Another year, another update, and whilst a lot has happened, I am not going to go into a lot of detail because too much time has passed, and so I will do what I've been threatening to do for years and keep a blog post short. Here are some bullet points to briefly cover the events of the last six or so months:
- Not long after my last blog post, I returned to my day job after the furlough period (I had 18 months off – I know, mad) and for around two months, my life was work work work and there wasn't much time for anything else. Thankfully it calmed down in November, and I have a lot of gratitude for my day job. I obviously want to write for a living, but I feel very lucky that my employers are amazing and my job is very interesting.
- After a lot of trial and error, my books Curing my Incurable Eczema, Stuff I'll Tell You To Do That I Won't Do Myself and Thirty-Minute Tales are now available not just on Amazon, but other well-known ebook retailers like Apple and Google Play Books. I have also used Draft2Digital to publish the ebooks on even more platforms including Nook and Kobo, and for ebook distribution into libraries. Soon, when I have a spare minute (don't know when that blessed minute will arrive), I am planning to use IngramSpark to get my paperbacks on multiple platforms (and in libraries).
- My Weighting to Live series still hasn't been republished as I'm waiting for the cover designer to finish all the covers for them, but now I'm pleased they aren't finished as I've been able to focus on all the other book projects currently surrounding me like a force field. I am also completely in love with what the cover designer has shared with me so far so I think they'll be worth the wait.
- Whilst all this madness has been going on, in my last post, I mentioned that my book on my Trichotillomania journey was going to be republished with Welbeck (after being published with Trigger since 2018). I am not going to elaborate much on this, but I'll simply say that I deeply regret ever going with Trigger, and at first I thought publishing with Welbeck might be a good idea, but I soon realised it wasn't and instead better for me to get my rights back. And so, after a bit of back and forth, they officially reverted to me on 2nd November 2021. I have not even covered the work I did on this book when I thought I was going to go with Welbeck last September, which took up around a month. The irony of it all is that I'm still a bit triggered when I think about the whole experience publishing it with other companies, but to put a positive spin on it all, lesson learned, and I am excited to share that I self-published the book this week with a slightly amended title and I have called it My Date with a Shaver. More details and purchase options can be found on my BOOKS page. After lots of work this year getting it back to its original form, I am so pleased with it and it was worth the blood, sweat and literal tears.
- After getting my rights back, and feeling quite overwhelmed by everything I had to do, on the 5th and 6th November last year, my mum helped me write an action plan which made everything suddenly look less scary, and ever since then, I have been ticking things off and amending the list as things evolve and change.
- In unrelated news, half of my spare time that isn't taken up with book stuff has been dedicated to TSW awareness, and whilst it is not a business or something I make any money from, it is a cause I am deeply passionate about, and so I have been writing lots of long blog posts and doing what I can to stop people suffering from a completely preventable iatrogenic condition. I think sometimes that if I hadn't done what I had with TSW stuff, I'd be further ahead in my book career, but sometimes money and success aren't important if you are fighting for something you believe in with all your heart, and I feel very lucky that between writing and TSW awareness, I have found two passions that I love and care deeply for, so that is all that matters and with writing, I'll get there eventually and the TSW awareness is too close to my heart to stop doing it. So there you go.
- Back to all things books, I am waiting for a magical time in the future when all these old existing book projects and series are done so I can finally work on something else and look at properly getting to grips with marketing.
And so, all in all, the future feels very bright and I feel so excited about this year and what is going to happen, but at the moment, a lot of my thoughts go to the incredibly brave people in Ukraine and this senseless war, so more than anything, I am glad to have a roof over my head and safety.
Until next time
Cara x
