eFrog Press is delighted to share the publishing journey of another indie author. Lindsay Woolman is a freelance writer and young adult (YA) author who has always wanted to write books for teenagers. Her favorite kinds of books are ones that make her laugh and make her cry. She loves when she can get so engrossed in a story that she simply cannot put it down. She likes fast moving, funny books with twists and turns and quirky characters who tell the story and make her forget everything else.
Every author has a different story of how their book was born. My “first born” (The Perfect Pull) is actually a nine year old—a book that I wrote over a nine-year period of time that is. While I don’t recommend taking almost a decade to write your first book, it is what happened to me, partly because I was playing the traditional publishing game.
Everything about my book, from the topic to how I approached my query letter, was always designed to sell it to a publisher. That is what I had been taught—that getting a publisher is the end goal.
I’m happy to say that the process of navigating self-publishing a print and ebook has been a million times more satisfying than I expected and actually a blessing. For authors who are new in their career, handing them a contract and allowing them to “sit and wait” must be exciting, but it could also be to their detriment.
The fact that my success is solely dependent on me (and not a faceless publisher “out there”) is, I think, more of a recipe for making it long term. Maybe it doesn’t come with fast cash with an advance, but knowing I can log right into my Amazon account and see the sales numbers makes it all the more real.
What Is the Story That Only You Can Write?
When I was growing up I had this weird disorder that I never spoke of. I loved how it felt to touch and twirl my hair and one day I started pulling it out without knowing why. When it came to a topic for my book, I decided that exploring a character with this same problem (but 10x worse) would be something unique and potentially interesting, as I know teenagers are drawn to anything out of the ordinary.
