Daily Inspiration: Meet K.M. Allan

Today we’d like to introduce you to K.M. Allan.

Hi K.M., it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My professional writing career started when I was hired to pen articles about hair cuts and hair colors for a virtual hairstyling website. I did that for 9 years and then used the knowledge and experience of writing articles to launch my writing blog in 2017. While writing about writing to help myself and other authors learn, I worked on a YA series, publishing the first and second books in 2020, with another two to follow in 2022.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I would have loved for it to have been a smooth road, but as with anything worthwhile, there are definitely learning curves and struggles.

As any writer knows, writing a book is a huge task. You’re constantly learning how to write and edit, and dealing with self-doubt every step of the way. Just even getting a book from a first draft to the final draft can be something not all writers achieve. But we do it because we love it, and as stressful and frustrating as writing can be, it’s also creative and rewarding.

One struggle is definitely getting to the stage of having a completed book, one that is ready to be pitched to publishers. It took me quite a few years to get to that point. After that, I tried what most writers do, and that’s submitting my book to agents and publishers. It’s a long process, and you can spend a lot of months waiting to hear anything.

After a year of getting every rejection that you can, a small press offered me a publishing contract. Unfortunately, six weeks before the book was supposed to be released, behind-the-scenes chaos within the company saw that deal fall through.

I was faced with the choice of spending more years submitting, or publishing the book myself. I’d already been talking about it for years on my blog, so I decided to go with self-publishing, and I haven’t looked back.

While it was a struggle to suddenly learn what goes into putting a book together for sale, where to sell it, and all the marketing, I persevered with encouragement and help from the awesome writing community along the way.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I write books for young adults with teenage characters. So far, the books have been set in a world where everyday life mixes with magic and focuses on relationships, friendships, and survival. My other creative outlet is my blog, where I write about the art of writing and productivity. I started it as a way to learn more and build my own skills, and to share that knowledge with other writers who also want to improve their craft. I’ve met some great people, who I now consider friends, through the blog and we’ve helped each other improve our work.

Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
Definitely the willingness to learn. Just because you’ve learned one skill or completed one project doesn’t mean you can’t improve on it next time. You also need to have perseverance. There’s a lot of rejection in writing, both from yourself and others, and the skill to keep going is a really important quality to have.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kmallan.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/k.m.allan_writer
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/k.m.allan.author
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/KMAllan_writer