As a busy college student, with many hopes and dreams waiting to be tackled, I knew self-publishing was the best way for me to get my start.
The Backstory
Since I was in high school I knew I wanted to write a book. I love fictional dystopian novels, anything by Rick Riordan, coming of age/romance, and poetry. I've tried my hand at drafting all of them, but poetry always came the most natural and immediate for me. By the time I'd ended my first year of college I had several poems that I wanted to share but I didn't know how. I'm more of introverted person so I wasn't looking for open mic nights and I didn't even know I wanted to post my work on social media and have the world look into my work, my soul and potentially hate it. I was scared. I had to decide what parts of myself I wanted to keep and what parts I want to show. With my book (Gensis) I end up showing a lot, if not everything.
How I Published & Why
In the summer of 2018 I began to collect all poetry into one document with the intent of creating a book. I was preparing myself on how I was going to managing shopping the book to publishing houses and how I would get an agent (not to mention how I would pay this agent!). All these questions google answered and shot down my hopes. But, through that search I came across the idea of self-publishing; which hadn't occurred to me before. A girl whom I went to high school with had just self-published her own poetry book and it was well received. That made me want to look into it even more and so I asked her how she did it (her Insta: @nicolanegrita). That's how I came across Lulu! Easy upload, easy process, and I had all control over my content. Now, in November 2019 (over a year after the start of the book) I am a published author and I've never felt better! For the past year I've wrangled with thoughts of: which poems to include, do I want to be seen by an audience, can I handle the success or non-success that may come from this, will people like what I have to say, etc.
I've reached a place where all those questions were answered with: yes's, maybe's, and "let's just start here". I am just happy to get my foot into the arena and just have a start somewhere! The hardest part is initially getting out there and this is only the beginning! I encourage any aspiring authors, entrepreneurs, creatives to just look into the ways that you can put yourself out there, big or small, and create a name for yourself. The possibilities are endless.