following your convictions and craft to they desperate ends will appear to others like superstitions and even a great waste of talent and time. you will be labeled if not belittled in this world where one is supposed to abandon one’s dreams and visions and face reality. though devoted and even spiritually fulfilled, you will feel like you got crossed. you will be lonely and almost bitter by common society’s rejection of you. you will be aching sore and if you are anything like me, stubborn. swore and demanded more and doubled down. they will tell you your stuff is no good, for if it were everyone would be reading you. this is a lie. you will be tempted to lie to yourself, too. do not. go all in and why? because devotion is uncommon and rare. keep at it, with self abandon, and, i promise you, the kind of wealth beyond the wildest dreams #katyamills
Tag Archives: self-publishing
bio.kat
bio. california writers
I am an independent author of literary fiction and urban fantasy. I have 3 novels and over 100 positive reviews of my work online. I also publish flash fiction and creative nonfiction on my website @ www.katyamills.com. My most recent novel Maze won a table at the Sacramento Library Author Festival in 2016. I also have been a featured reader for the last 2 years @ Writers On The Air. I am currently close to self-publication on my fourth novel, Ame and The Tangy Energetic. I was an English Literature major at Northwestern University and enjoy not having to be bound by traditional publishing demands. I earn my living as a practicing psychotherapist. I consider writing my spiritual practice. That said, as my storytelling evolves, I do hope to some day submit my work to a house and become a hybrid author, if only out of curiosity and the willingness to try new endeavors, be challenged, and help my work reach a greater audience. – Katya Mills, 2018
“Believe that life is worth living, and your very belief will create the fact.”
– William James
story book
story book
indie author K
indie author KatYa
 |
| indie author KatYa |
I am an Independent, self-published with several books to my name. I do hope to become a ‘Hybrid’ author some day, and am currently seeking representation (of course I wouldn’t wanna lose my humanity or anything). I’m proud to say there are now close to 100 total reviews of my work on Goodreads and Amazon combined, averaging better than 4 out of 5 stars. I also blog daily and publish flash fiction and creative nonfiction on my website, which has over 150,000 pageviews to date. I started a storytelling project on my youtube channel, where I read my work and enjoy creating video books, reading and writing have always been close to my heart. I get a lot of my ideas while running along the American River, and ran my first marathon last year. Soon I will be running in the ‘Way Too Cool’, my first Ultramarathon on the trails in the American River Canyon and I cannot wait! I do have to slow down my superhero once in a while and morph into a social worker to pay the rent, and have been counseling indigent peoples with mental illness for over a decade. In case you fancy degrees, I have a BA in English from Northwestern U. and a MA in Counseling Psychology. I play guitar for my 3 cats in my spare time, and have lost many a boy and girlfriend over my screeching insolence. I also roast and drink a lot of coffee, what’s new? I love to walk around cool neighborhoods and loiter around sweet coffeehouses, too.
story
scalawag
2017 indie vs hybrid scalawag for the fanatics
Happy New Year to anyone who reads this blog! I consider you a friend and ally. Last month I bought two critical texts which may help me refine my future, in the work sphere of life. The 2017 Writer’s Market and the DSM-5. The latter is the latest diagnostic manual I need to improve my currency in the counseling psychology field. I am coming up on 9 years as a career counselor. The Writer’s Market is the latest edition of a text widely known to help independent authors find representation for their work. I have been a real scalawag in the area of publishing, all my life long, if not a clueless no-talent scribbler!* I must not have wanted 2 pay for postage, cuz I always wanted to be traditionally published. I danced around the Book Expo and chose instead to blog (circa 2007) and self-publish (circa 2013).
I’ve been indie happy with my small circle of fanatics (term of endearment) , and fellow readers and writers, but seeing how it’s the new year and all, what with the charmed feeling you get exhaling old ideas and ways of being, I wanted you to know that I am contemplating holding back on self-publishing my latest effort: “Ame and the Tangy Energetic”. Had I made my personal deadline, I would have self-published in 2016. But I did not. And the book is not yet finished to my standard.
