publishing

Indie Writers Are The Bravest Writers I Know

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments
Image by Alexa from Pixabay

Last week I posted about how risk and courage go hand in hand with writing and I stand by that. It is incredibly brave to write at all and even braver to share that with the world. But in my view and in my experience, indie writers are perhaps the bravest of all.

Let’s look at what indie writers willingly put themselves through in order to get their stories out there for you to read and let’s also remind ourselves of what is involved in being an indie author these days.

  • First, the indie writer writes and finishes their book. This is in contrast to the 97% of people who start writing a book and never finish it.
  • Before becoming an indie, most but not all indie writers try the traditional route. They will have sent out to hundreds of agents and hundreds of small presses. They may have entered numerous competitions. Anything to try and get a foot in the trad door. But to no avail. They don’t give up there though. That’s how brave they are. They are not quitters.
  • They decide to go indie. This means different things to different people but ultimately it means the author is in control of their book, including the editing and proofreading, the blurb, the front cover and marketing it. Scary and brave, especially in the beginning!
  • If they haven’t already, they will start and build multiple social media pages with their blog or website at the forefront of their news and writing. This takes a lot of time and commitment and it is hard starting with 0 followers, yet they do it anyway, even if they are talking to themselves most of the time!
  • When it comes to their book, they will do multiple drafts if they care about the craft of writing and they will send it out to beta readers for honest feedback.
  • They’ll respond to this feedback and revise the book again. More edits may follow until they are happy enough to send it to an editor and/or proofreader.
  • Meanwhile, they’ll be battling with the blurb, sourcing possible front covers at reasonable prices or learning how to make their own.
  • They will start learning how to market their book. They will start trying to figure out where and who their audience is. This is both time consuming and scary. Writers are introverts at heart so it takes some guts to start shouting, look at me! Read my book!
  • Once the book is back from the editor they will do final edits and proofreads and then decide on a release date
  • They’ll also decide whether to go exclusive with Amazon and make sure their book is available on multiple platforms in multiple formats.
  • They will set up a pre-order for the book and start marketing as best they can!
  • In reality, most of them won’t make back the money they have spent getting it this far, but that won’t stop the indie author. They will already be writing the next one.
  • Sadly, the majority of the indie author’s close friends and family won’t buy, read, review or even respond to their exciting book news, so they will have to rely on the kindness of strangers and random readers on the internet.
  • The indie writer might be feeling quite demoralised by now, but they’ll keep going. Brave, you see.
  • The indie writer faces endless hurdles. In order to market their book they need money and if they don’t have money, they have to do whatever they can for free. This puts them at an instant disadvantage but it won’t stop them. No way. They are resilient and will find a way to keep going.
  • The hurdles never stop coming and they just seem to be getting worse. They now have to compete with AI as well as other authors, and traditionally published authors. A bit of a slap in the face, if you ask me, but the indie writer won’t give up or give in. Especially not to bots! No way. The indie author is here to stay.

I think I could go on for a while listing the hurdles indie writers face, and the very many ways in which they prove themselves to be the bravest of writers. They overcome rejection and keep going. They learn how to produce, format and market their own book, and don’t give up even if it fails. They are largely unsupported by family and friends, but don’t let that stop them and now they have AI coming for their jobs…

I mean, maybe we’re all just a bit mad, rather than brave!

What do you think?

My 2025 Goals!

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

Every year I set goals for the year ahead so that at the end of the year I can compare them to the reality!

Image by Παῦλος from Pixabay

I can barely believe another year has flown by so fast, but here we are. It’s time to think about what I would like to achieve in 2025, then at the end of 2025 I will write a comparison post where I revisit these goals and see how well I did!

So. without further ado, I hope 2025 looks like this:

