A lot has been going through my mind over the last few months as I’ve eagerly sought out an agent for my latest manuscript The Planes Walkers. It’s made me realize the many mistakes I’ve made as an aspiring author that dove head first into self-publishing without a single thought.

I was still new to it all, and all I knew at the time was I wanted to be an author more than anything. So I started writing and compiling my first manuscript, Elements of Lightning. That was about 5 years ago. It was only 4 years ago when I ended up giving up on agents and publishers and went into self-publishing. I was impatient and didn’t know anything about being a writer yet.

Looking back, I can see many mistakes I’ve made. I wrote a series as my debut, which is asking a lot of potential readers to get into. Not only that, but I couldn’t ever afford professional editing, so I never did get my drafts edited. I had some people look over them, but they don’t edit or beta read as a career/hobby so my editing was only sub-par at best. On top of that, I was writing in a genre I didn’t actually like to read a lot. My first series was originally aimed for young adults to adults. It’s pretty sad that it took me a while to realize that the books I enjoy reading are Middle Grade level, and that’s what my true passion and target audience is. That’s why The Planes Walkers is actually written for middle grade readers.

It’s a sorry excuse, but I don’t believe my original series represents my writing today. I’ve decided to scrap them as much as I can. I’ve already removed them from the Kindle bookshelf, and I am in the process of retiring them via CreateSpace.

As of what I’ll continue to do as a writer, I’m still working on it. I have been trying to pitch The Planes Walkers to agents with no luck yet. I don’t know if I’ll attempt to self-publish it, because I still lack an audience interested in it. I do know that if that route becomes my only option, then I will take the proper steps to make it stand above my past work, as I already believe it does.

There are still many routes I could take as a writer and I’m still unsure about a lot of them. I hope to be a writer for a living someday, even if that means it isn’t a novelist. I love writing novels and I do hope they get me somewhere someday, but as for now I’ll have to wait and see what comes of The Planes Walkers.