The Words That Found Me: My Story as a Self-Taught Writer
From writing my books in spiral notebooks to having an author career with 18 books
They say that everyone has a book in them, and I believe this to be true.
Why?
Because each person has their own experiences and unique take on the world. And in the end, it helps to craft a story unlike anyone else out there.
Writers bloom from veracious readers.
Readers who always have a book in their hands. Who love to dive into different worlds. And who ultimately loves to tell others about what they read.
I was one of these people from a young age.
Unfortunately, unless I was at school with access to a school library, I didn’t have access to books. Mainly because my family couldn’t afford books and they didn’t put much emphasis on the importance of books. The act of owning a bunch of books felt extravagant.
Thankfully, it was the early 2000’s and we had a home computer at my grandmother’s house.
I can’t remember who gifted it to me, but someone gifted me a story-making game I could play on the computer. One where I could write the words and choose a clipart to illustrate the pictures. And it meant the world to me.
To this day, I believe this was my first stepping stone into the writing world.
Fast forward to my high school days, when I would borrow books from friends just to read or check out multiple books from the school library to read my favorite authors.
I managed to collect a few books to keep at home that had been gifted to me by friends. They were worn from being read so many times, but they were mine.
At the time, some of my favorite authors were Sara Dessen, Stephanie Meyer, and Meg Cabot.
One day, I decided I was going to try my hand at writing a story. Now, we didn’t have a computer with a writing app on it like Word, just the Notes app. So, I grabbed a spiral notebook and wrote it by hand.
After I’d nearly finished it, I spent my free time at school typing it up on the computer in the high school library and asked permission to have it printed.
I don’t know what happened to this story, but I remember it being about a girl whose parents were divorced. She and her mom had moved and she was meeting new friends. And later in the book she decided to live with her dad.
Nervous and unsure of who to share it with, I shared it with my mom and my high school English teacher Mr. Vulopas.
My mom lost half the pages and told me she didn’t find it very interesting because the mom seemed like the villain and the dad was like the hero. But my teacher on the other hand pulled me aside and told me he saw potential in the story and that with some editing he thought it could be great.
But, that book would never see the light of day.
Flash forward to after high school graduation and the beginning of college.
I got the urge to write another book, but it was apparent my writing needed work. Evident by my college English professors telling me over and over that my writing needed work on my essays and short stories. One even singled me out during class for how I’d struggled all semester and finally managed a C on one of her papers.
However, I had an idea for a young adult dystopian book, and I figured that if I at least started writing it, a first draft could be edited.
So I gave it a go. And guess what? It took me four years to write that 55k novel.
I asked trusted friends and family to read over it and provide me feedback. And I was surprised at how positive it was. But I knew nothing about publishing or how to do anything else with it, so I let it sit for a year.
My husband knew I wanted to publish a book and he found me this service called CreateSpace (now owned by Amazon KDP).
It was a service you could pay to have them help you publish your book, back when self-publishing was still relatively new. We paid three thousand dollars which bought us: cover creation, grammatical and developmental editing, and my book description, as well as for it to be uploaded to Amazon KDP.
Was it worth it?
In a sense yes. I’d managed to sell 250 copies via word of mouth. But after that, the sales dried up and I only managed to snag 11 reviews.
In the long run, it wasn’t sustainable and I was going to have to find other ways to achieve publication should I write another book. The only problem was, I wasn’t sure I had another book in me.
As time went on and no sales came in for my book, I figured I’d start trying to grow a following on social media to gain traction for my book.
At first, I felt as if I were posting and no one was listening to me. Literally shouting into the void. But after 6 months, something unexpected happened.
Another indie author named Ben McQueeny reached out to me on X (Twitter) and asked if I’d be interested in joining his indie author chat on X.
I accepted and met ten other indie authors who knew a great deal more than I had about publishing. And was astounded I’d paid so much to have my first book published. Better yet, they were willing to give me some insider tips on how to keep my cost of publishing low without sacrificing the quality.
Shortly after this, I tried to build my newsletter and began releasing pieces of a short story called The Backup Superhero to subscribers each week.
Unsure of how this tactic would do and if it would keep readers coming back, I kept on sharing pieces until the end. And to my surprise, my subscribers asked if they could purchase a copy of it and if it would be available for print. This led me to publish my next book, which was the size of a novella and the story that would lead to a series I would become most known for.
Flash forward to today, when I now have 40k followers across my author platform, 18 books published, been a repeat vendor at libraries and local events, and been named a finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards 2025 in Young New Adult Fiction for Secrets They Never Told.
Looking back on my writing career, I have reflected and come to these conclusions:
Meeting and learning from those indie writers changed my career
I should have taken more time to learn the publishing industry before my first book was published
Having a career as a self-published author can prove to be just as significant as that of a traditionally published one
Over my writing career, I’ve learned through research, other authors, and trial and error:
How to spend my budget wisely
How to conduct market research for your target audience, keywords, and genre
How to utilize a newsletter and build it
How to market
Ways to gather reviews
How to grow a following for me on social media
How to create opportunities for myself within my community
New ways to market my products and connect them better with the target audience
Has it been a long road to get here? Yes. But let me tell you, it was worth it.
Just remember these things:
You need to learn the industry and grow with it
You need to learn how to cut your costs without cutting the quality
Network and learn from other authors, they will likely be kind and share some tips
Find ways to create opportunities for yourself (reach out to libraries, pay to be a vendor at events and festivals, and make connections)
Create a publishing timeline and process to help keep everything running smoothly
It takes 3–5 books to grow a readership
Put out quality work
Build your author platform at the beginning (social media and an author website)
If you keep these in mind, you can do all right.