I enjoyed the article and thought it had some valuable insights, but I couldn’t help but heave a huge sigh at the end of it. I think a lot of career creatives can relate.

I am technically a multidisciplinary artist—an illustrator and an author—and decent enough to make money from both. Over the past five years, I’ve published five novels. I’ve run and fulfilled a successful Kickstarter. I’ve done covers, character art, and illustration work for indie authors and special edition book boxes. I’ve sold my books directly to readers through my Etsy shop. I’ve even made and sold my own book-related merchandise for a time. I’m actively pursuing traditional publishing and recently got a translation deal for two of my indie books. My eggs have been spread to all the baskets I care to bother with—and after all that, I still qualify for low-income health insurance in my state!

My question to the “branch out” advice is this: Does spreading my eggs even matter if all the baskets have holes in them? And if I only have two arms?!

Why does everybody need a side hustle these days? Are jobs not paying us or…?

I know that a lot of authors have a 9-5 on top of being an author, which is honestly great, and I commend you for having the energy, especially since I get the impression that publishers want authors who are single-mindedly dedicated to their writing careers and churn out books yearly. It’s a whole job in and of itself, but it certainly doesn’t pay like one.

Even “real” jobs aren’t paying us living wages, which likely explains why having a side-hustle or doing gig-work is so normalized. These days, a 9-5, which is largely viewed as the stable and sensible option, can drop you without prior warning or a severance package.

I went to college for animation, and our education conditioned us to pursue work at animation studios, 9-5 style. But even after getting hired, animation workers are still technically contractors and will be let go after a project wraps up. Wages vary greatly depending on your experience and role. (Stability has never really been in the cards for my chosen career path, I guess.) I got a real 9-5 after college, but subsequently was let go after 11 months without warning (but I did get severance, yay!).

My lay-off hit just before the gen AI disaster that sent working artists into a frenzy. All of a sudden, professional artists/art educators/animation workers were telling us to branch out, make our own projects, and not rely on studios to get work. Suddenly, the 9-5 wasn’t so shiny anymore. I was already indie-publishing and doing freelance illustration during that time, so I just decided to go for it.

Recently, I saw that my boss at my old job no longer worked there, and I wonder if he also got laid off. He was the definition of the jack-of-all-trades career artist; he was juggling a lot and worked super hard. Last I saw, he’s making his own toy/collectible line independently.

So.

Might as well be an independent artist if my future is going to be unstable anyway, right?

I do two whole things, but I’m still not that special

I published my debut novel between junior and senior year of college and republished an illustrated edition for my senior project. It was a jumpstart to my career, as my senior spotlight article puts it. They really gassed me up about it. (Also, if my college is reading, I’m one of the poor alumni, please stop asking me for donations 😔.)

Writing was just a fun side quest at the time; I fully believed I’d be a professional illustrator and do nothing else. But then, I started taking writing more seriously, and publishing novels slowly went from side quest to main quest. I thought combining my art with my writing into ✨illustrated novels✨would be unique enough to make me stand out in the indie market. For a while, it did, until royalties fizzled out. Turns out, my books aren’t immune to falling off, even if they’re fully illustrated!

By virtue of the internet, I learned quickly that I was not the only professional author/illustrator out there. Not only are there writers and illustrators who are cooler than I am, but there are also writer-illustrator-double-threats who are cooler than I am! And they, too, have figured out e-commerce, content creation, and online marketing for optimal reach, which are all skills in and of themselves!

In college, they encourage you to find a way to “stand out” to employers, and even though I was self-employed, I knew I needed to stand out in the wild west that was the attention economy. I already knew I wasn’t the best, but I did take comfort in the fact that I was a competent jack of two trades, and not completely irrelevant, right?

Nope.

Not only is doing one thing not enough, doing two things doesn’t really make me special!

Quality vs quantity

I often wonder if I double down on one discipline and get really, really, really excellent at it, I’ll find more success than if I dabbled in multiple at once. If I went all in on illustration, would I be a better illustrator than I am now? (Yes, obviously.) Would I have clients with bigger budgets? (Yes, obviously.)

There’s something to be said about mastery in one skill, and there are definitely artists who’ve achieved that, like Kim Jung Gi (RIP king), who have found great success built on the merit of their artwork. But not everyone can be a master, and not everyone has that kind of single-minded focus and dedication, including me.

I like to dabble. This is why I do two things.

But this brings me back to the whole “I only have two arms” thing. Because it took SO MUCH EFFORT to get to where I am as an illustrator and writer—competent enough to make them my primary sources of income. Courses were taken. A degree was earned. Money and time were spent on craft books and practicing. It was not easy, cheap, or fast, which kind of sucks, considering how urgent the need for money is.

I’m trying to put myself in the shoes of a creative person just entering the working world. Maybe they’re a freelancer, like me, who got a degree in one thing that conditioned them to have a 9-5. Now AI exists, the job market is oversaturated, lay-offs are happening left and right, and somehow they have to find a way to stand out enough to make money from whatever degree they just earned.

Skill takes resources and time to develop, even for a jack of all trades. When you’re already under pressure and struggling, how can you get good enough at multiple extra disciplines? How good can you possibly get before you run out of time? Is it even worth dabbling when you can niche down and specialize?

When the future seems bleak, when the system shows that hard work doesn’t correlate with rewards, finding a reason to learn, care, and be curious is hard.

Juggling…I don’t know how to do it

Even as a dabbler, I prefer to focus on one thing at a time, especially when it comes to skill development. If I give my all to one discipline, I can’t focus on the other, and I’m sure many can relate.

For the past three weeks, I’ve been knee-deep in developmental edits for my next manuscript that will go on submission. Today, I had to put that down to work on an illustration assignment. (And now that it’s the end of the day, I realize I completely forgot where I was in terms of editing my manuscript, lmao.)

I haven’t been consistent in maintaining or improving my illustration skills for the past two years because I’ve been learning how to write instead. It was hard getting back into drawing, and I’m a little ashamed of how rusty I am, considering how this was my main quest for the longest time. For me, illustration and creative writing drink from the same creative well. If I do one for 3-4 hours, I’m drained for the day. I can’t give my all to both at the same time. I can’t imagine learning another skill (for the sole purpose of monetization) on top of maintaining, levelling up, advertising my existing skills, and on top of life in general.

Some days, I think we’re all doing way too much.

The mythical career artist

I wish the career author were real. I wish we could just be artists of our chosen discipline and have enough to survive simply by creating art.

But even great artists can’t just be artists anymore…they have to sell courses now, apparently 😂.

There was this niche drama last year where a small art YouTuber, Morgue Design, called out creators like Kelsey Rodriguez for scamming artists by selling courses along the lines of “how to earn $40k a month as an artist”, putting big figures in her YouTube thumbnails, and promoting an unrealistic dream. They cite that Kelsey and others like her make the majority of their income from courses and content, not actual art. Therefore, they’re scamming us by telling us we can make money with our art—but only when we buy their courses!

I do watch and follow Kelsey, by the way; she doesn’t hide the fact that she’s primarily a coach/consultant focused on helping and educating creatives about the business side of their art. In my opinion, Kelsey does have valuable things to share, but Morgue was not entirely wrong in their frustrations either. There are a lot of scammy internet courses that give off “selling shovels in the gold rush” vibes. I side-eye every online course these days and make sure the creators have actual teaching credentials before I stop side-eying.

This reminds me of an author—I forget who—who got a six-figure deal one time and subsequently made a course for querying writers, citing her six-figure deal as her credentials. To me, this is the equivalent of making a course on finding a $20 bill on the street on a Tuesday, because she found a $20 bill once on a Tuesday. Also, there are FREE online resources for querying writers from actual industry professionals, just saying!

Some folks are just really good at peddling, which, honestly, is another discipline in and of itself.

Anyway, I think Morgue’s video came from a place of believing the career-artist myth—that artists can simply create art for a living and do nothing else, no marketing, no newsletters, no ecommerce, no social media/content creation, no educating, no branching out to become multidisciplinary to stand out. Maybe we all need to learn what The end of the ‘career author’ revealed: that the career artist was never real, and there has always been more we need to do other than create.

Well, unless you’re a prolific white male writer with a wife.

I’m sad now, lol.

There is definitely merit to the “branch-out” advice. My indie book royalties have been at an all-time low; I’m lucky to scrape $400 a month on all five of my books these days. Traditional publishing is…what it is. Meanwhile, my freelance illustration work has been very consistent this year. I’m so grateful to be able to fall back on that, because otherwise I’d be cooked.

The horrors persist, but so do artists!

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“If you were to choose your husband, would that change things?” he asked.

Yuan Ling grew warm. She knew in a heartbeat that if she were to choose, she’d choose him. Foolishly and recklessly. It was a decision based on impulse, not on sense.

I started this substack in 2024 with an article about going on submission for the first time, and I’ve come full circle now ‘cause this is an article about how that same manuscript died on submission.

After 1.5 years, I got confirmation that False Scholars & Butterfly Curses was officially dead at the end of April.

Let’s have a moment of silence for her.

😔

This book is honestly so much fun. It’s super cute, dual POV, cozy YA chonker with a sweet romance I would’ve absolutely devoured as a teen, bonus points for the historical C-drama, She’s the Man vibes. I’m sad I won’t get to share it any time soon—to be honest, I’m still deciding what I want to do with it.

Is this a sign to wait, or to pivot? I started off thinking I’d self-publish if I died on sub, but I’m second-guessing that now, wondering if I should hold onto it on the off chance that my next book sells to a publisher and they ask if I have anything else in the vault; I don’t want to be scrambling to come up with something new if that happens. But also, will the trad market ever be ready for this book?

Thinking about what I could’ve done

A part of me wonders what would’ve happened if I decided to post more about this book to “prove” to publishers that it had an audience and therefore worth taking a chance on.

I feel there’s this unspoken rule that writers shouldn’t post about a book on submission, or that you should even mention that you’re on submission. The opinions are divided, but one thing that’s certain is that social media changed a lot about publishing—and there are always exceptions to the rules if you’re famous/viral enough. Basically, proving that you’re a good financial investment is always gonna help because publishing is a business. Sometimes the old-school way of doing things isn’t gonna cut it.

We did have a pretty close call with one editor who really loved the manuscript, but one of the main reasons they cited for passing was that their internal comp titles didn’t perform very well. So, now I’m wondering if having a bigger platform/showing I could move units would’ve helped me over that hump.

I guess we’ll never know. It kinda sucks that authors have to scramble to market themselves on social media—and do it well—even before they have any books out to talk about. (On top of, you know, studying the craft and writing the best books we can.)

I’ll never really know all the reasons

One thing submission taught me is letting go. At some point, I figured the less I knew, the better, because the only relevant news would be somewhat positive in nature (like an R&R, or better yet, an offer) and my agent would let me know about that right away.

I received very little actionable feedback over the course of submission; most if not all of the passes were subjective. At first, I wanted to understand why the editors passed and what I could do to “fix” the manuscript so they wouldn’t pass, but I sorta got over that after a few months. Sometimes they just weren’t vibing with it, sometimes it’s a market/financial reason, and there’s nothing to do but stand with my manuscript and wait for someone to also think it’s cool.

Most people are on a squiggly path

Recently, I read this post by Vicky Weber called You’re Not Behind, You’re Just Mid-Squiggle and it was so comforting (as are all her articles). I think slow, non-straightforward success stories aren’t appreciated enough, and sometimes it feels like our perception of success is somewhat based on instant gratification. Our first book, our first time on sub, might not be the one that leads to a deal.

It’s difficult to keep that in mind, especially since some writers appear to experience publishing on easy mode, and you can’t help but wonder, “Why them and not me?”

My personal publishing-easy-mode moment was when my very prolific, very experienced agent magically appeared in my inbox one day, pitching herself to me instead of the other way around. (Which subsequently made me feel all types of guilty when I couldn’t produce a project for her to sell for a very long time.) Sometimes things happen because of timing or coincidence. Sometimes it’s a seed you planted and forgot about until it sprouts. I guess this shows how everybody is on a different journey, which I think is so important to remember lest you fall into the comparison blues.

This is my first book to have died on sub. Some folks have multiple over a period of years, some spend years querying, etc. What I find so admirable about all of us is our resilience, and how completely un-flashy that is, but we keep going for the love of the craft. Love that for us.

Onto the next

I’m currently revising my next manuscript that will go on sub. It’s something in a more marketable genre at the moment (adult romantasy) because sometimes you have to follow the trends to give yourself a fighting chance LOL. I think I still made it my own, though (aka, completely unmarketable, because my FMC lowkey ended up aromantic?? In a romantasy??)

Anyway, my agent really likes it—I’m still iffy about it, not gonna lie—but I did enjoy the process of writing it. Tonally, it’s very different compared to the other books I’ve written (very dark, angsty, kinda sexy) and certifiably not a thing I would’ve enjoyed as a teen.

Up until this point, I think I’ve been writing for my past self. With this book, it feels like I’m writing for someone else (while still having fun, though). I wouldn’t describe it as the book of my heart, but I’m interested to see where it takes me.

Anyway, I’ll be shelving False Scholars & Butterfly Curses for the foreseeable future :). Maybe she’ll emerge from her chrysalis one day!

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When I started my author account to shout about my debut, the algorithm really liked me. I was doing pretty well, and I was very thrilled about it because I was receiving the same amount of enthusiasm I was putting out. They say most self-published authors sell fewer than 100 copies in their lifetime—I totally cleared that number with no problem.

After releasing three more books in the next three years, it was my fifth book when I felt like something had changed.

The Charmwitch Seamstress (2025) touches on burnout. The main character, Giselle, repeatedly has to restart the biggest project of her life—sewing the crown-princess-to-be’s wedding dress—but is knocked down so many times that she no longer feels like she can do it anymore. Ironically (or rather, fittingly), I was going through burnout and exhaustion the entire time I was writing/illustrating this book. The process was a complete 180 from how I felt working on book 1, but I pushed through nonetheless because I promised my readers this sequel, so I had to deliver. IMO, I could see how exhausted and unpassionate I was in the final product, because my heart was not behind it—at least, not in the same way it was behind my debut.

The loss of passion was definitely a slow burn, and it wasn’t necessarily this specific book that caused it.

Passion vampires (not to be confused w/ passionate vampires, of which there are many novels about)

Shame and comparison

I’ve been at this independent author-illustrator thing for 5 years. The moment it stopped being a side hustle and became my main hustle three years ago, I felt that I was not doing enough.

I was not publishing fast enough; I was not making enough money; I was not optimizing my business. And because I didn’t want to/couldn’t do these things, I was being lazy.

This is a very familiar feeling because I’ve had it the moment my parents started comparing me to other kids at school. (Yeah, I’m gonna psychoanalyze myself here.)

Growing up, I’ve always felt like I wasn’t doing enough. I was not as academically gifted as my Asian peers, I was not a STEM whiz like my dad wanted me to be, and when I went to art school in college, I felt I wasn’t as ambitious or career-oriented as my classmates. During my senior show, my dad literally said to me, “You’re just doing the easy stuff!” when he noticed that my work consisted of illustration/concept art and 2D hand-drawn animation instead of the 3D-based, program-intensive animation my classmates had. I actually felt a lot of shame for not “challenging myself” by doing more 3D—even though I didn’t even like 3D—or pushing myself more in 2D concept art/illustration to become the best of the best. (Side note: I was literally in the running for valedictorian…which I felt was completely undeserved, because again, I felt like I was being lazy and not challenging myself enough.)

Even when I got hired to be a concept artist at a tech startup, I felt so lazy and incompetent compared to my team, whom I perceived to be so much more experienced and hard-working than I was. (In hindsight, some of my coworkers had really bad work-life balance, and I lowkey was the sane one lmao 😭.)

