Bella Dean Joyner's Blog, page 3

Audio Book Updates, Marketing, and Book Reviews

Hello Dear Readers!

I hope this post finds all of you well and healthy.

Things have been going well on The Still home front. Yesterday, I received an update from Spencer Dillehay, the narrator working on recording the audio book . He is in the process of going through the book, prepping it for his recording sessions that will start this coming week. In his email, he told me that he had let his vocal coach hear an exert of his performance of the novel and had received glowing praise for both the quality of his delivery and the suspense built up in the novel. I'm very excited for this partnership and look forward to what the next month will bring fans of The Still.

As many of you know, I have begun work on my second novel which was originally going to be titled The Chair in the Empty Field after its inspiration. However, after a discussion with my cover art designer and some self reflection on the book, the name has been changed to Whispering. Please make sure you are subscribed to my newsletter for my June 15th reveal of the cover art for Whispering. I will be posting it no where else until launch!

On a more personal note while I am sharing, even though my world has been consumed with all things writing, marketing, and research, I have not allowed my studies to fall to the wayside. For the January-May semester, I finished with a 4.0 grade point average (gpa) and made the President's List!

Marketing.

I'm starting to loathe the word. It may not actually be marketing that I hate, but the fact that I am constantly playing catch up because I did none of these steps ahead of time. And that is okay! I have a lifetime and countless other books to be better and do better with. Hopefully this blog helps keep some of you from making the same mistakes.

However, I don't want to single out my readers who are fans of my novels and come here for the content that doesn't necessarily pertain to marketing. Since reviews, getting your name out there, are such a huge part of the self-publishing writer's world, I have decided to use this space to also honestly review the works of new horror genre authors that I come across. Be looking for the first post at the end of this coming week when I review Drowning Demons by Ben Wydeven.

For my own book, I'm getting some really great feedback, yet those comments are not converting to book reviews. I have consistent page reads on Kindle Unlimited and ebook purchases, but you would never know it by the amount of reviews I have on Amazon and even fewer on Goodreads. I suppose it's true what they say, that only 1% of your readers convert to reviews. So what as a writer can we do to remedy that?

I'm currently doing a few different things. I started to look through books similar to mine within my targeted genre and reached out to people who gave quality reviews. I favored the ones whose reviews were honest and detailed. I was able to reach out to a few who agreed to read and review my work and now I'm patiently waiting while they get to my book on their "to read" list.

There are also multiple bloggers who review books for new self-publishing authors upon request. This is an avenue that I am currently exploring myself, but preliminary research within the horror genre has over 20 current bloggers with well established platforms who are currently accepting new novels for review. They accept multiple mediums (mobi, epub, paperback, etc) and post reviews of your work to various sites such as Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, as well as their own blog readers. After I follow through with a few of the leads I have uncovered, I'll let you guys know how this avenue works for me and my review numbers/quality.

In my last blog I mentioned BargainBooksy where I paid $25 for my book to be sent out to a list of approximately 64,000 horror genre readers. My ad was sent out this past Monday.

While I can't really judge whether my Kindle Unlimited reads have had any significant downloads from it, I do know that I did not receive any additional ebook or paperback sales. This very well may be due to me still having a low number of reviews on my novel, but there is no way to know for sure at this point. I would have to agree with others who posted that they received very minimal return from BargainBooksy. I do look at it as just a way for me to have gotten my name out to a few other readers and that is a plus, but if you already have an established reader base, BargainBooksy may not be the best choice for you. I may try it again later once my novel has picked up a bit more traction. I do plan on trying out FreeBooksy around the time of my second book launch and will update you guys on how that works out for me.

Bookfunnel is quickly becoming a favorite tool of mine. I have participated in three promotions so far each with over 40 other titles. It is a combined effort of newsletter and social media sharing across other writers within the same genre. I have built my newsletter email list up from 0 to well over 100 readers in less than a month from these promotions alone. There is some cost involved. Because I went into these promotions with no newsletter to share the links with, I decided to create posts on my author page on Facebook and then promote those posts. Each of my promotions has a daily spend limit of $2 currently and I run it for the entire length of the promotion. In total, each promotion runs me about $20-$30. The Facebook ad team does notify me when someone outside of my followers likes one of the promotion posts so I am then able to invite them to like my author page. I definitely see Bookfunnel as a fantastic way for you to increase your social media presence, establish a newsletter list, and build your reader base.

Don't think I have forgotten the list of marketing books I said that I would be reviewing! I have been slower than I previously anticipated with it because I had to go with the ebb and flow of my own marketing efforts. However, I have made time for them this week to ease the strain on my own "to read" list.

The first for the week is Market to Millions: The Ultimate Directory to Free ebook Promotion by David Ogren, available on Kindle Unlimited. I went into this book thinking it would be like the others, a list of marketing strategies that might not pertain very much to fiction writing. However, I was pleasantly surprised. This book is simply a database of over 150 free promotional sites for your ebook. Listed alphabetically, Ogren has also included details such as the sites marketing niche, their average visits per month, and how to submit your book to them. These sites average in traffic from 200 visitors per month to powerhouses of half a million visitors a month. As a horror genre writer, I did not feel excluded by this database like I have with other works I've read that seemed very centered on nonfiction. This week I will be submitting my novel to as many of these resources as I can and will see what sort of feedback I receive.

The second I was able to go through this week was Successful Self-Publishing: How to Self-Publish and Market Your Book by Joanna Penn. I found Penn to be well-spoken and her writing to be more approachable and warm than the other books on self-publishing and marketing that I have read. This book is a highlight of her process and the resources that she has gathered along the way. Again, like others before it, it seems to work best as an ebook versus an actual paperback copy because of the links involved when resources are mentioned.

Penn very seriously suggests that each writer use an editor. I side with your collective groan. Oh the sticker shock I experienced when I looked on her website and the list of suggested editors! I'm not entirely sure how an author just starting out would be able to afford $2000+ for editing services. I'm sure that the quality of the novel you produce would then make up for the amount spent if you have built a substantial reader base, but it was definitely a punch in the stomach for someone like myself who has not made it that far in the process. I am committed to this process though and will definitely be looking through her suggestions and putting some feelers out.

There was one service that she mentioned when she discussed editing, Reedsy, that reminded me a little of Fiverr. However, the credentials listed for each of these editors seemed to average between 10-20 years in the field with experience at one to multiple major publishing houses. I chose three of the editors who specialize in the horror genre and submitted a request for a quote alone with the first chapter of my book. We will see what they return with and I will update you guys on one of my next blog posts.

