Tale of The Winter Lands
My first and dearest book.
How do I even start a post about my first published book, Tale of The Winter Lands? I am deeply connected to it and protective of it, yet despite the award it received, I know it is not perfect.
But I love it, and the sequel is right around the corner.
What if I told you I worked on the book for six years, mixing three very different languages: Croatian, English, and occasionally Italian. Once I wrote ‘the end,’ it suddenly hit me: how would I ever translate it, polish it, or make anything of it? It was the story I dreamt of, but it was a huge mess.
Long story short, after I saved some money, I went about it the wrong way. I paid a proofreader. Yes, you heard that correctly. I knew nothing about copy editors, let alone developmental editors. Learned that the hard way; after I had a UK editor and, additionally, a US editor. All my savings gone. Checkmate in three moves.
So it took a while to save up for the right illustrator, but luckily my research skills paid off: I found a true artist who also charged lower fees for self-publishing authors. And his watercolor designs were exactly what I envisioned. And I was so excited. Finally, my dream of publishing this story was coming true.
Little did I know what lay ahead: marketing, Amazon struggles, bad reviews, and such.
I took many things personally, but often it was my own fault and ignorance. I did look at everything through rose-colored glasses.
All I ever wanted was to give that cozy, warm Christmas feeling, inspired by a movie I watched well over two hundred times: Miracle on 34th Street.
My heroine is twenty-six, yes. I come from a generation where many of my acquaintances and friends were still in college or figuring it out, so it made sense to make Victoria similar to us. Similar to me. I started this book when I was twenty-six. And I was lost. Career-wise, I was totally and utterly lost after leaving Music Academy and violin after so many years.
So I created imperfect Victoria, little, annoying, lost, and mainly lost in her own world. In my own image. Yearning for whimsy, yet slowly growing up, happy with childlike things, and very irrational in her decisions. Who do you think I pulled the inspiration from? Me. I poured everything I knew others found odd about me into her. I also poured in what I found annoying about myself. And I wanted to do something good with that, to use it for good.
Some readers feel it was rushed; some found it a beautiful adventure. Some are not satisfied that Italy wasn’t included. And that is ok.
Everything is valid for every individual. After all, that’s the beauty of the human race. But at the time, this wasn’t my thinking. At the time, I was sad. Not about the sudden one-star reviews, but about how it all went down.
You see, I started paying for Amazon marketing, and slowly I saw some ROI, so I started using it properly. Not long after, one-star reviews started to come in. And my friends’ honest reviews, mind you, they bought their own books, started to disappear. Not magically; the Amazon reviews team started deleting them because, “we see some connection of those accounts to you.” Of course. They are my friends. We follow each other, text, and call, but we don’t share an Amazon account. Nothing helped. They were just ignoring me. But allowing one-star reviews from unverified purchases was totally fine. At the time, I lost the will to fight; it felt like everything I'd done so far was a waste of my time. Well, that’s what I thought at the time.
So I stopped. I became ashamed of my littleness, my inability to understand what was going on, and I just stopped. Not even the Silver Medal Award from Readers’ Favorite International Awards lifted my spirits. So much so that I never properly promoted my children's picture book, Christmas-themed, of course.
I needed some real growing up. Just like Victoria.
And though some might not understand her, I hope a small percentage will see it’s ok to feel or be different. It’s ok if you are twenty-six or thirty-six and you still haven’t found yourself. It’s ok sometimes to do rash things; you will learn your lessons. It’s ok if you are all over the place. It’s ok.
And in Victoria’s case, that came with a little bit of magic and strange adventures.