  1. Publish The Mess Of Us February 2025 – this is already ready and set up for pre-order so should be easy to achieve and is the first goal for me for the New Year.
  2. Go through my editors suggestions for The Dark Finds You and prepare it for release summer 2025 – The Dark Finds You will be the final book in a universe of interconnected books. If you’ve been kind enough to read all my books, you will recognise several of the characters. This crime drama storyline will tie up all their individual stories and issues and it was possibly my favourite book to write ever, so I’ll be very excited to release it!
  3. Publish The World You Gave Us through Chasing Driftwood Books – This is an anthology of fiction, poetry and non-fiction written by the children I work with within Chasing Driftwood Writing Group. I started it a few years back and got quite far but then lost it when my laptop died, so we had to start again from scratch. It’s looking very good so far but I intend to really push for content between January and April and then start getting it ready for a June release.
  4. Send Black Hare Valley Book 1 to beta readers and my editor – I am currently on the fifth draft and already feel like the next stage is beta reader feedback.
  5. Get both Black Hare Valley books 2 and 3 to 5th draft status – They are both in the first draft at the moment, but while the first book goes to beta readers, I’ll direct my attention to them and get them further along the road. They are both much shorter books than the first!
  6. Finish the companion book I am working on – I started this the other day. It’s basically a diary written by one of the main characters. There is a thirty year gap between book 1 and book 3 where this character is basically alone and sort of trapped. I thought it would be really fun if he kept a diary during that time and I could use it as a companion book. I also have lots of short story ideas for the Black Hare Valley universe. And it certainly is becoming another universe!
  7. Continue to build and progress Chasing Driftwood Books – This is the indie collective myself and author Sim Alec Sansford started with a group of authors. We were all in the same boat, struggling with low sales and reviews and low incomes. So we decided to band together and work cooperatively to get our work more out there. We only launched the website and the social media pages very recently, but there is lots we want to achieve this year.
  8. Continue to keep as physically and mentally well as possible! – I have dived in and out of pilates throughout my life but I’m currently in my longest streak of sticking with it and I’ve really started to see results. I started back in August and very rarely go a day without doing at least fifteen minutes of pilates exercises. I find it very relaxing and calming for me mentally and it has certainly helped with the age related aches and pains I was starting to feel set in. I will be 47 this year, and as I edge closer to 50 I intend to stay as fit and healthy as I can. For mental health this means pilates, writing and being outdoors as much as possible. Let’s see if I can stick with it!
  9. Restart my vegetable plot – I had a year off last year. It was stressing me out because every year I started with the best intentions and soon found I run out of time and energy. The vegetable plot would end up horribly neglected and I would feel disappointed with myself. What I did do was take down all the fencing and let the earth just rest for a year. I planted a few bits in old car tires and that was it. This year I intend to start small and slow and see how far I get. The whole area needed sorting and tidying so at least I have done that. I missed it a lot. I’ve just got to allocate time for it and that’s usually the tricky thing.
  10. Reconnect with nature whenever and wherever I can – part of this is my new goal to learn the names of things I do not know. I have a certain amount of knowledge when it comes to plants, trees, weeds, birds and wild animals but there is so much I do not know. I’ve decided to choose three things on every dog walk that I do not know the name of and then find out. So far already I have identified turkey tail fungi, wild honeysuckle, purple moor grass, Douglas Fir, Scots Pine, Spindle, rough chervil, celandine, sedge grass, noble yarrow, hogweed, sweet violet, common bittercress and a few more. I hope by learning to identify them and then sharing it to Facebook, I will remember them for good. I also hope to get out in nature and explore some new areas this year.

So, that’s everything I hope to achieve in 2025! It will be interesting to revisit these at the end of the year and see how it went.

My 2024 Goals Vs The Reality

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

Every New Year I set goals for the year ahead, then see how many I achieved at the end of the year

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

It’s that time of year again! Time to revisit the goals I set for myself at the start of 2024 and see how many I achieved. And of course, the post that follows next week will be me setting out my goals for 2025!

So, how did I do? Here are the goals I set myself a year ago and whether or not I achieved them:

  1. Publish the next two books in The Day The Earth Turned Series – achieved! Having published Summer and Autumn in 2023, I kept to my goal of publishing the next two books in this series in Winter and Spring. Achieved!
  2. Publish At Night We Played In The Road –  achieved! I published this spin off book from The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series in November 2024!
  3. Publish The Mess Of Us – not achieved but the preorder is now live and the book will be released February 2025. I decided to space the books out a bit and publishing this in 2024 so close to At Night We Played In The Road would have been too hectic.
  4. Republish The Mess Of Me with updates and new cover – achieved! New edit, new cover, done!
  5. Send The Dark Finds You to beta readers – achieved – sort of! I am actually so confident about this book I don’t think it needs beta readers, so I sent it to my wonderful editor/proofreader to see what she thought instead. She had some feedback which I plan to work on early next year and then I will publish this one summer 2025 after further edits.
  6. Continue to publish and grow on Medium – achieved! Although at the moment it is doing my head in but more on that another day! I have continued to publish and have only had one month when I didn’t get boosted. I am super proud of this. I even launched my own tiny publication in August, The Wild Writers Club.
  7. Launch the website for Chasing Driftwood Books – achieved! Chasing Driftwood Books is an indie collective started by myself and Sim Alec Sansford. It’s basically our own publisher! We finally finished the website and launched in the summer of 2024.
  8. Tackle the third draft of Black Hare Valley – achieved! And then some! I have just started the fifth draft of Black Hare Valley Book 1 1996, yes, that’s right, there are now three! So, I didn’t just work on the first one, I wrote the second, 1966 and the third, 2026 and they are both currently in first draft status.
  9. Add paid and free writing resources to the Chasing Driftwood Writing Group website – achieved! This site now has free resources for young writers and I continue to add to it when I can.
  10. Get into hiking – achieved, sort of! We’ve visited Devon multiple times this year and every visit has seen us exploring new areas, so I guess I achieved it, but I would have liked to also hike in some other areas.

