Writing the book was the easy part...

I heard this said before I published my first novel. Considering it took me 10 years from the initial idea until I published, I hoped that wasn't the case! Almost two years since I published, I can say for sure that writing the book was definitely the easy part. I wasn't part of this world before. I had to learn everything: marketing, platform building, branding, craft, all of it. I consume a lot of information and attempt (sometimes) to execute it. On top of that, I'm writing the sequel and living in the 'real world'. It's a lot of work, but I love every minute of it. If you want to write, publish and develop a following, you have to love this work and really commit yourself to it. Now, that doesn't mean you have to miss out on family or other activities, the beauty of this work is you can do it at your own pace. That is my advice: run your own race and only compare your now self to your then self.