Other than those services, the rest of the book was very much an echoing of material that you can find on any of the self-publishing Facebook groups. Write multiple novels because you won't actually establish a reader fan base until you are 3+ books in. Series are easier to write and publish quickly because you don't have to recreate the world and the characters. She even mentioned a few of the marketing sites I have already used and reviewed for you. Overall, it was a pleasant read but not one that I would necessarily recommend as a "must have" for the self-published author trying to market their works.

As always, thank you for taking the time to read this! I appreciate each of you that keeps me company on this self-publishing journey. In time, I can't wait to hear what all of you thought about The Still and look forward to the launch of my 2nd novel, Whispering!

My Weekly Excitement and Marketing Update

Throughout all of my marketing research so far, I have continuously heard one name mentioned multiple times, how freelance editors, marketers, book cover artists, etc have helped so many self-publishing artists succeed in the business through this one service.

Fiverr.

What even is a Fiverr? According to

DO. NOT. DO. IT.

A lot of these marketing materials I'm reading so far are extremely focused on printing multiple books at a time, cranking them out like candy. They want you to have a set process so that you can print multiple books a year, and that's how you're supposed to make your living. With 20+ books out a time, you're bound to have enough purchases and accidental Kindle Unlimited reads to make a decent living, to get the Kindle Select bonuses for most page reads in your genre. And that's another thing...they want you to market towards a genre that doesn't have that much of a following, that isn't saturated, so that you can have best seller at some point on your screen. That sounds an awful lot like "Made in China, self-publishing version" to me.

I don't know about you, but as a reader and an author, I don't want to be spoon-fed someone's work that didn't come from their heart. As a reader, you can pick up on that. The plots become less and less original, characters start sounding the same. Each book reads more and more like the last in a never-ending chain of conformity and mundane bullshit. And as an author, how can you settle for that? I would rather work a nine to five job and keep writing as a passionate side hustle than ever submitting to demeaning my work like that. If I write a book a month, it will be because my muse genuinely allowed me to. If I end up making a living from this, I will have the peace of mind and pride in knowing that I made it there honestly.

But enough of my soap box.

So if you don't want to use Fiverr, what should you do for cover art? I found an absolute jewel! Her name is Paramita. She lives in India, and she is an incredible graphic artist. I am extremely brand loyal when someone treats me well and delivers exceptional product. She goes above and beyond. Her website is

Now, she is not $5 cheap like what you will find on Fiverr. I had a bit of sticker shock when I was first debating purchasing her artwork. I will reference again the old adage that you get what you pay for. Her prices range from $50 to $160 for premade covers with an additional $100 for the full paperback version and $60 for an audiobook cover. So for $150 total, I got an ebook cover for Kindle, a jpg to use in ads, a paperback cover for Kindle, as well as the formats used for Barnes & Noble and Smashwords...all within a three day turn around time. A major cyclone hit India and they lost power in her area for 55 hours and she still got my order to me within the frame listed on her website. She is amazing. Here is her work:

This is a book I would be proud to have on the shelves some day.

Now, in comparison, let me show you what type of things were being given to me from the artist on Fiverr.

Do you see the difference in quality? The price I was paying on Fiverr for this catastrophe? $32. It took him literally a week to progress to this. The work was so incredibly painful that Fiverr actually refunded me for his services after initially telling me that that is against their practices. I sent them over 10 screenshots of emails detailing exactly what I needed him to do and in each one he did the exact opposite. For instance, the direction for the above piece was to take out the window pane. Instead, he added 2348967024897024 of them. Quite the experience.

Moral of the story? Go with Paramita! Hands down! Save up, it's worth it.

Another good bit of news, I entered into contract with a narrator for my audiobook. We are adjusting the script together and it should be done with production by the end of June. His name is Spencer M. Dillehay out of Los Angeles, California. Very excited to see how this goes! Again, I am very brand loyal and if things go well with this audiobook, you all will become very familiar with his voice!

Now for this week's marketing efforts.

I told you in my last blog post that I had signed up for BookFunnel. It's a monthly (or yearly) subscription service and you get the ability to collaborate your marketing efforts with other authors within your genre. I am currently in two of them with a couple more scheduled to start shortly. The first one was just a way to get more Kindle Unlimited reads. I can't actually tell if it helped or not. The second one, however, was a way for me to give my first chapter out for free in exchange for my readers emails. I currently am up to 42 emails for my newsletter list. No where near the thousands every marketing book tells you that you should have, but when you start from nothing, baby steps seem monumental. That list will grow.

I just checked out the statistics for that one BookFunnel promotion. It has been shared 28 times, probably by each individual author. Over 450 readers have clicked the link to the promotion, and 69 readers have claimed their free book or chapter. Chapter one of my book makes up 42 of those claims. Thank you, Paramita, for that cover! I would definitely recommend BookFunnel for those authors trying to get their name out there and build their reader base.

There is also a reoccurring name in the marketing research I am doing, Freebooksy. For a fee, they will promote your book to a list of readers for your genre. They do disclose how many readers are within that genre and, of course, the size of the fee correlates with the size of their distribution list. There is one stipulation....your book must be free. So you have to create a Kindle promotion where your book is lowered to free for the days that your Freebooksy promotion is running. However, Kindle Select only allows you to have one five day promotion period per 90 day enrollment.

Another alternative they offer is through their sister site, BargainBooksy, where they allow books from 99 cents to $5.99 to advertise. I have heard that authors have had less success with BargainBooksy than with Freebooksy, but if you are just starting out, again, any way that you can get your name out there is worth it.

I chose to save my promotion period for when my second book is published and instead went with BargainBooksy where I would not have to change the price of my book. Starting June 1st, for $25, my book will be promoted to 64,000 readers interested in horror genre novels. I will let you know how it plays out!

As always, thank you for reading and have a wonderful rest of your week!

Marketing Updates for My Second Week as a Published Author

What a roller coaster of a week this has been since publishing The Still last Tuesday. First off, The Still is available in paperback as of this morning!!! Be sure to head on over to Amazon and purchase your copy. I have also entered into contract with a narrator to produce the audiobook which we should have completed by the end of June.

As for the rest, the learning curve for marketing and getting your name out there is unforgiving if you don't do the legwork ahead of time. I'm still going through my list of marketing books that I previewed a few days ago, but I wanted to take the time to let everyone know how I am applying the information from those resources and how successful, or not, it has been.

