Five years. Holy shit, you guys. Didn’t think I’d ever be able to say I survived this long in this brutal, cut-throat career path. I’m just as surprised as you are to still be here, trucking along, trying to survive.

2017, in my honest opinion, was almost as bad as 2016 aka the year the Darkest Timeline started, and the only reason I say that is that because 2016 set the precedent that we’re all screwed until the end of humanity, by comparison, at least I was ready to get my ass kicked all up and down 2017. I’m just about as battered and exhausted as I’ve ever been after making it through another rough year. But there’s often a rainbow behind the thunderstorm, so it wasn’t the worst every single moment of the year.

As far as my personal life goes, 2017 was good to me in terms of vacations. I got to spend a week running around Los Angeles for the first time ever as an adult for my own personal Treat Yo-self excursion. I had an absolute blast. It might be my favorite vacation I’ve ever taken so far. Even though I totally hate Dragon*Con, they lured me in again with the promise of my husband Nathan Fillion, and meeting him was nothing short of amazing, as well as the incomparable Ming Na Wen, Steve Blum, and Michael Rosenbaum. It was an unforgettable weekend and I smile every single time I look at any of the photo ops or autographs I got from those amazing actors.

Back to Black hit bookshelves in 2017 and did moderately well sales-wise, thus proving that readers are still interested in Jordan Amador’s wacky adventures, even without our lovely archangel Michael in the picture. It also has a soft spot in my heart simply because I adore how the cover turned out (huge thanks to Brose Designz—please check out her work; it’s all gorgeous). I also sheepishly admit it was fun to dive back into the dynamic between Jordan and Belial, and I’ve heard from a few of the readers that he’s honestly a favorite of theirs. I don’t blame them. He’s such a compelling bastard. I always muse that Betty Hutton’s “He’s a Demon, He’s a Devil, He’s a Doll” is a perfect description of him.

I also re-designed the cover for Of Cinder and Bone, and was met with a massive improvement in sales. I lament that I didn’t find Brose Designz earlier. I could have saved myself the trouble of re-branding, but to be fair, I searched long and hard and couldn’t find any dragon covers I could afford the first time around. If you’ve never seen OCAB in paperback, I suggest you give it a consideration: it looks absolutely freaking beautiful in book form. The ebook cover doesn’t do it justice. I can happily say the same for Of Blood and Ashes too.

Lastly, OCAB became a permanently free title in December of 2017. I fully admit it hurt my soul to do that for a book with such a hefty word count and one that was easily one of the hardest novels for me to complete, but you’ve got to be willing to make sacrifices for the greater good as an indie author. After all, the marketing strategy with a free first-in-series gets results even at the expense of my time and considerable effort, which is a good Segway into what I’ve learned this past year.

Write what you love and you’ll find yourself surprised at the results. So I published OCAB back in December 2016, so all of 2017 was basically an enormous learning experience. I was extremely nervous about publishing this novel simply because it’s very niche concept-wise. I started out in the urban fantasy/paranormal romance genre, and while some readers tend to read both sci-fi and fantasy, I knew there wouldn’t be as much overlap as any known author would have since I’m just an indie author. It went quite slow at first, to be honest, but then it slowly began to pick up consistent sales. What’s more is that while not all of the people who read The Black Parade read OCAB, I found that there was indeed a market for this concept despite how odd it sounds off-hand. One thing I truly find myself surprised with is that people don’t mind as much that the story is about chasing after the dragon rather than being about dragons in general, and that they are in fact drawn into Jack and Kamala’s friendship and eventual romance, and those were two of my biggest worries when I decided to publish it. I sheepishly admit the book is indeed too long—that’s the most common complaint in all the reviews I’ve received, positive or negative, and don’t worry, I intend to rectify the length once I’m back on my feet money-wise—but the reactions I’ve gotten have been better than I expected. I worried that OCAB was a three-star book, and people are generally telling me it’s a four-star book consistently. That’s an amazing thing to hear since I thought it would under-perform in comparison to The Black Parade, which I am slightly more “known” for. It shows that expanding your horizons isn’t always going to be a bad thing and that’s it’s quite easy to underestimate yourself as an author, and to underestimate the readers too. I wrote OCAB because it was fun and it was something I felt passionately about, and for different reasons than the Black Parade series, and it seems as if that’s what is drawing new readers to it.

Be discerning about who you allow to have your time, effort, and content. I have to be a bit vague about this lesson so as not to invite unwanted attention to myself, but should any young authors start looking into the boxed set style of marketing with other authors, please do enough research beforehand to see who you’re getting in bed with. Sometimes results may vary. Sometimes you find out people have bad reputations behind the scenes and it’s too late to do anything but ride it out. It’s hard to see that sort of thing from the surface should you receive an offer or be interested in submitting a book to a set, but I recommend that you do some Googling and check KBoards forums before making that commitment. All I’ll say is that I’ve been dissatisfied with the sets I entered into in 2017 and you honestly won’t have to worry about seeing me post about sets for a long damn time.

Find your flock. I may or may not have stolen this from the tagline of the movie Storks. (Which, by the way, is currently on HBO and if you’re a twenty or thirty-something, you have got to watch that movie. It’s absolutely amazing.) Although it cost way too much money and was a pain in the ass, returning to my hometown of Atlanta was a good move for me because it put me back in contact with local authors, colleagues, and friends. I’ve been able to attend a handful of author events ever since I moved back, and while none of them are anything huge, it’s been great to rub elbows with like-minded folks. We get to discuss relevant topics that the fandoms and readers and world at large doesn’t always find the time to talk about and we’re able to keep each other grounded and motivated. I always recommend for new authors to try to connect with people in their genre or even in their area since it’s nice to chit-chat about the business with someone who gets it. I fully believe that the key to reaching the next level as an author lies in getting Word of Mouth generate. Sadly, if you’re a small fry indie author as well as an introvert, it’s hard to accomplish that goal, but it is possible. One step at a time, I am working towards getting myself out there, meeting new people, and finding those who might be interested in my work.

To quote a catchy tune, “We’ve got a lot of work to do!” and 2018 is half over. I’m happy to say that I am currently penning the third novel in the OCAB series, Of Dawn and Embers, and that you’ll have more news from me in the fall regarding the plot synopsis and release date. Be patient with me, my darlings. I’m so glad you’re still on this raggedy train with me and I hope to see you for the next ride.