Confession: I’ve operated from a place of shame and wanting approval for a really long time, so it has never been easy to love learning. I feel stupid and lazy for not already being good at something, rather than curious to figure it out. I’m hyper-aware of how I fall short compared to everyone around me, which brings me to the dreaded comparison game.

There’s always going to be someone younger, more skilled, more passionate, more successful, with better favorability with the algorithm gods than me—and I see them everywhere just by the nature of social media. Subconsciously, I have the fear of being replaced by them. There isn’t enough room for everyone, and if I can’t be the best, then what am I?! These people are so skilled! These other people are so successful! Why them and not me? AHHH! These feelings are super messy, and while I don’t feel great about having them, I don’t think we should blame ourselves for these feelings because they are totally valid and normal. Just don’t act weird and make it other people’s problem!!

I think this is why becoming an independent artist appealed to me after getting laid off from my concept art job, because I didn’t have to compare myself to anyone if I was the only one doing it. (This obviously did not last long because there are so many independent authors and artists out there 🤣)

Money and business

The summer between 8th and 9th grade, an academic counselor told me that I needed to rely on my job to eat, so I couldn’t pursue art as a career. (My parents enrolled me in this college prep academy because of course they did.) Despite coming from a place of complete ignorance about creative/entertainment jobs, the counselor kinda had a point.

The moment you start relying on your art to feed you, it fundamentally changes your relationship with it.

I remember making a decision to be an independent artist/illustrator in 2023 after being laid off, and wanting to optimize my indie publishing to make as much money as possible to match my corporate wages. I was no longer writing and illustrating for fun; it was now for business. And that changed everything. My corporate art job really did a number on my relationship with art—I’m still feeling the effects to this day. I thought it’d be different with writing, because at least I’d be executing my own ideas instead of someone else’s.

But now there’s this pressure for my passion projects to take off and make money, and for my business to scale, which is arguably just as bad as being a human printer for a corporate tech CEO and pretending to be excited about it while wishing everyone a “happy Monday” through my teeth every week.

And when you see other people’s passion projects take off (seemingly effortlessly) and make money to an insane degree and not yours, that’s honestly a really tough pill to swallow.

I was talking to an author friend the other day who was feeling hopeless about her own lack of success in publishing, and she said something that really stuck with me: if I can’t find joy in writing when I don’t succeed, am I even a real writer?

Social media (and capitalism) really destroyed something in us. We have to monetize everything we do, and everything is content. We simply have to sell our art; otherwise, what’s the point in making it? Selling a bunch of books, making flashy special editions, and going TikTok viral are at the forefront of baby writers’ minds. (The Age of Scorpius, anyone?) If writers are going into this with this kind of mindset, I cannot imagine how difficult it’ll be to find joy in simply creating without expectations.

Heck, even writers who originally did have joy in creating can have it taken away from us. Now we have crises about not being “real writers” because we care too much about external validation.

Failure to meet expectations

Once we start making money with our art, we start having expectations (derogatory).

I did not go into this author-illustrating thing with any expectations whatsoever, which is what made it fun for me in the first place. Somewhere along the way, I got so wrapped up in wanting success that I didn’t know how to be happy without external validation and proof of “growth”.

Just like how my parents’ approval is a moving goal post, career satisfaction is also a moving goal post. I’m pretty sure—from listening to more experienced authors—that there’s not one “moment” where I’ll achieve happiness/success. There’s always gonna be something. So if I’m not happy now, when am I gonna be happy? I should just be happy now, even if I’m not a breakout success.

On the flip side, I do have the tendency to humble myself.

I have this thing where I instantly revert to self-deprecation after achieving something. My review under my debut literally starts with, “This is far from a five-star book in my opinion.” Like, damn girl, what a way to hate on yourself before anyone else can HAHA. (My psychoanalysis: I’m afraid of rejection so I just reject myself first or something.)

My tendency to fold myself into humility and keep myself small likely stems from being a daughter of immigrants; immigrant families are always quick to humble you, so you kinda learn to humble yourself. I don’t dream big, but it’s also because I don’t know how to. Of course, there is merit to humility and being a small artist, but do I truly not want breakout success, or do I just think I don’t deserve it? Am I afraid of trying and taking myself seriously because I’m afraid of failure?

Anyway.

When the voices of comparison, money, and expectations become louder than the love of your craft, that’s when you know you’re cooked.

How to reclaim your passion

I came across another author/illustrator with a YA fantasy debut today. My initial thoughts were as follows: wow, their illustrations look so good; look at how seriously this person takes themself, they’re so passionate; they’re diligently posting on their socials; why can’t you be more like them?! (I swear I have miniature versions of my parents in my head doing the comparison thing. Someone evict them!!!)

So after feeling severely inadequate and a little jealous of how good they seem to be doing, I did some reading on their blog, and they had a very similar story to mine. They wanted to pursue animation at first, didn’t feel good enough and kinda didn’t want to work for the industry anymore, then pivoted to illustrated novels, and their debut (which included a whopping 100 illustrations!) was their passion project.

And then I bought the book.

Because they reminded me SO MUCH of myself in 2021-2022, because I saw their passion for their work shine through, and I was reminded of why I was even still doing this in the first place. (If you want to buy the book as well, please do, because we need to support human independent artists/writers more than ever these days.)

In Kiki’s Delivery Service, Kiki loses her ability to fly and her ability to understand her cat, Jiji, after burning out. Even when she regains her flight at the end of the film, she still can’t understand Jiji. This shows that Kiki has fundamentally changed, and that certain things—like innocence—simply cannot be regained. (This film is a really good allegory for burnout. Now I wanna watch it again because I feel like I didn’t absorb the messaging the first time I saw it.)

When I first started publishing, I believed that if I put out the best work I could, my passion would shine through and my audience would find me. To a certain extent, this is sorta true. After being made aware of the various pitfalls of the publishing industry, though, I know for a fact this is not true.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t operate like I still believe it is. It’ll require some work, but it can be done. Look at US Olympic figure skating champion Alysa Liu. Her mindset is so admirable to me. I’m honestly still in awe that she found joy in skating again after burnout and a very high-pressure upbringing, and in such a high-stakes environment as the Olympics. AND SHE’S ONLY 20!

Anyway, if you’re also in creative burnout like me, or getting there, let me tell you something: You may not be able to understand Jiji anymore, but you can damn sure figure out how to fly again.

Important things to do to regain your whimsy (tried and tested by yours truly):

1. Create for yourself. Give yourself time to play around. I was not monetizing my art or my writing in my teens and that was why I loved it so much; there is joy in creating for yourself, by yourself, with zero expectations or obligations. Make something you’re never going to monetize or show anyone, and indulge in the most guilty of pleasures. I give you permission to draw another pretty girl in 3/4 view if that means you’ll like art again.

2. Keep your eyes on your own paper. Comparison is the thief of joy. It’s a principle we all know in theory, but never apply. It’s especially hard in the age of social media, where it seems like everyone is succeeding except you, so either STAY OFF SOCIAL MEDIA, or learn how to celebrate other people’s successes. (I find it’s easy to pivot from jealousy to “wow, this shows that success is possible!”) Remember: The only person you have any business comparing yourself to is your past self. Someone tattoo that on my forehead because I keep forgetting.

3. Revisit old work. Look back on the work you made when you were passionate and let yourself admire it. I’m rereading my debut and second book and noticing how much fun I was having with them, and how that shone through. I’m letting that joy be contagious.

During a recent call with my dad, he said my sister and I were “just relaxing”, which we both found really funny. (We’re chasing our creative dreams and being scrappy artists instead of having corporate jobs.) Ironically, only by actually relaxing would we likely achieve the level of financial success that would make him change his mind. There’s definitely something to be said about letting go—the universe works in mysterious ways.

(I’m making my dad sound like such a hater in this. He is, but honestly, he’s been really supportive as well. Bro paid for my art education and helped me move in with my sister so we can “relax”. King of mixed signals.)

Anyway, wishing you all joy and passion in your creative endeavors, which is increasingly hard to come by these days!

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I stood there feeling weird and not immediately understanding why. For one thing, I was disappointed. Chinoiserie does not hit the same as Chinese porcelain made by Chinese craftsmen, which I would have loved to see. One is an imitation of a product, admired for its exoticism, while the other carries a rich history of craft and heritage.

Then I understood why I felt weird, and why this feeling was familiar. Exoticizing the east is orientalism. Exoticizing leads to othering and dehumanization, all the while consuming the “look” and products that come from that side of the world, with no real care for its people.

To sum it up, I was looking at colonialism personified in a vase, and that deeply discomfitted me.

With the “I’m in a very Chinese time in my life” trend, white people starting overpriced mahjong brands, mandarin collars exploding in fashion, white indie authors wanting to write K-pop books after the success of K-Pop Demon Hunters, all the while 🧊 agents are terrorizing Hmong immigrant communities, deporting Korean workers with work visas, and detaining a five-year-old Chinese kid—I have this feeling every day, because I see this hypocrisy every day.

Appropriation is: I want your stuff, but not you. I love your culture, but I will not help you.

Black and Indigenous communities have been talking about this since forever, but there’s been a recent surge in Asian folks joining this conversation, so I’d like to pitch in too. I think Asian Americans have suffocated far too long under the model minority myth, so…it’s my turn to be obnoxiously woke.

Since this is a writing/publishing newsletter, I’ll talk about white authors (I’ll stay in my lane here) writing East Asian inspired books, specifically in indie publishing. I daresay, nine times out of ten, it’s appropriation—a veneer, a costume. It’s chinoiserie.

(Disclaimer: This post isn’t to police what people write or to blame anyone. You can write whatever you want—technically, no one can stop you. My goal with this is to unpack my thoughts and feelings. I know there are gonna be folks who think I’m being mean to them, so I’d also like to humbly request that white authors take the time to listen and think a little deeper before deciding to write something like xianxia fantasy or a K-pop romance if you currently don’t see anything wrong with it. I’ll add that this is a very nuanced topic and we should never talk in absolutes, so please keep that in mind throughout. I don’t feel like typing “not all white people” a million times.)

Chinoiserie in indie publishing

In 2025, I saw a white author peer announce that they were writing a xianxia book. I was surprised because they had never written anything Chinese-inspired before, and they have a very extensive backlist. (The timing was interesting because I just released my first Chinese-inspired fantasy.) This author defined xianxia as “Chinese fantasy”, which is a very vague descriptor, as there are multiple genres beneath that umbrella. (This post by a mutual breaks the various genres down really well.) Now…I personally would be afraid to attempt this genre because it has such deep-rooted conventions, tropes, and history; my Chinese American interpretation might bastardize it beyond recognition.

Besides this peer, I’ve seen multiple white indie authors release books that have East Asian aesthetics centering on Asian characters—or rather characters that look Asian, because the Asian-ness is only skin deep. (For context, I’m in the fantasy/romantasy space so these are usually romantasies, not historical fiction, but it’s pretty clear which Asian countries are the inspiration for worldbuilding.)

Growing up in the US, I found it difficult to embrace my cultural heritage, and I’ve been fairly open about my struggle with internalized racism the past couple of years. I only allowed myself to write Chinese-inspired stories after a great deal of unpacking and inner work. Even now, I’m still fighting imposter syndrome.

Meanwhile, these authors don’t seem to second-guess their right or ability to write something about a culture outside of their own.

Once, I came across another author on TikTok whose books were marketed as xianxia. I was excited at first, because it’s very rare to find another Chinese indie author. When I read a sample of her book, the author’s note at the beginning said: “You may pronounce the character names however you like!” The names in question were romanized Chinese names, not made-up fantasy names. Stripping the names of their pronunciation meant stripping them of meaning.

And that was when I knew this author wasn’t Chinese. (Top 10 Anime Betrayals!)

Character names are so important in Chinese literature. In novels, they literally encompass a character’s backstory, personality, or character arc. Reducing Chinese names to vague Asian-ish sounds is not only disrespectful, but it points to the utter carelessness that too many white authors have when they write in a culture that isn’t theirs.

There was also a situation on BookThreads during the peak of K-Pop Demon Hunters. A white author (or multiple) said the film made them want to write a K-pop book. Many Korean American authors expressed their discomfort about white people being quick to cash in on their culture when it’s trendy. I know of another white author who writes Korean characters in Korean historical fantasy and K-pop romance. (Believe it or not, they’re a Charlie Kirk sympathizer.) A Korean reviewer on Threads pointed out all the cultural inaccuracies and borderline orientalism in one of their books—they were extensive.

White-authored “Asian” books aren’t for Asian readers; they’re for other white people.

Asian readers are not flocking to white-indie-authored Asian-inspired stories because we are not the audience. You won’t find a single Asian reviewer under these Goodreads pages, trust me.

I tried reading some Chinese-inspired ones—I really tried—but they felt empty to me. It’s like a vase that’s pretty on the outside, a perfectly fine story on the surface, but if you try to look for pieces of yourself, of your history or folklore, you’ll only find a skin-deep imitation of what ought to be familiar.

As I said, there are too many careless white authors producing these books. I’m sure if they did more research and truly immersed themselves in our communities, it would be different, but the authors doing that are few and far between.

One of my favorite books in middle school was Little Sister, a Heian period historical fantasy by Kara Dalkey, a white author. There weren’t a lot of own-voices selections in my school library at that time, so this was the only East Asian novel I could find. I could tell the author put a lot of research into it, judging by all the historical notes at the end of the book, though I am not Japanese and can’t tell you how accurate it is. After re-reading it, I don’t find anything super orientalist about it, but I may be biased, considering my fondness for the book.

These days, if I want an Asian-inspired fantasy, I’ll read one by an Asian author. I don’t think I’ll ever pick up an Asian fantasy by a white author ever again.

When Asian or Asian diaspora authors spin stories inspired by their history and folklore, their books become a part of the cultural tapestry—a continuation of their ancestors’ work, evidence of cultural heritage. I love supporting my fellow Chinese diaspora authors; I am so proud of them, and their stories speak to me in ways no others can.

When white authors do this, their books become a commodity to be consumed by other white people—a product, a spectacle. It becomes “Let me introduce you to this exotic culture, fellow white people!” while ignoring the writers who are actually from that culture who have similar, and better, books (and who are definitely struggling in publishing).

It’s like how chinoiserie was made by Europeans for other Europeans to enjoy. Asians had no part in it. Their culture was taken, consumed, and profited from, but nothing was given back to them. This is still happening today.

Indie publishing is very white

When I first popped into the indie publishing space on Instagram, I found that all the authors served up to me were white, and therefore, my entire circle of peers became white. I didn’t notice at first; there was very little ethnic diversity in the authors I was reading at that point.

Once I started becoming more aware of diversity (or lack thereof) in this space, I had to go out of my way to look for BIPOC indie authors to follow, because otherwise the algorithm was simply not showing them to me. I’ve mentioned in a previous post that a lot of the successful, breakout indie authors we see are white or white-passing, and their books are centered on white characters. It’s very rare for BIPOC indie authors to take off in the same way. (Google lists of indie book recommendations. Whether it be spicy romantasy or clean fantasy romance, the compiled lists are all overwhelmingly white.)

It’s a systemic problem, and once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.

Asian indie authors are extremely few and far between; I can only think of five or six. Meanwhile, a lot of these white-authored indie “Asian” books rank high in the “Asian Folktale” or “Ethnic Fairytales” categories on Amazon. I really wish Asian authors had those rankings instead, because it just makes sense. Why are there white authors in the Ethnic Fairytales category? Why is there chinois in chinoiserie when there’s nothing chinois about it?

To quote my chaotic thirteen-year-old self’s random journal entry in 2013: “If this is a Chinese restaurant, why are there so many white people??” She’s right. If this is our space—our stories, our food, our heritage—why is it dominated by the same type of stranger?