First, I tried AMS ads which are Amazon ads that can be for Kindle specifically or for the greater Amazon network. Because there are Amazon apps for readers on multiple platforms such as Windows and Apple, I chose to go with the Sponsored (greater Amazon network) Ads. Think about the last time you went to the Amazon page of a book you were contemplating purchasing. Hopefully it was my book, shameless plug! The books that you see in the "Products related to this item" section below the description are what Amazon calls Sponsored Ads.

There are four different categories of Sponsored Ads: close match, loose match, substitute, and compliment. You can set a different high bid for each of these sessions. Bid? Yes, bid. There are no set ad spaces or set amounts that you purchase. If you want that first ad spot during a prime time sell time and date for your genre, you have to have the highest bid among all of the other authors with similar keywords as yours throughout their description and set search terms. When I learned this, I felt immediately guilty for each time I had clicked one of those links out of curiosity with absolutely no intention of purchasing the book.

As for my own experience, having no idea what I was doing, I signed up to only spend $5 a day and signed up for the recommended (per Amazon's ad campaign helper) $.49 bid. I spent days without a single impression (what Amazon calls an ad). I spent no money, yet also completely failed at my advertising efforts. I did the only thing I knew to do. I raised my high bid to $1. The next day I had 8 impressions, 1 click, and 1 sale. That 1 sale cost me 19 cents. I completely do not understand this advertising logic. I won't even try to explain what sort of algorithm makes you have a $1 bid to even get a placement for a $.19 click for a sale. Since that sale, however, I have had no further impressions. I raised my bid to $2 on the off chance that every other horror genre author had the same inclination that day. It has been close to 24 hours and still no more impressions. I literally have no clue. As I do more research, I will share my findings!

Another resource that was given to me in the marketing material I have read through was a site called Fiverr. Never heard of it? Me either before all of this. However, the listing of services is quite extensive. You can literally hire anyone from around the world to actually write your ebook for you. I suppose this might explain why the market is inundated with horrible grammatical errors and books that make no logical sense. I have read multiple self-published works from the same author that have exactly the same plot...a historically tragic event in the area, a young woman just starting out on her own, the haunting that follows, girl leaves house...and once I learned there was a service like this, it really made me wonder! I won't name names just because I refuse to throw other authors under the bus, but that is a thing. The site does have very legitimate services though ranging from ebook covers to editing offered from people just starting out in the industry to pros with years of experience. I decided to give it a try!

I decided to enlist the services of a gentleman to design an ebook cover for me for my next book. The charge? $32. The phrase you get what you pay for comes to mind here, I know. But for experimental purposes, I did it. The process is simple. You choose a service and a collaborator that you would like to work with and the level of service that you want them to provide. I bought the premium plan which meant in this case that my designer would supply me with an ebook cover, a complete paperback cover with spine and back, and the PDF files. All I needed to do was tell him the description of my book, approximately how long it would be, and what I envisioned for the cover...so I did. How'd did it turn out? Well...let's just say that we're on our fourth revision. Would I use this service for an ebook cover again? Probably not. Was it worth saving money by spending $32 for this versus $400 with a professional? No. Would I recommend it to a new author just starting out who can't justify spending $400 on their first book? NO. You'd be better off creating something with Kindle's cover design software because this has been far more hassle than it should warrant.

I am a glutton for punishment though! I do plan on trying out their editing services with my second book. For a novel roughly 70,000 word count, it averages about $100-$200 on Fiverr with a guaranteed turn around time. This versus $1000+ for a freelance editor elsewhere isn't a hard choice for a new author barely starting out. Since I feel like I have a decent grasp on the English language, I'm comfortable using these services just as a second pair of eyes to help me with any minor adjustments I need to make. We'll see how it goes!

Now for the last thing I have been trying...BookFunnel. I saw this website listed on a few of the self-publishing Facebook pages I am part of. In creeping these pages, I gathered that this website is mainly used for newsletter and name promotion, not necessarily sales. Since I did not build a newsletter email/potential reader list prior to launching my first book, I decided to give this a try. This is a paid service that you subscribe to monthly or yearly with different levels that have different capabilities. I chose the medium level which allowed me to submit promotions and build a newsletter list. From there, all was lost. I have no idea what I'm doing...seems to be an ongoing plot line for me this week.

Promotions are listed by other authors with their own email lists and books who set up holidays promos, free book promos, new release promos etc and try to gain more subscribers and more attention by collaborating. It's a really great idea. I, however, am still struggling to figure it out. I created my novel's page...I think...with the correct links...I think. I added myself to two different promotions, each which has its own requirements for participation, each which required me to create a different type of "sales page" within their system. I'm not at all sure what I created. Since I am exclusively with Amazon and Kindle Select right now but not all promoters on that site are, I was extremely cautious on what I did, making sure that each link I gave or each sample I gave was not breaking any Kindle rules.

I joined one promotion for Kindle Unlimited members of all genres and another for Thriller new releases. One promotion starts today, so I will be checking back and giving everyone an update on how that promotion goes.

I hope you are doing well, dear reader. Stay safe!

Progress Update and Game Plan for Week 1 of Self-publishing

What a roller coaster this week has been!  Exhausting, exhilarating, maybe even slightly traumatizing.  Definitely feeling overwhelmed with everything I have learned.  I thought that by spending the last couple of years writing my first book, I was taking my time and making sure that what I presented was a finished polished project.  Come to find out, that was only the tip of the iceberg!  

Amazon's slowness with releasing my book was equally frustrating and added to a lot of confusion for me this week.  There is no "do this to achieve greatness" game plan for writing.  You can't just practice 5 times a day and walk out the star of the field.  That sounds remarkably easy compared to these shenanigans.  This writer distributes his manuscripts to X Y and Z and makes a killing.  This other writer is exclusive with Z and makes a similar killing.  But in order for either of them to work for you, you have to make sure that your genre with this specific focus, the time of day you submitted your work, and whether or not you stood on your head and ate ice cream the night before have all been in process for the last 3 years before you even had the idea to become an author.  Seriously, what the...  

It would be discouraging if I weren't so stubborn, if I didn't know that "best-seller" or not, I was going to write anyway.  But since I am going to write, I should at least try to be the most successful I can possibly be at it.  

So what's my game plan?  I've heehawed relentlessly through my options since the KDP debacle.  I honestly don't know yet whether that was an error on their part or mine so I cannot claim the injustice of it all...yet.  I understand that we live in the world of COVID19 and that things are delayed and that in the grand scheme of things whether my book is released today or a week from now isn't going to really matter.  However, my anxiety and obsessiveness have been relentless.  I have gone from nay-saying all things KDP, to calling them begging for reasons why my book hasn't been released, to deciding I'm going to go wide with my manuscript and to hell with KDP, then to now realizing that maybe I should stick with KDP after all.  

