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April updates // 2026

2026-04-28

April was okay overall, except the very end of the month, when I received some bad news at work AND my son got some sort of flu. In many ways, it was still better than March.

Running updates

I ran a 10km race, as I usually do once a month, in 1h25! In comparison, I did the same distance last month in 1h37. I’m quite happy about it. And I got a medal for it! Isn’t it gorgeous?

The Londoners updates

Read-along

For its 5th anniversary, I organised a read-along. Here are some numbers if you like those:

8 participants;
4 newsletters sent;
20-ish emails received to keep the conversation going;
5 recorded videos on YouTube.

The event was a blast, really. I’m happy with the outcome, and I loved sharing with readers. Maybe something worth considering for future books, haha. I might do a special post for those of you interested in knowing more about what worked and didn’t work.

Once Upon A Sky updates

Goodreads

The book is on Goodreads! I’ve created a page this month for you to add it to your TBR if you’d like. However, as I’ll be using a pen name, I need to claim the author page. So… I’ll be doing that.

On the pen name, I’ll be adding my middle name to my existing author name. Instead of finding Once Upon A Sky under Estelle Van de Velde, you’ll find it under Estelle R. Van de Velde. Still me, but as it’s middle-grade fiction, I think it would make it less confusing for readers if I separate my fiction from my nonfiction. At least from a metadata perspective.

Cover design

I couldn’t help myself: I did a partial cover design a few days ago! I mean, the cover is too gorgeous, haha. If you missed it, please rum roll…

The full cover reveal is gonna happen in August, so don’t hesitate to hop onto my newsletter list if you want to be in the loop.

My cover designer also created a chapter header and a small illustration to go alongside the page number. So I’m pretty sure the book itself is gonna be gorgeous inside and out.

Editing phase

I’ve made it through the prologue to chapter 11 (out of 26), so I believe I did great on that front. I’ve also booked a line editor for August… everything is going smoothly on that front. I hope I’ll be able to finish it a bit ahead of schedule so I can get a few beta readers before the line editor.

My plan for May is to double down on the edits so I can move a bit faster than originally scheduled. But that’s only for my peace of mind, really.

Would you like a small cover reveal?

2026-04-22

I felt extremely excited when I saw the cover for Once Upon A Sky. So I thought I’d do a small cover reveal before the full cover reveal in August. Are you ready?

That cover has been made by French illustrator Florian Garbay. He’s made incredible covers throughout the years and I’ve worked with him through Reedsy. I literally cannot wait for you to see the full cover this coming August. If you don’t want to miss it, you can subscribe to my newsletter ;)

In the meantime, you can now add Once Upon A Sky on Goodreads. Doing it would help you by getting it on your TBR. But it would also help me, knowing people are actually looking forward to read it. That’s your cue, hahaha.

Oh, and because I don’t want to leave you in the dark, I’m currently working on the back cover copy. It’s the text on the back of a physical copy that’s supposed to attract readers into the story. So, here’s the first version :

He needs to tame his wild imagination.
She wants to be the best knight.
Can he let himself believe long enough to help her?

Twelve years old Maxwell struggles at home within his newly formed family. His mother favors Lizzie, his stepsister, who seems better at everything. She doesn’t care that he has become more down-to-earth to improve his grades, even as he dreams of orange irises and castles made of clouds every single night.

Ruhtra is a failed squire in charge of the princess’ safety. When she goes missing and as a mysterious disease spreads, Ruhtra uncovers a plot that might just help her keep her head on her shoulders. Will she be brave enough to fight for what is right?

When Ruhtra crashes through Max’s window on a bird, he can’t believe what he sees: what if everything he had ever imagined was true?

I’ve got a second version:

He needs to tame his wild imagination.
She wants to be the best knight.
What if everything he had ever imagined was true?

Twelve-year-old Maxwell struggles at home within his newly formed family. His mother favors Lizzie, his stepsister, who seems better at everything. She doesn’t care that he suppressed his imagination just to improve his grades, even as he dreams of orange irises and castles made of clouds every single night.

When a princess goes missing from Castle Duolc and as a mysterious disease spreads, Max teams up with Ruhtra, a tiny bird rider, to uncover a plot that might just save everyone they love. Can he let himself believe long enough to help her?

I honestly don’t know which one is better… I have up until mid-July to nail it, haha. What do you think? I’d be happy to have your opinion.

March updates // 2026

2026-03-27

March was a rollercoaster of emotions. On one hand my author life was crazy exciting, with lots of positive news. On the other hand, some personal stuff took its toll on me. In between all of it, I still ran a 10km race in 1h37, which is not nothing. The road wasn’t flat at all, haha.

The Londoners updates

Read-along

The Londoners celebrated its 5th anniversary on March 23rd. I’ve organised a read-along and a few of you have registered, which makes me really happy. The read-along event is ending on April 11th, and you can follow on the YouTube channel.

Once Upon A Sky updates

Cover design

OMG I’m so excited to tell you that the cover design is completed and it’s gorgeous and I cannot wait for you to see it. BUT I’m gonna sit on it until the time is right, because cover reveal stuff is a pretty powerful marketing tool for a book launch, haha.

Editing phase

Okay, last time, I told you you’d have the right to scold me if I hadn’t started on the editing. And… well, let’s be honest, I barely did anything regarding the edits on the book, due to the read-along (recording/editing 3 mega videos took a ton of time) and how the month unfolded.

So here’s what I plan to do in April: Edits. Edits. Edits. That’s it, just that. I’ll get a headstart now…

February updates // 2026

2026-02-25

February is the smallest month of the year, but there were two weeks off from school for the little one, and a few painful days for the husband, so… Yeah, not an easy month in terms of general organisation. However, as I’m listing everything I accomplished this month, I’m kinda amazed that I could still cram a few things in there that I can be proud of.

Office update

I told you last month that my father-in-law would be doing some construction work in my office to cover the pipes and install a door. Well… that’s completed :)

The painting work is left to be done in the main office, as well as a lighting change, but that’s gonna happen later this year.

The Londoners updates

Upcoming read-along

The Londoners, my first book, celebrates its 5th anniversary on March 23rd. To mark the event, I’m organising a read-along. The concept is that we’re going to read a few chapters each week and discuss them together via emails (and videos). You can already register through the form below if you don’t want to miss it.

The read-along is now closed.

I already have a few people who are registered that are not family members, hahaha. So don’t hesitate to join the fun.

Random Londoners updates

Ask my author friend Kyra Gregory, but I’ve had “contacting bookshops for distribution” on my to-do list for the longest time. It’s only a few weeks since I finally sent the emails. I’m kinda proud of it, even though the answers I got were all negative. On the bright side, I now know that distribution will be key to getting my next book into bookstores. Because the main reason was the logistics: how would the paperbacks be ordered at the bookshop, and what if they wanted to return them? They preferred working with their usual distribution partners, for which I can’t blame them. So that’s my cue to add my books to IngramSpark and add wide distribution to my paperbacks.

However, when setting up my account on IngramSpark, they’ve asked for my ID so they could verify my identity. I’m not fond of sharing my ID on the internet, even more so when they say it will be “redacted” and not “deleted”. We’ll see if there’s another way.

On a more positive note, The Londoners reached €500 in royalties. That’s more than 200 books sold (paid for, I mean). It means it finally paid off its cover design, after 5 years out, hahaha. Big milestone :)

Once Upon A Sky updates

Cover Design

The biggest chunk of this month’s update. In February, I finished writing the cover design brief, and I started sending it to artists… well, let me tell you I was naive, hahaha.

If the designer is usually working with traditional publishers, the price is abysmal. It averages $3,500. Obviously, with my small indie budget, I didn’t go with any of them, haha. I’m happy I did send them the brief, though, because I dared to ask. And they emailed back! I mean, it’s already incredible that I got answers (even if they’re on the expensive side of the spectrum).

I then turned to Reedsy to get some quotes. Funny story, I almost fell off my chair when the first quote arrived: €10,000! The designer had understood that it was a children’s book and it needed 24 illustrations plus the cover. The quote was adjusted to €400 when I pointed out the mistake, hahaha.

Finally, I chose my designer among the five I was in contact with on Reedsy. He started working on the first mockup last Monday. I cannot wait to see what he will come up with, and to share it with you! All I can say is that it’s going to be incredible!

Free short story

On the free short story side, I finally formatted Finding Maxwell in epub and pdf formats. Although it could be sent right away to newsletter subscribers, I’ll be waiting a few months before sending it because I don’t want people to be confused with too many things to do in the same newsletter. And with the read-along coming up, there’s already gonna be a few newsletters to interact with for those who’ll be interested in joining. So yeah, I’ll be waiting a little bit before sending it out. Maybe even wait until the novel comes out…

The editing phase

This one is always a bit tricky.

I recently watched John’s video on “the truth about being a writer”, in which he said people should stop complaining about not having time for writing because they do tend to have time for everything else BUT writing. And I have to admit that I did play some video games in February while also reading 4 books. I could have set time aside for editing…

So, in my next update, if you still read that I haven’t done any editing, please feel free to send me an email to scold me.

January updates // 2026

2026-01-26

I thought I’d be going strong in January. My todo list was packed with ambitious stuff like fixing all the plot holes from my middle-grade novel and creating a brief for my maybe future cover designer. Unfortunately I believe Fate wouldn’t have it. January was a busy month, but not in the author activities area. We started with all the new year celebrations with friends and family (Happy New Year by the way!). We even had snow (lots) at the beginning of the month. So let me give you some worthy updates.

Brand-new office in the making

My father-in-law had the greatest idea to gift me a service for Christmas: helping me in revamping my home office. I had been thinking about it for a while now but couldn’t start on the project. So, in January, I went to see an interior designer to settle on some new colors and I went shopping for materials with my father-in-law. He’ll start on the work in February, mainly to install a door to the storage area and build a pipe cover for the many pipes in there. Hopefully it will be quickly done, as I work from home at least once a week for my day job and I need an uncluttered space.

What has been done in January?

sigh

I’ve adulted a lot! By that, I mean I’ve been a responsible adult by managing the house admin, the school admin, the getting doctors appointments and things like that. Not that I didn’t have to do all these things the previous months, but getting all the things ticked off my todo list was empowering. I had felt so overwhelmed last month…

Anywho. I guess you’re not here for that kind of updates but for the author ones.

I’ve updated things here and there on my website. A while back, this very website you’re on was intended to reflect my author side hustle… then it became kind of an « everything Estelle does » website. I told everyone landing on the homepage that I am an author, a web designer and a speaker. That’s a lot. So I decided to reframe. To go back to the way it was before, but better.

