Showing all posts tagged indie publishing

In Books, Identity, Movies/TV, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships, Speaking, University, Writing

3 Words for 2025

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

Last month, I wrote a post reflecting on 2024, and as I usually do every January, now I’m sharing the three words I’ve chosen to focus on in 2025. I know a lot of people choose one word, but I find that too narrow. Maybe I’m just a slow learner, but I like to see how my three chosen words work together over the course of the year to change me.

For this year, I picked these 3 words: Deeper. Simpler. Quieter.

I’ve decided that 2025 is a year to turn inward. To create, to dream, to plan for the future. I’m working on stillness right now, and building in more space for myself. I can feel myself longing for deeper roots, both within myself and in my relationships and my career.

I love the agricultural concept of allowing the soil to lie fallow in order to regenerate. When I got quiet at the end of 2024 to imagine what my next year would look like, I realised I wanted a period of quiet and simple depth. I longed for a year where I focused more on writing than on publishing.

I returned to university in 2017 as a mature student, and after I finished my BA in Creative Writing I continued on for a master’s degree, graduating in spring 2023. I started my publishing company Ruby Finch Books immediately after this, learning the indie publishing world so I could release two novels (Jamesy Harper’s Big Break in 2023 and Post Civ in 2024). At the same time, both of my kids were finishing high school and moving out of our house and into university, which required me to practice my skills in letting go (and in general, I prefer to hang on rather than let go).

For 2025, I want to slow down and catch my breath. I’ve also decided to live into my longest-held dream of adapting my books into screenplays and TV scripts to try to get them made. I wrote about this in my January Substack newsletter, and I’m calling this adventure Ruby Finch Pictures even though I don’t know exactly what form this will take yet.

It’s important to keep our dreams alive. I didn’t know how to indie publish a novel before I learned that process, and now I’ve done it twice and I’m thrilled to have these books out in the world and available through many libraries. This work will continue, and it’s good work. But I also want to form a production company and see my stories come to life on the screen. This dream is going to take some time, but it’s worth pursuing.

I’m loving settling into this year, our first one as empty-nesters, and prioritising quiet, simplicity, and depth. I’m working on my first murder mystery novel, A Body at the Fair, and I’m adapting two of my books for the screen. I’m teaching writing and nurture, both online and in person at conferences and through libraries, and Jason and I are creating a new routine and existence that’s just for us as a married couple and not for us as a family of four.

This year feels like a completely fresh start already, and we’re only a month into it. How about you? What words are you hoping to live into this year?

In Books, Nurture, Personal Growth, Speaking, Writing

Trying and Failing

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

I released Post Civ into the world this month. I’m incredibly proud of this novel, as it’s the book of my heart, the one I longed to write but would’ve been too afraid to attempt before this point in my life.

It’s the second book I indie-published under my new company imprint Ruby Finch Books. I took everything I learned from publishing my YA novel, Jamesy Harper’s Big Break, and applied it to Post Civ, which made the whole process seem easier and smoother the second time around.

Except for the launch events. With Jamesy Harper, I created a discussion around identity and the big dreams many of us have for our lives when we are young, as these themes are in the novel. I had a presentation ready, and I felt both nervous and excited to try it at libraries and schools.

But no one came. My writing and wellness classes at libraries were well attended, but I had no one show up for any of the discussion events for the book. I wasn’t exactly sure why these hour-long discussions didn’t draw any readers, but after the launch events last fall I put it out of my mind and started to focus on the long process of publishing Post Civ.

When I began planning for Post Civ’s launch, I remembered that no one came to the Jamesy discussions. I even looked back at my end of the year review that I did for Ruby Finch Books, where I wrote, “I tried to build a discussion event for Jamesy Harper, to appeal to readers who might not be interested in attending my writing classes, but it didn’t seem to work for some reason.”

My intuition was telling me that I should focus on what was working well and choose not to pursue more reader events. But I ignored this for Post Civ, thinking that the themes of climate and equity in this adult novel might draw more people who would be interested in discussing these topics together.

So I created a no-tech discussion, to mimic the way the characters in the post-apocalyptic book sit around the campfire and talk together. I told libraries about the discussion and booked a few of them.

You might be able to guess where this is going. No one came (except my lovely friend and editor which was kind of her, and we had a catch-up visit during the hour allotted for the Post Civ discussion).

I wasn’t particularly bothered by how these discussions failed. Most authors, at one point or another in their career, struggle to draw a crowd. I’ve never been interested in book readings or signings, which is why I thought I’d try something more inclusive, where the themes in the book are only a springboard for discussion about key issues that might interest a lot of people.

I try not to take this personally. In life, we try a lot of different things, and many of those things will fail. What bothers me is that I didn’t listen to my own intuition. But I’m working on speaking more gently to myself, as part of offering nurture and care to me instead of just to other people. The key is to hold loosely and not to expect too much, of myself or of others.

I have a few more of these events scheduled in November. Maybe they will work, and maybe they won’t. I figure I’ll show up, and whatever happens was meant to happen. I’ll listen closer to my intuition when I’m planning for future books and releases and events. Things will continue to change. And trying and failing is all part of succeeding.