My reasons are very simple.  I did not get the "you should have an established blog, newsletter, fan base set up before you even finish writing and publishing your first book" memo.  You didn't either?  Well join the club!  And evidently the best way for the under-prepared like myself to get caught up is to utilize Kindle Select with its promotion and Kindle Unlimited features.  

But even if using those resources, you still have to do quite a bit of marketing on your own.  Marketing.  Yep!  Take the world's most generally reclusive and emotional group of people and make them market themselves because what could go wrong with that.  What happens is a lot of people get discouraged or just don't do it.  Ultimately, that means that those people may not become well known authors.  I refuse to let myself fall into that category.  

So I need a game plan!  And I need to stick with it.  I called KDP, again, realizing that they probably have my number memorized by now and groan each time they see it pop up on the screen, and was told that my title should be published within the next 24 hours.  I'm not going to hold my breath for this one.  However, I am hopeful!  When they release my book out of review to publishing, I will remove my book from Draft2Digital and go exclusive with Kindle Select for at least 90 days and see how that works out for me.  I will be redoing my website in the next week to create a newsletter that I hope all of you sign up for.  And I will begin working on my second book.  

I am also going to be researching all things marketing in regards to self publishing.  This week's homework for my self, along with my college classes which have kicked off for summer, are the following titles:

The Holy Grail of Book Launching - Mimi Emmanuel.  I purchased this one in paperback form off of Amazon a while ago and will probably start with it.  It has 149 reviews and all seem to be relatively positive.

Then I'm going with Market to Millions:  The Ultimate Directory to Free ebook Promotion - by David Ogren.  This one is on Kindle Unlimited which I am a subscriber to.  This one is a lot less well known, only 6 reviews, but it was "free" so why not give it a go.

Successful Self-Publishing - Joanna Penn.  This one has a purchase price right now of $0.00 in the Kindle store.  I suppose she is running a promotion...see I'm catching on to this marketing stuff!  And she has 646 very positive reviews so this will probably be a great resource and I'm excited to read it.

Self-Publishing on Amazon 2020 - Dr. Andy Williams.  This one is on Kindle Unlimited and has 41 positive reviews.

CreateSpace and Kindle Self-Publishing Masterclass - Rick Smith.  This one seems more like a tutorial for all of the ins and outs in creating and formatting manuscripts, how to update them when necessary, lowering and raising prices, advertisements, etc.  I feel like it's going to be more of a "help me!" handbook.  It's on Kindle Unlimited and has 554 positive reviews, so I think it'll be worth the time to read it.  

Out of all of these, I'm hoping to find information on building an email list from scratch and how to successfully advertise and market my book.  I'll update as I read and let everyone know what I learnt.  Hopefully it will be different than the webinar I watched yesterday.  There are a lot of people out to capitalize on the fact that self-publishing is the new trend, a lot of people are looking to do it, and not a lot of people have the startup capital to hit the ground running with advertising right away.  If I can help a few of you with the process while I go through the journey myself, then I'll consider that a win!

On to my homework!

The Holy Grail of Book Launching - A Review from the Perspective of a Fiction Writer

First, I just want to excitedly exclaim to the world that, earlier than I anticipated due to some of the issues I had with them initially, my book is finally available on Amazon for purchase!  You can find a link to it here:

You can also find a link to purchase it on my Facebook page:



www.facebook.com/belladeanjoyner/

Or through the link on my website homepage:



www.belladeanjoyner.com 

Now, I vowed to spend this week researching multiple resources claiming to help self-publishing authors navigate the intimidating world of marketing.  The first book on my list was a three volume combined set titled The Holy Grail of Book Launching by Mimi Emmanuel that I had purchased quite a few months ago yet never read.  Imagine my surprise when I actually found her in one of the self-publishing groups I recently joined on Facebook!  Small world!  Disclaimer:  I have not spoken to the author or been asked to do this review.  

You can purchase this book on Amazon here:

This book is available in paperback, which is what I ordered, and Kindle.  I would highly suggest that you purchase this book in the Kindle format because there are a substantial amount of links and website addresses that are more convenient to use as additional research if you are capable of clicking them within the text.  Otherwise, you will be like me, forever typing out quite convoluted and lengthy web addresses to find the information that may or may not pertain to your publishing scenario.  For me as a fiction writer, I found this part of the book to be tedious.  As a general statement, this resource seems more geared towards the non-fiction writer with very minimal content being relevant to fiction genres.  The author does mention this in the first few pages, but this is not included in the actual description on Amazon at the time of this review.  

With that being said, I did find a few parts of the book to be very helping in guiding me onto the correct path for marketing my first book.  A few questions popped into my mind while doing my preliminary research after I first realized with absolute terror that I needed to market my own novel.

Where could I even post the information about my novel?  Was using Facebook an option when every group I seem to be in has rules against self-promoting?  Was I going to need to teach myself a few new social media platforms to be successful at this?  What if I get caught up in homeschooling my four children and my own college studies and have a hard time finding the time to devote to marketing while also writing my second book?  I find that Emmanuel answered these questions relatively well for me and gave me a wealth of information as a jumping off point.  

For instance, in the book she lists over 200 Facebook pages where you can publish a blurb about your book for free.  This is a great resource.  No, it is not 200 Facebook pages suitable for your manuscript probably because many are genre specific or list price specific.  I would not do well to publish my horror genre title in the Christian reader Facebook page, nor in the free ebook pages when my book is set at $2.99.  There are still a substantial amount of Facebook pages to get me started along with a referral to a virtual assistant whose services offered are to post to these Facebook pages on your behalf.  I did check out a couple of the links that would apply to my specific title and found these sites to have over 14,000 members each with questions to answer before joining to make sure that each author and reader who joins the pages are legitimate.  Impressive!  

Emmanuel also listed multiple websites that offer both free and paid book promotions along with pricing information.  No, some of these pricings are not current and some are specific to your book and genre.  There will be legwork on your behalf to contact each of these places and make sure your ads are tailored to their guidelines.  The author does offer printable marketing calendars for easy tracking of your marketing efforts to help you stay organized.  I personally prefer the calendars from ErinCondren.com because of the personalizations offered, but I can see how the supplied printables would be a good alternative.  