I’ve had a meltdown over PO Boxes, as anyone selling things online should display a physical address. And PO Boxes are expensive guys! I don’t have that kind of money in the stage I’m at in this author journey. I even thought about getting a PO Box just for my next book’s preorder campaign but I would have to sell a lot of books just to pay off that PO Box. So… had to back down on the eshop.

I’ve said in my 2025 income report that I should stop doing things for the sake of doing things, and think more strategically. This is me undoing the thing I did just for the sake of it (opening an eshop). At least I’ve learned something, and maybe you too.

An upcoming Read Along

March will be upon us in no time and, with it, The Londoners’ 5th Anniversary! To celebrate my first book baby, I’d like to organise a Book Club in which, each week, we’ll be reading along together and talking about it. I’ll share some new memories and content around the book and organise a live stream (or more than one? Still to be determined) to answer live questions.

Will you join me on this Read Along adventure, starting March 23rd?

The read-along is now closed.

Once Upon A Sky updates

I did start on the brief for the book cover designer and I’ll be sending it to a list of five designers I’ve pre-selected to get their quotes very very soon. I’ve followed their work for traditional publishers, so I already expect them to make a hole in my budget… But we’ll see, maybe I’ll be surprised!

Last December, I did all the editing and publishing work on Finding Maxwell, a prequel short story to Once Upon A Sky. I just need to press save on the epub and pdf versions so I can send it to my beloved subscribers on the newsletter (if you’re not registered yet, here’s your cue, haha). Honestly I just need a small kick in the butt to complete it.

And last but not least, on the manuscript front, nothing has changed since December… With all the things going on I barely had time to sit down. Hopefully this will change next month and all the plot holes will be fixed.

Slowly getting back to business // Income report 2025

2025-12-26

Another year, another income report on my writing and self-publishing endeavours. You can read the previous one here: 2024.

2025 started with me wanting to release a book. The owner of a bookshop even told me that, if I had a book published, I’d be welcome alongside him at a big literary event in October (which he couldn’t attend in the end, but neither did I release the book in the first place, haha).

The book I’m talking about… I had a very hard time writing it.

I know we’re in the age of AI, but I’m making it a point of honour not to use it for writing, ever, even if writing is hard. Everything you read from me, whether on this website, in a newsletter or as a book, has been written by me and only me. I feel like there’s a need of having a human certified stamp on things nowadays. I love em dashes, but will I be able to freely use them in my writing without being accused of using AI? Who knows!

In August, I decided to switch projects and read Once Upon A Sky’s latest draft, a middle-grade novel I’ve been working on for nearly ten years, on and off. And I can safely say that this book will finally see the light of day in 2026. Just watch me, haha.

As a reminder, this report covers the period from January to December 2025. Overall, this author business represents 1.85% of my total 2025 income. So here’s your gentle reminder not to quit your job because you’re gonna get rich fast with book publishing.

So, what did my year look like…

Side hustle income: book sales

Let’s recap. I still have only three books out:

The Londoners (2021);
The Londoners in French (2022);
SEO for Authors (2023).

I haven’t released any books this year but, as I mentioned, I’m currently preparing the release of two books. The first one, Once Upon A Sky, is expected this coming Fall (2026). No date has been set for the second one, but maybe somewhere in 2027.

The Londoners (my firstborn) crushed it all. It sold almost consistently throughout the year. As for SEO for Author (my latest), it was a bit sad to see it sell so little. In December 2025, I sold one copy of The Londoners in French, which was a big big surprise. Let me tell you that this book has never been great on Amazon. But I’ve recently changed the keywords on the KDP dashboard and poof: a sale appeared. Let’s just hope it wasn’t just pure luck.

I’ve sold 24 copies of The Londoners, 5 copies of SEO for Authors and 1 copy of The Londoners in French, for a total of 30 books.

That’s a decrease of 9 book sales compared to 2024. However, 10 copies are currently with brick-and-mortar bookshops, ready to find new families. They just haven’t sold yet, so I can’t add them for 2025. It’s a head-start on 2026’s numbers, haha.

In 2025, most of the sales came from Amazon KDP (with 46.6%). I haven’t done as many in-person events at the bookshops, so it only made up for 31.9% of the sales. In third place, there’s the Direct sales, with 15.34%, and last but not least there’s Draft2Digital with 5.5%.

Interestingly, I sold more paperbacks than ebooks in 2025. I noticed SEO for Authors is mostly sold as an ebook, but readers love having a physical copy of The Londoners. I wonder if readers would be interested in signed copies as well… That’s something to dig into.

Publishing and marketing recap of 2025

My books are sold widely

I won’t get political or anything, but it’s always best to have different ways of selling books.

Actually, The Londoners was wide when it came out in 2021. Then, I don’t remember why, I made it Amazon exclusive, and the next books too. Maybe that was because I wanted to try the Kindle Unlimited program and see if it was doing anything for my book sales. It did for a while… Then, the world saw Big Tech bros at the US President’s investiture…

So, as of March 2025, the books are now on all platforms where ebooks are sold. I’ll do my best to also offer wide paperbacks as soon as possible.

I opened a direct store

As I was listening to more and more conferences and podcasts on selling direct as an author, and already being wide with the ebooks, I thought opening my own eshop could be another way for readers to get my books. They’re available through my PayHip store since last November. Also had my first sale through PayHip that month, which I was very happy with.

This year, only the ebooks are available through that store. But I’m digging into shipping prices as soon as we’re in January, so I can calmly ask my questions to the post office. I’m thinking big for 2026!

The books are in libraries and more brick-and-mortar bookshops

Something I wanted to do for a while was to push the door of more bookshops. And to be honest, I had almost given up on that because I cannot, for the life of me, ask bookshop owners to sell my books. But, in the end, I did dare to ask one of my local bookshops to take a few copies of The Londoners in French, yay. And they accepted, re-yay! They’re the second bookshop that has copies of my books now. Probably one of the highlights of the year.

I was also brave enough to donate The Londoners in French in two libraries. I know! It’s a donation, I’m not asking them to sell it. But, believe it or not, it was already difficult enough for me, haha.

I guess the next step will be to organise events with those people. That would be nice.

I started being online again

Last September, I released the first video on YouTube after more than a year of absence. I took the opportunity to also revive my newsletter and do a couple of livestreams.

I still struggle with putting videos up on schedule, because I don’t necessarily have the time to produce interesting content. But I’m doing my best, and that’s all that matters. My focus is on writing the next books, as it should be.

Plans for 2026?

I definitely thought more about my self-publishing activities in 2025 than I did back in 2024. I diversified a lot on the distribution side (selling direct, being wide, a second bookshop). I got back on the promotion wagon (a little).

But I haven’t done anything I thought of doing in my previous report. No new release, no audiobook, no reading event, no conferences. But I think I only added those items for the sake of doing something. There was no actual objective.

In 2026, there’s one objective: expand my readership.

For that, I’ve got three strategies and a few tactics to put in place:

Release a new book. That’s the obvious one. Without a new book, it’s nearly impossible to get new readers in. The work has already started to have a book out in Fall 2026.
Refine my website’s SEO. Honestly, with a book on SEO, how come I’m not top-notch regarding my website? Haha. That’s something I worked on in December of 2025 and will continue working on in January. I expect to see better results in 2026 on that front.
Boost distribution. The Londoners (both English and French) are in brick-and-mortar bookshops, I’m wide with all books and I started selling direct last November. But I can do better. So I’m gonna contact bookshops in Brussels, organise events around the books and start selling signed copies on my eshop. Just watch me, haha.
Increase my newsletter subscribers. Wherever I look for author marketing advice, they all talk about the importance of building a newsletter list. It does make a lot of sense, especially for someone like me with no intention of using social media. I’m currently in the process of creating free bonus content for each of my books, so… we’ll see if it moves the needle in the right direction.

I think my plans are a bit more thought out than the previous year. Let’s hope I’ll be able to win on all fronts. But if I have to choose one of the strategies, it’s the new book release. I believe in the power of a backlist: the more books are out, the better for discoverability.

I’ll see you next year!

Books I've read in 2025

2025-12-25

Solo Leveling by Chugong
Résister by Salomé Saqué 🇫🇷
Steal like an artist by Austin Kleon
Shamira et les milices fantômes by Sobral & Aurore 🇫🇷
Orgueil et Préjugés by Aurore & Jane Austen 🇫🇷
Keep going by Austin Kleon
Les prêtresses d’Isis by Mariolle & Aurore 🇫🇷
Under the Oak Tree by Suji Kim
Spare and Found parts by Sarah Maria Griffin
Holly Molly by Antoine Piers 🇫🇷
What designers need to know about accessibility by Geoffrey Crofte
Lightfall by Tim Probert
Jayben and the Star Glass by Thomas Leeds
Good Inside by Becky Kennedy
Fairy Cube by Kaori Yuki
The Artisan Author by Johnny B. Truant
Merlin by Istin & Lambert 🇫🇷
Vengeful by V.E. Schwab
Newsletter Ninja 2 by Tammi Labrecque

Some statistics…

Total books read: 21
Total nonfiction: 7
Total fiction: 14
Total self-published books: 4
Best fiction of the year: Vengeful, by V.E. Schwab
Best nonfiction of the year: Résister, by Salomé Saqué

State of the Estelle // Q4 2025

2025-12-07

I’m writing this from the comfort of my office. My son is at school for the morning, so I can calmly settle in to think about what to update you on. Three months is a long time between updates, and I’ve got a sheet of paper next to me to help me remember everything. Let’s start with what I think is the most important: the writing.

Progress bar

Overall, it isn’t easy to just sit down and write. My mind isn’t always at it, as I juggle multiple things at the same time. During my long commutes, I often listen to The Creative Penn podcast. There was a lovely episode recently with Donn King, about writing while caregiving. He gave great advice on how to keep the productivity flowing while having so many things to do, like caring for a little one, working a job, etc. I mean, no offence, but when I hear people giving their productivity advice, we’re not often in the same stage of life. This episode felt like I was finally being seen.

And the week after, on the same podcast, Wendy Dale talked about memoir writing, which gave me ideas on how to unblock me with the writing of Project Mum. But that project will have to wait until I complete Project Sky.

Project Sky

I am done reading through the story and examining the developmental edits report I had ordered a while back. I know some plot holes need to be fixed. I know there are some writing I’ll have to touch up in order to make the story better. And yet, I’m scared.

Scared because it’s been a long while since I wrote this book. I’ve changed, my writing has changed, and I’m afraid I’ll alter the story in a way readers will know it’s been written over a long, long span of time.

But I’m giving it the time it needs to be done correctly, with the care it deserves. Hopefully, Project Sky will be completed in the first quarter of 2026, and I’ll be able to move on with the release preparation.

