Today we’d like to introduce you to Joshua Shockley.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
A couple years ago, my wife and I were getting ready for Fall, and I was really wanting to read a book that was solely focused on cozy, autumn experiences. There are some out there, but I eventually realized I actually wanted something that told my own fall stories that I connected with. So, I began writing short stories that wove in elements from my own experiences. I had written stories for many years for fun, and in college and graduate school, I got a lot more technical writing experience, so I had a good place to start from. The more stories I wrote, the more I felt like I could actually turn them into one book.
My master’s degree was in Communication and Information, so I had some marketing and design experience I could bring into the process. With that in mind, I decided to self-publish so I could have a personal touch on the whole project. I worked hard to refine the story, and I ended up using a unique format where each chapter is a contained story, but they all connect as the book continues. By the end, you realize you’re actually reading one story where all the characters are connected and the narrative builds to one point at the finale.
After working for about a year on the cover design, the hand-drawn illustrations, the social media marketing, and the story itself, I finally released my book, Pumpkins in the Forest. From there, I was able to get it into a local bookstore, and I did an author event at a local tea room. My wife and I also set up a booth at a fall market, where we sold the book, illustration prints, and handmade, crochet pumpkins that she made.
This book was, in many ways, the culmination of my years of work in school and my experiences in fall that have made me love the season so much!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It definitely was difficult to get started as an author. For one, being self-published, I had to learn everything myself. There were so many aspects of the book industry that I didn’t know about. I had to learn about the process of having ARC and beta readers to help me polish the story as well as how to format the final product in a way that would show up well on paper when it was finally printed. When I decided to do my own illustrations, that added another layer to the challenge of creating something that would print well and would support the story.
One of the biggest struggles was marketing myself on social media. There are so many voices out there that try to tell you what you have to do to be successful, and it gets easy to lose sight of what your goal is while trying to get more followers and engage with your audience. Right now, social media is hard to navigate with how the algorithm works, so it becomes increasingly difficult to talk to your own followers. Since my books has major themes of mindfulness and slowing down, it felt counter-intuitive to spend so much time on social media to promote it. It was a challenge to strike that balance as I went, but I was proud of the people I connected with. I found a lot of support through other Indie authors and my own friends and family along the way.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I specialize in cozy stories that are about relationships. My debut book, Pumpkins in the Forest, is full of vivid, fall imagery that sets the scene for relatable challenges that the characters face as they learn about what it means to be human and do that in community. What’s a little different about the book is that you don’t know who the main character is until almost the end. You get teases through poems that separate the chapters, but at the end, it’s revealed who is telling the stories and who the narrative is eventually focused on. As you go, the stories themselves reveal connections that weave everything together in a way that not many books do. Additionally, readers may notice that there are secret characters that come in the form of things the people in the stories interact with, such as a flower or a bird. They bring in something special that drives the point home of each story along the way.
Also, I hand drew more than ten illustrations that go with each chapter of the book, and I wrote all of the poems that go with the chapters, as well. I also built a lot of elements into the book that you don’t find often, such as a playlist to listen to as you read and a bonus chapter that comes exclusively with the hardcover edition and serves as a kind of epilogue to the main story.
What are your plans for the future?
Looking ahead, I plan to connect with more local bookstores to sell Pumpkins in the Forest and maybe even host some author events, too. I am currently working on another book that is a different kind of story but will still have a lot of cozy imagery and adventures that people enjoyed from Pumpkins in the Forest. I won’t say much more, but news will be coming to my social media platforms in the next several months as I begin this journey again!
Pricing:
- Pumpkins in the Forest Paperback – $16.99
- Pumpkins in the Forest Hardback – $25.99
Contact Info:
- Website: https://joshua-shockley.my.canva.site/author
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jshockley_author/
- Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ShockleysForestShop