If you don’t read my books, no worries, I plan to keep posting flash fiction, video books, book reviews, and creative non-fiction daily, right here on this website. If you do read my books, I want to thank you for your patience. I may decide to self-publish this year. But I am leaning towards using the Writer’s Market to locate a traditional home for the book over the course of the next 12 months. I would like to be a hybrid and have the choice of traditional publishing. Why not? I have devoted so much of my life to the craft of writing. -K
* The self-identifier ‘clueless no-talent scribbler‘ has been offset by some minor accolades in recent years. In 2016, KatYa’s novel Maze was chosen by the Sacramento Public Library for representation in the annual local Author Festival. Also in 2016, KatYa’s website Vitamin K surpassed 100,000 views online, and currently stands at 140,000 strong, and growing. This self-deprecating indie author (and human being) has been a much beloved contributer to G.Plus Poetry circles, and her books, all carefully calibrated works of literary fiction, have received close to 100 reviews averaging 4+ STARS on both Amazon and Goodreads.com.
the indie in me. self-publish yourself to death. 4 life
Cadence in my head, coffee mug in my hand and a laptop fired up. Hair falling about my face, tickling my nose, where oh where did my eyeglasses go? Trying to let my imagination find me, she can have me, oh grand channeler, saucy bitch, take me, take my arms, wrists up, fists into palms. Here I go again to the graveyard for the pay. The work is good, I like it, keeps me honest, keeps me humble. Not really spending much money, not making much money. If I could I would buy some time, though, forty plus years old and some street life to show for it. Lots of hard lessons I think I finally learned, lots of colorful visions and deep seated incisions. A good dose of radical acceptance in my heart. I will only be a mom to all the motherless children in the world. I am American and all the good and bad that comes with it; I may not be able to find Cameroon on the map, but I can tell you where several authors homes lie and Siberia. I will do my own dishes and raise kittens until the day that I die. Self-promotion is a bitch. Sometimes I gotta open the flat of my hand and slap her aside, get back to the tabula rasa, open my veins to another page, anchor here, deus ex machina there. Inhumed into Book #3: Ame and all her tangy energetics. All that toxic boiling blood has to settle somewhere. I can laugh about what I’ve made of my life, I keep faith, I can love myself now. Out of the fear and into this great struggle where I found myself belonging all the time, to write, never missing a day, and try and keep up with what may come by the sharing, believers in me, when I have trouble having faith in myself, I like to let them know I’m alive and they touch me. Don’t know about you but my indie spirit gets my ass outta bed. That’s just the way it is. I am on pace to publish a couple novellas a year, a comparatively slow pace in the self-publishing arena, sometimes I think I oughta write more and faster; but the people who read my stuff tend to calm me down in my temporary crisis of confidence, and tell me its okay, they can wait. Just make sure I keep delivering the goods. Radical acceptance. I can breathe. I’m okay with my pace, coming back from that silly sidetracked sometimes comparison-shopped myself with someone else’s success. It’s very important that I stop there – it could be envy – and translate that fukker into inspiration. You indie spirits out there, you are my best friends! Always sharing how it feels, how it aches, and the catharsis behind the blood sweat and tears over these years and on your own. And here we are. Never alone. Your goddam life hiding behind a cover for all to know and some chosen few to cherish. Chosen because they chose you. How does it feel? The intimate moment (so far away) at once shared with the one who reads you, the one who getsyou, who gets what you’re trying to do? Wow! I’m a rooster just before dawn! I’m stretchin into the biggest smile, the exhaust of a yawn when I’m done with the edits and the story’s been born. On to createspace, the tweets, goodreads and reddits. Thank you god for showing me the way. So many of us out there, having a blast and working hard. The possibility! Each one of us a star. And nobody needs to know in the end cause it’s not an adulation game, it’s simply a lifestyle. Hit a hundred thousand keys or more. Suited up on everyone’s doorstep. Unraveling it. What you have to say. Your fresh vision. Your bloody mess. The writing life, painful as it can be, is the only life for me.
bedwetter
UNTITLED OR 2015 IN 2016
by Katya
i was weary yesterday and
better last night i gave up
this morning digesting
carbs
painfully
hating myself
like last year
im better tonight
im better for me so
better for you
happy new year what’s
new about it?
i was once a bedwetter
lost my pride and found it
i was better without it
bedwetter without it
can we make myself fresh
can i make ourselves clear
and then what’s in there?
you are
you are love and not
loving me
ok
goddam abstract off
the wall
watch where you place our eyes
please
love myself once
the carbs are blown up
gimme a scone
like last year stumbling through
self publication
i am better
without it
writing process… self-publishing
writing process — random thoughts
In this video I am talking to you about my writing process and what it feels like to ‘hit the button’ as a self-published independent author. Some other topics include ‘setting a deadline for yourself’ and what it feels like to have ‘character-driven’ creations in our modern literary age of ‘plot fiends’ and plot snobbery…
K IS SILENT 