In the meantime, I’m working on a little something while you wait for the release of the book. At the moment, it’s with a cover designer. It has already been through a copy editor, and I can’t wait to share this with you.

Existing work

While procrastinating on the work on Project Sky, I’ve done some things around my other books. I’m proud to let you know I dared to give away a few copies to my local libraries, AND I’ve also been brave enough to ask a second bookshop to partner with me in selling my books. Those are two things I should have done a while ago, but when it comes to asking people… well, you know if you’re introverted like me.

I’ve also updated my books’ metadata on all platforms, with new keywords.

And finally, I’ve set up an eshop with Payhip to be able to sell direct. It was pretty easy to set it up, but my gosh did I have a few issues with PayPal… I finally switched to Mollie Payment, which is a Dutch company. Anyway, you’re now able to get your books directly from me. I’ll add signed copies in the shop when I’m sure about shipping price… which involves calling the post office to double check with them…

If you’d like me to go through the process of searching and changing my book’s metadata or how I set up the eshop with Payhip, please let me know.

I guess that’s it for today. Thanks again for all your support. I’ll be back with more updates in March. I wish you a lovely Christmas. Until next time, friend!

I bought running shoes

2025-11-17

When I was way younger than I am now, I tried karate for a day and was in pain for a week. From all the sports I had tried at school, the only one I kinda liked was running. It wasn’t a team effort to run, it was my own. I didn’t depend on anyone to have a good run.

From those days of high school, I remember my Dad taking me to the forest so we’d bond over a running session. But his pace was way faster than mine, so we ended up not running together at all — and we only tried it once, which is a real shame.

Anyway, I’ve never been keen on sports. I’d always rather stay cosy at home, writing, reading or playing video games. I’m still like that to this day, but…

Recently, I bought a pair of running shoes again.

I was feeling exhausted all the time. Some will say I’ve a long commute to the office. Some will say I’m a “new” mum of a preschooler with a lot of energy. Some will even say I’ve got too much on my plate with trying to run an author business on top of everything else. But I’ll tell you this: I wasn’t moving my body enough. My general fitness was (unsurprisingly) not great.

So I started running twice a week (or at least I try to).

In August, I ran my first race — 6.4 km, I’m not crazy. It was hard: the weather was too warm, there was a long stretch under the sun, and I have a tendency not to drink enough. I finished the race in 53 minutes and 41 seconds. Not too bad for a first one.

In September, I did a second one (5 km in 39 minutes and 44 seconds). I remember my son encouraging me on the organiser’s microphone. It was all very cute.

But the one I am most proud of is the October race. 7 km in 56 minutes. People had warned me about that race; it was supposed to be a difficult one. Hills were involved. Yet, it was the first race I participated in, in which I didn’t stop once. I was unstoppable.

Lately, in November, I ran 7 km in 52 minutes and 58 seconds. Improving my pace step by step, getting ready for my first 10 km in December.

Since I started running again, people have asked me why I do it. Each time, my answer has been: “I run for my health”. Sounds very salesy, but it’s nonetheless true: I’m in a better shape than I was before, my cardio improved, and I’m feeling less exhausted because I started moving more.

I don’t know what the future holds. I hear encouragements to run a half-marathon. Maybe I’ll do it one day, who knows. Running has brought me a lot of benefits up until today, in just a few months.

As I’m slowly approaching the end of my thirties (in 3 years, but still!), I might as well continue. Having good health is the most precious thing you can have nowadays. So let’s hold on to it as long as possible.

Learnings from SelfPubCon 2025

2025-10-26

This journal entry is in progress as I go through the conferences at my own pace, so maybe come back later for more thoughts, haha ;)

New Takes on Marketing Must Dos: Insights from ALLi’s Reach More Readers Guidebook

Speaker: Orna Ross

With my decade of work in marketing, I thought I’d know most of what Orna would talk about. But, in the end, the talk wasn’t much on marketing strategies but rather knowing what kind of publisher you are as an author. Knowing that will influence what type of marketing you’ll lean towards the most (and of course it was a promotion for the future ALLI’s guide on book marketing, which I’ll probably get because I’m now curious what type of marketing is best for me to do, haha).

Let me summarize what the types of publishers are:

You are an engagement publisher if you love creating a community around yourself and your books, participate in events, post and interact on social media and create crowdfunding campaigns (among other things I suppose);
You are a craft publisher if your focus is on quality (writing and publishing), if you’re looking for a little bit of prestige and editorial reviews, and collaborate with literary influencers (among others too);
You are a volume publisher if you do rapid release, ads (on social media and/or retailers), lean more towards algorithm marketing and love to automate your processes (again, among others).

Orna advises that you choose only one publisher type, even though you think you’re something in between. So I did the exercise for myself – which was highly complicated actually – and found out I might lean towards the craft publisher type more. I’m someone who’s hyper-focused on quality (maybe a bit too much), and I know that, deep down, I’m doing everything I’m doing because I’m looking for acknowledgement. Or maybe I’m wrong and I’m an engagement publisher. Would be great to do one of those personality tests to be sure, haha.

Success Spotlight: Innovative Strategies from Indie Authors

Speakers: Sacha Black, NJ Adel, Leia Stone, Chris Glatte and Golden Angel

On direct sales:

Start with print on demand: Sacha does sell more via direct sales than via Amazon at this stage of her career. She has started with fulfilling her orders with BookVault, then scaled up with TikTok shop, and now she has a Shopify website and a warehouse from which she ships all her books. So… start small, then scale up (because it needs a lot of capital upfront).
Customize the experience for the reader: with the rise of technologies, readers want to feel a connexion with the author. So if you can personalize their experience with a signature, goodies, character arts, bookmarks,… and add that to their book order, they’ll love it and recommend you.
Exclusive products to your website: I get that Sacha has a few reader magnets that readers can get for free when they sign up to her newsletter, but if they want it in paper format, it’s only available through her website. As for Leia, she does special editions of her books on her Shopify store.

Random notes:

Go wide: Leia recommends to take out some of your backlist from KU and sell them from other venues. Of course, if you do well in KU, please do stay on KU.
Boost productivity with dictation: Not the first time I heard this advice. Chris talked about how he increased his productivity with AI dictation. So he basically talks to an audio recorder, pulls out the mp3 version and then uploads it to Prose Write. The tool does the transcription and light editing of what he has dictated. I’ve yet to check this tool out, but it sounds promissing. And yes, it’s AI, but not generative AI. It doesn’t do the job for you, it simply helps you with the transcription (which is a very different thing, which is why I mention it).

Beyond the Book: New Pathways to Readers with IngramSparks

Speakers: Ben Hughes, Adam Beswick, Samantha Young and Will Dady

²⁰²⁵⁄₂₀₂₆ Trends:

Authors paying more attention to their metadata. It results is more discoverability of books and in sales of books. Coincidentally, I’ve updated my metadatas end of October, haha.
Direct sales through the author’s website or another platform. That’s the second conference that talks about direct sales by this point.
Global selling and translations. Authors are thinking more and more about selling globally, so having their books in more than one language.
Getting creative in the book printing area. Spayed or printed edges, dust jacket, etc. AUthors are getting creative with print on demand and they’re creating great products.

State of the Estelle // Q3 2025

2025-09-11

Allow me to (re)introduce myself! Hi! I’m Estelle Van de Velde, and I’m a Belgian indie author!

If you’re here, that means that once upon a time you found me or my work valuable in some way, and for that, I cannot thank you enough. I hope you’ll continue to stick around because there’s a lot of really awesome things coming your way!

But first, how about a recap? I feel all over the place, so it would actually be good for me too.

And if you’d like the audio version, check out my YouTube channel below.

In my notebook

I started my self-publishing journey in 2021 when I released The Londoners, a memoir about the five years I lived in the UK. I had a YouTube channel back then (more on that later) and I was very determined in making it as a full-time author.

In 2022, I released the French translation of The Londoners. And in 2023, I released SEO for Authors, a guide on how to optimize your content for search engines like Google (and a little bit on Amazon too).

Then, things derailed from there.

I stopped being consistent with my videos on YouTube. I even wanted to shift my content because I was pivoting in my professional life and hoped I’d be more visible for a potential job. I also had a hard time finding time for writing and self-publishing and marketing my books because I had a beautiful son in May 2022. In summary, my family and professional life were taking the lead while my bookish life got into hibernation.

This ends now: I’m BACK!

I’ve got a few things on the back burner I’m dying to tell you about.

Time is still scarce as of now. My son just turned 3 last May, and I’m spending a lot of time with him that I won’t sacrifice for anything in the world. I also found a web design role that I love in a small web agency. So yeah, being a full-time author isn’t my dream goal anymore. I guess I’ve got to adapt because YES, I still feel the pull of writing and sharing my author journey.

So here’s the status on my different projects:

Project Sky

Project Sky is a middle-grade contemporary/fantasy novel that I started writing in 2016. I had enrolled a few beta readers in 2022 when the story was completed. Then I hired a developmental editor and… queried it for a year.

I sent my query package to 52 agents and got 52 rejections.

Don’t you worry, I’m not sad. It wasn’t a good time for it, that’s all.

I decided to get back to this project last July. So I ordered a proof copy to be able to read it easily in paperback format. I’m currently reading it in the comfort of my sofa and I’m loving it. There are still a few things to change here and there, but I think it would be a great candidate for publishing in 2026. I’m not setting a release date yet but it’s definitely coming your way.

I’ll also be looking for an illustrator for the book cover very soon, as those kind of things take a while to make. If you’ve got any illustrator name you like, please send it my way.

Project Mum

Before I left for a surprise hibernation, I was working on a memoir about pregnancy and motherhood. The first draft was completed in February 2023, and I intended on finishing the second draft this year but things got complicated. This first draft is currently in a journaling state, which means I repeat myself A LOT. I admit it’s more complicated to rewrite than I originally thought because I’ve to rethink the whole book.

So for now I’m focusing on Project Sky before getting back to Project Mum.

Existing work

This Summer, I thought about narrating my own audiobook for The Londoners. This project is on hold until I figure some things out, because I realised jumping head first onto that kind of projects is time-consuming. And also there’s the second Audible gate happening right now. But do let me know if getting an audio version of my books would interest you :)

And… all my books are wide ! I’ve ditched the exclusivity with Amazon, and I’m now on every book retailer platforms. I’ve added links to those shops on my website.