The “Diversity is Trendy” myth

Over the years, there have been a handful of white aspiring authors who complain online that agents and editors only want diverse books by marginalized authors. That must mean they could never get published in this climate because they’re white and straight, and everyone just hates white and straight people!

I will bring back this quote by Franklin Leonard, because it is constantly relevant: When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. (It's not.)

The deals on Publisher’s Marketplace and the books blowing up on BookTok say something completely different from what these white aspiring authors are complaining about.

Only a handful of diverse authors are needed in the white-dominated publishing industry for them to claim diversity and inclusion. They have their handful of successful token authors. Asian Americans write about academic stress, the immigrant experience, rocky parental relationships, stinky lunch boxes, and maybe we get some Asian fantasy and horror (with poignant Asian American themes) thrown in here and there. The moment we ask for more books with different subject matter, suddenly we’re demanding too much. A popular book box is doing another Asian fantasy? We’re tired of Asian fantasy!

Diversity can only be tolerated in small amounts, by both readers and publishers. Meanwhile, there can be an unlimited number of white-authored books about all sorts of things.

In my kindergarten classroom, there was an illustrated poster about emotions. Every emotion had a character above it. Above the emotion “shy”, there was an East Asian girl—the only East Asian on the poster. One classmate pointed at it and said, “This looks like you!”

I remember disliking being perceived as Chinese at that moment. I would have preferred to be white instead, but what did being white mean to me? It meant being whoever I wanted—not having assumptions made about me or being boxed into an archetype based on my ethnicity before I could even figure out who I was.

Similarly, marginalized authors are boxed in by publishing. We have a few, same-ish token stories that publishers are willing to take a chance on. (Erasure by Percival Everett touches on this.) Meanwhile, white authors are unlimited in the stories they can tell.

White kids can be whoever they want. Asian kids are shy.

So, it’s bizarre to me that there are instances where white authors or aspiring authors pretend to be POC, thinking it’ll give them social currency or publishing opportunities. This video by readwithcindy sums up one such situation. (BTW, she has made several videos about various instances like this, which just shows how weirdly prevalent it is. I’d recommend Yellowface by R.F. Kuang and Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou as relevant—and fun—reading.)

POC authors don’t have it as well as these people think. Not only are our stories deemed niche and therefore less marketable, but they are received with hostility. Ever since I started reading more diversely, I’ve seen some very weird reviews.

Under a cozy historical romance set in Tang Dynasty China: “The setting is just too foreign, I couldn’t keep reading!”

Under a cutesy YA historical romance featuring a Black protagonist: “This author is stealing from white culture and blackwashing it!!”

Under a book with a sapphic subplot: “There should’ve been a content warning for homosexuality!”

Under an Asian fantasy that was not yet released: “1 star; this is a DEI book!”

Under my own dang book: “The characters’ names made this book so hard to follow!”

I’m going to briefly touch on the Asian on Asian hate under Asian fantasy books. The amount of vitriol and nitpicking I see reviewers do to Asian authors is actually unreal. Either we’re not “representing” correctly, or a diaspora author is showing how diaspora they are (duh?), or the work is just not excellent enough by their standards. A reminder: publishing is not a meritocracy. There are worse books that are higher rated. But we’re not allowed to be mediocre and succeed, are we?

White authors get decent ratings on their Asian-inspired books, while Asian authors get ripped to shreds for not being enough. White indie authors get high Asian Fairytale rankings while Asian indie authors struggle to break out. White authors take up spaces that should belong to POC authors, sharing stories that should be ours to write.

Why is chinoserie still a thing when we already have access to the authentic thing? Why are we exoticizing and othering a whole swath of people when they are right there in your country?

“Let me introduce you to this exotic culture, fellow white people!” is no longer necessary when you can get it straight from the source. But then again…

I like your stuff, but I don’t like you.

Resistance to being told no

There was this extremely niche TikTok drama last year involving a white teenager who wanted to wear huadian makeup and asking Chinese people if that was okay. Some folks said yes, it’s fine, while some Chinese Americans said no, it’s not fine. The teenager proceeded to call the Chinese American commenters white-washed and that their opinion did not matter because “actual Chinese people from China” did not care. A Chinese American creator rightfully and respectfully called this teenager out on that, because it was disrespectful and not a conversation they had a part in. The white teenager proceeded to crash out, cry on camera, and play the victim because they were a minor and they were being “bullied” by an adult. The Chinese American creator was subsequently driven off the platform by a mob.

I found this situation interesting, because it wasn’t about the huadian makeup for me, it was how the white teenager reacted once they were told, “No, I’d prefer you not to partake in this part of my culture.”

They felt entitled to huadian makeup and did not like being told no.

When BIPOC folks set boundaries and say that certain behaviors make them uncomfortable, some white people take it as a personal attack. I’m still not entirely sure why, to be honest, because if I were told that, I would just back off. But hey, maybe I’m the crazy one.

This might be an ungenerous take, but I think we (minorities) should all gatekeep our cultures a bit more (I am speaking specifically to that one TikTok lady who keeps telling everyone that they are Chinese…like no, they aren’t sis LOL). So I’m not saying we shouldn’t open our house to guests; only be more selective, because a vast majority of the people we’re letting in are really rude.

Cultural exchange is wonderful—but emphasis on the exchange part. Culture should be willingly shared, not taken, not demanded, and the receiver should also give something back. This is rarely possible between white folks and diaspora communities in the west, because “white” is not a real ethnicity; it means being disconnected from deep cultural heritage. When minorities already have to assimilate to white western culture, what can be shared that isn’t already forced upon us?

To leave off, I am not your dad and I can’t tell you what to do, but always READ AND SUPPORT OWN VOICES AUTHORS! Have a beautiful Ming Dynasty era vase:

Alexa, play Blue and White Porcelain by Jay Chou!

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I went in optimistic and excited; this was the first manuscript I wrote specifically for trad pub. I thought the concept was pretty commercial: it’s a romantasy, it’s relatively hooky, and isn’t East Asian fantasy doing pretty well right now? I was pleased with the manuscript (still am!) and extremely delulu. I can’t tell you why, but I was so confident that this book would sell within the year.

Reader, it did not.

Mostly, we had lukewarm editor reception the first round. Something something, didn’t connect with the voice, no editorial vision, something something, editor jargon. We had a close one with one editor who said they liked it, but the plot/pacing didn’t quite work for them and they didn’t have a clear direction for developmental edits.

After a few months, there was a point where I realized I’d barrelled into submission too quickly. Even though my agent said we were ready for submission, a part of me was like, really? Even though the line level writing is still kinda crusty by my standards? But I decided that it must’ve been good enough since my (very editorial) agent didn’t say anything. (Looking back, I’m pretty sure she expects her authors to polish their writing to their own standards, but I have a bad habit of deferring to others for everything LOL.)

So the manuscript was indeed a little crusty, and I definitely should’ve listened to myself and polished it some more. I (mistakenly) thought it’d be okay if the manuscript isn’t super clean/perfect, but we live and we learn. I ended up doing a round of line edits between submission rounds.

The start of the second round was sorta the same, lukewarm passes.

I was thinking that maybe I wasn’t good enough, my writing wasn’t polished enough, my book was too long for a debut, and maybe I just suck at this thing I really love. I was thinking about all the reasons—reasons that were my fault—for why this book was not getting sold.

I had one editor response in the tail end of the second round that really changed things for me.

They were extremely complimentary; I could tell they really loved the manuscript. They spent a long time holding onto it and taking it to second reads, but the reasons they ultimately had to pass are as follows: their in-house comp titles did not perform well, and they anticipate romantasy being on the decline, so they didn’t want to overload their list with it.

This is the closest I’ve ever been to good news. And despite it being a pass, it was good news, because it lifted a huge weight off my shoulders.

It wasn’t the manuscript. It wasn’t me.

Publishing is not a meritocracy, and I completely forgot about that. Books are subjective. Art is subjective. Not every trad-published book is “good”. How a book is received by publishing professionals does not correlate with how it’s received by actual readers.

Here are some facts I wanted to ignore:

1. YA (and kidlit in general) is struggling right now.

2. Editors are underpaid and have so much on their plates that it’s best to acquire extremely polished, low-risk, ready-to-publish debuts (which is why we see A LOT of popular indie books getting traditional re-releases).

3. Publishing is a business; it is white-dominated, and marginalized authors have to do more to get publishers to take a chance on their “less marketable” stories

I ignored all of that and tried to find reasons within my control for why my book was not selling, and that gave me so much self-doubt and unnecessary angst for a whole year.

I’m the type of person who is reluctant to blame racism for my personal experiences if I can help it. As I mentioned earlier, it appears that East Asian fantasy is doing great. We have Sue Lynn Tan, Elizabeth Lim, Amelie Wen Zhao, etc, etc. We see East Asian diaspora authors (specifically Chinese, Taiwanese, and Korean) show up a lot, much more than Southeast, South Asian, and Central Asian authors, so I avoid woe-is-me-ing too much, because how can I complain?

But the number of East-Asian-authored books that get published is nowhere near the number of white-authored books that get published. I feel myself downplaying my oppression as a Chinese American writer all the time (just model minority angst or whatever), but then I catch myself...because wow, they really have all of us fighting for scraps, huh?!

Tokenism is real. Why have more East Asian authors when there are already, like, ten? Do we really need another Asian fantasy? Tokenism makes it so that the weight of representation falls on a few instead of many, and we’re expected to be grateful for that, otherwise we’re demanding “too much”.

I saw someone who worked in publishing say on Threads that even if you’re told romantasy is on the decline, we keep seeing evidence of the opposite—and it’s true. Deals are being made. Books are being sold. There is a specific flavor of romantasy that keeps getting bought (boiled unseasoned chicken breast), the same types of stories, the same types of authors, because that’s what sells.

And now we’re having readers say they’re tired of romantasy just when POC authors are beginning to write in this genre with their unique perspectives.

So, dare I say...I am good enough. I worked very hard on that manuscript, and I love it. Because for every “rule” that I broke with that story, there are exceptions made for authors richer than me, more famous than me, and whiter than me. The thing is, I don’t even care about being mediocre. Even if I am, why do I have to be excellent when there are people who don’t have to be?

I’ve been clinging onto the concept of meritocracy with bloody fingers for the longest time, but I think I’m ready to let go. Publishing is not a meritocracy, and it is not fair. There are trends, luck, timing, discrimination, and money involved, so all I can do is my best, have fun writing my books, and the rest is out of my control.

Hopefully, I can keep this in mind for my next manuscript going on sub and actually relax next time. For all my friends suffering on submission, say it with me:

Publishing is not a meritocracy!

And may that set us free.

Indie author transparency: I am not doing as well as I thought.

In 2023, with two books under my belt, I could expect to see $800-$1000 every month in my KDP dashboard. Now, in 2026, with 5 books under my belt, I’m seeing $400-$800…$800 being an unusually good month!

I released my fourth book, To Sway A Soul (NA romantic fantasy), in May 2025 with high hopes that it would outperform my previous three (YA fantasy). Up until then, I’d only ever seen growing returns, especially in the KDP dashboard, at a linear rate.

Once you see a pattern, you expect it to repeat. I expected my fourth book to follow the same path as my others and double my royalties after release. Delulu is the solulu, as they say.

I decided to do physical preorders and sell direct for the release of To Sway A Soul. I learned from my Kickstarter in 2024 (which made me a net profit of about $6k) that selling direct makes a huge difference in profit vs print-on-demand sales.

However, I didn’t make as much net profit selling To Sway A Soul direct as I thought. I ordered a print run from a third-party printer instead of print-on-demand (POD) self-publishing platforms like KDP or IngramSpark. This should’ve lowered my per-book print cost, but the printer ended up disappointing me and getting my order wrong, so I had to purchase over half of the preorders from IngramSpark, which was very pricey. I also had to account for swag, packing material, and Etsy fees (since I sold through Etsy). After doing the math post-preorder, I made about $1.9k net profit for 213 books, which comes to about $8.90 per book. Still better than POD sales, which is usually $4-5 per book for me. (I got a partial refund from the printer that messed up my order, but it probably wasn’t enough to offset the extra money I had to spend on IngramSpark copies lol).

Math-wise, I technically did make more upon release month than I did with my other book launches (not counting my Kickstarter book, since that was not a “regular” release). Usually, my new release spike is $1k, so $1.9k is an improvement...though considering the labor and stress and the back-and-forth with the disappointing printer, I’m not sure if the extra $900 was worth it.

To Sway A Soul did not carry its momentum after release. The audiobook has sold fewer than 20 copies in its lifetime. A year later, this novella is currently fighting for Least Sold Book Per Month with my spin-off novellette, which was actually my high-grossing Kickstarter book. (I have a theory that this is because both of these are novellas instead of full-length novels...but I don’t have data to support that.)

In November 2025, I released The Charmwitch Seamstress, book 3 of my Witches of Olderea series. It was a very low-key release because I was properly burnt out. I’ve done very little marketing for it since it’s a book 3 in a series; I figured it would sell itself. I haven’t done the math for net profit (I think I ended up selling about 150-ish copies direct). I’d put release month numbers at $1.5k, give or take a few hundred. So, very much in the ballpark of my previous books.

All that to say, in 2025 I was looking for a large cumulative income jump that took me above and beyond my past numbers, seeing as it was a double release year, but that ultimately did not happen. Royalties have actually plummeted for me. I was pretty disappointed in myself despite the enthusiasm of my readers for both these books, which is all that should matter, but as we know, capitalism ruins everything.

Strategy & Optimization: What I Probably Should’ve Done

The formula of indie author success, from what I’ve observed, is as follows: write and release the “same type of story” (preferably in a hot genre/trend) again and again, at a consistent rate. It builds a brand so readers know what they’re getting into when they pick up your book. If they like it, they’ll stick around for all subsequent releases. (Another option is to have a viral TikTok and blow up overnight, but you can’t really control that, unfortunately.)

A huge factor in growth is series sell-through, which means folks who read book 1 in a series are likely to read book 2 and 3, etc. With every subsequent book, you have the opportunity to find new readers and get them to buy the whole series.

My favorite example of this is romance authors who write sequels for all the side characters from book 1. The most famous example at this point is Bridgerton (my personal favorite Regency romance series that follows this formula is the Wishing Well series by Sofie Laporte). Mystery writers also do this, following one detective as they investigate one mystery in book 1, another in book 2, etc. These episodic collections of standalones are called an open series. If you read YA or fantasy, you might be more familiar with closed series, which follow the same characters over a long span of time with cliff hangers and escalating stakes.

Ideally, books in a series would be released consecutively with relatively short breaks in between (1 month to 1 year) to keep their readership engaged and build momentum. This is why lots of authors do the rapid release strategy, which is when you release the entire series in a very short span of time.

If I wanted to optimize, I would have released book 3 of my series the year after book 2 for ideal growth and done Kickstarter campaigns for all of them. But I didn’t know any better then, and creative whims got in the way. I ended up with this sequence of releases: Book 1 (2021), Book 2 (2023), Spin-off novellette (2024), Unrelated standalone novella (2025), Book 3 (2025).

After sitting with this for a bit and wondering about my messy, messed-up indie author strategy (or lack thereof), I’ve come to the conclusion that I will never follow the perfectly optimized book release schedule, even if I do know these strategies in theory.

I fear I’m not an “optimization” person, and it is very difficult to scale to the heights I dream of considering the way I currently operate: refusing to run ads, not being on social media consistently, not having multiple releases a year, not writing in a hot genre, taking a very long time to produce my books, etc, etc. Unfortunately, my creative whims will always take precedence over business strategy. That is why I’ve been looking at traditional publishing lately, wondering if the grass will be greener over there.

