How it all began…

Wow… I don’t know where to begin. I guess childhood is a good place to start.

Ever since I was little, reading was something that I loved. I remember I’d read through all my English books that we were meant to read and analyze throughout the class year, but I just couldn’t help myself. From early on, English became my favorite language (it’s my second language). During summer holidays, my mom would borrow books from the library and I would spend my days flipping through pages and getting lost in the magic that stories had trapped in them. I never bought books because I couldn’t afford them. So I had to read them quickly to return them. Fast forward to when I turned twelve, I found Wattpad. There were so many stories and back then they were all for free and I didn’t need to worry about returning them. Every day after school, I’d get home and read there.

Now I wasn’t a loner at school, but I was someone who didn’t have real friends. People you could count on or trust. So reading always made me feel better because I got to know the characters and they became my friends even though they were fictional but it never felt that way. 

Reading is everything to me. I don’t know what or who I am without books.

In February 2020, I got this idea at two in the morning. Hope was the first character that came to me and I started writing chapter one. Heath was introduced and he was my second character. The same night I finished that first chapter. At the time I was reading a lot of bad boy and good girl books so my book (Heath titled on Wattpad) was heavily influenced by those books because that was the genre I knew the best. I’d write a chapter and post it on Wattpad and in September 2020, I finished the whole book. After that, I wrote three more books before finally realizing this was it… writing was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. This is important. I’ll tell you why.

Throughout my school years, I was the topper. I had perfect scores but I didn’t know what I wanted to do. People asked me all the time what I wanted to become. Sometimes I’d give a generic answer like “biochemistry” and other times I’d say “I don’t know” because I really didn’t know. The only thing I’ve always wanted to do is help people. That’s something I’m passionate about. I want to make others smile and feel less lonely. And writing is the only thing that lets me do it. When I finished Heath, I got so many messages from people on Wattpad. Never in my wildest dreams, I thought that my book would make someone feel better. It was the best feeling ever. It still is. I truly believe it’s the reason why I write. I mean, I love writing and getting to tell stories about love and friendships, but the idea of reaching out to someone who’s having a bad day or going through a difficult time, and making their day better fills me with joy. I become alive and nothing and no one else matters except for me, my stories, and you guys.  

In 2023 I decided to publish Collided. At this point I knew I wanted to be an author. So I watched a lot of videos on YouTube about self-publishing (I will write a whole blog on this and tell you everything that I know). I gathered as much information as I could and aligned things to pursue it.

Heath (Wattpad version) needed a lot of work in my opinion. I wasn’t happy with the story, specifically some of the things that happened in it and I didn’t want others to think I was okay with them or stood by them. The thing was, I wrote this book when I was very young and the themes were heavily influenced by the books that I read at the time. Which I didn’t find okay now that I was 21. So I wrote Collided from scratch. I knew the characters like the back of my hand so it wasn’t hard to write them. I explored dynamics and themes that I didn’t the first time around. I’ll always think that I could have written it better, but remember you learn the more you write. So I don’t regret anything. Once the first draft was done, I went through an editing phase. I revised the story further and finally sent it to my friend Mirah (she’s one of my favorite people on Earth. The first person I send my manuscripts to. I met her on Wattpad. She edited my book and we became such good friends). I also sent the book to a few alpha readers who gave me great feedback that was quite helpful. 

After months and months of editing, editing and editing… the book was done.

In summer 2023 I teased about it and started a newsletter list. In January 2024, I set up the preorder on Amazon and started making reels and posts about it. Marketing was a big factor in spreading the word about my book (I’ll talk about it in the self-publishing blog). I had a very small following because of Wattpad and it helped with engagement. Truth be told, I didn’t have any expectations with the release because everything leading up to it was a disaster…

For publishing a book you need to do a couple of things. Get an editor, book cover designer, and formatting designer. Out of all these, I chose a book cover designer because that was the only thing I could afford. I decided to work with a known company but the designs they came up with were not at all what I wanted and I had a limited number of revisions (3) so there wasn’t much I could do. We parted ways after my last revision and I was devastated. I had even less money now and the cover wasn’t done. And I was planning on doing a book cover reveal in a few weeks (June). It was going to be a surprise and also, we were getting closer to the release so it was supposed to come out anyway. I spent a few days feeling depressed and then put on my big girl pants and decided to do it on my own. I used Canva to make my cover.

It took me a couple of days—nearly a week—to get it done but I was so happy with the result. It was exactly what I wanted. When I revealed the cover people loved it and I literally cried because only I knew how hard it was to make it and how hopeless I felt just a week ago.

The next step was editing. Since I used up the little money I had saved on the cover there was no way I could afford an editor. So I decided to do it myself (if you’re sensing a pattern, there is a pattern. I just have to do everything by myself). I read books and noticed how sentences and paragraphs are structured. While making revisions, I incorporated those changes and with time they became muscle memory. I’m not an expert. I made mistakes but there were severely fewer mistakes because I edited that book until I physically couldn't. 

The last step was formatting. From June to August I promoted Collided and got a bunch of arc sign ups. The book was edited and done. I was gonna format it in MS Word. I spent hours on formatting it in MS Word but I couldn’t figure it out. I was close to pulling my hair out and I had arcs to send. My mental health was a mess and I was close to having a mental breakdown. I told Bri, a close friend, about it and she offered to format it for me using a software called Atticus. She formatted my book in a day and because of her, I was able to send the arcs. I’m so grateful to her because she saved my ass.

The sheer response from the bookstagrammers was overwhelming but in the best way possible. They posted and talked about it and because of them so many people added Collided to their tbr. I still can’t forget how amazing those two weeks were.

Finally, the release day came. Fortunately, I was able to submit my files on time to KDP and the book was available on the release day. I published the ebook a day earlier. Another little surprise from me to the readers. (Keep a lookout, I plan on doing this again) 

This is the story of how I published my debut novel. To say it was a challenging experience would be an understatement. I went through so much and I learned a lot that I’ll remember for the rest of my life. 

I’m so glad that I published this book first instead of my other stories. This was my lucky charm when I first published it on Wattpad and millions of people read it. And now that it’s in paperback and on KU, it is still loved by people. I'm so grateful for all the love and support.

I always think that as an artist you could make the most beautiful artwork but how people perceive is always out of your hands. You never know how a story resonates with people. I truly believe I was lucky. All the credit goes to readers and the book community.

There’s still a lot for me to say, but I’ll leave it at this: Write the story you want to read. I’m a reader before a writer. Work hard and follow your heart. Write what you believe in.