A quick update on social media, because I have been all over the place regarding this topic. But I finally settled with a few things:

I’ll be on my website, newsletter and YouTube mainly. So no Instagram, no TikTok, no nothing else for now.
You’ll get a newsletter once every quarter with my author news and book/series/music recommendations. And sometimes you’ll get extra newsletters if I have a timely thing to let you know about, like a book promotion.
If you follow me on YouTube, you’ll get one video every two months + a live video every three months.

Time is scarce, did I already mention it? So that’s to keep my sanity in check and not burn out. I’ll revise it in a year-time.

I guess that’s it for today. Thanks again for all your support. I’ll be back with more updates in December. Until next time, friend!

I queried a middle-grade novel for a year

2025-07-16

Maybe it’s time to talk about this, as I’ve just ordered a proof copy for said middle-grade novel and I’m about to un-fridge it to see if it needs any more work before I self-publish it 🤭

“Once Upon A Sky” is a project I’ve been working on, on and off, since 2015. The original first chapter had been written as part of my application package at Brunel University London when I was looking to enter their Master’s degree in Creative Writing. I then published that chapter as a short story under the title “Finding Maxwell” (maybe you’ve read it?) before pulling it out of Amazon when I decided I’d write nonfiction under my name.

Between 2015 and 2022, I wrote the story… It was painful because I didn’t know what age range the novel would be aimed at. So the main character went from being 8 to 16, to finally settling at 12 years old. The story wasn’t the same with each iteration, but I felt more confident writing my character as a 12-year-old.

That being said, in 2022, I asked beta readers to give it a go. They all loved the story, and I was pretty happy about it. I was ready to self-publish it, just like I had done with previous books, when my husband asked:

“Why wouldn’t you try the traditional route?”

Uh!

I pondered the decision for a few months. I “slept on it”, as we say in French.

Well, the title of this blog entry is quite explicit, isn’t it? I ended up entering the famous query trenches: I wrote a query letter, refined my author bio, prepared a PDF with my first three chapters and voilà. Ready to send my package to literary agents.

I’m so grateful for querytracker.net. It has all the literary agents listed, what they’re looking for, etc. So it was super easy to make a list of agents who were interested in what I wrote, theoretically. I started sending my query package to 5 agents, then 5 more a week or so later. And I did that now and then for almost a year, until I sent my little package to all the agents on my list (52 in total).

And while I was querying more and more agents, well, I started receiving answers. Rejection letters to be exact. And they were kind of all the same.

Hi Estelle,

Thank you again for submitting to me!

I enjoyed spending time with ONCE UPON A SKY, and I'm grateful that you gave me the opportunity to do so. However, I do not feel I'm the right agent for it, and I'm sorry to say that I am respectfully passing on your query.

All best,

XXX

There was only one who took the time to send me constructive feedback. They said:

“Your story sounds exciting, and we love how you plan to blend Max's relatable, real-life struggles with the fantasy plot. However, we found ourselves craving more indications of Max's state of mind -- his thoughts, emotions, and motivations -- to enable us to get inside his head in the way we would need to in order to champion this project. For that reason, we're sorry to say that we won't be requesting to see more of the work at this time.”

I ended up receiving 52 rejection letters over the 52 queries I’ve sent. And that’s kind of awesome to think that every single agent I queried took the time to at least let me know they were passing on it. That’s a 100% answer rate! They don’t even bother to answer you when you’re applying for a job. Maybe companies’ HR people should learn from those agents…

Anyway, even if I’ve got that many rejections, I didn’t feel discouraged one bit. Maybe it was just not the right time for this book in particular.

But, a year after all these queries, I’m ready to give it a hard look before I decide or not to self-publish it. And that, my friends, is a story for another day.

The day I stopped wasting time on the Internet

2025-03-20

I’m always impressed when I read people had a complete disconnection. In this day and age, how do you simply stop? Is it a work in progress? Or do you just stop and never look back?

Honestly, I thought I would talk about an addiction to social media, and maybe it is. But I’ve deleted my Facebook account in November 2023, I barely use Instagram for checking on my friends’ stories, I’m on LinkedIn but not really, I’m using a special plugin to make sure I don’t spend much time on YouTube, and Mastodon isn’t designed for doomscrolling. So… where’s the true addiction?

The fact that I’m always connected, always a second away from answering people’s messages. I’m there, but not there there. I’m millions of kilometres away, thinking about millions things and doing millions of things at the same time.

I want to stop that.

Break the cycle.

Yesterday, I went pony-riding with my almost 3-year-old. For two hours, it was just us there, physically and mentally. But after those two hours, the first thing I did was to check on my emails. Seriously…

I’m not proud: on a day off, I shouldn’t check on my emails or scroll social media. I would love to simply enjoy spending time with my little one and be truly there. But once again I do and think about a million things, a million kilometres away.

So I decided that for a month — let’s try a month first — I would switch my internet off when I’m not at work, and be allowed to check social media for maximum ten minutes per day. Will it hold? No idea until I try.

Update: May 6, 2025

Spoiler alert: it didn’t hold.

Today, I deleted my Instagram account. I had to google how to delete it because, of course, the option is buried in Meta’s parameters. But I did it. I’m proud of it.

I’ve also deleted all the apps from my phone. It’s weird though, because I open my phone and I’m going on apps that aren’t there anymore. So I’m puzzled each time, to remember it’s not on there. The only way for me to go on social media is to turn on my computer, which is a bit harder that just take my phone.

My only struggle left is YouTube. So many distractions! Even with the plugin that removes all the shorts, it’s still too attractive. I’m gonna work on that in the next months.

Ah! And I succeeded in moving my family to Signal instead of Whatsapp. Unfortunately, I’m still keeping Whatsapp for now because of various reasons. But at least checking it once a week instead of every day is a win (yeah, I removed the notifications from Whatsapp).

Where the AI temptation lies

2025-02-18

Okay breathe

I’m an author. I have a degree in Creative Writing from a UK university, I worked as a copywriter and a content manager. I published three books already—one of them being a translation of the previous book.

Writing good copy is difficult. I simply know it.

I spent five years of my life writing a middle-grade novel, queried it and was rejected by agents around fifty times. Writing that book was painful, that’s one of the reasons why I won’t write fiction any time soon. Since then, I decided I’d focus on nonfiction. And—I think—I’ve been great at it.

I’ve to admit I took a dim view of the arrival of Artificial Intelligence. Here and there, I heard anybody could write now. Wannabe authors released books generated with AI on self-publishing platforms like Amazon, thinking they’d make tons of money (spoiler alert: releasing books won’t necessarily make you rich), and people started losing their copywriting jobs over the claim that nobody needed them anymore to write good copy.

AI has definitely changed the game.

As an author, and especially now that I’ve a toddler who doesn’t want to nap at home anymore, time is scarce.

I’m currently writing my next nonfiction book about my experience as a pregnant person and a new mother. The first draft was completed a while ago but I’m rewriting it because… well, because I’m not satisfied with what I wrote originally. And it takes time. So much time! Time that I don’t necessarily have. Time I’m stealing here and there, instead of doing something else.

The temptation of giving my draft to an AI tool and being done with it is high. I recently made the mistake of asking ChatGPT if it could rewrite a paragraph of mine. I told it it was a nonfiction author and it had to rewrite something in a storytelling way. Gosh, I was blown away.

I’m a non-native English speaker—should have started with that. Writing in English is like second nature to me but sometimes I struggle with words. Sometimes I can look at my blank page and write nothing for hours. And just like that, AI had rewritten my little paragraph in a matter of seconds. More than that: I thought it was pretty good.

This blog entry hasn’t been written nor touched by AI, I guarantee you :) But I understand the temptation of prompting a tool to get something quickly. After all, we live in an age where people have lost patience. With companies like Amazon, you can get something the next day by simply clicking on a button. If it’s an ebook, you can even get it as soon as you click on said button.

I’m a little bit ashamed of my AI experiment if I’m being honest. I want my books to be 100% me, and the ones I’ve already published are. I think I’ve to make peace with the fact that, yes, writing or rewriting a book will take me longer than some AI. It will be more painful too. I’ve to accept that my writing is not perfect.

In the end, I know ChatGPT wrote a great paragraph. But that paragraph isn’t me. It’s not how I write. I’ll be even prouder of my achievement when I’ll finish my book. I’d have shown patience and dedication to my craft. And it will be 100% me.

The financial cost of pivoting // Income report 2024

2025-01-08

Being an indie author is a lot of fun. It’s the fourth time I’m doing an income report for this side of my life — the first one on a blog. While preparing this post, I was impressed by how much I actually did for my side hustle in 2024. I wasn’t expecting it, because I kinda pushed the “pause” button on everything.

You see, I got laid off from my marketing job in 2023. It was a difficult period because of all the questions around the situation. Would I be the role model I wanted to be for my not-even-one-year-old son? Or would I choose the easy way and get a new job in marketing? No, I had to pivot. For myself.

So I took a six-month training course in 2023, followed by an internship at a web design studio. The first half of 2024 was used to apply and get my first real role as a web designer – thank you ever so much Fidelo Agency! As for my side hustle… well, see for yourself.

Overall

As a reminder, this report is from January to December 2024. During those 12 months, there was a decrease of 11.29% compared to the previous year which had already seen a big dip in my general finances due to the pivoting.

But overall, my author business only represented 2.44% of my income. When I tell you not to quit your job on a whim if you want to pursue a career as an indie author, it’s no joke. Because even though I had half the year to work on my side hustle, I was in no state mentally to take the opportunity to do so.

And to be very transparent with you, I almost made the biggest mistake of my author career by trying to switch my YouTube content. In doing so, I had removed all my author videos from my YouTube channel for two or three months, which resulted in a big dip in sales on Amazon – I had zero sales!

So yeah, I almost killed my side hustle for the sake of trying to make it out as a web designer. Not the brightest idea.

So, what did this pivoting year look like?

Side hustle income

Book sales

Let’s recap. I’ve got three books out:

The Londoners (2021);
The Londoners in French (yes, it does exist – 2022);
SEO for Authors (2023).

In 2024, I haven’t released any book. I had thought I’d be able to self-publish my current work-in-progress but I’ve been in no shape to actually do it. I won’t make any excuses but I had to choose my battles, this year more than the previous ones.

With a bit of a surprise, The Londoners (my firstborn, haha) has seen more copies sold than SEO for Authors (my latest). It comes as no surprise to me though that the French translation of The Londoners has not even sold one copy. I don’t have a French audience, and my mum stopped selling it as well.

I’ve sold 26 copies of The Londoners and 13 copies of SEO for Authors, for a total of 39 books.

I know, woaw (eyes rolling).

To put things into perspective, I had sold a total of 74 books in 2023… When I say I’ve hit “pause” on things, this was me dropping the ball on book marketing. To this day, I haven’t posted a video on YouTube for six months. It hurts – a lot.