Overall, I really disliked how the book was laid out.  There was a lot of skipping around, typing in website addresses, going to the author's website for the book and downloading zip files of documents.  I feel like it almost would have worked better as a spiral bound study guide with online course included that would have made all of the links and printables much more accessible.  For a fiction writer, some of the information is also redundant.  There is a lot of information about how to choose your genre, how to find your audience, what group of people to market your material to that does not apply to many of us who already know that we are horror genre writers who are marketing to those interested in reading from the horror genre.  Again, this simply comes from this book being more geared towards the non-fiction writer.  However, the amount of material you are given concerning free areas to market your book seems like it would have the potential for a rate of investment that would justify the cost of the book.  I would definitely recommend at least purchasing the book to have access to the three sections of printables and marketing lists available to download from the site.  

Over the next couple of weeks, I will be utilizing some of the information I learned within this guide, applying it to my own marketing plan for my novel The Still, and will post my results in a future blog post.   

Now, on to the next marketing resource, Market to Millions:  The Ultimate Directory to Free ebook Promotion by David Ogren.

Not an Easy Decision

Since submitting my book to the self-publishing platform I had my heart set on using, I have run into a snag.  With the COVID19 issues, the publisher's review team is bogged down trying to keep their information platform from being inundated with fear mongering material.  Not all fiction is caught in that swamp, but mine has been.  I have been unable to get any information concerning why my manuscript is taking so long to get out to my potential readers.

I grew frustrated.  I've called.  I've emailed.  I've gotten nowhere.  And that led me to doing a bit of research on my own that I probably should have done ahead of time, but hindsight is 20/20.

I have found out that in order for my manuscript to ever have a chance of being on the New York Time's or USA Today's bestseller's list, in order for my book to ever be able to be approached by an agent and brick and mortar publishing house, in order for my book to have the potential to ever be made into a movie or tv series, I cannot be exclusive with KDP.

So what do I want for my book?

Should I realistically go into this knowing that I am limiting myself from the gate?

What were my goals for this when I started, years ago?

What dreams did I have of being an author as a little girl?

When being honest with myself about the answers to all of those questions, it's simple.  I never wanted the easy way out.  I never wanted to just get my book out there, go with the first easy marketing platform, and wait for the checks to roll in.  That has never been my style.

I either take it all, or I take nothing.

I either have a path to the top, or I don't start the journey at all.

I reach for the stars and then go higher.

So I have made a very big decision, although not an easy one.  Yes, my books will still be on Kindle, but they will NOT be on Kindle Unlimited.  They will only be sold as ebooks and paperback.  With that being said, my books are also going to be distributed by Apple Books, Barnes & Noble Press, Rakuten Kobo, Draft2Digital, Smashwords, PublishDrive, and on my own personal website that will be going live on this domain instead of solely this blog sometime this week.

I apologize if this has caused any confusion for anyone.

But I have decided to have the faith in myself, the faith in the quality of book I have written, and the faith in my readers to take this leap and trust that I will not fall.  All information will be distributed as it becomes available to me.

Thank you everyone!

The Birth of Bella Dean Joyner

I've worked on my first novel long before this blog was ever thought into existence.  I toiled over its pages, gave up, read it and thought it wasn't half bad, read it and thought it was awful.  I lost faith in myself, in the process, screamed, and tried again.  I had to remind myself daily of every time anyone had ever complimented me on my writing, told me I had a "gift".  I gave myself more pep talks, more condolences, more criticisms than should be humanely possible. 

But I did it.

May 6th, 2020 marks the day that Bella Dean Joyner, author, was born. 

And I cried. 

While I am sitting here, refreshing the status page of my novel, waiting for the word "PUBLISHED" to appear and for my work to be available worldwide, I thought what better way to spend this time than by reflecting on my journey.  

Why a pen name?  I am not all encompassing.  If you break me apart, I am merely pieces of people and past experiences that formed to create a whole.  I chose the three most influential memories across my life span and joined them to make one author, one entity, to present to the world.  

Why self-publishing instead of traditional publishing?  Easy.  Time!  I've waited my entire life for this.  I didn't immediately start pursuing this right out of high school.  I'm a wife, a mother, a student trying to finish her Bachelors so that I can start on my Masters.  I homeschool, live in a foreign country for the time being, and my life is entirely subjected to what the military deems is necessary for my family.  I didn't feel like I had the time to wait years for hundreds of rejections until that one publishing house, that one agent, said yes.  This way, what gets published in my book, what I put out into the world as "me", I have complete control over.  I can build a fan base of loyal readers that enjoy my writing, raw and in the way that I intended it to be read, not how an editor thought it would sell more copies.  Yes, I have read that you have a greater income at first self-publishing.  But any real writer will tell you that it isn't mainly about profit.  It's about the characters in your head and their incessant chatter.  Getting them on paper is the only way to get them to stop!  Whether I become successful or not, I will probably write and continue to publish my works until the day that I die.  If at some point I am approached by an agent or a publishing house, I'll cross that bridge when the time comes. 

Who is Chris Elam?  Chris Elam is a photographer that I went to high school with.  I recently came across his work and was really taken by what I saw.  The photographs he produces really capture the presence of the scene, the object.  The underlying current of darkness and mystery really spoke to me.  Once you read The Still you'll see why this particular cover art was perfect for the story.  Funny enough, it's actually a picture of his back yard!  If anyone would like to use his work, please feel free to contact me and I'll put you in touch with him until he gets me the link to his actual website and I can update this blog with it.  

Why this title?  This book is about the unhinging of one man's psyche, how he is wrapped up and influenced by evil around him and how that evil can then spread to those around him using him as a conduit.  Yet throughout the chaos and the madness, there are still moments of "still", the calm before the storm, that pause during a horror movie where tension is building and you just know that the monster is going to come out from under the bed but you jump anyway.  That moment, right before where your breath catches in your throat, where your heart stops it's thundering gallop in your chest, where the anticipation builds like a steady uncomfortable pressure all throughout your body, that is the still.  

Where do you get the ideas for your books?  Quite honestly, my dreams.  I have very vivid dreams and am lucky enough to be able to remember them, as long as I write them down shortly after waking up.  Other than that, I'll have a random thought pop into my head, Wouldn't this be weird if...., or a full character form in my head that I then have to build a story around.  Sometimes I find inspiration in objects.  The book I am contemplating writing as my second novel actually originated from a chair I saw in South Korea!

What is next for Bella Dean Joyner?  More writing!  I have almost seven more book ideas bouncing around in my head and am constantly dreaming up more.  I fully intend on making this my life's work, my legacy.  I'd love to say that I will crank out a new book every three months, but realistically we all know that I'm horrible with deadlines.  The writing process is delicate.  It's a give and take.  I give all of me and the characters in the novel take it and run in an entirely different direction.  Another book or two will definitely be released within the next year though, I promise!  

