With 9 Years Yearning now having been out for over 8 months, I’d like to share more about the book, including the writing process, what I wish I would have done differently, and my plans for its future!
If you haven’t read 9 Years Yearning yet, here’s the blurb:
Uileac Korviridi, orphaned at age 11 during a raid on the family farm, cherishes the happy memories of living with his late parents. Fond reminiscences are all he has to comfort him in the stern confines of the War Academy, where young boys are trained to protect their besieged nation from a powerful enemy. Even as he forces enthusiasm for his military studies, he must balance his loyalty to his little sister, Cerie, who is training at the High Poetry Society to become a magical wordsmith.
In contrast to Uileac’s bucolic past, Orrinir Relickim is a former Future Boy: one given up to the War Academy by neglectful parents before enrolling in training. His life has been typified by invisibility, making him desperate to gain attention from anyone – especially Uileac.
The two start as resentful quasi-enemies: Uileac despises Orrinir’s success in their studies, while Orrinir resents Uileac’s happy childhood and delicate looks. However, as they understand one another better, they cannot resist this pull they don’t yet understand. What follows is a tale of teenage longing, with all the awkwardness and miscommunication it entails.
Set in a sweeping world with poetry magic, 9 Years Yearning offers a brief glimpse into a beautiful country besieged by its enemies, constricted by a mountain range made with words. With lush descriptions, deep emotion, and lyrical prose, this novella sets the stage for grander conflicts in the 10-part Eirenic Verses series. Dive into a world where poetry makes power, seen through the eyes of two young men preparing for war.
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9 Years Yearning was originally a freebie prequel.
As I’ve mentioned before, 9 Years Yearning was not the first book I wrote for The Eirenic Verses. Instead, I wrote what is now the sixth book, Poesy, before anything else. I intended for the series to only be a trilogy: Poesy (now sixth), Perseity (now eighth), and Plexity (now tenth).
Like many self-published authors, I began the querying process with high hopes that I would be traditionally published; I perfected my query letter, revised Poesy eight times, and solicited the help of professional editors to get it in perfect form.
However, I found that I simply could not leave The Eirenic Verses alone. Instead, I began work on four prequels: 9 Years Yearning, Pride Before a Fall, Funeral of Hopes, and What Is Cannot Be Unwritten, which are now the first four books in the series. Not only was this meant to keep me sane during the querying process, but I found they were great character studies that helped me better understand the world I’d created and how High Poetry works.
These four were briefly available on my Archive Of Our Own page in their rawest form; Pride Before a Fall, now the second book, was over 30,000 words shorter, and Funeral of Hopes was only 18,000 words (now over 60,000).
The goal was to use them to get people invested in my work and, eventually, purchase the trilogy when it became available. As I continued to learn more about traditional publishing, I realized this probably wasn’t the best idea; I couldn’t rely on AO3 readers for social proof to a publisher, and low metrics would imply that my story idea wasn’t good enough.
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I realized that these prequels would never be published traditionally as they are, and I wanted the series written to my own specifications.
I’m proud of 9 Years Yearning. It’s a lovely, short book that introduces people to the important characters before we get into the heavier books in the second part of the series. (You can read more about what to expect from The Eirenic Verses in this post.)
But I know that publishing houses would not agree. It’s very short at only around 31,000 words, which is almost unheard of for a tradpub fantasy novel. The standard metric is over 90,000 words, and I was not going to cram a million more words into this story just to satisfy an agent. As such, it wouldn’t be published in its current form, nor would the next four before Poesy, which are all below 90,000 words.
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The brevity of 9 Years Yearning is part of its charm.
There is a lot more I could have done with 9 Years Yearning if I wanted to. For example, I could have shared more anecdotes from Uileac and Orrinir’s early life together, or I could have traded off perspectives between Uileac and Orrinir.
While I did consider these options before publishing, I decided against it and chose to keep the book less than 130 pages.
I am an unknown indie author, and few people are going to risk a lot of money on a large novel from someone they do not yet trust to tell a great story. Pricing it low and keeping it short means that those who did not like the book did not waste a lot of time or money on it, and those who did like the book will be excited to hear that there will be nine more stories to enjoy.
Additionally, I was aware going in that 9 Years Yearning would probably not gain a lot of traction before I built up my catalogue with more stories. I did not want to spend years picking at it, knowing that I needed to start on the next parts of the series so that those tantalized by the short intro would have something else to jump on.
