Why I Self-Published (And Why I'd Do It Again)

People make up their minds about me before I say a word.

I know this because it happens constantly. I roll into a room and I watch it happen in real time — the shift in someone's expression, the way their voice changes, the assumptions that settle over their face like they've already decided who I am and what I'm capable of. Before I've introduced myself. Before they know my name. Before they have a single piece of actual information about me.

Just the wheelchair. That's all it takes.

I've spent my whole life proving people wrong about that. And when it came time to publish my book, I wasn't about to hand that same power to a publishing industry full of people who might do the exact same thing.

Let's be honest about what traditional publishing is.

It's a system built on gatekeepers — people who decide, before your book ever reaches a reader, whether it's worth existing in the world. Whether you're worth existing in the world. And those gatekeepers have a long, well-documented history of passing on things that don't fit their idea of what sells. What matters. Who the audience is. Who the author should be.

I already knew what it felt like to be dismissed by someone who hadn't bothered to look closer.

I wasn't interested in collecting rejection letters from people who might never see past the surface of what I was sending them. I wasn't interested in waiting years for permission to share a story I'd been building for fifteen years. I wasn't interested in compromising my voice, my world, my characters, my vision — to make something more palatable for someone who hadn't even read it yet.

So I didn't.

I self-published Echo's Song on my own terms, in my own voice, without compromise.

And I want to be clear about something: this wasn't a consolation prize. This wasn't "I tried the traditional route and it didn't work out." This was a choice. A deliberate, eyes-open, no-regrets choice made by someone who has spent her entire life learning that no one gets to decide what you're capable of but you.

The stories that live in you deserve to come out exactly as they are.

Not as someone else thinks they should be. Not softened, or reshaped, or made more convenient. Exactly as they are.

Here's what self-publishing actually gave me:

Control over every word. Control over the cover, the release date, the way it's presented to the world. A direct line between me and my readers — no intermediaries, no filters, no one standing in the middle deciding what gets through.

It gave me the ability to say: this is the book I wrote, and I'm proud of it, and here it is.

That's not a small thing. That's everything.

I know there are people who read "self-published" and hear something lesser. Who assume it means the book wasn't good enough to go the traditional route. Who have their own version of that settled-expression, the one that makes up its mind before it looks closer.

To those people I say: keep your assumptions. I've been outrunning them my whole life.

This isn't a one-time decision. I'm self-publishing every book I write — this one, the next one, all of them. Because this is my path, and I chose it, and I'm not looking back.

And to everyone else — the ones who know that the value of a story has nothing to do with who gave it permission to exist — every book I write is for you.

It always was.

Echo's Song: The Dragon Curse Saga Book One releases October 24th, 2026. Pre-order is available now.