Luck and chance play a very big role in both paths of publishing, though. You’ll never know when a book is gonna take off, and you’ll never know when world events are gonna strike and mess things up (aka tariffs, war, economic recession/depression). Sometimes, even if you do everything right—market and release consistently and put out the best work you can—linear growth is not guaranteed, nor do I think it’s possible. The nature of creative entrepreneurship is a rollercoaster, and boy, am I strapped in.

However, I will try the rapid-release method with my next indie series, and we’ll see if it’s really all it’s cracked up to be. (With the rise of AI and some folks not understanding that authors can finish multiple books first and then release them all as quickly as they please, I’m hoping I don’t get AI allegations LMAO.)

Quiet Seasons & Lessons Learned

2026 is proving to be a very low-royalty year, even with five books under my belt. This is for multiple reasons.

1. I have not been posting or marketing much; I’ve been feeling extremely bleak considering current events, and I can’t muster the same amount of joy, optimism, and motivation that I had in the first two to three years of my career...and well, marketing only works if you’re excited.

2. I’m taking a step back from social media in general because I don’t have an upcoming indie release this year, as I’ve been quietly working on projects for trad pub.

After five years of being an independent artist/creator, I’ve noticed that there are quiet seasons: long stretches of time when not much is happening. I anticipate this year to be the longest of all.

That doesn’t mean nothing is being done, though. I just turned in another manuscript to my agent (a dark adult romantasy) after my cutesy YA romantasy is pretty much dead on sub (RIP, I was optimistic and delulu about it, but it’ll have its moment in the sun eventually). I’m also working on my new indie romantic mystery series as I wait. Seeds are being sown! They’re dormant now, but they’ll sprout in the next season.

So, even if To Sway A Soul didn’t catapult me to higher royalties in the short term, I see it as “planting a seed” for the future books I wanna release that are in the same vein (East Asian inspired fantasy). It’s a long-term investment, one that I hope will flourish in the seasons to come.

And finally, growth is not linear, a fact I knew in theory but never experienced until now. It’s not fun, TBH, but I thought I’d write about it anyway, considering all the instant-success publishing stories we’re shown daily. It’s not realistic for most of us.

Long success stories with lots of twists are kind of my favorite, anyway.

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But today I wanna talk about why I keep writing despite all the disappointment, and my various “whys” for my various books.

My “why” for my debut, The Herbwitch’s Apprentice

When I wrote my first book, I mainly wrote it as a challenge for myself to see if I could, but also to honor my late friend Esme, who passed away in 2018 when I was a senior in high school. She was my art friend essentially; we spent hours doing fan art of each other’s OCs, aka original characters (super nerdy, I know), and exchanging stories and lore—we even had overlapping universes. I was really big into making OCs back then because it was a great creative outlet and source of escapism from the academic grind of being Asian in high school. I’ve never connected so deeply with another artist like that to this day…even if we were just online friends.

When Esme was gone, it was really difficult to dive back into my art. I considered letting my OC die off ‘cause what was the point, but I realized that continuing my drawings and stories was a great way to keep my memory of Esme alive.

So that OC eventually became the main character of my debut novel. I dedicated The Herbwitch’s Apprentice to Esme, since she never stopped inspiring me, and it seemed a fitting tribute. I didn’t include any of her original characters in my book because it would’ve been weird to monetize her IP lol, but I did include a mini mention of her world, which my MC travels to by the end of the book. (And I did leave the romance plot open-ended because we actually shipped our OCs together, so I kept mine single for him hahaha.)

My “why” for writing this book was to honor a close friend who had a huge influence on me and nurtured my creativity at a time when no one else around me did. I have Esme to thank for jumpstarting my author era, which was the best thing to happen to me, second only to having her as my art friend—love you, girlie.

My “why” for To Sway A Soul

To Sway A Soul meant a great deal to me because it was my first attempt at a book with Chinese influence/inspiration at my ripe old age of 23 when I wrote it (I’m 25 now). I sadly had very deep-seated internalized racism as a teen. It was in part due to American mainstream media being so white-centered and designating POCs to side-characters with heavy stereotypes, but it was also due to my own family.

I had a difficult time embracing my Chinese side because I associated it with my family members, whom I do not have the most positive associations with, and who often behaved in ways that embarrassed me due to their own personal flaws. To be clear, I love them and they love me, but love does not equate to like, and inherently, they do not understand me.

Lore drop: my mom highkey hates China because she had a really bad time growing up during the Cultural Revolution (which, totally valid b/c that era was wildin’ lol) but she only ever has bad things to say about the country itself even to this day, which definitely affected my own perception of being Chinese growing up. Combined with the already-rampant Western sinophobia, I didn’t stand a chance as a minor who wasn’t equipped with the tools or knowledge to deconstruct all of this. So I became insecure and self-deprecating when it came to my ethnicity, and didn’t have the most positive associations with it. (People love to ridicule the self-hating POC, but I have no shame around sharing this because it actually wasn’t my fault…I was a minor LOL. Let’s blame the system and not the victims!)

But anyway, it wasn’t until 2023 when I started reading more English books by Chinese authors that I realized being Chinese can be…fun? That there are aspects of my culture that are…cool? I did enjoy C-dramas growing up, but never consolidated them with the storytelling I was used to and loved: English novels. I honestly think Jeannie Lin’s Tang Dynasty romance books altered my brain chemistry because I enjoyed historical romance, but never read a Chinese historical romance before her books. Likewise, I loved historical fashion, but never thought to explore Chinese historical fashion and hanfu. Turns out I really loved those things!

I wrote To Sway A Soul to rebel against the idea that “being Chinese” has to be defined by other people’s (unpleasant) associations, and to finally appreciate the wonderful parts of my culture I never bothered to look for back then. I also wrote this book to hopefully aid someone going through the same struggles I did as a teen and young adult. If my fun romantasy can make one fellow Chinese diaspora feel less bad about themselves, I’m happy.

But it doesn’t just have to be for the Asian diaspora. I’ll never forget this sweet, vulnerable review I got from a reader who left a predominantly white religious cult; she had a lot of shame around being raised to fear other ethnicities and not knowing much about them as a result, and my book was a safe space for her to learn more about another culture in a fun and approachable way. Made me cry a bit lowkey.

And this is why I keep writing!

My “why” for The Charmwitch Seamstress

The Charmwitch Seamstress took me two years to write (it spent many, many months collecting dust) because I didn’t know what I wanted this book to be when I started it. I didn’t have my “why”; I didn’t have anything I wanted to say with this book.

It wasn’t until later that I realized this story is an immigrant’s story.

Quick background of my Witches of Olderea series: Olderea is a kingdom where magic and the witches who wield it were outlawed two generations ago, so witches had to flee underground and establish their own civilization. At the end of book 1, witches are lawfully welcomed back to the kingdom, but in book 2, we see resistance and unrest from human civilians who are still discomfitted by magic—this is continued in book 3 The Charmwitch Seamstress, where our optimistic main character Giselle thinks it’s a great time to start her own business, only to realize that Olderea isn’t quite ready for witches yet, and there’s still folks out there who want to sabotage them.

I wrote books 1 and 2 when I was still in denial about my internalized racism, so of course my MCs were white, and I didn’t even clock that the main conflict of this series is ✨racism✨until embarrassingly recently, and unfortunately, there is a lot of IRL material to draw from.

I think it’s very easy to feel helpless when it comes to political activism when you’re an artist; it never feels like you’re doing enough no matter how much you repost, make your stance known, or donate to organizations. I’m just some random indie author, and oftentimes, I feel super useless. The state of the US, especially with what’s happening with the immigration raids, is disgusting and bonkers. But outside of reposting, donating, and staying informed, I guess I can also critique via fiction.

Up until recently, I had a handful (maybe even a fair number?) of conservative Christian readers who probably drink the orange-flavored Kool-Aid; sadly, I did crash out on social media several times about NOT supporting that and turned a lot of them off—I wish they had a chance to read this book, but honestly, I’m not sure if they’d make the IRL connections if they’re that lost in the sauce.

I had a very agitating “debate” with one of my readers/author peers about a recently deceased conservative spokesperson; I did not think he was a good person, and she disagreed with me, and went off on a long tangent about how my definition of “good person” did not align with hers, and that he actually wasn’t a racist—she hates racism! Yet she couldn’t see what racist behavior looked like when it whispered instead of shouted, and of course, her being a white woman who hasn’t experienced it, told me what and what didn’t count as racism.

I didn’t understand how she could read and like my books if she didn’t agree with my perception of what a good person was. My POV characters will always act in accordance with my own morals; I am telling readers what I believe in and what I stand for when I write. This is another one of my “whys”.

I really had to distance myself from conservative author peers or “politically neutral” peers (who really are just okay with the awful status quo) because I know that they would never speak up or feel as deeply about the injustices that occur in this country to people who don’t look like them—to people who look like me, my neighbors, my friends. They’re comfortable in their bubble, and it’s so disheartening. We were friendly, sure, but I know they will never have my back in this political climate, and I don’t wish to keep friends like that.

So, The Charmwitch Seamstress is basically me coming out as woke LOL. This book is not the most artful nor accurate allegory of IRL events, but I think it makes it clear where I stand, and I feel freer because of it.

Why I’m NOT writing

I’m not writing for approval or validation or to make my family happy.

I spent a long, long time doing things my parents and college counselors wanted me to: attending various extracurriculars I didn’t get to choose, taking advanced math classes, going to Chinese school on Saturdays, taking SAT/ACT prep classes, choosing a “real major” that wasn’t art-related, etc.

There came a point in my life when I genuinely didn’t know what I wanted because I was so used to letting other people decide for me—the part of me that makes decisions was so atrophied, I didn’t even know myself. (I also write to deconstruct parts of my experiences and explore them further, because this is what my MC from my current WIP is going through—except she’s been a servant for 200 years and likely struggling way worse LOL)

Writing a book in 2020 was the first big thing I’d done willingly, for fun, and for myself. Finishing my debut proved that I was actually self-motivated, that I could accomplish difficult things. It was a huge boost in my self-confidence as a fresh 20-year-old who didn’t have a whole lot of it.

My dad flatout told me I’d never make a living by writing books, and my mom, though on the surface says supportive things, tells me that I should preach “good values” and “traditional Chinese culture” which she deems superior (emphasis on traditional, not modern, and we’re definitely not counting all the SUPER queer aspects of Chinese history and lore here lol) to positively influence the next generation because that’s my “responsibility” and I’m “not writing romance for teens right? That’s gonna harm them!”…oh, and I should probably become a teacher instead. Basically, I should do everything and anything but what I’m doing right now because I’m not making enough money, not moral enough, and not enough period.

Even if I get a splashy deal or sell a bunch of books, I know it’s not going to garner a “great job, I’m so proud!” so I don’t really wish for that kind of validation since it’s never going to happen. I didn’t start writing for external validation, and I never will.

Because of that, I don’t feel the need to be acknowledged as a “good artist” in any official capacity, so book awards don’t really appeal to me. I think trad pub is often that “stamp of approval” or “stamp of legitimacy” that a lot of authors chase. I don’t think I care as of writing this—all I really want is to write what I like and make enough to live off of and TBH just have a publisher take care of printing and distribution for once instead of doing it all myself—but maybe that’ll change down the road when I’m feeling more angsty.

So, as a previously very passive, non-self-motivated person, I think my most important “why” is because I can, it’s fun, and I want to.

Tell me your “why” if you’d like to share :)

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This writing and publishing thing, which started as a fun hobby, has taken over my life, which I wouldn’t have predicted five years ago.

I was still a relatively new author when I decided to go full-time at the beginning of 2024, and I was full of optimism because my debut novel did moderately well for a baby author with zero connections. I thought it would only be an upward trajectory from there.

But this year, after delving deeper into the indie space and being exposed to more successful indie authors, I realized that although I am doing decently by my own standards, I’m not doing as well as I could. Especially compared to other indie authors in the fantasy romance space (bonus points if they write spice), who are getting a million page reads a month after release, going viral on TikTok, selling tens of thousands of copies, getting their books picked up by trad, or getting translation and audiobook deals.

I love this for them. I’m all for authors sharing their wins because it shows what is possible in indie publishing, and further proves that this path is as valid as trad.

While immersed in the bookish/publishing space, I’ve also come across people who have never presented themselves as writers get massive book deals with no proof that they can write, yet have the benefit of a large following and also pretty privilege. (The worst offender being Luke Bateman…oh, to be a white man!) I’ve seen books that are so similar to other books to the point of redundancy, yet they still become bestsellers because of TikTok virality. I’ve seen debut books—that are the first ones the author has ever written—get early attention and praise because the author already has connections by being in the bookish space, not as a writer, but as an influencer or artist.

To be clear, I don’t want to say that these folks don’t deserve their wins—luck, opportunity, and connections found them, and I would never wish to take that away. I don’t have beef with individuals. My ire is reserved for the systems in place that allow for this kind of inequality to occur in publishing in the first place. While some folks can skip steps and reach the peak, others are stuck treating publishing like it’s a meritocracy when it has shown us again and again that it isn’t.

It’s just one of those things that make me tilt my head and go, “Huh.”

My Woes About Indie Pub

Today, I realized that the chances of me having a breakout indie hit are slim to none because I do not write to market. I write adjacent to market—YA historically-inspired romantic fantasy, which is not quite romance, not quite fantasy, and not quite your average romantasy either, which makes appealing to the voracious readers who are used to the conventions of these genres impossible.

It’s not a matter of hard work or pulling myself up by my bootstraps—it’s about writing what’s hot right now, which I just can’t do because my creativity does not follow commercial trends. I physically cannot put that much time and effort into a book I don’t 100% love. It’s also about luck and opportunity, neither of which I can manufacture.

A lot (if not all) of the indie books that go TikTok viral seem to be romance centering white, or white-passing/ethnically ambiguous characters + a bunch of hot tropes like trials and enemies-to-lovers + spice scenes. (Not hating on this, BTW, it’s just not my cup of tea.) My debut and book 2 in that series are probably the closest I’ll get to white romantasy. Coincidentally, they are my best sellers, but seeing as I don’t have that many books out yet, I can’t say if it’s telling me what I think it’s telling me.

The conclusion I came to: Breakout success is possible, but it just won’t be possible for me.

Some months ago, I wrote a Substack article about the joys of being a small artist, and that sometimes what society deems as success—such as TikTok virality—isn’t the best thing for everyone. And here I am complaining about numbers! Listen, I do enjoy being a small artist, but I’m also afraid of stagnation, or worse, decline. I wish for each subsequent book I put out to do better than the last, so it’s a little discouraging to see my latest novella, which has been so fun and healing for me to write, sell fewer copies than my debut on a monthly basis.

Lately, I’ve leaned into more Chinese-inspired stories, drawing inspiration from the history and folklore of my ethnic background. My heart is very much set on C-drama-esque vibes for my next indie series. I’m worried that I’m going to have a harder time selling these books. While I do acknowledge that East Asian media is having its moment (and has always had international appeal tbh), I’m still concerned I won’t find my ideal readers because I don’t see any popular indie books like the ones I want to write, written by Asian American authors like me.

(Sidenote: I have come across a handful of Chinese or other East Asian-inspired indie books, but they were ALL written by white American authors, or authors who are not Chinese. I found this odd. The samples I read felt like watered-down versions of the stories they were trying to emulate. I’m not going to attempt to gatekeep my culture. As an individual, I can’t tell anyone what to do, and this is a nuanced topic. However, I’d like some writers to think about why they need to write stories from a marginalized culture they do not share and have not lived in. If it’s cultural appreciation, why can’t you step back and uplift own-voices creators? Is this your story to tell? Just some thoughts.)

