2 Years Of Being a Published Author

This month is the second anniversary of being a published author. In December 2013, my first story was published – Christmas Serendipity. The sequel to this story, The Next Christmas is now out, and available from JMS Books, and will shortly follow from other distributors.

What have I achieved in this two years? I've checked through my Amazon author pages, Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk my hard drive and my calendar and I'm pretty pleased with my progress. I hope this post doesn't come across as being smug, because it's not meant to - I've had an awful lot of help along the way with this, but I am pleased about it, definitely not smug, but pleased :-)

Publishing

• I now have 3 novellas published – Christmas Serendipity, The Next Christmas, Heat Wave Astoria
  
• A story in an anthology – Bedtime Stories – mine's called Frangipani Kisses
  
• 7 Novels published with 3 publishers: Wilde City Press - Best Friends Perfect book one, two, three; Manifold Press - Escaping From Him and Wrong Room, Right Guy; Love Lane Books – And Then That Happened and The Guardian Angel (all available on my Amazon author pages).
  
• Editing - While working on these stories, with different publishers and different editors, I've learned so much about editing, and really enjoy it. Every editor I've worked with has taught me something new that I've taken with me when I've written subsequent stories.
  

Contracted but not yet published
Serendipity Develops – a novella of David and Christian's story of what happens in the year between Christmas Serendipity and The Next Christmas. You can read these in any order, and they stand alone, but can also be read in sequential order too.

Writing

As I've written more, I think I've refined my writing process, so now I know what works and what doesn't work for me. Because I've worked out what works, and I write first drafts very quickly – 3-5000 words per day when I'm first drafting - I have been able to write a lot of stories over the 2 years. Many of them aren't in any fit state to be submitted anywhere yet, but as a rough guide, these are the things I've written over the last two years, but have yet to be published:

• Kev Friends Perfect - a spin off trilogy from Best Friends Perfect, written from Kev's perpective – I still have one more book to write of this to fully finish Kev's story
  
• Glitzy Gay Saga – my attempt at a gay bonk buster like a Jackie Collins novel
  
• I Should Be So Lucky – my Nanowrimo 2015 novel about a backing dancer and a St John Ambulance volunteer
  
• Love U More – adventures in nineties clubland in Ibiza
  
• The Other Man – a spin off from The Guardian Angel - think a gay romance Stepford Wives mixed with The Witches of Eastwick
  

I've started writing: (a first chapter)

• Imploding Marriage – a straight rom com / women's fiction story – I'll need a new pen name for that, to be decided...suggestions welcomed please!
  
• The Summer House – a gay romance set the summer between finishing A levels and going to uni
  

I've planned out: (post it notes or general scribbles)

• Tenerife – a gay romance set in Tenerife, that's the working title at the moment
  
• Pinewood Husbands - a murder mystery set in the UK
  
• Sci fi island idea – came to me one morning while we were on holiday in Australia
  

Socialising

I am a member of the RNA, attend their London and South East Chapter meetings and their annual conference.

I help run a local writers group – Waltham Abbey Writers – with Jean Fullerton and Victoria Robertson.

Events

I have been on the organising committee for UK Meet since 2013, which has been a great way to meet loads more author friends in the GLBTQ romance genre.

Studying

I have recently started studying a MA in Creative Writing (distance learning) at Kingston University. This will finish in autumn 2016.

Other

I am a reader for the RNA's New Writers Scheme, which is a great way for unpublished authors to get a very reasonably priced appraisal and report of their work.

I've even been in The Guardian (The Epping Forest Guardian, not *The Guardian* about my grandfather's war memoirs.

I have done some marketing consultancy work for a publisher. Yes, I am taking on new clients, authors, publishers, bloggers, no marketing job too small :-)

I've made loads of author, reader, blogger friends in through conferences, meeting people online, and everyone has been so helpful. I am very grateful for everyone's help who's beta read my stories, hosted me on their blogs, been there when I had a minor melt down, simply listened, or lifted my spirits when I felt down. Thank you all.

I'm pretty proud of it all really.
Liam