I won’t sugarcoat anything. 2024 has been a difficult year for me. Both personally and professionally. Since this is my author blog, I will focus on the goings on in my professional life.

The year was filled with first and frustrations. I’ll start with the firsts, first. In January, I attended the Sunshine Book Festival in Gainesville, FL. It was my first major book festival I’ve ever attended. The amount of authors in attendance and the community that came out was amazing. I was able to meet a lot of new readers as well as local authors. I loved the organization as well. They placed everyone in their respective genres, making it easy for readers to meet the authors they were interested in. Though I won’t be in attendance next month. I am looking forward to attending in 2026. Likewise, that was my first time in Gainesville. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to explore like I wanted. I had an hour and a half drive back home and the festival was almost eight six hours long. In the future, I will stay overnight to explore Gainesville. It seemed like a nice, pretty place.

Moreover, in October, I attended my first Halloween/Horror dedicated book festival. The hosting bookstore, Spellbound Books, personally asked me to attend while I was at another book festival they were hosting. I loved attending and felt more in my element. Horror may not be one of the more popular genres but, there was a sizable crowd in attendance, and I got some new readers. Karma and Other Shit was the popular title, lol.

Another first that I am surely proud of is releasing my first solo anthology. Making an anthology was something I had been thinking about for a while and last year, I sat down and got to work. Many of the stories are deprived from real-life situations such as racism, fat phobia, loneliness, etc. I also added two creature stories, which is also a first for me, and a ghost story that has to do with racism and gentrification. Originally, the book was just going to be named Karma, however, because some stories in the book didn’t revolve around Karma, I decided to add the “Other Shit” part. Just so we’re clear that it’s more to the anthology. Also, if you’ve read my first book, Nova: The Executioner of Justice, there was mention of Karma being another supernatural being that has ties to Nova.

Now on to the frustrating stuff. I’ll try my best to not make this sound ranty. I suck at marketing. Just being honest. I write my books not just because it’s my passion, but because I want readers to enjoy them as well. However, on this author journey, I’ve found it frustratingly hard to find my audience. I’m aware that my genres (horror and sci-fi respectively) are full of white men so, sometimes it’s a little odd to see a Black woman writing in those genres. But I promise you, there are many of us that enjoy and write in said genres. I’m not someone that will jump up and down to get your attention. I like to think I have more of a laid-back and quirky personality. And unfortunately, most times the person who shouts the loudest gets the most attention. At least from my observations. I also don’t enjoy bombarding people with advertisements. My way is more subtle but, recently, I have been more out there with talking about my books. I want to be able to show off my personality and showcase my books. It’s something I still struggle with, especially considering my ultimate goal is to be a full-time author sooner rather than later. I can write all day and enjoy it. However, I probably still have a long way to go in that aspect. Hopefully not too long.

Being an indie author is hard. There’s a lot behind the scenes that many people don’t see and many authors don’t talk about. As an independent author, I do everything outside of final editing yet, everything financially falls on me. There’s a lot of growing pains, financial pains, a lot of my disposable income goes into my authorship, and tears that aren’t presented to the world at large. That video I may upload showing me happy or neutral may have been recorded after I had a breakdown. It happens.

I’m still hopeful my time will come. SOONER RATHER THAN LATER.

To 2024, I don’t know if I’d truly miss you, but everything happens for a reason, at least that’s what they say.

Happy New Year!