The BIPOC indie pub space doesn’t seem to be as flashy or robust as the white indie space, but please let me know if I’m wrong; I’m just spitballing here. My theory as to why: there’s a certain socio-economic privilege involved in being able to put out high-quality indie books that get a lot of attention, which mostly only white authors have. I know very few Asian indies who write own-voices stories and are doing numbers in the same way some white indie authors are. (One very successful indie author I can think of is Nisha J. Tuli, who I believe is South Asian. Her books are quite commercial, though, which makes sense.) Most Asian own-voices authors I know are trad. I wonder if it’s because they needed the legitimacy and monetary support trad offered them in able to pursue writing fiction as a career, since Asian families are notoriously unsupportive of their children pursuing the arts. I know I had to prove myself (monetarily) before my parents became supportive of my indie author pursuits.

Since we’re talking about race, it would be remiss not to mention all the negatives that come with embracing my ethnicity. I’m worried about the readers who won’t “understand” and “can’t connect” with the stories I want to tell going forward because it’s “too foreign”. (This was pretty much an exact review under one of my favorite Tang dynasty historical romance books by Jeannie Lin, BTW. And romance is universal!) On the flip side, sometimes East Asia *gestures vaguely to region* is fetishized by certain folks, which goes beyond just regular cultural appreciation. I’m also not comfortable with attracting these types of people. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I would like readers who are normal and well-adjusted and “get it”…though I don’t know if that’s possible for any author LOL.

All that to say, I haven’t seen enough proof that an indie author who shares my identity and writes own-voices in my genre can “make it” in the same way other white indies have. That makes me wonder if it’s worthwhile to keep going, or if my career is going to stagnate or decline because of my switch to less marketable stories.

My Woes About Trad Pub

I’ve been on submission for nine whole months now with my YA retelling of Butterfly Lovers (but make it a light-academia Chinese romantasy with some demon hunting), and I’ve felt some feelings!! TLDR; I’m always questioning whether no one picked it up because of bad luck/timing, my lack of skill as a writer, or systematic racism. It honestly might be all three to some extent. (When I speak of racism, I’m not trying to victimize myself because I’m well aware that other people have it worse, but it is very real and very present, and it would be too idealistic of me to ignore the role it plays in every aspect of our lives, publishing included.)

I feel like YA is just kind of weird in trad pub right now because of all the adult readers flooding the space. Most of the YA romantasies being published and pushed right now are NA/Adult crossover; I even had an editor pass on my manuscript on sub because it’s “too young”, but they liked it and just wanted it to be older. Reminder that YA is for readers 12-18. Is it not important to give younger teens age-appropriate romantasies?

I also feel that there’s an extra hoop of tokenism my agent and I have to jump through since I’m an East Asian author who writes romantic fantasy/fantasy romance when there are already several others. Somehow, I have to differentiate myself from them in a significant way to be considered. I am not afforded the opportunity of writing redundant stories, nor am I afforded the opportunity of being a mediocre writer.

This is another one of those moments when I realized that while it is possible to be mediocre and write redundant books and still be successful, it is not possible for me.

My existence as an East Asian writer is already redundant in the eyes of Western publishing. Why take a chance on me when there are already a handful of successful authors who share my identity in the YA space? (Growing up Asian in America, the sentiment of “all Asians being/looking the same” frustrated me so much, because I felt like I had to fight to be seen and recognized as an individual. Publishing is giving me PTSD flashbacks LOL.)

But hey—maybe we ignore tokenism. Maybe I’m just not a good enough writer. Reading through that manuscript, I noticed a lot of things I’d change. I can just put in the work and get better at writing.

HOWEVER.

Trad pub has shown that it is NOT a meritocracy, and you don’t have to be that good at writing to break in as long as you’re—say it with me—white, famous, and/or viral on TikTok—all of which I fear I will never be.

Unless I pull a reverse Ollie London, then I’d probably strike the gold mine on all three lolol.

Anyway. I really try not to woe-is-me too often because it’s not productive and not a great headspace to be in. I get a lot of joy out of writing/publishing and will keep doing it as long as I find it fun, so I’m quite happy to keep my eyes on my own paper most days. However, it is important to acknowledge the angst sometimes, as well as the unfairness of this industry (especially for marginalized creators!!) so we don’t go crazy wondering why some people can go through publishing on easy-mode while others can’t.

I hope to come back with a more uplifting post next time. Meanwhile, I’ll leave you all with this encouraging message:

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To Sway A Soul is different from the rest of my books in several ways. Age category and setting aside, it also includes some sexual themes and references, whereas the books I released before are squeaky clean (as they should be since they're lower YA).

I'm aware that I've somehow attracted a number of fairly conservative readers with my debut who are, generally speaking, sex-averse for religious reasons (somehow they don't mind witches though lol). Not only was I worried about alienating them and garnering judgment/disapproval, but I also did not want to be held to the moral standards of their community, which I am not a part of, thereby stifling my creativity.

As a recovering people pleaser, and an indie author who is very dependent on my readership for money, I wanted to talk about this frankly because the little voice in my head is like "OMG they're all mad at me!"

This was amplified when I came across a review [UPDATE: It has come to my attention that the comment was a mutual misunderstanding and I misconstrued the meaning. However, I still stand by my general thoughts in this post!] that mentioned that their biggest gripe with the book was the sexual content, specifically, a part in the book where the MMC—I'll be frank with my language here—touched himself to the memory of his love interest whom he missed. For context, the MMC was soulless for the majority of the book, and regaining his soul aroused a variety of strong feelings, sexual ones included.

The quote:

This particular passage was their biggest gripe. Not the antagonist of the book being a creeper, his collection of erotic art which he used as a weapon to embarrass the FMC, nor the various instances of sexual harassment in the story.

A character partaking in self-pleasure and thinking about the girl he's in love with was the biggest problem!

Now, I dunno about y'all, but I think that's like a 1 out of 10 on the scale of sexual deviance. (I'd like to add that I have listed out all the content warnings very clearly on the review platform they used, so they must have seen it. I've done my due diligence in putting the info out there; if people choose not to see it despite having content concerns, there's not much else I can do.)

I suspect this is because this quote was the most descriptive I got in this book regarding sexual content. Despite me expecting some responses like this, it was still baffling, and not gonna lie, irksome.

Why I included sexual references in To Sway A Soul

TLDR: Sex is a minor theme in To Sway A Soul I wanted to explore.

For context, I recently discovered that I'm on the asexual spectrum, which means I don't have the same experience most allosexual people have regarding sex/sexual attraction. Sexuality has always felt like a taboo topic to me growing up (for my own, non-Christian religious reasons) and I never had the occasion to study, analyze, or form my own opinions on it, so reading books like Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen kinda blew my mind and helped me understand my experiences in an allosexual world.

1. I decided to use To Sway A Soul to process/explore my opinions and experience of sexuality, seeing as every book I write is an exploration of my identity in some way. Plus, NA romantasy is the appropriate genre and age category for this topic.

2. I was (and am) truly sick and tired of seeing sexual harassment/SA shoe-horned into these types of stories as casual plot points for no reason other than to give the male lead a heroic moment to save the FMC from the predator, or worse, making the FMC appear “desirable”. It has always given me the ick, and oftentimes the text never properly addresses or gives enough weight to the topic of SA or harassment, so it always comes off as gratuitous. (Ex: A few years back I read a YA/NA romantasy that featured a love triangle, but the most descriptive action the FMC got was AGAINST HER WILL by the gross antagonist who wasn’t even a love interest. It made me really angry.)

3. I discovered Ming Dynasty erotic art, laughed, and decided I needed it in my book.

Firstly, if we’re gonna include sexual harassment in casual fiction books, let’s do it right and condemn the heck out of it. It was quite cathartic to include supportive ally characters who are both men and women, and also TAKE THE HARRASSER DOWN properly because sadly, that does not happen enough IRL. I also wanted to highlight the uncomfortable and often complicated power dynamics that occur whenever the harasser holds a position of power, and how one can’t necessarily fight and “girl boss” one’s way out of it, as sometimes fiction over-simplifies these situations.

Secondly, I originally planned on making the MMC Shao Qing demisexual, which means he doesn't feel sexual attraction unless he has a deep emotional connection with someone, but I ultimately decided not to make that canon. This is mainly because his "sexual awakening" arc just happened to coincide with his "getting his soul back" arc. I didn't want it to seem like his asexuality was because of his soulless state, and that getting his soul back "fixed" him, because that would be problematic, and I don't expect that readers will see those two arcs as separate. So, he is what he is, we don't have to put a label on it.

Additionally, I wanted to explore sexuality in art (art is another, more prevalent theme in the book) because erotic art, specifically historical erotic art, is a genre I find interesting. There is this stereotype that people of the past were prudes/uptight, so seeing evidence that they actually weren't is quite funny to me.

Plus, I'm an artist/art student, so all art is cool!

Clean vs spicy romance, purity culture, & hypersexuality

I feel like compared to a lot of NA and even YA books out there, the sexual content in To Sway A Soul was rather mild and the story overall is quite wholesome. This reflects my own preferences, as I do prefer "clean" romance books over super smutty ones simply because I enjoy the emotional connection/character dynamics over the sex, and sadly, it seems like there's only enough pages to have one or the other in most books. (Some rare books do hit the spot for both, like pretty much all of Jeannie Lin’s books! I will never not be a fan.) I don't mind spicier books, but I need the yearning and romance to be believable first!

Despite this, I wouldn't label myself as a "clean" reader—just like how I wouldn't label my fashion choices as "modest"—even though my preferences technically fall into these categories. There is a purity culture undertone to those terms, which I don't subscribe to.

I also have a problem with the term "clean" mainly because it means different things to different people.

The most rudimentary definition I've seen used is "no on-page sex". Using that definition, I suppose To Sway A Soul would be "clean". The YA series Once Upon A Broken Heart is labeled "clean" by many readers, but it's frankly one of the horniest YA series I've ever read (no shade), and there was also some straight up boob grabbing in the later books, which totally threw me for a loop while I was listening to them on a walk LOL. However, I know that some folks use "clean" to mean "no sexual references at all", so I think that would eliminate a lot of books that are currently under that label.

When I started out on Instagram as an author, I somehow ended up on Christian author Instagram despite not being Christian (I think this is because one of my good author friends is one and she was shouting me out in the early days a lot haha). This means that I am frequently exposed to the readers of my religious author-peers, and I have seen some veeeery interesting reviews that included long lists of content warnings ranging from “crop tops” to “look of desire on page 232”.

Everyone's on their own journey and obviously are allowed to read what they like and stay away from things they don’t like, but I do cast a side-eye to certain "clean" readers who have a problem with ALL sexual content/references no matter the context. Personally, I think context is so important. It’s why the review I mentioned at the beginning of this post completely baffled me.

(The quote above is a lesson I learned in art school, because life drawing was not sexy whatsoever LOL)

I do notice that there is unecessary fear and shame surrounding the topic of sex and sexual attraction (not to mention a distinctly misogynist vibe in certain religious spaces where men see women as "temptation"...*eyeroll*) to the point where thoughts of sex and AVOIDING IT AT ALL COSTS seems to dominate their minds (which seems counterintuitive to me, because I thought y’all were supposed to like...not think about it?) The extreme hyper-conservatism and suppression makes me a little concerned for these folks; I just don't think crop tops or being alone in an elevator with a random woman should inspire fear or stress, but that's just me!

On the flip side, I also do not subscribe to hypersexuality, nor the notion that sex/libido is ESSENTIAL to health, nor that not desiring sex means you’re ill in some way, a prude, or “oppressed” by the religious patriarchy. Reading about how ace folks think there’s that there’s something wrong with their health or something fundamentally wrong with their psyche was honestly shocking to me. I didn’t think that not wanting/liking sex was a huge deal, but I guess everyone has an issue with that!

All in all, the way most people describe sex either makes it sound like psychedelic drugs or the most heinous, sinful thing you can ever do and both make me equally afraid of y’all LOL. Personally, I just don't think it should be that big of a deal, whether you love it or hate it.

Can we just exist and keep our preferences to ourselves? Thank you!

Sex in East Asian media

The Apothecary Diaries is recommended for ages 14 and up, according to Crunchyroll. For those who don't know, it's a Japanese manga/anime series that takes place in fictionalized ancient China and features a main character born and raised in the pleasure district—meaning there are brothels and courtesans—and she ends up working in the rear palace for a concubine. It goes without saying that there are lots of sexual innuendos in this series.

I don't think To Sway A Soul had as much innuendo as this series, yet I felt the need to label it as 17+ despite there being no "frog grabbing" (if you know you know lolol). I'm not sure why I feel the need to baby some of my ADULT western readers while Japan is throwing The Apothecary Diaries at their fourteen year olds—I'm obsessed with that series, BTW, it's so good and so much fun lol.

On the flip side, I recently came across an IG reel that was a clip from a historical K-drama featuring a group of women reading an erotic book and (comedically) reacting to it. The clip showed a rather explicit illustration in the book, and when I looked through the comments, one of them said, "I thought K-dramas were supposed to be innocent :(!"

I've mentioned in a previous post that the sexualities of non-white folks are tainted by a veil of racial stereotypes. For Asian women, I'll speak specifically on East Asian women here, we're either fetishized or not seen as sexual people. East Asian men are completely stripped of their masculinity and sexuality through a western lens. I think most C-dramas and K-dramas have rather chaste romances (because censorship is stricter in those countries) so westerners get the impression that we all value modesty and chastity.

I'm actually not sure if I would lump Japan in with this, seeing as a lot of animes are quite sexualized and popular in the west, along with recent Hollywood-produced shows like Blue Eye Samurai and Shogun that don't shy away from sexual depictions of Japanese folks. I don’t think Japan has any strict censorship laws like South Korea and China do, but correct me if I’m wrong!

While there absolutely is purity culture in East Asian communities, it has gotten to a point where even *I* an EAST ASIAN WOMAN, thought there was NOOOO way erotic art existed in ancient China when I was doing my research for To Sway A Soul because there’s no way we were as lewd as the Europeans!

Turns out, there is a whole genre of erotic Chinese paintings (chun gong tu), particularly in the Ming Dynasty. Imagine my surprise. Then I felt dumb for being surprised because how is a civilization supposed to last five thousand years if no one had sex? The math ain't mathing.

Again, I'm ace, so I have no skin in the game per se, but I am ALL about breaking racial stereotypes and I think it's important to have good representation in sexual content as well, because oftentimes POC (especially women of color) are dehumanized, objectified, or assumed to have traits they don’t actually have based on gross stereotypes. Just the idea that Asian folks can be sexual on their own terms was kind of a mind-blown moment for me, because it just shows how deep I was in racial stereotypes depite being in the community. Yet another one of the sad realities of being Asian American.

So yes, I’m going to have my East Asian male MMC have his sexy moment, okay?! Let him jerk off in peace 🥲

Sex in...YA?

I don't think there should ever be explicit sex in YA because adults writing and selling spicy books to minors will never not be weird, and publishing houses as well as independent authors should do their due diligence with that.

Let the teens lurk or not lurk on AO3 and Wattpad on their own, I say!

Where I'm at and what my books will be like in the future

I've talked myself down from the people-pleasing anxiety spiral about making certain readers mad with my choices in To Sway A Soul. At the end of the day, I've done my due diligence by making content warnings available and labeling my book's age category correctly. I believe I handled the topics I've written delicately and without gratuitousness, which is true to my own sensibilities. That's all that matters, and if some people don’t like that, they can feel free to move on.

My YA books will continue to be YA appropriate and safely "clean" (no matter your definition of "clean") and my NA books will continue to be NA appropriate, whether “clean” or not.

To end, I think yet another review I got puts it very well:

I’m an adult, as such, for adults, I don’t really have any content warnings. However, as Chau herself has said, this book is really more of a 17+ regarding intended audience. Sexuality and darker themes exist in this book such that I wouldn’t hand it to most 11-12 year olds I know. I would do that with her other books without hesitation. That’s not a complaint or a critique, this is simply just written for an older audience. Further, this is not a heavily sexualized book either so don’t go into it expecting graphic or smutty sex scenes. Just be an adult and use your own discernment.