And yes, I haven’t gained much traction at all quite yet. That’s perfectly okay with me; I still have many years to market and refine my approach. This brings me to some of the mistakes I made while writing and marketing 9 Years Yearning.
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Like many debut self-pub authors, I made a lot of mistakes with my first book.
I think 9 Years Yearning is a wonderful introduction to my world that draws people in but does not bore them with insane amounts of worldbuilding. It’s intriguing enough that people moved on to Pride Before a Fall, just as I hoped they would, and I know I already have some loyal readers who are eager for my next book, too.
But I didn’t show my book the love it deserved by doing my research and preparing more carefully. Most of my mistakes were to do with marketing and presentation. Here are just a few of them:
Not getting a good book cover right off the bat. Katarina did an amazing job with my cover, but originally I had a cheap, lazy one I did on Canva. Then I paid $50 for a really boring cover. Neither of those sold well in the crucial first few weeks.
Not planning my release date. I didn’t talk about my book ahead of time or get people invested; I didn’t run an ARC campaign, set up a website, or even talk about it with my friends and family. This all set me back quite a bit, and while I did work to improve this with Pride Before a Fall, I still made some serious mistakes with my second release that I’ll talk about in another post.
Using Kindle Unlimited. Being kind of dumb, I wasn’t aware of how many people actually use something other than Kindle to download their books, so I figured it was fine to just have it on Kindle. But KU is actually more for romance novels that people expect to read only once, not for fantasy series where people will want to read it again as different parts come out.
Ignoring wide distribution. I probably would have made a lot more money if I had done Draft2Digital immediately.
Paying for Amazon ads. I lost about $100 on Amazon ads before realizing that it wasn’t worthwhile until I had a more solid backlog. I probably will not start using paid advertising until I’m at least to Poesy.
Paying for an influencer review. This review is really nice, and the reviewer did a TikTok video too, but it did not net me any sales whatsoever. Want to note here, though, that I have never paid for any Amazon or Goodreads reviews; all of those are completely unsolicited and unpaid. (Also, pretty please leave reviews if you read my books! I’ll love you forever!)
Not networking enough. Still struggling with this, but I’m getting better. At least more people know of my existence now!
Alas, this is par for the course with selfpub. No one teaches you these things, and frankly, I break out into hives when I think about marketing. I’m still getting over my fear of it and improving.
But I’m also not deeply concerned with sales metrics right now. I write because I love what I do; I have a stable day job that pays my bills. One day, I hope that The Eirenic Verses will break even, perhaps make enough that I can build myself a nest egg.
Don’t get me wrong: every sale is precious, and I really appreciate anyone willing to drop a bit of money on my work. More special to me, though, is the feedback I get from readers. That’s much more important.
So, if you love 9 Years Yearning, please leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads! It’s exceedingly helpful to me.
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I intend to release a paperback with bonus stories later on.
It would be lovely to go to conventions and sign my name, so I will create paperbacks of all the books eventually. However, I don’t think it’s fair to expect readers to pay more for only 125 pages of content; there are large expenses associated with Print on Demand, so I couldn’t possibly charge just $1.99 for a physical version.
As such, the paperback of 9 Years Yearning will have some upgrades, including bonus stories only available in print and an even more beautiful cover. All the bonus stories will take place in between 9 Years Yearning and Pride Before a Fall to ensure continuity, but they will also not be explicitly referenced in the other books so that those who only want the digital version won’t miss out on anything important.
This would be my little thank-you to those who choose to pay a bit more, ensuring that they get value for their money.
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I hope that 9 Years Yearning serves as a tantalizing entry into a larger world.
My readers are important to me; I wouldn’t have said thank you to them in a full post otherwise.
When I write, I think about what you would enjoy and how I can give you a bit of respite from whatever is bothering you. I know exactly how crucial it is to dive into a fantasy world when you’re upset, having done that thousands of times over my life. It’s my hope that you’ll experience that same comfort from my stories.
I am also achingly conscious of the fact that you only have so many hours in the day to read, and you don’t want to waste time slogging through full chapters of backstory and irrelevant details. My stories are concise precisely because your time is valuable; I want you to enjoy every word, not roll your eyes and push your way through it in hopes that things will get better.
In fact, I love my readers so much that I’d consider it the greatest honor if someone ever wrote fanfic about The Eirenic Verses. This would matter so much more to me than fame, fortune, or awards.
So, who knows? I’m hoping that as the years go on, 9 Years Yearning will became your comfort read and pick-me-up. Or at least something you reflect upon fondly, remembering the few minutes you spent enjoying someone else’s life.