Interestingly, I haven’t made most of my sales from Amazon KDP – which only represents 37.7% in 2024. I got The Londoners in a real brick-and-mortar bookshop (more on that later)! Thus it represents 57.1% of my book sales. And last: one-to-one sales with 5.2%.

Speaking opportunities

A word on speaking opportunities: I did no paid talks this year compared to 2023 where I did three of them. It’s also one of the reasons why my side hustle income has dropped, as it contributed to a large part of it.

Am I thinking about resuming this side of my activities this year? I’m honestly not too sure. I’m open to it if anyone wants to listen to me speak about SEO for Authors though. But I think this year will be more focused on writing and releasing a new book.

Publishing and marketing recap of 2024

Got a book in a brick-and-mortar bookshop

I pushed the doors of my local bookshop in April or May. They had freshly opened in March (so they were very new). I’d heard they only sold English books, which is quite a big thing in my part of Belgium. After a few times going there, I finally gathered the courage to tell them I had published two titles… and they took a few copies of The Londoners!

I’m so proud that The Londoners is there! It got a new life, thanks to the bookshop. Certainly the biggest highlight of 2024.

They also organised an awesome event with local authors – which I was a part of – and I got to meet a few readers. I was completely stressed out because it was my first in-person event. But past the presentation of my book and my work, I could answer questions pretty easily. I’m so very grateful for this experience. Hopefully, I’ll make more of them in the future.

The event itself sold 10 books (4 on the day, 6 more in the following two weeks). I’m more than thrilled.

Conference & Podcast

I was at the Writing Romance Mastery Summit in February. I had prerecorded the session with the host five months beforehand, in 2023. So all I did was to advertise it a little bit. I honestly don’t know if the 4 sales I had that month were because of the conference. But that’s definitely a name I can put on my speaker portfolio.

I was also invited on the Rebel Author Podcast in July, which was totally unexpected. Of course, I had pitched a topic a year before. But because of the time between the topic submission and the recording of the episode, I was sure it had been dismissed.

Sacha Black is a famous indie author in my world. Being in her presence was an experience, even if that was on video. She’s as lovely as she sounds on her podcast. But I’ll be honest: I wasn’t at my best when we recorded together. It had been a long time since I had talked about SEO, let alone worked in SEO. I did my best to prepare for the interview, but still not my best performance.

Anyway, not too sure the podcast did anything for my sales, as I had only 2 sales that month. But still a big name on my speaker portfolio list.

I had intended to promote SEO for Authors for a week, using free book promotion websites – just like I did with The Londoners a year before. The promotion took place between the 10th and the 14th of March but… I was actually very sick at that time and hadn’t booked as many promo websites as the first time.

When I promoted The Londoners in 2023, two promo websites had worked quite well regarding the number of downloads. This time, I had only the energy to book a spot on Best Book Monkey for a total of 92 downloads throughout the promotion week. Not that bad, considering the book’s super niche audience.

I’ll probably do another round of promo on Best Book Monkey, as they’re quite effective. Second time I’m using it and second time I’m very pleased with the results.

Removing my author videos from YouTube

I mentioned it before: biggest mistake of the year. My sales tanked. It only got back up when I republished them all on the channel and YouTube ranked them again so they could get traffic.

Leaving Facebook or removing all my pictures from Instagram did not have any impact on my sales in comparison. YouTube is a big tool in an author’s marketing toolbox and is not to be underestimated. Especially if you’re an indie author like me who doesn’t like posting on social media. If I’ve to choose one platform, I’ll pick YouTube any time.

Removing the author videos from my channel was a result of me wanting to switch my content around and focus on design. My thoughts were that I would get noticed a bit faster, and thus get a job in design faster (it did not). But you know what? I enjoy making author videos a bit too much, haha.

And then, as I did find my first junior role in web design, I had to pause the video making for six months (so far). Had no energy to keep doing it at the pace I was doing it. And I was not writing anyway, so why bother? But now, I find myself wanting to come back. We’ll see what I’ll really end up doing.

Query trenches: an update

I had promised my husband to try to find an agent for my middle-grade novel – Once Upon A Sky. However, in May, I reached 50 rejections and decided to stop querying that book.

I don’t think I’ll self-publish it either, as it’s fiction and it would need me to take a pen name. But who knows what can happen in the future, maybe I’ll change my mind at some point.

Plans for 2025?

Honestly, I didn’t think I had done so much in 2024 before writing this blog entry. I didn’t write much, and I had stopped releasing videos on YouTube as well, so I figured I hadn’t achieved much. I’m pleased to see I actually did a few things here and there.

In 2025, I’d love to get back to my author side hustle a bit more. That doesn’t mean I’ll go back to YouTube, as it’s very time-consuming and I have to choose my battles. But I’m slowly getting back to writing and planning to release a new book by the end of the year.

So, here’s what I think I’ll do:

Finish writing my next book and release it in ebook, paperback and audiobook;
Have a launch party for the next book in a brick-and-mortar bookshop;
Release the audiobook version of The Londoners;
Get The Londoners into more brick-and-mortar bookshops around Belgium;
Organise a reading for The Londoners, and its French version;
Pitch a few conferences, to get back into speaking about SEO for Authors and maybe other topics.

I don’t particularly think everything is gonna be doable, but one can dream. I’m particularly struggling with finding time to sit down and do the work, as I have a family with a preschooler and a job (my main hustle). But we’re in January and everything is possible.

Wish me luck! :)

Books I've read in 2024

2024-12-18

On Web Typography by Jason Santa Maria
City of Stolen Magic by Nazneen Ahmed Pathak
Solving Product Design Exercises by Artiom Dashinsky
King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo
Fair Play by Eve Rodsky
Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo
Generating Product Ideas by Artiom Dashinsky
Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher
We were there by Yuuki Obata
Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum
Arca by Van Jensen
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty
Before the coffee gets cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson
X Day by Setona Mizushiro
After School Nightmare by Setona Mizushiro
Adulthood is a gift by Sarah Andersen
Sustainable Web Design by Tom Greenwood
The Third Gilmore Girl by Kelly Bishop
Hell yeah or no by Derek Sivers

Some statistics…

Total books read: 22
Total nonfiction: 7
Total fiction: 15
Total self-published books: 4
Best fiction of the year: The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, by Shanon Chakraborty
Best nonfiction of the year: The Third Gilmore Girl, by Kelly Bishop

Books I've read in 2023

2023-12-30

The Successful Hybrid Author by Katlyn Duncan
Blood Alone by Masayuki Takano 🇫🇷
Jayben and the Golden Torch by Thomas Leeds
Daronne by Emy Ltr 🇫🇷
Fish don’t sneeze by Kristie Watson
Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug
Gallant by V.E. Schwab
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
Readers, I Tweeted Him by Emma Bennet
Shadow & Bone by Leigh Bardugo
Siege & Storm by Leigh Bardugo
Ruin & Rising by Leigh Bardugo
Ten arguments for deleting your social media by Jaron Lanier
Mélusine by Clarke 🇫🇷

Some statistics…

Total books read: 14
Total nonfiction: 5
Total fiction: 9
Total self-published books: 2
Best fiction of the year: Shadow & Bone by Leigh Bardugo
Best nonfiction of the year: Ten arguments for deleting your social media by Jaron Lanier

I got 326 Downloads of my Book in just One Week

2023-10-20

Note: this is the transcription of a YouTube video I made in 2023

My book got downloaded more than 300 times in one week. Want to know how I did it?

Alright, I had promised that I’d do a recap video of the book marketing experiment I did back in February. Here we go.

CONTEXT

For context, I found an interesting list on Kindlepreneur. That list showed free and paid websites that offered ways to reach new audiences via newsletters. It features names like Freebooksy, Bargain booksy, The fussy librarian and the like. But what interested me was the list of free promotion websites. As you may have guessed: I don’t like spending money on marketing. That’s why I rely on ARC readers to get reviews, Instagram and YouTube to get new readers, SEO to get discovered and so on. All these marketing strategies are free. But let’s get back to the main topic.

WHAT I DID

My book marketing experiment was organised like this: I had set one of my books — The Londoners — free for five days with the Free Book Deal tool on Amazon KDP. Then I booked free promo websites to advertise my book promotion through their websites, social media and newsletters.

From February 19th to 23rd, I booked a total of 8 free promo websites. My aim was to have at least two sites per day. You’ve got to know that I organised this whole week a couple of weeks in advance. I didn’t even know at the end of January that I’d do this marketing experiment in February. So it’s possible to organise everything closer to the date, even though I wouldn’t recommend it.

RESULTS

So, I’m gonna break down the results, day by day, and give you the names of the free promo websites I booked.

Day one

On day one, I actually realised I had made a mistake. You know, I translated The Londoners in French in October 2022. Guess who messed up the two versions when she set up the promotion on Amazon KDP? Yes, it’s yours truly. So instead of setting up the promotion on the English version, I did it on the French. No big deal, it didn’t jeopardise the entire experiment, but I was still gutted. I, of course, changed the promotion on the right book so the rest of the week would actually work as intended.

I had booked a promo on Awesome Gang, which never sent me any confirmation email by the way, and Armadillo ebook. To be honest, I thought I wouldn’t be advertised on any of those websites because they do say when you sign up that you need to respect the deal. As my book was still at $2.99, I was really surprised when I saw my book on Armadillo’s website. It was nice, but I got 0 downloads that day as it wasn’t set as free. Totally normal.

Day two

On day two, I had booked Best Book Monkey and The Book Circle. I never received any confirmation email from The Book Circle, so it wasn’t a surprise that I wasn’t promoted on their website on the day. As for Best Book Monkey, I did receive a confirmation email one week before the promotion. And I got promoted on their website, newsletter and social media. So it’s fair to attribute all the downloads of the day to Best Book Monkey.

What’s good to know about this free promo website is that it has multiple Facebook and Instagram pages according to the genre. So I knew my book was pushed in front of readers interested in non-fiction. They also segment their newsletter so I wouldn’t be surprised if The Londoners got promoted to the same kind of audience, which is amazing. As a result, I got 101 downloads from Best Book Monkey.

Day three

Day three is actually the day I got the most downloads. I had booked a spot on Reading Deals and It’s Write Now. It’s Write Now I actually booked a promotion for three days. I got the confirmation email from Reading Deals on the day of the promotion, but never received the one from It’s Write Now. And I got promoted on both websites.

I had been featured on It’s Write Now right at the beginning of the day and got maybe 6 downloads? It really started to pick up when The Londoners got up on Reading Deals. So I think it’s fair to attribute most of the downloads to Reading Deals. Total downloads for the day: 155.