If at any time you have questions that you'd like for me to answer, please feel free to email me.  I think that it would be great to have a blog post answering questions about my book after you have had a chance to read it.  It would be wonderful to hear from you all!

As always, thank you so incredibly much for your support throughout this journey.  I am truly blessed.  Look forward to more updates once The Still becomes available for purchase!

Because She Made Me

Every author is told to write what they know.  What is your story?  What built you?  Whose influence had the most impact on your life?  When you look back on your chapters, what reoccurs the most?  What haunts you?  What gives you strength?

Mine is simple.  My grandma.

She took me in when I was a baby and no one else could raise me.  She fought for me when my stepmother tried to alienate her.  She was my constant.  Pictures of me as a baby, pictures of my dance recitals with my pretty crowns and sparkly golden tutus, she was in all of them.  I can close my eyes right now and remember how her head tilted when she laughed.  It seems like a lifetime ago.

My grandparents had a house in the city I grew up in.  It was a 30 minute drive from my house.  Sunny Autumn Ln.  It had rooster wallpaper and farm animal figurines all over the kitchen.  There was a little container of really sticky strawberry lip gloss in the top drawer of the guest bathroom and a rag doll bunny on the white stool across from the toilet.  The bedroom I always stayed in had a bed too high for my little legs to reach and a cute little green glass shoe on the vanity.  Grandma's bathroom smelt like White Diamonds and thick light pink face cream.  There was a porcelain Persian cat keeping guard in the hallway.  It had a glider bench on the porch and two dogs named Jake and Pokey buried in the back yard.  I keep telling myself that when I have the money someday, I'm going to buy that old house.

My grandparents also had a farm about an hour and a half away in Selmer, TN.  To this day, it is still my favorite place in the world, the place where my soul centers.  This was the only place in my childhood where I was really free.  Dad would take me with him and we'd grab McDonald's chicken nuggets or a Hickory Cheeseburger from Sonic along the way.  We'd pull down the old dirt road and grandma would be at the front door, waiting to greet us.  She'd be standing there when we'd go to leave.  I still look for her to be there, but she never is.

Until I was about 5 or 6, the property had an old farmhouse  close to the road.  Back in the day, it had housed two families who had worked the farmlands together, one on the first floor and the other on the second with stairs on the outside.  Sometime before my grandpa bought the property, the second floor had been taken out, leaving tall massive ceilings for the remaining first floor rooms.  It was a common occurrence to hear disembodied footsteps in the air above you.  She told me that she would often find me in another room talking to something that she could not see.

Evidently my uncles were scared of staying in the house by themselves, especially at night.  When he was sixteen, my dad's youngest brother had to stay at the farmhouse without the rest of his family.  He had brought his "boombox" as he calls it and a headset.  He had the volume on the music as loud as it would go and his headset on to preemptively drown out any disturbances.  Despite his precautions, he heard really loud banging, even over the full volume music in his ears.  Too scared to open his eyes, he tried to ignore it, but the banging persisted.  When he finally worked up the courage to look, the table that his boombox was sitting on was rising into the air and falling back to the ground with a loud crash, over and over.

I probably would have been scared to stay there had I experienced that as well.  Imagine that, a horror fiction writer being scared of the dark!

Eventually, they tore the house down and had another built a little further up the hill.  The property also had a large red barn and an older barn made of gray warped boards.  They had horses at one time.  Spook liked to eat full leaf tobacco and would follow my dad around until he gave him some.  Grandma had a fluffy white barn cat that stayed outside and would literally hang from the screen door when it was time to be fed.  For as long as I can remember, grandpa always had cows as well, huge massive bulls that were as gentle as kittens.  In the last few years, he also started keeping chickens and pigs.

My summers were full of exploring the natural springs on the property in the coolness of the shade trees, picking fresh blackberries in the hot sun, tripping around cow pies trying to find grandpa in the fields.  I remember hay rides behind the tractor in the fall, learning to drive on the back roads in grandpa's old Chevrolet, watching my Uncle's old sea green truck rusting in the fields.  I remember leaving a restaurant with him and grandma and grandpa as a very little girl, him picking me up and sitting me on the smooth leather bench seat of that truck.  It's almost sad to see it in its final resting place.

Grandma taught me how to cook.  She encouraged me to make the broccoli and cheese casserole I learned in my home economics class.  I still make it to this day and think of her.  She thought it was the funniest thing that I hated the feel of raw meat in my hands.  I remember being in the kitchen with her one day when she was making dinner.  She asked me to hold out my hand and slapped a raw hamburger patty onto my palm.  I gagged and dropped it in the sink and she giggled.  Her smile could light up a room, and her hands, though wrinkled and spotted with age, were so soft.

She let me play in her make-up.  I'd put on her foundation a few shades too dark for me, use her black brow pencil to color in my light brown eyebrows, put on so much mascara that my eyelashes looked like spider legs, and she still told me that I was beautiful.  She religiously dyed her hair black, perfectly teased, and before she left the house she always doused herself with hairspray and light pink lipstick.  Her nails were always the shade of light champagne.  Again, the White Diamonds.

To say that that woman loved me is an understatement.  When I felt like life was a free fall, she grounded me.  She was the only person of my childhood who would sit on the couch and listen to my poems, though none of them probably made any sense.  She listened to my plans for the future, though none of them quite panned out how I thought they would.  She never discouraged me.  I often wonder if she would have considered me a disappointment.  But I remember what her sisters told me the day of her funeral, that I was and would always be her Lyndy (her pet nickname for me) and that they all knew exactly what I was to her and how incredibly much she had loved me.

This picture, I took it.  She was sad because she did not have any pictures of her with her mother.  My great-grandmother lived in the four room house her husband built by hand, thirteen children though not all lived past infancy, two bedrooms.  My grandma used to talk about what it was like to hold one of the babies when it passed away, the feeling it left on her lips after she kissed its tiny forehead.

I wasn't her granddaughter.  I was the daughter she never had.

When I was sixteen years old, she gave me a necklace made from the diamonds of the first engagement ring grandpa ever gave her.  I still cherish it to this day.  I have the cards that she sent to me as a little girl for every birthday, celebration, graduation, and Valentine's Day.  I even got the words from one of them tattooed on my forearm.