That's on that!

BTW I just released the audiobook for TSAS and my narrator is amazing, so if you’re interested, get it HERE!

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Since it was a very casual thing, there isn’t a set date for when this project would be completed. (I planned on releasing it on YouTube for free instead of monetizing it, since Linxi was willing to work for free. Reiterating that this is a very casual arrangement—I would recommend indie authors get narrators the regular way if they wanna get an audiobook made and distributed seriously.)

Linxi was very generous in allowing me to do what I like with the finished chapters, so I thought I’d share them here instead of letting them collect dust! Let me know if y’all enjoy this and want the next two chapters :)

About The Herbwitch’s Apprentice

This YA Regency-inspired witchy fantasy is perfect for fans of Ella Enchanted, Jane Austen, and the early 2000’s Barbie movies. Get the physical copy (with illustrations) HERE.

In the kingdom of Olderea, dabbling in witchcraft is a sure way to the guillotine.

When sixteen-year-old debutante Amarante Flora finds out she’s half witch, all she wants is to get rid of her magic. After all, zapping Prince Ash in the midst of high society’s Season certainly won’t help her troublemaking reputation.

But the more her powers grow, the more she realizes magic—and the witches who possess it—are not as dangerous as she was led to believe. When the queen falls mysteriously ill, Amarante knows there are far more dangers lurking in the palace than in Witch Village.

Among potion-brewing and glittering receptions, Amarante joins Prince Ash in an investigation before innocent witches are condemned. However, uncovering the culprit’s schemes could mean exposing her magic. And exposing her magic would mean her very life—and the contempt of the prince she is trying to help.

I won’t be summarizing the film because that’s not the point of this post, so I’ll go straight into my thoughts.

Overall, the film made me think about the societal expectation of “success” in any creative field and how it’s almost the opposite path to take if you want fulfillment. Consequently, it made me believe that small artists should take joy in their smallness. Success means fame and money. It means scaling your business up, making connections with people in high places, and eventually becoming a person in that high place.

In The Menu, Chef Slowik went from flipping burgers to having a lavish restaurant on a private island that caters to those who can afford to pay $1,000+ to dine there once. (There is an irony to this completely inaccessible price point, as food is a humble, basic necessity of life.) Despite his high status as a celebrity chef—or rather, because of it—he loses his joy of cooking completely and consequently only attracts those who do not value his food for what it is. His diners are pretentious food critics, wealthy people who see his food as nothing but a status symbol, and mindless sycophants who lap up anything and everything he does. There is a loss of authenticity, simplicity, and joy that food and cooking should bring on both ends. This shows itself in the courses served throughout the film—dishes that are cold, unapproachable, and so very…artistic that they hardly look edible.

Artistic Delusion Elitism

There was one course in the film called the “breadless bread plate” that made me snort a little because I see this phenomenon a lot in the fine art space. Slovik describes bread as peasant food because of its humble origins. Since his diners are the furthest thing from peasants, he serves them nothing but a dish of dipping sauces. Anya Taylor Joy’s character, Margot (a working-class woman who is in attendance by chance) refuses to eat it and calls out the ridiculousness of it all. However, some diners go along with it, thinking it very deep.

This level of artistic delusion is so high that when the sous chef shoots himself in the head, half the people in the restaurant convince themselves that it’s only performance art—all part of the menu.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m not concerned with how “Art” with a capital A is defined, but occasionally I do cast a bombastic side eye to paintings or performance art that seem to me bloated with pretentious symbolism or are just plain baffling. (I heard a rumor in my art school that a couple had sex for their Fine Art final…like…I’m sure they had a very artsy, symbolic explanation for that…but respectfully what the heck LOL.) I’ve learned not to judge fine art based on looks because art in the modern era is not always going to be visually appealing. I do judge based on story and the artist’s intention—some visually unappealing pieces genuinely have significant meaning.

Along with that, however, are pieces that are just kinda dumb. Exhibit A: Fountain (Duchamp) 1917 which is literally just a urinal, and is supposed to explore the concept of “What if anything can be art just because the artist intends for it to be art???” Okay, wise guy, this could’ve been an essay instead of a urinal. (As I’m writing this I realize that exhibiting the urinal proves his point better than an essay could’ve, and now I’m thinking perhaps…it is art? And explains why I’ve learned to judge art based on an artist’s intention? *Gasp*. You see, Duchamp is the reason why I no longer care to define “Art” because it’s truly such a headache.)

I often wonder if the artists who make these kinds of pieces are 1. being genuine, 2. being deluded/enabled, or 3. if they’re just trolling and waiting for a wealthy patron to drop unholy amounts of cash for art that is more of a status symbol than functional or appealing.

There’s honestly no way to tell, and that’s my biggest gripe when this type of elitism worms its way into creative fields. Us normies can’t help but roll our eyes at these “concepts” and “symbols” while some insist on their value. Like the “breadless bread plate”. Is it deep and we’re just too dim-witted to understand it? Or is it just dumb and completely impractical?

And most importantly, do the people making this type of art find genuine fulfillment in doing so?

Art to Audience to Artist Feedback Loop

Certain types of art attract certain types of people. The audience an artist attracts can in turn affect their art, depending on how the art is being received. (I hope that makes sense lol.)

It explains why Chef Slovik lost his simple joy in cooking the more “successful” he got—the people who can afford to eat his food do not appreciate his food for what it is, while the folks who did appreciate his food can no longer afford it. Later in the film, Margot criticizes Slovik for cooking without love, without warmth, and that even though she ate multiple courses, she’s still hungry.

I think success puts a ridiculous amount of pressure on artists. The bigger you are, the more your art reaches people you didn’t intend to reach, and the more indebted you feel to those people.

I honestly can’t imagine what Rebecca Yarros was going through when writing the sequels to Fourth Wing when it blew up. Production of book 2 was rushed so publishers could milk as much cash out of the series while it’s still in high demand, leading to a variety of errors in print quality and writing. I wonder: Did Yarros make story choices that she otherwise wouldn’t have made if Fourth Wing was only mildly successful? Was she rushed while writing the books? Does she have any regrets?

The Tortured Artist

Chef Slovik is the personification of a burned-out, mad, jaded, tortured artist, and his success has singlehandedly driven him to this state. I don’t think there are many people who can handle fame and wealth with level-headedness and grace, much less preserve their mental health. I, for one, probably can’t survive a day of this kind of “success”.

Side note, the “tortured artist” is an archetype I almost hate as much as the “starving artist” archetype. I truly don’t believe one has to be in mental turmoil to create “good” art—in fact, it almost seems counterintuitive. I think art and creation should either be about expressing joy or processing grief. Art should share your burdens, give you moments of peace, and bring you back to yourself. Why would we want to torture ourselves while making it? That’s dumb. (That’s just my opinion, though.)

The Small Artist

Sometimes it sucks being a small artist because it seems like we’re throwing our creations into a void and maybe (occasionally) getting pennies thrown back at us. I’m not ignoring the difficulties of being unsuccessful, especially if you want to make a career out of your art. But I think there’s so much joy in being a small, humble artist. You can make what you like and share that with a small group of like-minded people. You can dance like no one’s watching.

Societal definitions of success that involve fame and money at an unmanageable scale bring a lot of external pressure that will likely throw a wrench in your creative practice and mental health. We shouldn’t wish for breakout hits like Fourth Wing. Logically, we shouldn’t want them at all.

I encourage other smaller artists and creators to come up with their own definitions of success since we’re always bombarded with flashy ideals that often come with a lot of baggage, and that don’t always align with what we truly want. Personally, I wish for a modest sort of success. Just enough money to make a living off my art and an audience that truly vibes with what I do. I’d rather not be famous lol.

Wishing you all a gentle, sustainable success <3 Let me know your thoughts on this.

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It’s a bit uncomfortable to witness, to be honest, as both an author and a reader.

I’ll admit I was a snarky little reviewer back in my teenage days; it was very easy to nitpick and complain (as is a reviewer’s right) if I read a book I didn’t like. If I hadn’t become an author, I suspect I would’ve taken the side of the folks who are criticizing romantasy, the tropification of books, and publishing becoming “fast fashion” (BTW, it’s nowhere near as bad as fast fashion).

Ever since I started writing, however, I’ve become much for forgiving toward books that are considered “trashy” or “formulaic”. Here’s my rapid-fire response to this debate:

1. Authors write to trend because it makes money, and that is a valid business strategy. People are buying these on-trend books—that’s why they’re trending. (Therefore, if you think about it, those complaining are in the minority.) Authors need to eat!

2. Books don’t have to be that serious. I think there’s space for both “empty calorie” books, books that spark deep thought, and the whole spectrum of books in between.

3. People will always hate on women’s interests.

4. The types of books you want to read are out there and are being published—they’re just not the loudest or the flashiest. You can find and read the books you want at any time! It’s easy to be frustrated if you’re being bombarded with wildly popular books that aren’t to your taste on social media because it seems like that is all there is, when that’s not actually the case. You build your own algorithm brick by brick, so go out and build one that includes the books you want instead. (I haven’t seen a single Onyx Storm post on my bookstagram feed. It’s possible, y’all!)

5. Tropes aren’t bad…if you do them correctly. Tropes are an insanely useful tool in marketing. It’s like the more detailed version of genre—great for pulling in your ideal readers. However, I can see why an ill-placed only-one-bed or “who did this to you?” can induce eye-rolling, especially if an author doesn’t put a unique spin on it, or it seems pointless/incongruent to the story. (I would like to add that some tropes are age-old and not going anywhere. There was an “only-one-bed-left-at-the-inn” moment in Quelling the Demon’s Revolt by Luo Guanzhong, which is a Ming Dynasty novel. Talk about old.)

6. People like being snobby and feeling superior. Mayhaps if I were smarter I would also feel superior, but alas.

Originality is dead and that’s okay

Speaking of tired old tropes, there’s this expectation for creatives to always be original and create nothing but works of genius. I think this does more harm than good, especially for our productivity and creativity.

If there’s one principle of creativity I do believe in, it’s that to output, you must input. It is impossible to create in a vacuum—your art is a mosaic of your own experiences and the art/media you enjoy. Therefore, complete originality is impossible.

In illustration, it’s common practice for an artist to have multiple image references for their piece—for pose, lighting, color, anatomy, composition, mood, etc. It’s an undeniable fact that references make your art better. (To clarify, because a lot of baby artists and non-artists misunderstand the purpose of references: Using a reference does not necessarily mean you directly copy the image—that would make your illustration a study. References are there for you to take one or more elements that make the image work, i.e. a color scheme, and apply it to your own illustration.)

What made writing so difficult for me in the beginning was that I wanted to be original, and therefore didn’t use any references or guides in my writing process. I did not go into it with the same mindset I have while illustrating, believing that what I wrote had to come from me, my brain, and nothing else.

I didn’t consult other books in my genre. I didn’t even think about genre.

I was essentially writing in a self-imposed vacuum, and that made the process more difficult than necessary.

The Genre Ramble

The first thing you need to know before writing a book you intend to sell is what genre it lands in. Genre is the source of your book’s branding and how you identify your target audience. The more specific you can get, the better—only then will you be able to identify your ideal reader and niche. (They say niche to get rich for a reason!)

I did not know this when I wrote my first book. Vaguely, I knew that The Herbwitch’s Apprentice was a YA fantasy, but I didn’t know what YA actually entailed, or that there were many subsections of fantasy. Current YA books are considerably aged up from their early 2000s and 2010s counterparts, the latter of which was the YA I had in mind. (That’s because I wasn’t reading current books in my target genre, go figure.) My debut technically straddled middle grade and YA in the current market, landing in lower YA. I also did not know how to name the subdivisions of fantasy, like high fantasy, light fantasy, historical fantasy, urban fantasy, fantasy romance, cozy fantasy, etc.

My lack of knowledge was an issue because The Herbwitch’s Apprentice had a lower YA fairytale cozy vibe going on, but 3/4 through the book I decided to insert a forced servitude/physical torture plotline that was so out of left field in my genre. A handful of readers pointed that out as an aspect of the story they didn’t like.

That’s because it destroyed the “brand” of the book, and therefore my target readers’ expectations.

Genres come with their own conventions, expectations, and plot beats. Romance needs a happily ever after. Mystery books need to keep the reader intrigued by hiding the culprit of the crime until the very last moment. A cozy fantasy needs a low-stakes, small-scale conflict while delivering comfort and charm.

A romance without a happily ever after becomes a tragedy. A mystery book that tells us whodunit in the first chapter is not a mystery. A cozy fantasy that has graphic violence is not cozy at all. Genre sets up expectations. If you destroy these expectations or don’t deliver, you’re going to have unhappy readers who probably won’t stick around for your next book.

Readers are consumers, and they like to know what they’re buying before they commit to reading your book and giving you money. It’s how publishers operate too, and why they often reject books that don’t fit into these predetermined genre categories (perhaps to a fault, which is why a lot of New Adult books end up being labeled as YA because NA wasn’t/isn’t a well-established genre…but that’s a discussion for another day.)

All that to say, knowing your genre and its conventional beats creates a solid, dependable framework for your writing. It’s the reason why romance, erotica, and mystery writers write so quickly: because they know their genre, its conventions, and the plot beats they need to hit to meet their readers’ expectations. It’s like a recipe that works every time.

But does this make books unoriginal and formulaic, and therefore boring? Well, not really. I believe skilled authors know how to put their own spin on their genre formula so that it doesn’t feel that way.

I like to think of the genre framework like cookie dough: butter, sugar, flour, eggs. A basic sugar cookie is pretty good on its own, but if you customize it (with things like cinnamon, vanilla, sea salt, chocolate chips, cacao powder, raisins, lemon zest, etc.) the flavor profile and texture will differentiate it from the others, but it’s still good, and still a cookie! You can tweak the framework a little, like swapping white sugar with brown sugar, or egg with a vegan substitute, and it’ll still function. But if you swap out the flour with salt, throwing wartime political intrigue into a middle grade cozy fantasy, that’s going to throw things off balance, and it won’t even be a cookie anymore, much less edible.

Everything is from something

Everything is derivative. Even my first book which I wrote in a self-imposed vacuum was influenced by the MG/YA books I read as a teen and the early 2000s Barbie movies.

Letting go of being original and the desire to create a genius masterpiece made writing my fourth book, To Sway A Soul, SO much easier. I knew I was writing a “trashy” low-stakes fantasy romance, which needs a meet-cute, a trauma bonding moment, and a happily ever after with a sprinkling of romantasy tropes just as a nod to the genre. (I think the trope of the romantasy MMC always having the biggest schlong to ever schlong is unintentionally HILARIOUS and I did include that in a not-very-serious way…check out the book when it comes out May 9th to see my spin on that trope haha.)

Also, funny story, I didn’t even realize that my book shared a very specific detail with A Song to Drown Rivers by Ann Liang until I read it after I finished writing To Sway A Soul. The detail is this: both our MCs had a deceased little sister named Susu who died in a very traumatic way and became the source of the MC’s trauma/motivations…like we BOTH had that!

(I finished To Sway A Soul before ASTDR even came out, okay, just so nobody clocks me on that if they notice LOL.)

Let me just say this: The more you create, the more you realize that you haven’t had a single original thought, and that’s okay. Ask any other author/artist and they’ll probably agree.

I don’t believe artists should torture themselves by insisting on being completely original when that’s not possible. Just make what you like, make what feels right to you, and if folks are into it, great! If not, at least it was fun to make. And that’s why I support “trashy” books coming from a creative perspective.

That’s all. Let me know if y’all have any thoughts on this!