Day four

Day four saw a dip in downloads. I had booked on Pretty-Hot and It’s Write Now. Never got any confirmation email from Pretty-Hot so it wasn’t a surprise when I wasn’t promoted on their website. As of It’s Write Now, it simply continued promoting my book for the second day in a row. I got 50 downloads that day, which can all be attributed to It’s Write Now.

Day five

The last day of the promotion, I had booked Free Book Tips and It’s Write Now. I did got promoted on Free Book Tips, for which I had received a confirmation email a few days before. And It’s Write Now promoted it for the third and last day in a row. But day five was my lowest day of the promotion as it resulted in only 20 downloads.

CONCLUSION

So if you calculate all the downloads from the five days of the promotion, The Londoners got 326 downloads, using free book promo websites only. From the eight websites I had booked, only five went through.

I’d recommend working with Best Book Monkey and Reading Deals in priority, as both websites bore the best results. It’s Write Now is also to be considered because they brought me consistent downloads over three days. I’m not convinced by Free Book Tips as I’m not too sure it brought me any results, and I can’t say anything about Armadillo Ebooks because I had made that mistake at the beginning so it wasn’t their fault if the promotion kinda failed when it was their turn.

I think this marketing experiment with book promo websites was way better than the one I did with only my social media. Because unlike myself they have built a huge audience of readers.

What I did love about Best Book Monkey is that they had segmented their audiences so they’d be able to promote the book to the right audience of nonfiction readers. I’m pretty sure it was also the case for Reading Deals, even though I hadn’t noticed any segmentation. But the results I got from both free promo websites speak for themselves.

But what about the other result? You know, the ones you’re supposed to get after you give your book for free? Well, I could expect 10% of it to actually read the book, and from those 10%, I was expecting 10% would review the book on Amazon. If you do the calculation, it means 32 people would read The Londoners, and 3 would review it. Have I got the expected result? I’m happy to say I got 4 reviews after the promotion. So it went above my initial expectations.

All the websites mentioned in this video promote both fiction and nonfiction. Have you ever tried them for your own book? If yes, what were your results? If not, are you planning to try any of them?

How to translate a book yourself?

2023-05-08

You’ve got a book and would like to translate it yourself in other languages? Let’s talk about this.

English is not my native language. However, English is an international language spoken by many people. I personally write my stories directly in English, I don’t translate them in English.

As it happens, I live in Belgium where we either speak Dutch, French or German (for a small part). English seems like a good choice, as most people will learn that language at school. However, if I wanted to truly reach everyone within my audience, I should translate my books… at least in French. And that’s actually what I did with The Londoners, as people (I mean my cousin) kept asking me for a French version. So here is how I did it, by myself.

Translating a book: the hard way

But before we get started, let’s do some maths. To translate a book within a language, you should need a professional translator, right? Let’s say your book is around 50,000 words. On average, the translation cost per word is around 0.12 cents. You multiply that by your 50,000 words and you get exactly 6,000 euros for a book translation. Needless to say this is a huge amount of money. Not everyone is able to pay it upfront, except if you’re going through the traditional publishing path. Which would mean you’d have nothing to pay for any translation as the publishing house pays for everything.

If you’re going the self-publishing way, however, there are a couple routes you could take so you’d see your book translated into other languages.

You could, for example, sell your international rights by territory to a publishing house. Let’s say a famous French publishing house is interested in your book and would like to buy the rights to translate and sell it in France. You could do it and not be bothered by any translation costs, as the publishing house would do it for you. And you’d have a contract and royalties coming from France every now and then.

Translating a book: the soft way

However, if you are fluent in more than one language, you could possibly translate your book into multiple languages without a publishing house or spending money on translations. How? Let me show you how I translated The Londoners in French.

First, you can use an AI algorithm to translate your manuscript for you. I personally use Deepl.com, it’s an effective way to get the first translation super quick and it’s way better than google translate. That’s kind of the easy part.

Once you’ve done that first draft, you’ll have to get to the real work: getting through edits. An AI isn’t perfect and won’t get as idiomatic as a native person would. So I recommend NOT publishing that AI version, or you’ll get very bad reviews on it because it won’t always make sense. Instead, take a couple days working on editing the freshly translated manuscript. If you’re confident enough with the language, you’ll have no problem going through it all and making it the best version of itself. For the French version of the Londoners and knowing I have a day job and a baby, it took me roughly two months to redraft it completely once. Then I asked someone to proofread it: my mum. Then I went through it again and made a third draft.

If you’re the author, you may not be a professional translator so don’t despair at how many drafts you’re going through before thinking the translation is acceptable. It’s like publishing a whole new book.

But don’t think you should stop there. Hiring a professional proofreader is still a must have. Unfortunately, you won’t find one through Reedsy, as they only work in English (for now). So either you already know a professional proofreader in the language you’re focusing on, or you’ll find them through author recommendations or search engines.

And after all this… that’s it. You’ve got a fully translated manuscript that you can self-publish. Translation that you’ve made yourself.

Books I've read in 2022

2022-12-30

ExtraOrdinary by V.E. Schwab
Je ne m’attendais pas à ça by Alexandre Marcel 🇫🇷
Hold back the tide by Melinda Salisbury
Amazon Reviews for Books by Dale L. Roberts
Whole book marketing by Victorine E. Lieske
Can’t Catch my Breath by Sarah Sutton
Bridge of Souls by V.E. Schwab
Promotional strategies for books by Dale L. Roberts
Author your ambition Workbook by M.K. Williams
Amazon Keywords for Books by Dale L. Roberts
Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin
Dreaming about the Boy Next Door by Sarah Sutton
Mastering Amazon Descriptions by Brian Meeks

Some statistics…

Total books read: 13
Total nonfiction: 7
Total fiction: 6
Total self-published books: 8
Best fiction of the year: Can’t Catch my Breath by Sarah Sutton
Best nonfiction of the year: Je ne m’attendais pas à ça by Alexandre Marcel 🇫🇷

I sold books at a local fair

2022-12-26

Note: this is the transcription of a YouTube video I made in 2022

Preparing the Christmas market was a bit stressful. I live in the French part of Belgium, so French was mandatory if I wanted to sell anything locally. And I was already in the process of translating my book in French… but this time I had a deadline: December 3rd. I needed to get the translation and the publishing done as fast as possible to order paperback copies and have something to sell.

Selling books at a Christmas market for the first time was an incredible experience. I was on the other side of the table at last, watching people coming and going, browsing the different stands. I didn’t want to be that pushy author who tries selling her books to someone who doesn’t really want to buy. Instead, I let people check the back cover, invite them to get some sweets and have a nice chat about London. I think it was the best approach, even if it wasn’t the right audience. Lots of elderly looking for Christmas decorations, or young parents coming for a picture of their kids with Santa.

But because we do like some good numbers, let’s have a look into it.

The Christmas market was organised by a friend of mine, and the fee to participate was €15. With those €15, I had a whole table just for me. Add to it that I bought some sweets for the event at €1.35 and it makes a grand total of €16.35. With that cost, I calculated I needed to sell at least 3 books to get my money back and make a tiny profit.

On the day though, my friend and I realised there weren’t enough tables for everyone. So we decided to share a table together and she refunded half of my participation fee. So in the end, the real cost of the event was €8.85. I only needed to sell 2 books for the same result.

Did I succeed? Well, yes and no.

Yes, because I did sell two books during the Christmas market. So, my objective was complete. No, because one book was sold to my friend and the other to one of my cousins, who had already promised me to buy my book once it would be released in French. No books were sold to total strangers this time around.

In terms of numbers, I made a tiny profit of €6.09, which makes a 68.81% return on investment (or ROI). But was it really? I guess it depends on my own definition of success.

I had a good time at the Christmas market. My friend and I talked and had a lot of sweets. I indeed sold two books but it wasn’t unexpected. They would have been ordered even if I wasn’t doing the event. So, hands in hands, it was a success but not really a success if you know what I mean. I’m not regretting doing the Christmas market because it was a good experience overhaul and I was on the front lines, showing my babies for the first time ever to a local audience.

But my take on that is to choose carefully which event you’ll be doing with your books. Christmas markets aren’t really the place to sell books, because people are looking for Christmassy food and atmosphere. They’re looking for decorations or cute crafty last minute gifts. The next event I’ll be doing will certainly be a book-related event, where people go to buy books specifically.

Books I've read in 2021

2021-12-30

Your Author Business Plan by Joanna Penn
Amazon Decoded by David Gaughran
Angel Sanctuary by Kaori Yuki 🇫🇷
Comte Cain by Kaori Yuki 🇫🇷
God Child by Kaori Yuki 🇫🇷
The Royal Doll Orchestra by Kaori Yuki 🇫🇷
Adolescent by Kyra Gregory
The Bewilderness by Ben Reeves
Book marketing for the first time author by M.K. Williams
Parenthèse by Samantha Bailly & Antoine Fesson 🇫🇷
Platform Mastery by Nick Thacker
The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V.E. Schwab
Pretending by Holly Bourne
Pixie by Aurore 🇫🇷
Elinor Jones by Aurore 🇫🇷
Trois mois sous silence by Judith Aquien 🇫🇷
La vie rêvée du postpartum by Anna Roy 🇫🇷
Amazon Ads Unleashed by Robert J. Ryan

Some statistics…

Total books read: 18
Total nonfiction: 8
Total fiction: 10
Total self-published books: 7
Best fiction of the year: The Bewilderness by Ben Reeves
Best nonfiction of the year: Parenthèse by Samantha Bailly & Antoine Fesson 🇫🇷

Books I've read in 2020

2020-12-30

Indéterminés by Samatha Bailly 🇫🇷
Lady Liberty by Aurore 🇫🇷
Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson
Witcher: Blood of Elves by Andrzei Sapkowski
Bientôt maman by Melissa Bellevigne 🇫🇷
The Indie Author checklist by Adam Croft
State of Sorrow by Melinda Salisbury
The Near Witch by V.E. Schwab
Light and Shadow by Ryu Hyang
A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab
The Stolen Kingdom by Bethany Atazadeh
Black Rose Alice by Setona Mizushiro
Harfang by Aurore 🇫🇷
Let’s Get Digital by David Gaughran
Following by David Gaughran
5,000 words an hour by Chris Fox
Save the Cat! Writes a novel by Jessica Brody
Silk flower goodbye by Sage Gordon-Davis
The Savior’s Champion by Jenna Moreci
The Ocean at the end of the lane by Neil Gaiman
The Steel Prince: Rebel Army by V.E. Schwab
Carbon & Silicium by Mathieu Bablet 🇫🇷

Some statistics…

Total books read: 22
Total nonfiction: 15
Total fiction: 7
Total self-published books: 8
Best fiction of the year: A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Shwab
Best nonfiction of the year: The Indie Author Checklist by Adam Croft

Book cover design: what you need to know

2019-10-01

Whether you’ve finished your manuscript or not, having a book cover design ready can be a good incentive to keep going. Here’s my little guide to help you defining what you’d like to have, how to brief a cover designer and how to hire one.

