Celebrating One Year With The Dream Job: A Reflection (And Such)

Today marks the one year publishing anniversary of "DAISUKI." my first ever published work. One year ago today I was nothing but a fledgling publisher, who had no idea what to expect or what would happen a few months from then. I was confident in my writing abilities, but nervous about how they would be received - after all, it isn't every day that someone goes out determined to write a series about polyamorous lesbians.

The support I had from friends and family was what was able to get me off the ground. I will always be grateful for the support many of you showed me then, and since then. Thanks to your efforts, my stories were able to get in front of many strangers. Some off them were not my target audience, but many of them were. Many of them took a chance on me. Some of you reading this right now are some of those strangers who decided to take a chance on my unconventional romances. Many of you have contacted me over this past year and have expressed many wonderful sentiments that have helped me keep going in this little venture of mine.

Since I was a little kid I've always known that I wanted to be a writer. Back in those days, my only chance was scoring a lucrative deal with a trade publisher - since we pretty much all know that actually making a living writing for a trade publisher is a lot harder than the public thinks. But as I was growing up, I met a lot of roadblocks. Namely, people in authority telling me that I needed to "think realistically." This of course meant going to college to get a super expensive degree in something that had nothing to do with writing. And as it turned out, had nothing to do with my life in general other than putting me into crazy debt. But this post isn't about university mistakes and coulda woulda shoulda. It's about what actually happened that was pretty amazing.

The five REN'AI RENSAI novels I published this past year.

Most of you (who have asked over the months) know that I don't give out hard numbers. Many authors do, but I'm not comfortable with that. What I will say about my sales and earnings this past year is this: I am very happy. I am paying my bills that threatened to bankrupt me just a year ago. I am not quite where I want to be yet, but I am okay with that. The tradeoff, especially in this economy, is that I get to do my dream job every day of my life - which doesn't feel like a job, because I would be doing this anyway! - and still get by, with a little room to spare. I'm still learning a lot about running my own business, especially on the tax side, but it will all fall into place with more experience... eventually.

Over a year ago I took a chance on a fantasy.  Now it's a reality.

It was quite the coincidence that I would technically start a new series just a day before Daisuki's one year anniversary. But really, it's a pretty poetic coincidence, especially since the titles are a bit similar in the Roman alphabet. One year ago I would have never guessed this would be the state of my career. It both amazes me and makes me extremely proud of the work I have put out.

This is far from the end. It's barely the beginning. This is only the first year in what I hope will be many, many years of me writing and publishing. This time next year I hope to be in the serious publishing stages of my first fantasy novel (which yes, will include many sexy lesbians... just now with more galactic-ness~) and can't wait to share it with you.

Thank you again for helping to make this past year possible!