The Journey of Self-Published Author | Kaira Denee

She is determined, ambitious and still-standing, she is Kaira Denee a self published author, rising to her own fame. She has a story to tell, and she told us. Being rejected 90 times by different agencies after finishing up her book, she built up enough courage to self publish. She took us on a ride of her journey when we spoke to her early last week....

 

"you kind of feel like a used car sales man"  

"it killed my confidence" 

"People would talk to you sometimes like you're not a person"

Who is kaira Denee? 

Right now, I’m in the finance business which a lot of people find interesting, but I don’t. I served in the national guard for a few years before I became a published author, that was 1999 through 2001.

How long have you been writing and when did you realize this was what you wanted to do? I started writing in 98’, when I went to college I started, on my campus everyone went home on the weekends, so it was boring and one of my friends got me into reading, which just opened up a whole door for me, and I decided I wanted to try to write. It was pretty private at first It was just something I did on my spare time, and once I got older and revisioned and started getting the confidence to let people read it, it became exciting for me, for people to want to hear more and to be like “finish it, finish it! I want to know what happens!”

What was your major in college? Accounting

What made you decide to self publish instead of going directly through an agency? I didn’t know anything, I just really went to Google, and I saw that you should write a query letter to an agent and I sent out about 100 query letters and got 90 rejections and a couple of people asked to read more and it kind of killed my confidence like noone loves my books as much as I do. I didn’t like the rejection and that’s when I went back to Google and found out about self publishing.What do you love most about being an author? Living through characters that I write. A lot of people, if you know me, I’m a little shy and when they read my books their really surprised, like oh my gosh I didn’t know you could be so dramatic and so sexy or whatever. I like to live through them, its fun.

Is there anything you dislike? Book signings, which is terrible, they’re really draining, you kind of feel like when you’re not as well known as the other authors, you kind of feel like a used car salesman. People pretend like you’re not there. “I don’t want to buy your book, I don’t know you”, but it can be fun at the same time too.Was it a lot of money to self-publish, were you breaking your pockets?  I want to say total I spent 5,000 but on the other end you get 100% back. The good thing about self publishing is that you have books on hand, and like the money is so much quicker and easier but at the same time you are responsible for invoicing, and distributors so much of the business part, that it was hard to be an author still.

How long does it take you to write a book/finish a manuscript? The shortest time for me has been about 8 months.

In the middle of finishing a manuscript have you have gotten discouraged? What inspired you do keep writing? What keeps me going is just, I’m a mother, and when she reads my stuff, she’s like “oh you got to finish this!” she gives me ideas, and she’s just so motivating, and when I feel like no one wants to read this, what am I talking about, she’s like “oh my god what are you talking about, this is good, keep going!”

Do you need a certain mood to write? Usually when I write, I write with the music on, music inspires me. I like quiet, I like to be alone, and really early morning, I can really zone out and focus.

What else would you like to accomplish besides writing? I would love too write articles for a magazine, I mean so much, but I would love to have my own publishing imprint.

Advice you have for up and coming authors? Be prepared have tough skin, I wasn’t prepared for the amount of criticism. People would talk to you sometime, like you’re not a person. I’m at a book signing, and someone would bring a book like “OH! this is you? I saw your myspace page  and you look way better in real life,” or “I didn’t like the ending of your book,” and everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I put a lot of hard work into what I do, but you have to learn to nod your head and say thank you, you know have tough skin.