Keep on reading!

Content:

Why is book cover design important?

Have I already said that cover design is super important for a book? It’s one of the first things a potential reader sees. Its role is to reflect what the book is about, but also to be attractive enough so a reader approaches it with interest. If your book cover isn’t sparkling some interest, I am afraid that your book will never get a hand on your readers.

Now, I’m not talking about your community of readers. Those readers already love you and they know you’re doing a great job at crafting stories. I’m talking about the potential new readers you may get with your book.

Why is it important to have a good book cover?

A book cover is a marketing tool. It’s actually the first marketing tool you should care about. I can guarantee that if you’re missing something with it, it is going to be reflected in your sales. After all, isn’t it how you choose the books you read? Be honest, we all judge books by their covers, it’s human.

Anatomy of a book cover

Front cover:

People tend to be attracted by the illustration/picture first, so make sure yours is catchy enough. Your title, of course, has to pick the curiosity. And finally your name should also be on the cover. The overall front cover should reflect your book and its genre. I would advise you to do some research about what kind of covers are used in the genre you’re writing in, what works and what doesn’t. If you’re self-publishing, you have a say in all decisions, so take advantage of it to get the best cover you can but don’t forget its marketing purpose. It will have to please your readers.

Back cover:

Okay, you caught the eye of a reader, now it’s time to tell him more about the story itself. The blurb is a kind of summary of your story, but it can’t give away the end. It will have to spark even more curiosity, so choose your words carefully. Then comes the author bio, for those who don’t already know you, and some endorsement if you’ve been lucky enough to have your book reviewed by a famous magazine, author or blogger. As for the ISBN, it is, obviously, a mandatory thing to have on your back cover if you’re selling a print version of your book.

Spin:

If you decided to offer a physical version of your book (hardback and/or paperback), then you might have to take care of the spin. When your book will be presented on the shelves, you want your reader to get all the information she needs to identify it, don’t you? Three simples things have to be displayed: your book’s title, your author name and, if relevant, the publisher’s logo.

Case study: Finding Maxwell

Of course, I can only talk about what I know. And you’ll see that making the cover design for Finding Maxwell was far from easy. But let’s put things in context, shall we? I published Finding Maxwell a couple of years ago now, and I didn’t want to spend too much money on the book cover. I was a freelancer at the time, and any money I could save, well… I saved it. I went on Fiverr to find a designer kind enough to make the book cover I was looking for.

And I’ve learned a lot of things along the way:

Fiverr might not be the right place to get a book cover. It’s cheap, yes, but you’ll mostly find generic designs that everyone already has. You have to really look for the right gig and the right designer, it takes time.
Briefing a designer is hard and should take more than five minutes. You should put more thought about what you want as a cover, and not expect the designer to know what’s going on in your head.
Don’t expect the designer to read your book, so be as precise as possible when explaining what the story is about.

Needless to say that I saw some covers which were completely off. They were not reflecting my book at all and, in the end, I made the cover myself with an image I bought on Shutterstock. It’s not bad, but the book could have had a better cover if I had put more thoughts and money into it.

In summary, you shouldn’t rush any of the steps when you’re self-publishing. Of course, the story is the most important thing and you might not have the money to hire a proper book designer. But every penny invested in your cover design will be worth it.

How to brief a Book Cover Designer?

Are you ready to hire a Book Cover Designer? I am too.

I have already talked about how important it is to have an awesome book cover. So I think I’ve been pretty clear that you have to hire a professional, not your cousin or your neighbour (except if they’re book cover designers, of course).

In the past, I had used Fiverr to do my ebook cover. However, I found out it was difficult to get the cover I wanted, to pass on the general mood of the book to the designer. As I am now ready to hire a professional for my non-fiction project, I made a bit of research beforehand. We wouldn’t like to get a cover that is completely out of topic, would we?

So, how do you brief a Book Cover Designer?

Reedsy has a couple of recommendations when briefing designers. It also has a huge database of professionals that you can ask for a quote. Furthermore, it invites the author to prepare the brief before even contacting the freelancer. That’s how I realised that it might be more complicated than I thought…

There are many things you can ask a designer for:

Book interior design;
Book cover;
Illustration;
Production management;
Typography.

If you’re only looking for a book cover, then it’s pretty easy. But if you have other needs, it might be interesting to have a look at the other services. I didn’t even know they were doing production management, I thought the task would fall to me… We are learning every day.

Don’t forget the basics…

That’s the part I think I failed when I briefed the freelancer on Fiverr. Of course, you wrote the book so you know everything about it. But transcribing it in simple words to someone else is a challenge. You’ve got to make sure that they get the right mood, the right feel about it. Even if you say that the genre is Epic Fantasy or Contemporary Romance, some people might just be off-topic.

That’s why it’s important to give the designer some of the book covers that you like and that are in the genre of your book baby. Maybe have a Pinterest board with inspirations, or just send them a couple of examples for them to know what’s the tone you’d like the cover to have.

Then, of course, it’s better if you’ve done some research on your target audience. You won’t have the same cover if your readership is children, young adults or adults, will you?

And last but not least: communication! You’ll be working a professional. There’s a part of trust, indeed, but if you think something is off, don’t hesitate to say it.

Summary

Know your audience;
Know the genre of your book;
Prepare a book blurb;
Gather some inspirational covers;
Have an idea of the material you might need;
Communicate.

I will, of course, let you know how my experience went with briefing a professional book cover designer for my non-fiction project. And I hope your brief will be as perfect as it can be.

3 things I’ve learned when hiring a book cover designer

I did something I wouldn’t have dared a couple of years ago: I asked professionals for quotes to design a book cover for my writing project.

Previously, I had done my designs in a very DIY way. But to continue on my self-publishing journey, I had to go one step further than just do all the things by myself. This step is to choose the book cover designer that would work on my project with me.

Here are the 3 things I’ve learned when hiring a book cover designer.

Lesson #1: Set up a budget

I had just hit the button which sent the brief to the designers I had selected that my Dear Husband challenged me on the budget I was willing to spend on the cover. I’m a bit stingy, this is a fact I’m well aware of. Unofficially, I had set up a budget of €500 (£440). I had just told myself I would wait for the designers’ quotes and would see what happens.

To my surprise, the first quote I received was of $1,200. I almost fell from my chair and my heart sank. The price was so high that I was about to cry when I saw it. In my head, I kept saying “Oh my god, I’ll never professionally self-publish this book if everything’s so expensive!”

My friend, let me tell you that you’ll see prices from simple to double when asking for quotes. So be mentally prepared!

However, make also sure you’re speaking the same currency. The first quote was in Australian Dollars (so less bad than American Dollars, haha). Translated into Euros, it was down to €750 (£655), which was better to digest for a stingy person such as myself but still higher than my initial budget. This was the highest quote I received. The lowest was around €300 (£260).

Why not going for the lowest price then? Well, keep on reading.

Lesson #2: Not everyone offers the same package

If one designer was only offering the front cover of the book – because I had only asked for an ebook cover -, other would add stuff like social media visuals or illustrations or work with pictures I’d send them. What puzzled me was the huge gap between the prices and the services they were offering. Somehow, the ones that were offering the most were also the ones with the cheapest prices. It was really tempting to just choose the cheapest because I didn’t know if that was worth it to spend that much money.

Anyway, I think the big learning here is to ask for samples of what the designers did in the past. It helped me get a sense of their arts, but also connect with what the cover could be.

Lesson #3: You might not be ready yet

After receiving the quotes and asking the designers a few questions, I realised that I might be just too early in the process. On my own, I had decided that the title of my book would be “The Londoners: Memoirs of a 4-year expatriation in the United Kingdom”. However, with Brexit just around the corner and all the fun that goes with it, it might just end up not selling at all because of the title and the design I had in mind. Of course, my insights and experience as an expat would still be valid no matter the country you’d want to live in. But there’s no denying that the U.K. does not look super dreamy at the moment. I would just shoot myself in the foot.

So you might want to ask yourself a few questions:

Have you thought thoroughly about the title of your book? Have you made some research whether this title was already used? Special for nonfiction writers: have you made some keyword research whether you were answering people’s questions? If you’ve answered yes to all these questions, congratulations! I think you’re ready to hire a designer to create the beautiful cover which will represent your book. If you’ve answered no to one of these questions, you might want to wait a little longer to assess all the potential of a book title.

In the end, I didn’t hire any of the book cover designers I had asked quotes to. One part of me wasn’t ready to spend all that money yet, and the other part wasn’t sure it was a good idea just yet. However, going through the process did teach me a couple of things that I’m glad I know now.

I’ll be ready next time 🙂

What's my daily writing routine like

2019-06-10

Time flies, and there are only 24 hours in a day. Fighting procrastination has been (still is) a big thing in my life. As an author and full-time employee, I have to commute every day and I don’t specifically have the time for my writing… if I don’t make it.

I started a writing routine last month and some of you asked what it was. In June, I have written no less than 6,000+ words on my non-fiction project. I don’t know if you realise but that was huge for me.

So today I’m sharing my daily writing routine. Of course, I don’t do that every single day. It’s important to note that unforeseen events can always add themselves in a schedule. But I’m trying to be as honest as possible.

6:00 am | Get ready for the day

I’ve never been a morning person. I need my 8-hour sleep like everybody. So when I tell people I’m getting up at 6 am, they always have a strange reaction. ‘How do you do this?’ or ‘You’re so brave!’ But, you know, it’s just a habit. You’ll see, further in this article, that I also go to bed fairly early. Sleep is the most important tool you have to rest your body and mind, so don’t shorten it.

After hugging my husband and trying to wake up a little bit, I go to the bathroom and get ready for the day. As for breakfast, I will not have it at that moment because it’s too early for me to have any food in my stomach. And when I’m ready…

6:45 am | Get some writing done

… I go downstairs, take my laptop and open Scrivener. Now, it’s not mandatory to have that software in particular, it’s just how I do it. Anyway, I get some writing done until I have to take off to work. It can represent a session from 20 – 30 minutes up to one hour, depending on how quickly I could get my head out of the sleepy fog.

