2021 was one crazy year full of new experiences, milestones, and career highlights. Through it all, my biggest lesson was to not be afraid of taking risks and asking for help. Even if you fail the first time around, you’ll learn something from going through with it. You’ll be surprised that sometimes what you gain from your failures are actually more valuable than what you gain from your successes.
With regards to self-publishing, I’ve learned that marketing a book not easy and even if you follow someone’s strategy, it might not be successful for you. Unfortunately, I haven’t cracked the code yet, but the encouraging words from my fellow authors was to just keep writing. Fortunately, books are your legacy, so even if it’s five years down the road, there’s no expiry date to marketing your work. Another lesson I learned as a self-published author is that it’s absolutely okay to write in multiple genres. Although I enjoy writing young adult novels, I found that writing about heavy topics like death and illness are tough to market. I plan to explore other genres and topics in the coming year.
Below is a summary of my top milestones from 2021:
- Becoming a bestselling author for my debut novel, ‘Hold on please, Emily’
- Creating the accompanying novel soundtrack, ‘Songs of Hope,’ with Kromatix_
- Published 8 editions of this digital magazine, ‘Hold On’
- Being a part of the editing team for 50 bestselling books
- Quoted on the back cover of a book: Porsha Union’s ‘My Own Strength’
- Facebook and Instagram author pages now have over 500 follows
- Fundraised over $500 for Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada from book sale profits and donations
- On pace to have blogged for 365 days straight
Thank you everyone for your support and all the best in 2022. My biggest goal for 2022 is to publish more books. I’m hoping to publish one before I celebrate my 1-year anniversary post-launch for ‘Hold on please, Emily,’ and at least three by the end of 2022. Let’s see where 2022 will take us.
Happy New Year!