I’m really happy with what I achieved and I am so glad I set the goals every years and then check them. It’s often too easy to get stressed out and bogged down by life and work and feel like you’re not really achieving anything. This is my way of reminding myself what I set out to do and I am always surprised by the amount I get done.

I won’t post again until after Christmas so I’d like to wish all my followers a wonderful festive period doing whatever you enjoy with the people you love!

Thank you so much for reading my work and supporting me in 2024.

Medium A Year On – Unexpected Success Plus A Warning Not To Be Complacent

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments
Image by Joshua Woroniecki from Pixabay

I’ve been writing and publishing on Medium for over a year now and thought I’d write an update post on how it’s going but first I need to highlight the biggest negative for me so far.

Not having enough time to write my blog!

To be fair, I can’t blame Medium entirely for that – although obviously it’s more tempting to publish stories, poems, articles and essays on a platform that pays rather than my blog, but Medium doesn’t mind pieces being republished so again, so I can in theory repost things here.

The trouble is time and the constant, never-ending juggling act that is being an indie author, or indeed, any author, I suspect.

Recently I’ve been updating all my old books and this has been very time consuming, but it needed to be done. Some have had new covers, some have had extra edits and some have just been tightened up and updated in other ways. I’ve done it now, although I’ve yet to finish uploading new paperback versions to Amazon, but all the ebooks have been updated there and on Draft 2 Digital.

This means I’m now free to get on with preparing the next three books for release. More on that another day!

The thing is though, there is only so much I can do. Being an author involves marketing, promoting, writing, editing, submitting, revising, rewriting and trying to build and maintain your author platform. These are all balls I need to keep spinning in the air – not to mention being a mum, running a house and having a day job – so inevitably, there is always a ball or two getting dropped.

Lately, that’s been this blog!

I hope to rectify that today with this Medium update and over the next few weeks I will probably republish some popular Medium articles, stories and poems here just to get me going again.

So, a year after I joined Medium, how is it going?

It’s going well. Very well. I joined the Partner Program in September 2023 and was paid in October for my first three paid pieces. I just about covered my membership fee! In October 2023 I got boosted for the first time so my November payment was a lot bigger. That month I published six pieces of writing and the lowest payment was $0.18 for an article about different types of writers, while the highest paid was $57.49 for my first boosted piece.

I posted fifteen pieces of writing in November 2023 and got boosted again. An article about a haircut, of all things, made me $127.32. The lowest paid that month was $0.27 for a poem. December 2023 was an even better month for me when I got boosted three times. These boosts make a huge difference to payments. My three boosted posts earned me, $69.11, $78.10 and $81.59, but my other pieces were well received that month too. For example, an article that was not boosted still earned me $7.13 and a few others earned me between $2 and $5 dollars. It all adds up!

By this point I was extremely grateful and excited to be boosted but I was starting to worry about it too. Obviously boosted posts are shown to more readers, so that boosts your reads and views, and hence your payment. It also encourages people to read your other pieces so I tend to notice views and reads go up for unboosted writing too. Even now, looking at my older stats to write this blog post, I can see that some of my first pieces of writing have earned me more money since I originally shared them.

Why was I worrying about the boosts? Well, for a few reasons. I currently have 936 followers but like most social media and writing platforms, those followers do no automatically transfer into reads and views. Often, I assume, people follow you in the hope you will follow back. Without boosts, my posts were varying between $0.18 at the lowest and $7.13 at the highest. Like I said, it all adds up, but the boosts seem to make a huge difference.

Obviously, getting paid for your writing is a dream come true. It makes you feel validated and like your writing is worth getting paid for. It made me feel really good to know these payments were going towards paying our bills and rent, for example, but I was wary of relying on it. Of course, I was tempted to dream; maybe if I really put the effort in, in years to come I could give up my day job and just be a full time writer on Medium and with my books. That was always the dream and it suddenly seemed almost feasible…

Luckily, I didn’t let myself get carried away. I was still relying on those boosts and I figured my luck would run out at some point.