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Recently, I decided to pivot away from an illustration career and focus more on writing and publishing my novels. I went into 2024 trying to do both, and now that it’s 2025, I’m turning my focus to indie publishing, since it involves no client work and a (somewhat) steady income every month (assuming royalties are made) without having to find gigs.

As a result, I found myself thinking I should put out more books in a shorter amount of time—which means writing more and writing faster.

My current book producing timeline

Each book I have out so far took me over a year to write, illustrate, and publish. This one-book-a-year pace seemed pretty reasonable to me when I was still committed to an illustration career, but now that I’m pivoting my focus, I’m growing more displeased by it.

It’s so slow compared to other indie authors who seem to have multiple releases a year, and especially so compared to the prolific romance/erotica authors who put out one book a month.

According to previous data, I am able to crank out a 80-100k first draft in three months at a steady pace of about 1k words a day. Developmental editing, line editing, and proofreading take about three months. Illustrating (I made the creative decision to fully illustrate my novels) takes three months, though that overlaps with editing. During that time, I’m also doing my own covers and marketing materials. Formatting I outsource, and that takes a little over a month. Making sure the book looks right and ordering proof copies takes about another month or two. Gearing up for release via socials also takes time.

I was able to finish producing my upcoming in 10 months total. I think this is record time, because the book was only 50K words compared to my usual 80-100k word stories, and only about 20 illustrations compared to the 30-40 illustrations of my previous two novels.

Speeding things up (the business math)

The rapid release strategy is what is advised for indie authors who want to make a liveable wage. It’s when you put out one book after the other in rapid succession (i.e. once a month). That way, readers won’t have to wait very long for the next book and potentially forget about you. There’s also more visibility on Amazon since new releases are favored by the algorithm.

I recently went deep into a Reddit thread where an erotica author was talking about how she writes and releases one book a month, which is a part of her six-figure business strategy. It was incredibly fascinating, and she seemed like such a productive and prolific writer.

Needless to say, I was very impressed and wondered if that could be me one day.

But when I thought about how to apply this to my own writing career, I realized I would never be able to perform at her level, nor do I necessarily want to.

For one, the romance and erotica genres have huge, voracious readerships who are more likely to take a chance on newer authors, and indie books absolutely dominate these categories. The genre I want to write is YA/NA historically-inspired fantasy with romantic subplots, which is quite the niche, and therefore I won’t have a huge voracious readership to market to.

But that’s alright, because one book can take me pretty far. I rode a decently high royalties wave for almost a full year (making around $1k a month without much marketing effort on my part) with just two books released in 2022 and 2023 respectively. Book sales have dipped significantly since mid 2024, and I’m back to making about $500 a month (just on KDP) with my two books and one novelette. There’s always a huge spike with new releases.

In theory, based on my exisiting numbers, if I release 2-3 books a year, building on top my backlist and assuming my subsequent books will take off at the same rate as my previous, I can actually make a livable wage on book royalties alone.

Speeding things up (the writing)

My debut novel is the first book I’ve ever written. My second book is the second book I’ve ever written, and my novelette is the third I’ve ever written. My fourth book coming out in May is my fourth book. My fifth book coming out late fall is actually my sixth book. (Yes, I’m actually putting out two books this year. Yay!)

If you’ve seen any of Brandon Sanderson’s writing lectures, he says that you should write at least three books before attempting to publish, because by then you’ll have learned how you write and that will make having deadlines easier to handle (and you’ll probably be a better writer by then, too). He’s right, but alas, I did not know who Brandon Sanderson was when I was writing my debut, and I was way too excited to not publish my first book.

I wrote my debut in 2020 after recently getting back into reading/writing fiction. Before then, I’ve never finished anything, so there was a lot chaos while I was figuring out craft and process on the fly. I was a full on pantser then and didn’t have an outline of any sort. My second book slightly more organized. I had a vague outline and I read Save the Cat Writes A Novel which provided much needed structure. My third was a short 15k word novelette that came together piece by piece without me consciously sitting down to work on it.

My fourth book, I did actually type out a vague outline. But since I had a set genre and prompt in mind (romance/romantasy involving thieves + specific folktale inspiration), it came together pretty easily. Knowing my genre had a huge part in it. Plus, having written three books already, I kinda knew how to write at this point.

My fifth book written is the one that’s currently on sub, and I actually had a chapter by chapter synopsis for it because I needed an organized way to communicate my idea to my agent and keep track of big edits. That book was probably the most organized I’ve ever been in writing. I think the most words I’ve ever written in a day is 4k words, and it was for this book. (BTW, I would absolutely reccomend 2k to 10k by Rachel Aaron, where she describes her methods of writing 10k a day. Now, I don’t write 10k words a day, but it has some very helpful info in it that defintiely boosted my daily word count while working on this book.)

My “fifth” book coming out this fall (which is actually my sixth one written) is a weird one. I started writing it after book two, but didn’t finish it until after book five. I was defintiely more organized during that second half, and wrote an outline/chapter by chapter synopsis since I discovered the magic of being an outliner.

Currently, I’m drafting my (unannounced) seventh book. I started with a very detailed outline, covinced that it was going to help me write faster.

Reader, it didn’t.

It didn’t up my word count because I only write 1-2 hours a day. And that’s the unifying factor of all the books I’ve written so far: I only write 1-2 hours a day, every day (save for book 5, which I worked on a little longer per day). This slow consistency is what I thrive on. If I sit and work on a story for 4+ hours, I’ll 1. burn off my corneas from staring blankly at a screen for too long, and 2. get so fatigued, not know what’s going on, and likely not want to work on the story the next day since I’m so tired of it.

I need space to think and be excited while drafting, and I just don’t think I have the stamina to sit down and write for a full work day every day, which is why I can’t pump out more than 4k words in a session, since typically it’s a very short session.

(That being said, I never attempted to draft for a full work day, since there’s always other things to do like commission work. Since I’m easing away from that this year, I might attempt to write for a full day one of these days. Everything is worth trying once, after all. When I do that experiment, I’ll report back lol.)

Quality vs quantity

Although outlining hasn’t boosted my word count, it has made me more decisive. Having finished 6 books already, I’m more confident in my process, which means less time fumbling in the dark.

I finished drafting three whole books in 2024 and started another, which is much faster than my previous one-book-a-year pace, and I didn’t even change much. Although I’m technically not writing any faster, I am writing more frequently. I only took a 1-2 month break between each new draft while the years previous, I went months upon months without writing anything after finishing one book. That’s why I was only able to put out one book a year—I didn’t have anything on the backburner once the pot on the front burner was empty.

So, the pace at which I was writing is actually perfectly fine for releasing multiple books a year, assuming at least one of them is around 50k. (I don’t think I would be able to release multiple 80-100k word novels a year, TBH! Shorter fiction for the win.)

With the rise of AI, ChatGPT written books are flooding the market, beating out even the most prolific of writers in this speed and quantity race. I don’t want to compete with that, nor is it physically possible. Sometimes being an indie author (or any type of artist) for a living feels like you have to be a factory—pumping out content to keep up and survive.

There is a fine balance between artistry and business, and as someone who is trying to make her living with her art, I somehow have to optimize both without going broke or losing my artistic integrity (which, BTW, I refuse to give up). I will never put out a book I’m not proud of just for the sake of speed, which is why I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to work at my own pace.

This slow, steady progression both in my writing process and building a readership works for me. I suppose the lesson here is to know yourself and know how you work instead of trying to mimic other people’s systems of success, which may not work for you.

I’m learning to meet myself where I’m at and hope you will too.

Thanks so much for reading!

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Lately, I haven’t felt like doing a whole lot of personal art amongst paid commissions and book illustrations. At first, I figured it was burnout, that I was overworking myself by taking so many jobs, but even now as assignments are dying down, I still don’t feel inclined to pick up a pencil and draw the same things I used to love drawing for fun: character art.

I’m tempted to label this as art block, but I feel like art block is only applicable if you want to draw, but can’t. Meanwhile, I am drawing, but I don’t really feel like it.

Why I Used to Draw

Once, during lunch in middle school, I remember complaining that I had nothing to read and one of my classmates shoved an Uncrustables wrapper in my face and said, “Read this!!!!” which is diabolical.

Obviously, it wasn’t the act of reading that I enjoyed, it was the stories in the books I read, DUH.

I think what drove me to draw when I was younger was also the storytelling aspect, though I didn’t know it at the time. (On the other hand, I also enjoy the act of drawing—it’s challenging and relaxing and rewarding—so that’s perhaps 50% of it.) But designing OCs (original characters) and coming up with their backstories was a HUGE part of my enjoyment. Imagining characters, interactions, and worlds and bringing them to life visually was my jam. It was why I thought I wanted to work in animation for the longest time.

(See below: I would do a lot of these character sheets for OCs, then put them in illustrated scenes. These are from 2018 and I’m dying because that is way more recent than I thought HAHA.)

Where the Creative Juices Flow

This year I did a lot of writing. Probably more than I’ve ever done before, having written two new books and finishing up a third. I suspect all my creative storytelling juices transformed into prose rather than into illustrations. I just didn’t feel the need to draw for fun as much as I used to.

I’m also beginning to feel that illustrating my books is redundant since I write YA and up, and images aren’t necessary in the way they’re necessary in children’s picture books. Why would my art need to be there to communicate my stories if my words are doing that already? (Also, shoutout to picture book illustrators who carry 50% or more of the stories in children’s books. Y’all are so underrated.)

(See below: An interior illustration from my debut, The Herbwitch’s Apprentice.)

I have to admit that overall, I’m not incredibly proud of the illustrations I’ve done in my upcoming book To Sway A Soul (although I am very proud of the text), and that’s making me debate on not illustrating my future books. Whether it’s because I tried a completely new rendering style and I wasn’t very good at it yet (incorporating Chinese brush painting into the pieces and also trying to do less rendering) or because I decided to do less up-close-and-personal character art (which I used to love to do but now feel is redundant because we’re already so close to the characters in the text), I just wasn’t feeling the illustrations. At the same time, I do believe the illustrations in TSAS serve a purpose in communicating the visual aesthetic of the ancient Chinese historically-inspired world it’s set in that I couldn’t describe in full detail without boring the reader to death. So, there’s that, at least.

(See below: An interior illustration from To Sway A Soul. I do like this one but the rest of the illustrations are ehhhh.)

I’m debating on not illustrating my future books/series at all, or at least not to the same extent as I’m illustrating my Witches of Olderea series (roughly one illustration every chapter, which is about 30-40 per book), 1. because it’s starting to feel redundant, and 2. because coming out with books will be faster, which will be beneficial to a successful indie author career. But that’s a topic for a future post because I have a bunch of rambly thoughts regarding that.

Feeling my joy for art changing is a little frightening because it’s such a huge part of my life and my identity, and it almost feels like it’s slipping away from me. I’ve tried to implement “draw for myself” time into my schedule, and typically I use that time to do studies or draw from references, either from pretty Pinterest pics or from the shows I’m watching. Drawing from imagination seems more and more difficult because I have no idea what to draw, and I never feel like drawing characters from my writing projects for fun because it just becomes work, and, again, redundant!

What I Plan to Do About It

Obviously, I’m going to keep drawing. Illustration commissions make up 50% and more of my income, so drawing is a hireable skill I’d like to upkeep just for livelihood purposes.

Plus, I do still like drawing! Just not the same subject matter that got me into it in the first place.

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of observational sketching (right) and drawing warmups (left) just to get the pencil moving. Perhaps it’s not objectively as fun or exciting as my previous works, but I feel myself evolving and I don’t think I should force myself to go back to what I did in the past.

This might just be an off-season, and my love for character art might rekindle in the near future, but currently I’m just doing lots of scribbly tree sketches. I love trees!

Have you ever had a creative switch like this? Or an artistic existential crisis? Let me know!

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“We need diverse books.”

“Representation matters.”

I knew these phrases to be correct in theory ever since I became aware of them in publishing, but it honestly wasn’t until this year that I really felt them to be true. It embarrassingly late for me to realize this, having been a reader for most of my life, but better late than never I always say, aye Fiona?

(I would apologize for that joke but I love Shrek too much to do that.)

Early Years

For context, I’m a 24 y/o first-generation American-born-Chinese (both my parents were immigrants). I’m an avid C-drama watcher and have been since I was a little kid. I’m surrounded by Mandarin-speaking family, I went to Chinese school on Saturdays, had Chinese dance classes, was obsessed with Journey to the West, and was in guzheng lessons for a number of years. I wouldn’t consider myself entirely whitewashed, though I am admittedly at a preschool level when it comes to reading, writing, and speaking the language.

A lot of these things were not a personal choice. My mom went through considerable efforts to keep my sister and me in tune with our ethnic identity growing up, thereby enrolling us in those classes and making us watch low-budget cartoons about Chinese idioms every night, basically really taking charge and being the sole, deliberate thread that connected us to her culture.

But when I was left to my own devices, I was in American public school, watching American shows, talking to American peers, picking American books to read. Obviously, being a kid, the things that I came across on my own were way cooler than anything my parents forced me to do.

Through books, I fell in love with reading and storytelling. All my favorite stories and authors were white, though I didn’t notice that detail amongst the lush fictional worlds and grand adventures these books took me on.

Reading and Writing “White” Books

It’s no wonder that when I first started writing, all of my characters were white and the stories I chose to tell were the same. When I wrote my first novel in 2019-2020, The Herbwitch’s Apprentice, I had come around to Netflix-level colorblind casting, though the main character was still white, and the story itself was influenced by Regency novels and the early 2000’s Barbie movies (both of which slap).

I’m not denouncing myself for writing a “white story” to be clear—I genuinely loved my influences and still do. It was only that I had a blind spot when it came to why I was only writing these types of stories, and why I felt so uncomfortable delving into East Asian worlds and characters despite growing up watching C-dramas and Chinese idiom cartoons.

My sister and I got into an argument once, during which she basically reprimanded me for writing “white books”, saying that I had a duty to provide East Asian representation as an East Asian writer. I was very indignant about the whole thing, because firstly, as a POC author, I felt I should have the right to write whatever I wanted just like my white counterparts who clearly have no problem doing that. Equality and all that, right? Why should I have to bear the burden of representation and education? Haven’t I suffered enough trauma? Let me write my books and not have to think about racism as a little treat, please! (We concluded that both of us had pretty good points and that two things can be true at once.)

Now, I know the answer to my discomfort. I’ve only ever experienced the medium of novels in English, and a HUGE percentage of the books made available to me through my school libraries were white. All the popular YA novels were white. Even the very few East Asian books I read in middle to high school were written by white authors. To name some: Little Sister by Kara Dalkey, Eon by Alison Goodman, and The Wild Orchid: A Retelling of The Ballad of Mulan by Cameron Dokey (which, hilariously, has a white woman on one of the covers). I was most comfortable writing white stories, because white stories, or stories told through a white perspective, were pretty much all I read. (Side note: I’m not Japanese or a historian, but I thought Kara Dalkey did a pretty decent job with Little Sister in terms of historical research and mythology. Or I’m just biased because I was super obsessed with that book as a middle schooler.)

Naively, as a teen, I thought I didn’t need East Asian representation in western media, because I could just go watch Chinese media and see people that looked like me. What I didn’t get back then was that I wasn’t fully Chinese, not really. Even though my grandmother vehemently tells us that we are Chinese people, to not forget that, and everyone in my family calls Americans foreigners, or wai guo ren (directly translated as “people outside of the country”), I know now that there is a distinction between ethnicity (DNA) and nationality (country of birth), and for diaspora kids, those two things are not the same.

We have such a unique experience, being far more influenced by the country of our birth than the country of our ethnic origin, while still retaining parts of our cultural heritage.

