How I Became an Author
I thought I would actually introduce myself to anyone new here. My name is Nicolin Odel. I am a Canadian Indie author of an epic fantasy portal-hopping LGBTQ series called The Sunstone Saga. I grew up in western Canada but have since moved to the center of the universe. The greater Toronto area. My pronouns are he/him, and I am cisgender male and bisexual. I have a wonderful wife and two daughters. I grew up in a family that played video games, watched Star Wars, and read LOTR. My mom had a collection of leather-bound classic novels on a bookshelf since before I was born. From Ivanhoe to Treasure Island, she has so many great books I grew up reading. Then, I was introduced to Tolkien and Narina, and even those delicious Brian Jacques novels like Redwall. This soon grew to The Wheel of Time, Dragonlance, and more.
As life happened, I found myself usually lost in a video game instead of reading. It is still a great form of storytelling, though there is not much story in Halo 2 multiplayer! As the years went by, I never found a calling and just started working after high school. I advanced the retail ranks in specialty lumber and building materials sales and management. This unlocked my ability to renovate, and I’ve since flipped multiple houses with the help of my wife while continuing to work.
Then Covid happened.
I was let go during this time, and I had a thought. Let’s try and write a book. I’d written a few speeches for weddings and other things and had always managed to get the crowd laughing, so I thought, why not? And I loved fantasy. What could go wrong?
My first daughter had just been born, and I have since had the luxury of staying home with my children while I write. But holy heck, that book I wrote…it was terrible! Once I had written it, I only had 40k words, which I thought was a ton! I sat down and googled “How to publish a book.” I must have clicked on the first link; it was a company I won’t mention, but if you’re Canadian and have ever googled self-publishing, you probably know them. I wish I had researched more before unknowingly jumping into this “vanity press.” They told me that my book was excellent. Nope, it wasn’t; they “edited it” and designed a cover. And that was it. Oh, and let me pay for my website, which I had to create myself. I paid them 10 thousand dollars to publish my book. When the book came out, I knew nothing about indie publishing and marketing or anything. Not to mention, the book was full of errors and simply bad.
I gave up. When it first came out, I was excited and jumped right into writing the next book, 43k words in. I stopped when I saw the negative feedback from the few people who purchased my first novel. I didn’t touch writing again for two years.
Sometime later, I discovered and began listening to The Two Indie Authors podcast and learned so much. Something clicked for me, and I started rewriting that first book completely. A freelance professional editor went through it, and the cover was completely redesigned. All this for about $2000. That’s less than a quarter of what “they who will not be named” charged me. Then, I wrote a reader magnet, a prequel to the first book. Then, I wrote the second book. I published all three on Amazon KDP last summer. The third book came out in Jan of 2024. I plan for the fourth sometime around May or June. I realized it was tough to make a business of this with only a single book. I needed to keep writing. If people enjoy your work, they will read more of it. This is how you get ahead. Things are steadily growing, and I have learned much over the last few years. All right, thanks for reading!
As life happened, I found myself usually lost in a video game instead of reading. It is still a great form of storytelling, though there is not much story in Halo 2 multiplayer! As the years went by, I never found a calling and just started working after high school. I advanced the retail ranks in specialty lumber and building materials sales and management. This unlocked my ability to renovate, and I’ve since flipped multiple houses with the help of my wife while continuing to work.
Then Covid happened.
I was let go during this time, and I had a thought. Let’s try and write a book. I’d written a few speeches for weddings and other things and had always managed to get the crowd laughing, so I thought, why not? And I loved fantasy. What could go wrong?
My first daughter had just been born, and I have since had the luxury of staying home with my children while I write. But holy heck, that book I wrote…it was terrible! Once I had written it, I only had 40k words, which I thought was a ton! I sat down and googled “How to publish a book.” I must have clicked on the first link; it was a company I won’t mention, but if you’re Canadian and have ever googled self-publishing, you probably know them. I wish I had researched more before unknowingly jumping into this “vanity press.” They told me that my book was excellent. Nope, it wasn’t; they “edited it” and designed a cover. And that was it. Oh, and let me pay for my website, which I had to create myself. I paid them 10 thousand dollars to publish my book. When the book came out, I knew nothing about indie publishing and marketing or anything. Not to mention, the book was full of errors and simply bad.
I gave up. When it first came out, I was excited and jumped right into writing the next book, 43k words in. I stopped when I saw the negative feedback from the few people who purchased my first novel. I didn’t touch writing again for two years.
Sometime later, I discovered and began listening to The Two Indie Authors podcast and learned so much. Something clicked for me, and I started rewriting that first book completely. A freelance professional editor went through it, and the cover was completely redesigned. All this for about $2000. That’s less than a quarter of what “they who will not be named” charged me. Then, I wrote a reader magnet, a prequel to the first book. Then, I wrote the second book. I published all three on Amazon KDP last summer. The third book came out in Jan of 2024. I plan for the fourth sometime around May or June. I realized it was tough to make a business of this with only a single book. I needed to keep writing. If people enjoy your work, they will read more of it. This is how you get ahead. Things are steadily growing, and I have learned much over the last few years. All right, thanks for reading!
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