We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful A. R. Redington. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with A. R. below.

A. R., thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

Probably the most significant risk I’ve taken was quitting my full-time job, on two separate occasions, to pursue my author/freelance career. In 2014, I quit my full-time job as a graphic designer at a newspaper firm to finish and publish my first book, The Esoteric Design. I had attended a bookstore where authors and poets gathered to do live readings. I brought excerpts of the book I had been writing and received surprisingly positive feedback from customers asking how they could buy my book. It wasn’t even published yet! However, that was the motivation I needed to finish the manuscript. At the time, I was under a tremendous amount of stress at work and in my private life, and it was making me incredibly ill. After three separate occasions with doctors and specialists (and countless tests), all they could conclude was that the stress was making me sick and suggested I quit my job. It was a financial gamble, but once I left the job, I finished my book and published it within a month. And, the new illness had disappeared. The next gamble was self-publishing. Years before, after a previous rejection for a children’s book from a major publisher, I found out that most publishers only use their in-house artists. Publishers have told me multiple times that even though I am an illustrator and create my own art, they would remove them from my books and use their artists for my book covers. With my sci-fi/fantasy series, The Esoteric Design, the artwork was an essential part of the book for me. There are over 50 illustrations in each book—chapter illustrations along with character, bestiary, and weapon concept art in the back. Knowing that a publisher would remove all that on the belief that “adult readers don’t like art in their books,” I knew self-publishing would be my best option.
I have attended book signings, fairs, and comic-cons for ten years, promoting and selling my books. At my first Comic-Con in 2014, I had only one book out. Still, I managed to make nearly as much in one weekend as I did in two weeks at my regular full-time job. It was reassuring. However, the Comic-Con market has gotten tired over the years, and I, along with many other authors, struggle to find new ways to promote and sell our books. The market is constantly changing, as are social media tactics. Marketing is the most challenging aspect of owning a business. And it is probably the area I struggle with the most, but I am always looking for new ways to advertise.
Eventually, life will throw a wrench in your plans. After struggling financially, I was asked to return to the newspaper, and I took that on while continuing to write and publish alongside working freelance as a graphic designer, cover creator, and editor for businesses and authors. After a few years, I became pregnant at the height of the pandemic. On my first day back at the job after my maternity leave, I was told I was expected to return to the office most of the week and manage the place alone. After working from home during the last half of my pregnancy, I wasn’t prepared to return to the office immediately. I panicked. Having two auto-immune diseases, a brand new baby, and it being a pandemic, I had to make the difficult decision to quit my job once again. Thankfully, my husband understood the situation, and his income allowed such a transition. Since then, I have been a full-time mom while running my own business. It has not been easy for me, and I struggle to find the time to juggle all of my jobs. I am a publisher for another author where I format, edit, design covers, convert eBooks, maintain their website, and upload on various platforms. I publish for myself and work freelance doing similar things for other authors as needed, creating logos for businesses, or doing odd illustration/design jobs as they come in. I try to maintain and build as many skills as possible for marketing and publishing as it helps me stay afloat in a world where it can be difficult to make a livable income by selling books alone.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have a BFA in illustration, specializing in children’s books. However, I prefer writing books for teen/adult audiences and don’t pursue children’s books as a creative outlet anymore. I’ve been writing and creating art since I was a child. I have always wanted to pursue a career in the arts, specifically concept art for video games. I am an avid gamer, and it is because of gaming that I started drawing in the first place. I loved character illustrations and would draw those belonging to my favorite fandoms. Eventually, I started creating my own characters, imagining them in those game worlds. But then I started thinking of creating my own world and characters, and that was how development began on concept art for what would become The Esoteric Design series. Artwork for those characters started around the time I was 14 years old. I kept drawing them throughout school into my grad show in college. At the time, I was writing fanfiction online for fun and had amassed a following of over 20k readers up to over 100k years later for that one story. It was because of reviews and reader feedback that my confidence grew, and they implanted the idea that I should write books. Suddenly, I went from wanting to turn my characters into a video game to realizing I could still make the story come to life through books with illustrations and maintain creative control. That is pretty much how I got started in publishing my work. Other publishing skills were gained while working full-time for newspapers, magazines, and freelance. I tend to write a lot of sci-fi/dark fantasy, sometimes with horror elements, but I have also written a romantic thriller. The biggest “bucket list” item I’ve enjoyed working on was the Predator franchise. I wrote a short story for the Predator: Eyes of the Demon anthology, which came out during the release of the latest Predator film, Prey. It is satisfying to say that I worked on a Fox/Disney studios project, where I had to pitch my idea for approval before even beginning. I hope to get the opportunity to work on other franchises someday, like Alien, Resident Evil, or anything pertaining to the film/video game industry. For now, I am trying to complete my latest fantasy series, Masters of the Ellem, and have big, new plans to try in the marketing realm.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Society can support indie authors and creatives in a simplistic way that is, for some reason, often the most challenging thing to come by—reviews. Share the love of your favorite authors and artists by leaving reviews. After so many reviews left on Amazon—I think 50 is the magic number—they will push an author’s books to other readers and make it easier to discover them. However, for some reason, people do not like to leave reviews. It’s so hard to get them. In other ways, Amazon hurts indie authors by constantly monitoring and deleting reviews that they think are fake or were made by family and friends. I have amassed many reviews on Amazon and have discovered half of them were deleted over the years, and they won’t give me a reason why. And when I republished all of my work under a new name, I lost everything. They would not allow me to move my reviews to the new listings, even though they were the same books and only my last name had changed. It’s incredibly frustrating. However, readers can review on Goodreads, BookBub, Barnes & Noble, and anywhere the book is available or listed. Also, follow authors and artists on social media and actually interact with their posts. It takes a split-second to like or share a post, and it helps with the algorithms for us to be discovered. What is the most significant way you can help? Buy our products! If you already own them or find they aren’t to your taste, perhaps you can share them or buy them as gifts for people you know. It is all very simple, and most of the time, you can best support creatives for free with a mere few seconds or minutes of your time.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is that it feeds the soul. It is healthy, it is necessary, and it keeps me sane. Sometimes, people watch movies or play video games to escape reality. Creatives make their own worlds. I wish to entertain. I love to make people laugh. I am still amazed when I hear that my stories have impacted someone, whether it was joy or sadness felt through the eyes of a character. And to make an income off of my creations is so rewarding. I get to entertain others and try to support myself simultaneously. It’s nice making money for yourself and no one else, knowing that all your hard work is for yourself. It is magic to make my characters come to life and have them continue to breathe through readers.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ARRedington.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arredington/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ARRedingtonAuthor
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ARRedington

Image Credits
Images created/photographed by A. R. Redington