There are also so many ethnic groups in China (which I also learned embarrassingly late) so the term “Chinese” technically doesn’t even encompass my ethnic identity, nor is it my nationality. (I’m pretty sure I’m Han. I never asked my parents. But seeing as Han Chinese people make up 90% of China, I’m guessing if we were a minority ethnic group, I would know about it, because racism! Alas, the Han are more or less the white people of China.)

Anyway, that’s a research topic for later.

I believe the first East Asian fantasy novel I read written by an East Asian author (that last part is very important) was pretty recently in January 2023. The book was Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan. I remember feeling kind of weird about it because it was my first time experiencing a xianxia (a Chinese fantasy genre that involves immortals and magic) story in English novel format versus in C-drama format. It wasn’t a bad weird, just neutral weird, because I’d never seen these two things smashed together like this—novel reading and C-drama watching were very separate affairs for me.

The NSFW Section

A little later in 2023, I discovered Jeannie Lin’s Tang Dynasty romance novels published by Harlequin in the early 20-teens. Previously, all the romance I was reading was Regency England romance, or the occasional contemporary romance featuring white people. Lin’s books was the first time I’d read spice with East Asian characters and I honestly really appreciated it. I didn’t think I needed the “oh, Chinese folks can get freaky too” in my representation wish list since I do identify as ace, but it was still pretty nice to have! (BTW, you have to read My Fair Concubine if you like swoony historical romance with a bit of spice at the end. I thought the romance was super well done and the sex didn’t feel out of place, which is my major qualm with spicy romance books.)

I don’t recall where I read this, but they say white sexuality is the norm (I’m mainly talking about the US…but with the westernization of the world, I think this applies to many other countries as well), whereas POC’s sexuality is colored with racial stereotypes like the promiscuous jezebel, the submissive China doll, or the Latin lover. Not to mention the super creepy, rampant orientalism that follows East Asian women in general. What comes to mind for me is the oversexualized purple-hair-streak, tight-qipao-wearing, dragon-tattoo-bearing rebellious East Asian woman who is very much giving “written by a white man”. Or the tiny, submissive, childlike East Asian woman who white men especially seem to love. (I also find it strange how, erm, “adult videos” are tagged with #Asian depending on if there’s an Asian person involved, but videos with white people aren’t tagged as #White. You see? Weird. Why can’t we just be normal ISTG.)

So, finding spicy Chinese romance books written in English that were the same level of normal as their white counterparts was so gratifying, and I have to thank Jeannie Lin for existing because she’s the main reason I was eventually inspired to write Chinese historically-inspired fiction of my own, minus the sex scenes, ‘cause that’s not really my thing.

Bad Representation & Wanting to Be White

If stereotypes and caricatures are all you see of yourself represented in mass media, it’s going to make an impact however subconsciously. It absolutely impacted me.

Growing up, I felt that everyone saw me as the quiet-shy-little-Asian-girl-nerd-who-is-good-at-math-and-too-nice-to-utter-a-curse-word and there was nothing I could do about it because that was how rampant that stereotype was in real life, in books, in film. That, and the fact that whiteness was considered the peak of beauty in advertising and media, and POCs were designated to side characters with undesirable traits, did nothing for my self-esteem. I didn’t like how I looked. I never felt like I could be the “main character”. I was not cool, not desirable.

I never explicitly thought, “I want to be white”, but when I tried my hand at writing contemporary fiction on Wattpad as a teenager, featuring an East Asian main character my age, I considered making her half-white, or at least have a white love interest. Proximity to whiteness was desired, because whiteness was the ideal. It wasn’t really that I wanted to be white, per se. I wanted what whiteness had to offer me in this country—confidence and a sense of belonging. To be the ideal.

To be the norm.

If I had succeeded in finishing that Wattpad book I mentioned earlier, it would’ve been similar to To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han, as it features a Wasian FMC who pursues and is pursued by white love interests. I haven’t read this book, but I have seen some of the scathing criticism and discourse around it regarding white-washing and white validation, especially since this book came from a full East Asian author. I can’t comment on this because again, I haven’t read it, but it’s certainly an interesting topic. I mean no disrespect to Jenny Han, and I’m not saying she has any of the above issues because I don’t know that. In general, I believe POC authors should be able to write whatever they want and be allowed to make mistakes without being burned at the stake.

In this same vein, let me just say that we don’t have nearly enough empathy for the “self-hating POC”. I always see them being denounced or made fun of by members of their own community, whether it’s because we as a society don’t have respect for individuals who don’t respect themselves, or if it’s just because they’re “cringe” and remind us too much of our past selves. Either way, I believe it does far more harm than good because they are the victims of racism. If we can’t have empathy, give them grace, and accept them, who will? Let’s blame the system, folks, not the victims.

Anyway, I kinda went on a tangent there. Let’s get back on track.

The first film I think of when it comes to awful representation is Pitch Perfect. Yup. The one with Anna Kendrick and that cup song everyone was obsessed with in 2012-13. Rewatching that film as an adult honestly shocked me, partly because of how two of the East Asian characters were depicted. One of them was Beca’s Korean roommate, Kimmy Jin, who was a bitch for no reason, preferring to hang with other Koreans instead of “the white girl” (derogatory). The other was Lilly Onakuramara, the extremely strange Japanese girl who was so quiet she was whispering and hardly making a sound the entire film. It seemed to me the scriptwriters had something against East Asians, especially because of the inclusion of the openly aggressive roommate and the “reverse racism” that was happening with Beca. (Side note: I see this vulgar, hateful humor peppered throughout this film toward literally every minority group included. I laugh at everything. I laugh at poop jokes. This was not funny whatsoever. Watch She’s The Man instead for peak comedy.)

The film painted Beca as the victim, the one who couldn’t fit in, the weird girl spurned by her peers. But what’s hilarious is the fact that literally every minority in that film is suffering through that same exclusion IRL. (Like, gee, I wonder why Kimmy only wants to hang out with people in her own community.) But sure, let’s center the narrative on poor, conventionally attractive Beca, the only acceptable kind of weird because she’s white, and who literally gets everything she wants at the end.

(If you can’t tell, I’m really salty about this film.)

More Books & Other Rambles

Recently, I binge-read all of Ann Liang’s YA romances. Not only were her books laugh-out-loud funny, romantic, and addicting, it was also so refreshing to see a Chinese MC be so casually Chinese without her story being centered around racial trauma or validation. I’d classify her books as Asian-Girl-Joy. If I had these books to read in high school, I would’ve been so much more confident in myself.

This year was also the year I devoured all the East Asian fantasy books I could get my hands on. Call it reparations for not having access to them as a teen. I no longer find it “weird” to experience Asian stories through English novels. In fact, it might be my new favorite thing.

Here are just a few of the East Asian books I enjoyed so far this year by East Asian authors:

Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou (hysterically funny and so real)

Zachary Ying and The Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao (would’ve healed my internalized racism in middle school)

Of Jade and Dragons by Amber Chen (very fun audiobook listen)

Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim (if Shannon Hale’s books were Chinese-inspired)

A Crane Among Wolves by June Hur (gosh, the history and the angst and the romance!)

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh (beautifully wholesome and full of magic and folktales)

My Fair Concubine by Jeannie Lin (*melts into puddle*)

I Hope This Doesn’t Find You by Ann Liang (but read all her books though)

It might be my prefrontal cortex developing, but I have a feeling that due to all the books by East Asian authors I’ve read this year, I’m feeling a lot more comfortable with myself—more so than ever before.

It’s not that I finally feel Chinese or anything. In fact, just a few weeks ago a Chinese netizen commented on my fanart post of Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty, expressing surprise that a wai guo ren would be into this show.

While a great deal of the Chinese American experience is not feeling Chinese enough, not feeling American enough, and being super angsty about both those things, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am not Chinese, and I am not American. Trying to be only one of those things always brings pain and rejection.

I am Chinese American, and that can be its own thing.

The Joys & Worries of Writing East Asian Fiction

I wrote two Chinese historically-inspired books this year. One of them is my upcoming illustrated indie romantasy novella To Sway A Soul, inspired by an idiom. (I guess my mom forcing us to watch those cartoons really paid off.) The other is False Scholars and Butterfly Curses, the manuscript I talked about in my last post, currently on submission for trad publishing.

I’m really excited to join the ranks of Chinese stories in English form, because in my opinion, it’s the perfect blend of my ethnicity and my nationality, and my diaspora kid heart is just bursting with joy.

At the same time, representation sounds like such a grand thing. A part of me is nervous I’ll do it wrong, or that someone is going to call me out on all my historical inaccuracies (not that I intended on being historically accurate), or out me for being a fake Chinese person and too westernized. Which, now that I write it out, sounds ridiculous because we’ve already established that I’m Chinese American.

I think expecting authors of color to represent their entire respective communities is a lot of pressure, and not fair at all. Nor would it be very accurate, since groups are never monoliths. The truth of the matter is, I speak for no one but myself. I have no one’s experiences but my own. If others relate, great! If not, that’s fine too.

I hope to find more Chinese American readers like me for To Sway A Soul come release day. I’m very much aware that the audience I’ve built with my previous books is predominantly white, so I fear the sudden switch to East Asian inspired fiction might alienate them.

Of course, I know that many of my white readers read diversely and will support me in whatever I do. I also know that some others might squirm at any mention of racism and think that whoever brings it up is intent on arguing, being the victim, or being angry, so I guess this entire post will make them uncomfortable, as well as the number of times I said “white”. (Side note: I’m not faulting anyone for being white. To be clear, it’s not even a bad thing, and I am not using it in a derogatory way like Kimmy from Pitch Perfect LOL.)

Awareness precedes change. If we truly want to live in a colorless country, we first have to acknowledge the pain that white supremacy and racial discrimination have brought (and are still bringing) instead of vehemently denying their existence. I’m sure everyone reading is reasonable enough to understand this.

But if you still feel somewhat attacked and discomfited, I’ll leave you with this quote by Franklin Leonard: When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. (It's not.)

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You’re welcome for the Mulan memes.

My Journey of Being an Agented Author

I’ve been agented since March of 2023, but I haven’t actually finished a project specifically for trad pub until this year. This is because my agent found me via my Instagram and reached out first, rather than me reaching out to her with a finished manuscript, which is how it’s typically done. She saw my art and my debut illustrated novel, The Herbwitch’s Apprentice, and asked if I was looking for representation and if I wanted to share my ideas for future projects—novels, graphic novels, etc—with her.

It was a pretty surreal experience because I just got laid off from my concept art job and was wondering what else to do. I’ve tried querying in the past, all to no avail, so it was wild that this opportunity just dropped from the sky. I was waist-deep in indie publishing at the time and was pretty committed to it, especially after hearing about all the cons of the traditional route, which are all valid, but I wasn’t opposed to experiencing all the possible pros.

So we hopped on a Zoom call and I showed my agent a Google Slides presentation of all the book ideas I had (many were underdeveloped, and spoilers, none of them have been written lol), but I had this one very developed idea for a contemporary graphic novel with concept art and everything. I was a fresh art school graduate so yeah, my pitch decks were really good and really extra LOL. And I genuinely liked the idea at the time!

Obviously, my agent gravitated toward that, expressing surprise that I already had so much done, and that this deck was very nearly ready to be pitched to editors.

I have a feeling that that graphic novel idea was what made her decide to offer me representation shortly after. To this day, I am still SO embarrassed that it didn’t pan out.

Because reader, I have next to ZERO graphic novel experience. And I have written exactly ZERO contemporary YA stories. I’m not even a reader of them…unless we’re counting all the terrible Wattpad books I read in the early 20-teens, which I’m assuming we’re not.

And I learned very quickly that the pressure of learning how to make graphic novels, from workflow to layout to pacing to figuring out an efficient style, while also hinging my success on pleasing a potential publisher and making both me and my agent money, was crippling. (Also, it was just way too much drawing. My poor arms were not built for that!)

All the while, my agent was also submitting my existing indie debut to editors, because I said I was open to going the traditional route with my existing books, even though I wasn’t.

None of this is her fault, BTW, if that even needs to be said.

I was treating my agent like she was my boss, not my partner in this business, so I just physically couldn’t say no to her. I was scared of being “difficult” or turning down a potential opportunity. Professional partnership was such a foreign concept to me because I’ve only EVER been told what to do in a professional setting, and I was bringing a lot of that people-pleasing, say-yes-to-everything energy into this author/agent relationship. I didn’t even know what I wanted out of it!

Don’t be like me! Though, I’m assuming if you got an agent the regular way, there’s no danger of this lol.

But yeah. Eventually, I told my agent that I wanted to keep my existing books indie, and also that I couldn’t go on with the graphic novel project. I was SO embarrassed. But she was SO understanding and congenially agreed to it.

For the rest of 2023, we did one audition for a graphic novel (which I thankfully didn’t get) and another for an IP project (which I ALMOST got but alas), and then I pitched and started an MG book idea (which my agent wasn’t a huge fan of and I wasn’t a huge fan of either but couldn’t admit it for the longest time).

After that, the well was kind of dry. For a while, I felt like I was “hiding in the back of the classroom” from my agent. A classroom full of her other, way more successful clients. I felt like I was letting her down, like she was my teacher or boss or something—which hindsight, I have issues HAHA. But it really felt that way, and I held so much guilt for getting an agent SO easily and not even doing anything productive with the opportunity.

Finally, THIS YEAR, in May, I had an idea for a YA romantasy I was really pumped about. Which BTW, is literally the genre I read the MOST but somehow I never thought to bring a similar story idea to my agent, because I was so married to being a cozy MG fantasy author, or being that author-illustrator-graphic-novelist unicorn, because my agent made an off-hand comment that she likes my art and sees me writing in the MG genre and that graphic novels are in, so I was like, “OKAY I CAN BE THAT!!” without actually considering what I wanted.

Again, I have issues.

Anyway, I liked this new YA idea, my agent liked this idea, and boom, we did it. The manuscript was finished after six months, two very painful revision rounds, and one not-so-bad revision. Now, we’re officially on submission!

After reflecting on here, I think I was more concerned with my art and illustration career when I first got agented, hence the graphic novel blunder. Now, I realize I want to focus on my writing more and let my art take a backseat…or at least the sidecar seat.

Thoughts While on Submission

I told myself that if False Scholars doesn’t get picked up by a publisher, I’m going to add it to my indie backlist. The nice thing about being an indie author is that I’ve made my dream of seeing my book in print and in other people’s hands come true all by myself. I didn’t need anyone else’s opinion or permission to make that happen.

I’ve read a fair amount of submission stories on Reddit and my impression is that it is a very long, long, long process full of anxiety. I think I’ve curbed my anxiety because of the above-mentioned reasons. So, my heart won’t be crushed if no traditional publisher wants this book, because if they don’t publish it, I will!

The good news is that romantasy has been going strong for a very long time in the indie space. However, a vast majority of indie fantasy romances are centered around white characters and Eurocentric settings and folktales, while False Scholars is set in a fictionalized ancient China, so I’m not sure how well it would do in indie. The only space where I’ve seen East-Asian fantasy really pop off is in traditional publishing. Which makes sense, because traditional publishing offers wide reach that is very difficult to achieve as an independent author. (Also, I can’t say this without also acknowledging the absolute misconception that POC “have it easy” in traditional publishing due to a push for diversity and #ownvoices books. That’s not the case at all. If you see a lot of the wild break-out romantasy hits this year, they’ve all been written by white authors.)

Still, I’ll be indie publishing my first Chinese-inspired romantasy To Sway A Soul in a few months, so we’ll see how that does! I’m very determined to make it my biggest book yet.

This has nothing to do with going on submission, sorry, LOL.

I guess I don’t have any super crazy anxiety about it. If it pans out, it pans out. If it doesn’t, I can keep doing what I love as an indie author. My only worry is “disappointing” my agent again if it doesn’t work out…but golly gee, I really need to get over that.

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