However, January was another good month. I got boosted three times again. At the end of this post you’ll find a list of my boosted articles in case, like me, you’re trying to figure out what types of writing gain boosts on Medium! I think I’m starting to figure it out but that in itself brings its own issues. I didn’t want to start trying to write with a boost in mind, but it was hard not to!

My lowest paid piece in January was zero for a poem, closely followed by $0.06 for another poem! My highest paid was a boosted article, $90.04, and my highest unboosted article made me $8.01.

February 2024 was crazy! I responded to a prompt about pet ownership with an article questioning the ethics of it and detailing my own increasing uneasiness about pet ownership and it got boosted. It’s my biggest earner to date, probably because it was so controversial. It earned me $231.49 and the most amount of comments I’d ever had, not all of them nice! This was an eye opener for me. It demonstrated that relatable topics people agree or disagree strongly with are probably a good way to secure views and reads, but it also showed me that people will read an article, totally misunderstand it and then leave slightly unhinged comments on it. In the end, I started thanking the critics for making me more money!

I had another post boosted that month but it made me a mere $26.11 so it just goes to show that even getting boosted isn’t a guarantee of hundreds of reads.

March was another crazy month. I got boosted three times, making me $66.78, $92.68 and $107.73.

April was a wake up call.

It had all been going so well! My earnings had been increasing every month and I had started to factor them into our spending and outgoings, in other words, I’d started counting on them. In April I posted twelve times and did not get boosted. I earned roughly $50 and the highest paid piece was actually a piece of flash fiction I wrote in response to a prompt. That earned me $7.08 but everything else was dire that month.

I was worried. I feared the bubble had burst. I looked at my posts and tried to figure out what was wrong with them. I was really proud of some of them but they just fell flat, barely got any reads. I did see other people saying the same thing about April though, so I don’t think it was just me that saw things slow down. Weird.

But it was a wake up call I probably needed. I need to think of Medium earnings as bonus, extra money, not something to be relied on. I cannot take getting boosted for granted and I don’t want to write with boosts in mind. So I am trying to forge a way forward by posting poems and stories when they come to me, writing about anything I am thinking or experiencing at the moment and by responding to the many wonderful prompts and challenges.

May, so far, is going well. I’ve been boosted three times and I’ve published thirteen pieces of writing. My highest paid piece for May is currently on $151.43. Not bad! And I was really surprised the other pieces got boosted.

So, the update is that Medium continues to be a wonderful platform for writers and readers. Members are still overwhelmingly supportive and kind, and it is still well worth the time I spend on it. The downsides are of course, accepting that some months you will earn a lot less than others, and that dedicating so much time to Medium means I drop the ball on other things, like this blog!

Anyway, I will be back next week as there is lots of writing related news to share and plenty of posts on Medium I can repost here for you!

But as promised, here is a list of the articles that got boosted:

Less Is More – The Most Important Lesson The Perimenopause Has Taught Me

An Emotional Haircut – At Age 45 I Finally Like My Hair

I Was The All-Seeing Eye – But Who Saw Me?

Take It From A True Cry-Baby – It’s Far Healthier To Let It Out Than To Keep It In

One Toothbrush – A Tale of Days Gone By

I See You, Single White Eyebrow Hair – And You Don’t Scare Me At All

The Best Life Advice I Ever Had Came From A Character I Created – Prove Them Wrong, A Mantra For Misfits

Why Do The Women In My Family Insist On Talking About Weight? – Breaking Free From Focusing on ‘Fat’

I’ve Been An Animal Love My Whole Life But I’m Not Sure I’ll Own Pets Again – Getting To Grips With The Ethics of ‘Owning’ Animals

All We Can Ever Strive To Do Is A Better Job Than Our Parents – On Loving Ourselves and Our Children

Does Losing our ‘Stuff’ Mean We Are Less Us? – On downsizing our lives and letting go of the past

Why Do I Write? – Because In Many Ways It Feels Like A Rebellious Act

Child’s Play or Telling Stories? – Children’s Play Proves We All Begin As Storytellers

Mental Health and The Perimenopause – A Second Puberty But With Far Less Support – mental health challenges at either end of my life and the difference in support available

Being A Mother Saved Me From Myself – Parenting Made Me A Better Person

Standing At A Crossroads In My Life Is Not Terrifying Anymore – when middle-age gives you the gift of trusting yourself

These boosted pieces all have a few things in common, which is interesting:

They are all articles or essays, rather than poems, stories or flash fiction.

They are all personal and emotional stories where I am extremely honest.

They are all about universal and relatable topics, such as ageing, womanhood, parenthood, childhood, body image, life lessons and life changes.

Something to think about anyway!

See you next week!