We love you and we are so proud of you.  Love Grandma and Grandpa

I carry her words with me everywhere.  Her guidance influences me to this day.  Her memory haunts me because I think of all of the times I could have called her more but didn't, the times I tried to find a reason to get off the phone because the life of a teenager seemed so much more important, how irritated I would get with her when she would ask me the same question multiple times in a conversation when the dementia first started setting in.  My world changed forever the day that she lost her memories.  The pain of talking to someone you love as much as I love her and that person telling you a story about yourself because she no longer recognizes you from the child you once were isn't something that was easy to stomach.  

Before we came here to South Korea, I visited her grave site for the first time since her funeral.  I cried, inconsolably, the pain as fresh as the day I got the call that she had passed away.  That's the horrible thing about getting older.  You spend so much of your life wishing for the day you turn 18, 21, then 25 when your exorbitant car insurance rates would go down.  You don't realize at the time that as you get older, the people around you age too.  Loved ones you couldn't imagine your life without wrinkle and wither, can barely walk anymore.  Soon, all that's left are memories and regrets for all of the conversations you could have had but didn't.  

Today, what I have from her is a memory of us planting the three pine trees that still stand proud in the yard.  I have a picture of her and her best friends on her wedding day with the handwritten gushes of a newly married teenager.

I have the woman that I am, because she made me.  

I'm Glad I Never Gave Up

I spoke to someone, also military affiliated, who used to live in the floor above us in this villa we still call home.  We discussed cover art for one of my upcoming books, and she mentioned that I should create a blog because I had a very unique story to tell.  I gave her the link to this one and she told me that she really felt like I should continue, that it might even be therapeutic for me.  If she only knew.

I get told constantly that I should keep my truth to myself, that putting it out there into the world is "airing my dirty laundry", "telling everyone my private business", "putting people on the spot".  I hesitate a lot before I write something, afraid of the backlash.  I've lived my life in the shadows and I've worried about what other people thought.  But I'm blowing out the negative right?

I'm sitting here in bed with my Chromebook, Spotify is playing and I have my earbuds in.  As I'm beginning this blog, the song changes on my shuffled playlist, and out of over 2,000 songs it could have chosen on this playlist that I created, it plays a specific one.  I don't believe in coincidences.  I think that the entirety of our existence is tied together by one common thread.  Songs, things people say, something happening, it all has meaning.  Timing is everything.  The particular song said "For the lonely, for the ashamed, the misunderstood and the ones to blame, what if we could start over, we could start over, we could start over.  Cause there's a kind of love that God only knows.  God only knows what you've been through.  God only knows what they say about you.  God only knows the real you.  There's a kind of love that God only knows....God only knows where to find you.  God only knows how to break through.  God only knows the real you." (God Only Knows, for KING & COUNTRY....great song by the way)  Now I am a Christian.  What you choose to believe is your business, but if I'm sharing my truth, I am a Christian.  And I take this to mean that God is here.  His hand is guiding mine.  And if it's okay with Him if I share this truth, then let it be so.  

So my truth.  Okay.  Deep breath.  I came from a broken home.  Extremely broken.  In the South you can fix everything with a little bit of duct tape, but not this.  Beyond repair.  Condemned.  Throw it out.  I've heard a lot of opinion, a lot of one-sided stories that I'm not sure who to believe anymore.  It isn't that anyone is lying to me.  It's that it happened almost 38 years ago and memories get fuzzy and the emotional responses people had to things at the time can sometimes cloud what they thought happened or how they think they acted.  There are always two sides to every story and the truth lies somewhere in the middle.  The final result is the only thing that matters I suppose.

The bottom line is that I did not see my birth mom from the time I was about 2 years old until I was 27.  I was discouraged from finding her, from reaching out to anyone in that part of my family.  I was told that they weren't the right sort of people.  My questions about my birth mom were met with anger.  My desire to meet her was met with nasty comments.  A huge piece of me was missing.  I had attempted to fill this void with the stepmom who tried to take her place.  That situation broke me in more ways than I can explain.  I have never tried so hard to gain someone else's love and acceptance, years upon years, just to be constantly told that I wasn't good enough.  I've spent the majority of my adult life recovering from what that woman put me through although I continued allowing her to mentally and emotionally hurt me, to affect my children. I was conditioned at that point.  I was constantly guilted by those around me.  "Oh she's old and has no one else...you have to talk to her."  "Forgiveness is what God would want from you."  "You know how emotional you can be...maybe you are overreacting."  I have no other explanation.  No excuses.  It was an error in my judgment that cost me dearly.  My oldest daughter ended up in therapy for an extreme anxiety disorder where they told me that they believed that my stepmom sexually molested her.  This revelation resulted in my own repressed memories resurfacing.  I failed to protect my daughter.  I failed to protect the scared little girl I still saw in the mirror sometimes.   I cut my stepmom out of my life.  I officially had no one.

In the midst of all of this chaos, I had tried to find my birth mom.  Over the years, I had done a few Google searches here and there, searched a few social media sites.  I never found anything.  But that particular day, my Google search came up with one result.  It was an obituary listing and my birth mom, my maternal grandmother, my uncle were all listed as surviving relatives.  One piece of information made all of the difference.  It listed my maternal grandmother's full name and that she lived in St. Louis, Missouri.  I did a search for phone numbers and three people with that same name came up.  The second one I called was my grandmother.  She told me that she would have to talk to my birth mom to make sure that it was okay to give me her phone number and asked me to call her back in 5 minutes.  When I did, I received the phone number and I called my mom.

My truth started here.

Despite everything that I had heard about her my entire life, I welcomed her into my life with open arms.  I desperately needed love and acceptance from her, and I received it ten-fold.  I won't say that she is perfect.  I'm not either.  I don't call her nearly as often as I should.  But the differences between the measure of acceptance from her versus the rest of my "family" was astounding.  She lovingly calls my husband, who has loved and supported me and his children without falter, without complaint, for 10 years, her son.  She loves my children equally and pays attention to all of them, not favoring just one.  When I tell her about what is going on in my life, she genuinely listens.  I'm not fighting anything else for her attention.  And she tells me that she is proud of me.  You'll never know how easy it is to take those simple words for granted unless you haven't heard them for the majority of your life.  It has been such a sweet blessing to have her in our lives.

I also was able to contact my uncle on that side of the family, his wife, and their daughter.  I haven't spoken to an Uncle on my dad's side in years.  He and his girls who I lovingly called cousins and helped my grandma babysit sometimes when they were younger could care less if they speak to me again.  Yet here was this man who wanted me to call him Uncle, who keeps up with what is happening in my life, who finds my baby things and sends them to me so that I have a link to my past, whose wife found out what scent of wax warmer is my favorite and sent them to me here in South Korea so that I could have a little bit of home.  Their daughter just had a beautiful baby boy and I'm making plans to see all of them when I return to America.

