holding up the sky

Exciting publishing announcement!

8 September 2021 / 15 Comments

Today I have news that has been years in the making. My contemporary YA novel Holding Up the Sky has been on quite the journey with me, and I am so very excited to finally announce its next phase. Come check out all the details of my long-awaited publishing debut!! →

If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you probably would have heard me talk about my contemporary YA novel Holding Up the Sky. This book has been on quite the journey with me: it’s the first stand-alone I’ve ever written, the first story I’ve worked on for NaNoWriMo, and the very first WIP I sent out to beta readers. And today, I am over-the-moon excited to make the following announcement:

I will be publishing Holding Up the Sky, my debut novel, in late 2022.

My plan was always to publish this book—one way or another. Like many writers, I’ve always dreamed of having a book traditionally published, though I’ve definitely come to see the advantages of self-publishing in more recently. Still, I wanted to give the traditional route a crack, because (1) why not? and (2) I didn’t want to look back down the track and ask myself “what if?”.

After almost 2 years of querying agents and publishers without any luck, I feel it’s time to move on. I’ve learned so much during the querying process, and I have no regrets for pursuing this dream. Maybe I’ll revisit it one day. But now I’m eager to make the real dream a reality: getting my book into the world so people can actually read it! And that’s exactly what I plan to do.

The idea for Holding Up the Sky first came to me in mid 2014, which feels like a literal lifetime ago now. I completed the first draft in late 2016, the second draft in mid 2017, and the third draft in late 2018 during NaNoWriMo. Then I took my first big leap and sent it out to beta readers in early 2019, and spent the rest of that year making edits based on their feedback. Draft number four came in at just under 85,000 words, and this is the version I used to query agents in 2020 and Aussie publishers in 2021.

But now that you’ve had the book’s life story, what is it actually about?

Seventeen-year-old Carter seems to have it all figured out, but he’s gotten good at pretending. No one sees through his façade to the ugly truth lurking beneath—until now.

Until him.

Remy blazes into Carter’s life and turns his defences to ash. And that’s when everything he’s worked for starts to fall apart…

Full Blurb
Read Chapter 1

At its heart, Holding Up the Sky is the story of an Aussie schoolboy pushed to the brink of despair…and how he claws his way back. It deals with some pretty heavy themes—grief, mental illness, sexuality, the damage high expectations can cause—so it’s intended for an upper-YA audience, though older readers are most welcome. I’m very excited (and terrified) for you all to read Carter’s story!

So, now that I’ve finally made this momentous decision, what are my next steps from here? You may remember that one of my goals for 2020 was to research and create a summary guide to self-publishing. I’ve therefore got a fairly good idea of what the process will involve—and I know I have A LOT of work to do. To keep from getting overwhelmed, here’s what I’m focusing on in the short term:

Creating a to-do list & publication plan. First things first, I’m going to make a GIANT list of all the things I need to do. Once I’ve broken down all of the necessary tasks, I’m going to put them into a rough month-by-month plan so I have a guide moving forwards.

Setting up the business side of things. Though it’s tempting to jump straight into designing the book itself, I want to have all the business stuff organised first. So for the rest of 2021, I’ll focus on all the financial stuff, registrations, obtaining ISBNs etc, so that’s good and ready to go.

Preparing for professional editing. I actually engaged a professional editor a few months back to reserve a spot in their queue. Editing won’t commence until early 2022, so I’ll probably give my manuscript a final sweep before I send it off. I’m really looking forward to this process!

That’s the plan for now, anyway, and I’ll definitely be getting stuck into action point number 1 this September. I’ll keep you all posted on social media and through my quarterly updates. The exact publication date will depend on a number of things so I haven’t set it just yet, but once I have I’ll be sure to let you all know!

Have you self-published a book before? Do you have any advice or recommend any resources for a newbie just starting out? Share your thoughts below!!

I'm an Australian indie author who hoards books, loves dogs and coffee, and has a tendency of staying up all night!

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