Life is complicated. I think if anything, that’s what it’s meant to be. It’s hard, it wears you do, it’s designed to. Life won’t just be handed to you.
What a depressing way to open a blog, right? Well, welcome to the mental state of Emily for the past couple of weeks. She’s having a good time in life, but she’s realised that life isn’t going to be handed to her. That’s the reality of it.
Life is uncertain. And, I should probably start making more of an effort. For the past few years I’ve been living off the idea that my life will filter into place without me having to do much. Only now do I realise that this is not the way I should be thinking about my life.
So, for today’s blog, I’m going to talk a bit about my to-do-list where I talk through my plans for the future and try to figure them out myself at the same time.
Apart from the obvious: get a car, get a house, get married and have a family, I have a rough idea of what I want to do with my future.
This mostly revolves around the idea of having a job, preferably full-time at some point, however I’m not really complaining about a good part-time jobs as well. In order to build a financially stable future I need to start saving, and I need to be responsible with money (which I’d like to think, to an extent, that I am). However, the steps to building my future are woven into my financial stability.
I mean, you can’t get a car, or a house, or anything like that without spending money. First you’ve got the money for driving lessons, then buying the car, then the monthly insurance. I’m not entire sure how houses work, or flats, but I know it’s also going to cost money. And every step after that? Well, the reality of it is, that it’s going to be expensive.
However, this blog isn’t about my financial stability – at least, it’s not meant to be. Instead, it’s about the future of my writing, and the possibilities my life might hold.
As you all know, I’m an author. Finally, after several months of writer’s block, I managed to finished editing Detonation (my fourth book) and print it ready for my Nana and Uncle (thank you both so much for everything you’ve done when I comes to my books) to proof read, and just to read in general. That was two days ago, and I think that’s what really highlighted my need to get my arse into gear.
I currently have several problems when it comes to my writing:
My publishing platform, Amazon, makes it very difficult for readers to find my work. This, as a result, means my book sales are very low and definitely aren’t good enough to support my dreams to become a full-time author. Therefore, what I’ve learnt from this, is that I’m going to have to start looking into a new publishing platform, something other than self-publishing, and hope that people can find and enjoy my books.
My books need proof-reading. Yes, I have just mentioned that I have people proof-read my books, but when you’re reading your own work or someone else’s, sometimes it’s easy to skip over simple mistakes such as grammar mistakes and spelling errors. It’s just a fact of life. It’s also why my books aren’t edited to perfection (but then, nothing is ever perfect).
I am, most likely, targeting my books at the wrong audience. Now, I hadn’t given this much thought until the other day when my mum pointed out that my books probably aren’t selling because of the fact that I’m trying to direct them at an audience who won’t care to read them. I don’t know who the audience I need to target them at is, but it’s going to probably be an adventure to find this out.
My website needs revamping. At the moment, it is just short of a disaster. My dad did an amazing job with the layouts and the colours, but now it’s outdated, and I really need to look into fixing it up and turning it into something more ‘Emily’. I was thinking about starting from scratch, and finding a completely new website platform, but I’m still unsure as I want to keep the same domain name.
Unfortunately, my website is not the only thing that needs revamping. I also need to look into changing the covers of my books. Not to something completely different, at least not really. I just need to lighten the covers which I messed up and maybe spice them up a bit so they’re able to attract the target audience I should look into pushing them at.
One of my other downfalls is social media. I suck at social media. I don’t know if it’s my natural instinct to hide my real self, or whether I just don’t like the whole idea of using a platform where people can easily spread hate. I just don’t like it. In all honesty, I don’t know how to use Facebook properly (I know you’re not meant to post on there everyday), and I also have no clue about social networking platforms such as Tumblr – if it’s still a thing – Twitter, Pinterest, etc. All I really know how to use is Instagram, and it’s clear that a good majority of my readers don’t come from there (although quite a few of my supporters do. Hi).
Along with social media, I need to actually start doing some real-life marketing. This would mostly be centred around my hometown. I need to look into leaflets, local papers, local book groups, etc. There’s basically just a lot I need to think about when it comes to marketing.
Something else I need to start doing is giveaways. Yup, you read that right. I have ten copies of both my first and my second book sitting in boxes in my room ready to be given away. (Although the first books have messed up covers – refer to point 5). I need to figure out shipping cost, especially international shipping cost, and all the specifics. But it’s something I’m going to have to do in order to get people reading my books and hopefully writing reviews (which is how my books are seen).
I need to start doing more in my spare time!
So, yep, that’s a lot I need to do in, probably, a short amount of time. I hope you all enjoyed reading about the reality of being a young author.
Thank you.
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The social media I was mentioning can be found below:
Instagram – @emilybrownauthor
Facebook – @emilybrownauthor
Website – www.emilybrown.org.uk
I also have Spotify, if you want to check out my playlist. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2rfakaE1iuqx5aMgL259L0?si=dxaAT1lpSSWLkLJlp9XEEA