Hello my dears!
I am coming to you with an exciting or bitter update, depending on how you view it!
I recently removed The Things We Couldn’t Say, The Wayward Ones, I Was Broken Before I Got Here, and If You Left All The Pictures on The Wall from Inkitt for two reasons: first, I really love the idea of releasing these all at once with some (hopefully) gorgeous covers that I plan to design on my own; and second, I have had The Things We Couldn’t Say on Inkitt for nearly three years now, and I can see that the path to publishing is a dead end.
The book had awesome stats. I had a large number of readers, high reader retention, high binge rates, and multiple five star reviews – and yet, nothing. I found the whole thing kind of fishy, particularly after Inkitt removed the progress bar and quit showing me most of my reader demographics, so I did a little research. As it turns out, generally, no matter how much of a potential best seller your book is, if it is LGBTQ+ themed, Galatea isn’t likely to pick it up. Which is…well, I’ll just say, vexing, after the information about Meta suppressing LGBTQ+ accounts just came to light last week.
Which is why, ultimately, self-publishing feels like the only real path for me to take. I could shop my books around to traditional publishers, but I find that they are too risk averse. My stories are not in line with market trends, and they are pretty realistic. My characters cuss a lot, too (gasp! Imagine that…musicians in the punk rock scene cussing!? Oh my!).
All that to say, writing LGBTQ+ books for LGBTQ+ people who might want something literary and relatable is a tough space to occupy these days. Between the oppression, and the fact that many MM Romance books aren’t exactly targeting a queer audience, it’s hard out there.
So, self-publishing it will be. I have some qualms about KDP, but…we must operate within the systems we have if we want to be heard. This is what we’ve got, so this is what I’ll use, hopefully to my advantage.
At the end of the day, though, I don’t mind if I don’t make money. I just hope with all of my heart that people will find their way to these books. I think they are quite beautiful. Here’s a little synopsis of what they’re about:
The Things We Couldn’t Say
This book follows Sam Johnson’s journey after he accidentally falls in love with his best friend, Adam Lee, at age seventeen. For sixteen long years, Sam keeps these intense feelings to himself, as well as the fact that he’s gay, while Adam obliviously carries on womanizing, living a typical rockstar’s life. However, when their band goes on tour during the summer of 2023, a series of unexpected events unfold and force the two friends to figure out where they stand, how they feel, and what they want.
The Things We Couldn’t Say is a heartfelt novel about love, family, friendship, self-acceptance, and taking chances.
The Wayward Ones
This novel serves as a direct sequel to Adam and Sam’s love story, exploring the most difficult year of their marriage. While Adam privately grapples with grief in self-destructive ways, he and Sam decide to spend Christmas with his large, complicated family. During their stay, Sam’s homophobic father and brother-in-law take drastic measures that strain the marriage and test the limits of what Sam will and will not take.
The Wayward Ones is an honest exploration of the realities of marital struggles and challenging family dynamics, particularly for LGBTQ+ people with intolerant kin.
I Was Broken Before I Got Here
This is more like book 2.5, though I would recommend reading it third. The narrative follows Oliver, Sam’s toxic ex, on his journey through post-breakup mourning and a desperate, lonely desire to matter. Deciding it’s the only way he can make people care about him, Oliver enlists his former bandmate, Mike, to play Punk Rock Bowling during the summer of 2024. Though the two of them have different reasons for performing, as they work toward their goal, they find that their easy friendship shifts into something very different, despite Oliver’s intense struggles with mental illness and the inconvenient fact that Mike is married with kids.
I Was Broken Before I Got Here is ultimately a tale of second chances, redemption, love, forgiveness, and finding meaning in the simpler things in life.
If You Left All The Pictures On The Wall
The final book in the series, If You Left All The Pictures On The Wall, follows Adam Lee and Oliver Hoffmann through the devastating aftermath of losing their spouses in a car accident. Though they are lifelong enemies and never cared much for one another, they find that their losses draw them toward each other, and ultimately prove a common experience that forms tight bonds. Their relationship is complicated, messy, and fuels both of their worst tendencies, but also blossoms into something beautiful and full of hope.
This novel explores what it means to grieve, to find second chances in unexpected places, and to learn how love with the entirety of a heart that once felt much too broken to do it again.
In addition to these four books, I recently went through and edited the novel I released in 2022, The Times We Fell in Love. The prose is much smoother now, and I believe the story has been greatly enhanced. I also redesigned the cover, using my own artwork on the front.
Always the supportive, loyal, and, most importantly, invisible friend in the shadow of his bestie, Maverick, Nathan has spent most of his life putting his needs aside. Though he is privately grappling over how to both accept and publicly define himself as nonbinary and bisexual, Nathan finds himself inadvertently caught up in a mischievous, romantic plot to win Maverick’s heart on behalf of his rival (and toxic obsession), Jackson Mitchell.
At first, the arrangement is merely inconvenient, but as time wears on, what started as a helpful plot between friends becomes more complicated as Nathan and Jackson’s relationship deepens. In the midst of his personal turmoil, Nathan is drawn into an emotional triangle, caught between friendship, desire, and the terrifying realization that he might want bigger things than he’d ever imagined before.
The Times We Fell in Love is an emotionally charged, introspective romance about embracing your identity, complex love, and the unexpected paths we often walk toward happiness.
Thank you so much for reading this lengthy blog post (if you made it this far)! I’ve got big things in the works. I will update as soon as I have my ducks in a row!
~ Kaycee
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