I’m setting up a goal of 300 words per writing session, which isn’t much but is reachable. I had tried writing 500 words but it appeared it was sometimes too much. And when I couldn’t reach that word count, I would beat myself up because I didn’t work hard enough. At least, with 300 words, I know it’s completely doable and I’m setting myself up for success and a nice head start.

7:45 am | Commute

I’d be in the car for one hour before reaching the office, so have plenty of time to still do some stuff. How? By listening to podcasts or audiobooks. I’m not a huge fan of radio, as they’re mainly silly and don’t even broadcast good enough music to my taste. So podcasts and audiobooks are a good alternative. At least, you’re the one choosing your own entertainment.

I made a list of 10 podcasts to listen to as an author, so you can have a look. As for audiobooks, depends on your listening capacities. I know that I haven’t the head to it sometimes, even though I tend to take huge audiobooks to listen to. At the time of writing this article, I’m listening to The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, which represents more than 28 hours of audio (it’s originally an 800-page book).

9:00 am | Workday

You’ll probably laugh, but I’m a Content Manager by day. Which means writing is also part of my day job. I’d write one article, maybe two, per week. They need to be high-quality copy, written in at least two languages (French and English), optimised for search engines and all that stuff.

I like my job. It allows me to write on various subjects. Previously, I had worked for a travel company so I’d write about city tourism and train tickets for months. At the time I’m writing this, I work for a marketing-type of company so I’m also learning a lot about how to market a product, how to create ads, etc. It’s very enlightening, especially since I would love to make it as an indie author. So I’m also taking notes for my own marketing, it’s very useful.

7:15 pm | Spend quality time with loved ones

I leave the office at around 6:00 pm and arrive home on time for dinner. My husband is working from home nowadays so he’s already there, still working on his music. We have dinner together and we talk about our day. I love that quiet time that follows: we spend time together, sometimes go for a walk, sometimes watch a TV show.

It’s the time of the day when you know you don’t have anything else to do. You could, of course, put that time into your writing if you feel you have the energy and mental space to do so. I personally use that time to chill or to do technical stuff around my blog.

10:00 pm | Bedtime

There it is, the time to sleep after a productive day. I usually go to bed at around 10 pm, because I get up at 6 am and I know I need my 8-hour sleep, remember? As important as your writing, sleeping is certainly not something you can skip. Don’t mess up with it and you’ll see you’ll be able to be as productive as you’d like.

There you go, you’ve got an open window on my writing routine. I hope it will inspire you in some ways, and that you’ll make the time to work on your project.

Have you got a writing routine? Will you start one?

On growing up

2019-02-04

When I was younger, as I’m sure you’ll relate, I’ve been asked what I wanted to do when I grow up.

At five years old, I had endless paths laid ahead of me. I could be anything: fireman, astronaut, ballet dancer, singer, doctor,… My relatives thought I was cute and smart, and that I could do whatever I wanted.

At fourteen years old, the possibilities started to shrink. I already had some school grades that would limit my future. I had an awful English teacher who would tell me I wasn’t good enough. I would start believing I was maybe not good enough. But still, I wanted to make my scientific parents proud. When asked what I wanted to do when I grow up, I would answer veterinarian.

At seventeen years old, my dad gave me an incredible opportunity. As we didn’t have any pets at home, he wanted to give me the chance to follow a vet for a day, which I did. I learnt that it would not be my calling after all. I came back as white as a ghost, just because the vet had polished a dog’s teeth.

But the question was more urgent than ever. Graduation day was around the corner, and I would have to choose a path. Of course, everyone expected that I would go to university.

What is growing up? In Belgium, you’re considered as an adult once you are eighteen. I had now reached that age, but I wasn’t feeling more adult than before. Wasn’t I supposed to know the answer to that stupid question by now? I had no clue.

I did a year at university without knowing what I wanted to do with my life. The following years weren’t more enlightening. I enjoyed the courses, but we were constantly reminded that journalism was an oversubscribed discipline and that we should consider doing something else.

How about being a writer? I love writing stories, I’m doing it since a young age.

People would laugh at me for being such unrealistic. After all, it was well known that writers, authors, weren’t making a living. They had to get a ‘proper’ job, and write as a ‘hobby’. So, of course, when I told my friends and relatives I wanted to be a writer, they would answer: yes, but what will you do as a job?

When I graduated from university, and after having done a couple of internships, I started applying to varieties of jobs. They would tell me I didn’t have enough experience, and that internships weren’t experiences. At twenty-two, I was discriminated by my age. Too young to have ‘enough’ experience.

I would take a meaningless job, which would not make me happy. I would look up at my parents and grandparents, who started and continued their one job until retirement age. What if I was stuck with this job? Is it truly what I had dreamt of becoming when I grow up?

I would look down at my younger self, apologising for letting her down. I wanted to become a ballet dancer and I’d never taken a dance class in my life. I would look at the arts as if they were nothing more than a hobby.

But I finally got lucky. I would meet someone who’d push me to follow my dreams, who’d challenge my every decisions, who’d make me grow out of my confort zone and made me think there was more to it.

Having a job isn’t the answer to that ‘growing up’ question.

Growing up, as I’ve learned, is more than becoming an adult. It’s gaining the maturity and keeping an open mind, to continue to grow over the years.

You never really stop growing up. It is an ever ending process.

What do I want to do in the future? How about living in the present? That would be a good start.

Arthur's Seat: looking for Camelot

2018-11-22

Camelot. If people have dreamt of it, written about it, sung about it, it is natural that a writer like me went on an adventure to find its location. Arthur’s Seat, in Edinburgh, Scotland, is one of the potential places where, according to the legend, King Arthur had built the famous castle.

Love and I went to amazing Edinburgh for our 1st wedding anniversary. We visited Holyrood Palace, where Mary Queen of Scots lived when she came back from France, the Writers’ Museum, dedicated to three famous Scottish authors, and of course… we discovered Arthur’s Seat’s panorama.

A word on Camelot

The first mention of Camelot as the capital of King Arthur appeared in the 12th century French romance, after the cycle about Lancelot and the Holy Grail. I’ve always been drowned to these legends. My work-in-progress novel is even partly based on the Arthurian mythology.

If I haven’t found any trace of King Arthur’s castle at the top of Arthur’s Seat, the climbing – which took less than 2 hours, return included – was worth it. The views of the city, that we’re getting from the top of the hill, were astonishing.

Climbing Arthur’s Seat

If you’re visiting Edinburgh, you can’t miss Arthur’s Seat. Located in Holyrood Park, at the bottom of the Royal Miles, its imposing summit reigns over the city and you’re driven to it when you set foot in Edinburgh.

A word about the mountain: it’s the reminiscence of an ancient volcano. That’s why the top is a bit craggy and red. It’s also 251 metres high… My legs were still shaking from the effort when we came back at the hotel. I’m not the sporty type, but I’m proud of having been able to climb the famous peak and to admire the view.

While you’re there, check the ruins of St-Anthony’s chapel and contemplate Salisbury Crags, amazing cliffs surrounding the park of Holyrood. You might even see Edinburgh Castle on the other side of the city, also built on an ancient volcano, what a coincidence!

Scotland is an amazing region. I would love to go back and explore its treasures. I’m sure there’s more to discover, more sceneries to admire. And more literary legends to uncover.

On learning a language

2018-08-19

Learning a language as a second one is difficult. People say French is hard, but believe me when I say English is as difficult to learn. You have to unlearn your mother tongue and get other grammar rules in your head. You have to learn new vocabulary to name things you always called a certain way. You have to form sentences, mixing grammar and vocabulary. And that is not all: sometimes you even have to learn a new way of speaking. There are so many accents in the world that it would have been too easy.

When you get into high school in Belgium, you have a few options regarding language learning. Coming from the French side of the country, I personally had the choice between Dutch (as important as French in my tiny part of the world), German and/or English (more international). I did not really think it through, it was quite obvious: I would choose the latter.

Year One went great. I was 11. I had an awesome teacher who made us repeat little life scenes in front of the class, making her teaching interactive and interesting. I had excellent grades and I loved English.

But from Year Two, my opinion about English fell appart, along with my love of languages. My teacher was not the same as in year one. She was more authoritative and cold in her approach. Of course, it was time to learn irregular verbs to form the past tense, and I could not get a single one in my head. I remember my mum trying to help me, sitting in my bedroom where she made me repeat my tables. Difficult times.

However, my memory could not download any of those verbs. I was at a dead end. And that is when my teacher said I was hopeless (along with other not so nice words). If I were hopeless, what was the point? I completely lost my love of learning languages. I spent my time in high school thinking languages were nothing more than a waste of time.

At 18, I had avoided learning all third and fourth languages I could. After all, if I could not get my head around a single one… you know the idea. My parents had spent their money on getting me on language camp or on hiring an English personal tutor. But the truth is: I did not want to learn. I did not want to make any effort because one single person had said I was hopeless.

When you are a kid, teachers have a huge impact on your life. If they worship you, you’ll make the best of your time in school. If not… well, what is the point in all this?

This teacher made an impression on me. A bad one.

Worse: my parents were sharing her opinion. They were not seeing any improvement on my English skills. I could not blame them: I was not making any. All I had to do was to have enough grades to pass, and to nod when they were making comments on my bad language level.

Languages are important in so many fields. In engineering or sciences, English is the main language to master. Because it is so international, and because it is important to share information quickly, one language is enough. But think about communication, translation, journalism, politics,… all these areas need different languages.

As an adult, I now know how important languages are. You are more valuable for an employer if you can work in more than just one. But I would learn the lesson after a few years of struggle and finding my own personal way.

At 22, I have met someone special who would become my husband. After five years of dating, I had the choice: following him in an English-speaking country or putting our relationship to an end. And you know what? I made a leap of faith. I, the girl who had no talent whatsoever with languages, took English courses because I wanted it. I went in London (United Kingdom) on my own because I so badly needed to learn English. And then we moved to London together. It was certainly not easy, but I did it.

If someone can make you doubt yourself, someone else can put enough faith in you to get through all the obstacles.

After three years in an English-speaking country, can I say I am fluent? Yes. Would I tell my high school teacher that she was wrong about my abilities? Certainly.

I am now learning Dutch, and I find it easier to get around as I now know English. Learning a third language is not so difficult when you already know a second one. It is like a ‘learn – master – repeat’ model.

I would love to tell my younger self that she has no reason not to believe in herself. I would love to tell her that languages are an important part of her future. And, more importantly, I would love to tell her that the opinion of others does not matter, like, at all.

That is what I would love you to understand too. If you like doing something, if you love learning / creating / doing stuff, why would you stop because of the opinion of a single person? As long as you truly want something, as long as you are putting enough efforts into it, you will certainly achieve everything you dream of.

What is your experience with language learning?

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