve Scholl, and Rue Volley. 10. Promote writing community by tagging friends to do this tag next! I tag anyone that wants to join in. Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! I post every Wednesday. My debut novel is about a girl struggling to cope after a love one dies. It deals with depression, suicide and bullying. You can check out The Last Night here! Feel free to check me out on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. I’d love to interact with you! 11/14/2018 0 Comments What Keeps Me InspiredHello! My name is Heather Kirchhoff. I am the Young Adult author of Fading and The Last Night. Today I’m wanting to talk about what inspires me to keep going with publishing.
Writing is hard. Writing is like trying to pull teeth sometimes. It’s very frustrating and can make giving up seem like it’s the better option. You shouldn’t. Someone out there needs your story. I have days like this as well. Every author does, honestly. So what inspires me to keep going? First of all, the readers. I want to make readers feel all the feels. I want to inspire them to never give up. I want to show them another world. Another thing is my dream. I want to become a full-time author. I also want to be in a bookstore. Let's not forget my fellow authors. I enjoy following authors I admire on social media, and not just for their books. I love seeing where they’re at in the publishing process. I like seeing their real life mixed in with the books they have worked so hard on. But what I really want to see is what they are struggling with. I want to know I’m not the only one who is having a hard time figuring out what this character should do, or how to make the story come together. I also want to see their successes. I always feel so proud and happy for them when I see that this author sold her book, or that one has a book coming out soon. I truly love it. Don't you? It’s nice to be able to know that you’re not alone. Whenever I struggle, I like reminding myself that I’m not the only one who’s been through this. I’m not the only author who’s had to rewrite a book. I’m not the only one who’s started and stopped a lot of ideas. I’m not the only one who procrastinates. I’m not the only one. Neither are you. We can do what we set our minds to. We can write that story. We can edit it a thousand times. We can rewrite as many times as needed. Your book is not going to be done quickly. If it is, then it’s not going to be the best draft possible. No book is ever finished, honestly. Doesn’t matter how long you worked on it. It’ll never feel like it’s perfect. But it is. We just can’t see that. It’s also okay to take your time. You don’t need to publish five books a year. Do what you feel is best for your work. Remember that when you think giving up is the only option. It’s not. Keep trying. Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! I post every Wednesday. My debut novel is about a girl struggling to cope after a love one dies. It deals with depression, suicide and bullying. You can check out The Last Night here! Feel free to check me out on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. I’d love to interact with you! 11/7/2018 0 Comments Self-publishing Pros and ConsHello! My name is Heather Kirchhoff. I am the Young Adult author of Fading and The Last Night. Today I’m wanting to talk about the pros and cons of self-publishing.
For those that don’t know, I am a self-published author. This is my opinion. What are the pros, you might ask? The reason why I chose this path was simply because I wanted to be in charge of everything. It’s great being able to pick your cover, or formatting. To be able to hire the editor you want to work with. To be able to decide your release date. There’s really no limits to this path. You can take as long as you’d like with the entire process. Just make sure you’re doing it right. Don’t rush into publishing. Take your time with writing and editing. Rewrite if you have to. Don’t ignore it if it’s needed. You can also control where you publish the book. You can control if your story gets into bookstores, or libraries. You can control having book signings wherever you want. You can share as much of it as you’d like with excerpts. You also get to decide how many books you send to reviewers. Now the cons… While all of the things I mentioned above are great, there’s also a downside. You’d have to do all of the marketing yourself. It’s on you as the author to make sure the book gets in front of people. There’s all kinds of ways to do that, though. There’s so many marketing websites. You can talk to your local libraries and see about getting a display for however long they decide. You can do giveaways. You can donate to someone else’s giveaway. You can have blogs post your cover reveal or about the book on release day. Just to name a few. Another con is that you have to pay for everything. You can’t edit the book yourself and then just publish it. You shouldn’t create your own cover—unless, of course, you’re a professional cover designer. You need a gorgeous cover on your book in order for it to sell. A lot of readers won’t read a book that has a terrible cover. There’s been so many times that I wanted to read a book based off of the cover alone. I had no idea what the story was about, but I bought it anyway. That should be your goal. But you also need to make sure the storyline isn’t terrible, or that it’s obvious you didn’t hire someone to look over your work. You think someone is going to keep reading even though the grammar is bad? Or the fact that there’s random words in weird places? Or when sentences cut off for no reason? No. They will put the book down. That’s why it’s important to hire a professional editor. Publishing a book isn’t cheap, but it’s definitely necessary if you’re wanting to become a full-time author. Or have success in any way. Plus, you more likely don’t have a team in the beginning. It may take a while to find the right people to work with as well. It took me a few tries before I found my cover designer. You just have to keep going. Don’t give up on your dream. Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! I post every Wednesday. My debut novel is about a girl struggling to cope after a love one dies. It deals with depression, suicide and bullying. You can check out The Last Night here! Feel free to check me out on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. I’d love to interact with you! |
About Me:Hello! My name is Heather Kirchhoff. I am a Young Adult author. I want to give out writing advice and help other authors avoid the mistakes I made. I post twice a month for now. Archives
April 2020
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