I have family.

Family is your connection to your childhood.  They are the holders of your truths, your roots, your secrets.  They are supposed to keep you grounded, support you, give you love without conditions, accept your idiosyncrasies, encourage you when you stumble.  I didn't know that.

But I do now.

So I want to say thank you...mom...Uncle Keith....Aunt Andrea....Christine...to my Grandma who sadly passed away before I had the chance to meet her.  We have yet to spend a Christmas together, a Thanksgiving.  I wasn't able to grow up with you.  But you have shown me more love and kindness than quite a few people in my life who have known me since the day I was born.  Thank you for accepting my successes and my humanness.  Thank you for watching me trip, then get back up again stronger than ever.  Thank you for making me feel wanted and loved.  Thank you for making me feel included.

I'm glad I never gave up trying to find you.  I hope I make you proud.

I Too Took the Road Less Traveled

Self-reflection is hard.  It's even harder when for the majority of your life you've spent so much energy on being who everyone else wanted you to be that you lost sight of who you actually are.  I haven't been sure if I'm critiquing something genuine about me or if I'm judging all of the fake fluff. 

Fake.  That isn't a word that I would ever used all of those times I was asked to describe myself in 6 words or less.  I always considered myself genuine, at least I always strived to be.  But you can't be genuine and real if you aren't being honest with yourself.  What better time to be honest with myself than when I'm edging closer to 38 years old. I can make the latter half of my life real, true, and all me. 

I have never done things the "right" way.  I'm considered a disappointment to my family.  I've known it for almost 20 years, but it still hurts a great deal to say it. I am a disappointment.  I never got into drugs or alcohol.  I never dropped out of high school.  But I did not approach college as seriously as I should have.  For me, it was an escape from the confinement of my life.  It was an escape from being locked in a dark closet when my "mom" thought I was bad.  It was an escape from being backhanded across the face in the car when I was looking out the window and blinking away the tears instead of looking at the person yelling at me. It was an escape from being called a slut and a whore, a dog in heat, when my "mom" heard my friends in the neighborhood calling my name.  I was reclusive, introverted, and shy.  I did not have many friends.  Lunch time would put me into a panic because I didn't have a set group of people to sit with during my lunch hour.  I always felt like a burden, or a third wheel, which was partly my fault because I didn't know how to make true connections with others around me.  I felt awkward and unaccepted in my own skin.  I suppose the other kids picked up on that, and it made them uncomfortable to be around me to. 

When I went to college though, I was free.  For once, I could be whoever I chose to be without being afraid.  But that also meant that my focus wasn't on my school work.  It was on experiencing the world and the relationships around me.  I was an explorer.  I was a drifter.  I was irresponsible.  My only concern was being free. 

Freedom for me was moving from Tennessee to St. Louis to California to Illinois, visiting Ohio, North Dakota, Kentucky, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico.  I did not stay long in one place.  Inevitably I ended up pregnant, possibly early than I had wanted to be, but it was a blessing none the less.  I found out that I was expecting twins.  One eventually passed away and I was broken, but I welcomed a beautiful baby girl into the world in June 2009.  I was 26 years old.  Again, I was a disappointment.  One of my uncles actually told my dad that he thought I was a bad influence on his girls who were still in high school at the time because I was an unwed mother and, let's face it, a college drop out at the time.  I eventually married my daughter's father, had 3 more children, was a stay at home mom, a military wife.  My oldest daughter is now almost 11 years old and I still don't have a relationship with most of my family.  I used to think that it was because of my choices, but in reality it is because of their own narrowmindedness and judgments. I guess that's just how the cookie crumbles. 

Not all of my family turned their backs on me.  My grandma cared about me and favored me and my younger cousin Jesse until the day that she died.  Jesse and I are intermittingly close.  He had an equally rough upbringing, but he turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain.  He still hasn't made his way out of it but I try to let him know that I will always love and care about him every time he has a moment of clarity and reaches out.  He remains my sole tie to my childhood, the moments of peace I felt at my grandparents' farm, blessed memories of my time with my grandma before dementia took her thoughts and sense of self. 

I tried to get back into school to finish my degree when my oldest was a baby.  We had to move to Texas because of a change in my husband's duty station though so those plans were put on hold. My son and two youngest daughters followed and my life became less centered around what I wanted and became devoted to them.  I've supported my husband's career.  I've traveled the world.  I've seen some really beautiful places and met some really wonderful people.  Slowly, I've started developing relationships with a few select people I've met along the way.  These people have become my family.  These people have become my tribe.  These people have become my strength and my courage.  They shined a light for me in the darkness and depression that formed even when everyone thought my life was perfect.  They saw when I was falling apart and silently helped hold me together while I found my way.

They inspired me to find me, to reconnect with the things that used to make up the little bits of me that were familiar, the things that I held dear.  They are the very reason that I can write again.  They are also the reason why I have decided to continue my pursuit of higher education.  I am proud to say that I have just completed my first semester back at Southern New Hampshire University as a second semester sophomore.  I will be graduating in the spring of 2022 with not one, but TWO bachelors degrees.  I decided to major in Psychology with a Concentration in Forensic Psychology but also decided to double major in Creative Writing with a Concentration in Fiction Writing.  I am maintaining a 4.0 and am narrowing down my choices for what Masters program to continue my psychology studies with after my graduation. 

I am also speaking into the universe my goal of getting into the Psi Chi Psychology Honors Society, the Sigma Tau Delta Honors Society (English and Creative Writing Honors Society), and am hoping to graduate Summa Cum Laude with distinction in both programs and am hoping to earn the Gold Key award, the highest academic achievement award at the school.

Finding yourself is possible, no matter your age, no matter what you have been through.  I can honestly say that I am approaching this chapter of my life with the wisdom I would not have had at 18, the courage I would not have had at 25, and the strength I certainly did not have even at 30.  It does not matter if you find your path at 20, 40, or even 60, just so long as you do.  Your path does not have to parallel anyone else's path.  You don't have to have the same achievements as everyone else.  Learn your lessons, experience life, and be fearless even in the face of your own internal struggles and intense pains.  You are worth fighting for.  You are worth knowing.  You are worth loving.  You are amazing.  Don't ever let anyone else tell you differently.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

  Somewhere ages and ages hence:

  Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

  I took the one less traveled by,

  And that has made all the difference.

                                                                                             -Robert Frost