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

Alright, Amy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I’ve been writing novels since I was a teenager, back when I used an old word processor instead of a computer. I remember submitting novels to Harlequin Romance when I was twelve. I, of course, received a lot of rejection letters and that can take it’s toll on a kid. I didn’t give up writing, but I did give up on submitting books to publishers. It was a hard industry to get into, even for adults, and I accepted that I probably wouldn’t succeed. But I loved to write and kept at it. In high school, I gave my English teacher a few chapters of a book I was working on. A few days later, another teacher approached me, begging me to finish the book. My teacher had enjoyed it so much that she loaned it to her friends. That was when I started to think I could do this for a living.
It never occurred to me to take writing classes, and although I think it would have improved my writing greatly, I’m glad that I didn’t. I’ve had to learn as I go and there’s value in that. My early novels are full of grammar issues that, to this day, I still find and correct, and my style could have used some work. When I began to publish my books, I got more serious about polishing them and making them more professional. I researched novel writing and learned all the dos and don’ts. But here’s the thing, if I had learned all this in the beginning, it would have hampered my creativity. I would have been so wrapped up in the proper way and techniques that I would have lost the love I have for my craft. And I believe it’s that love that comes through my stories and touches my readers. I’ve gained a loyal fan base who forgave all the typos and amateur styling because of the stories. And I think that is the most telling.
That being said, I would tell any aspiring author to brush up on proper grammar. Writing style should be developed in a restriction-free zone, but a poorly written sentence can hinder the reading experience. Get the basics under your belt, brush up on them even if you’re certain you know them. And then be humble and accept help. My readers have been my greatest source of growth and improvement for me. I’ve had English professors email me and suggest that I use a different type of sentence and others who just point out typos. I welcome all of these critiques because it makes my books better. No matter how well you write, you will always have mistakes, even if you send your book to an editor before publishing. People make mistakes. If someone wants to help you for free, you should welcome that and be grateful for it. I say this because many of those readers have expressed joy over my gratitude, saying that other authors have responded negatively to their feedback.
Always be humble because there will always be room for improvement. Pride destroys growth.

Amy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m an author of paranormal, fantasy, and gay romance published both traditionally and through my publishing company. I currently have seven series, four ongoing and three completed, with many standalone novels as well. I sort of stumbled into this career. The Godhunter Series was my first paranormal romance series. I’d written around eight of them just for myself when I finally thought about self-publishing. I published the books on Amazon on a whim and kind of forgot about them. I remember getting 20 sales of my first book and being so thrilled. Then it started getting great reviews and I was even more excited. But I didn’t think I could actually earn enough to support myself until I started offering the first book for free on other sites. I wanted to get the book out there but Amazon doesn’t offer the option of making books free. The most you can do is a promo for a few days. I was speaking to a friend of mine about the books, and she got on me about marketing. I opened my Amazon dashboard to show her that the books weren’t worth marketing, I was just publishing them on a lark. When I opened my sales dashboard, Godhunter had almost eight thousand downloads but they were all free. At first, I was angry. I hadn’t listed the book for free on Amazon so how had that happened? Then I learned about Amazon’s price match guarantee. Someone had reported my book as free on another site, and Amazon had to match that price. Then it hit me. I’d had eight thousand downloads! I had stumbled into a loophole that allowed me to offer Godhunter for free on Amazon, and that free book launched my career.
From Godhunter, I went on to the Twilight Court Series, gathering more and more readers. Then I was invited to a Facebook group called Reverse Harem Readers. I had no idea what reverse harem was and asked the moderator. She said, “You write it. It’s a book genre with one female MC and multiple male love interests.” Once I learned that my books were in a niche genre and started marketing them accordingly, they really took off. It was then that I got a publishing contract with Amazon’s Kindle Press for the first book in my Spellsinger Series, The Last Lullaby.
I’ve continued to explore many genres, including superhero and now, gay romance, and I’m very proud of my prolificness and diversity. I like branching out throughout the general romance genre to dip my toes into several sub-genres and offer my readers a wealth of imaginary worlds.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

There are many things I’ve had to learn along the way that I wish I knew from the beginning. First, cover art. There are so many cover artists available online, many of whom are affordable. And if you’re artistically inclined as I am, you can learn digital art to make your own covers. It took me many years to research digital art for book covers, learning how to use the programs, where to get fonts, how to manipulate fonts, what type of look covers for certain genres should have, etc. If I had researched all of this in the beginning, I would have entered the field in a much stronger position. Then there’s social media, of which I’m an absolute amateur at. I’ve only recently hired a marketing team to look over my online presence and advise me on how to improve it. It’s a lot of work, but it’s necessary for many professionals. If I’d been more savvy about this in the beginning, I’d be further ahead in my career now.
As far as manuscripts go, I didn’t learn till much later that there are editing programs you can use to shine up your book before you send it to an editor. As I’ve said before, even editors make mistakes, and my books would have been ten times better if I’d known about programs like Grammarly in the beginning.
Most importantly, I wish I had spoken to a financial advisor about money. I had no idea what I was doing when I became successful and ended up paying way too much in taxes. It took me two years before I came across information about becoming an S-Corp. My tax accountant didn’t even tell me about it. I had to ask, and that’s when I learned that creating a corporation was not only financially profitable but would also protect me in the off chance that someone tried to sue me. This is the most important piece of advice I can give any aspiring author—look into creating an S-Corp before you publish. Oh, and always submit your novel to the United States Copyright office so that you’re protected in case someone claims you stole their work. All books are technically copyrighted the minute you write them, but you don’t have proof until you file them with the copyright office. It costs around $50 and is worth the peace of mind.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My goals have always been to entertain people but to also inspire and empower them. In my straight novels, I write strong female characters who face a lot of trauma, some face so much that I have to include a trigger warning on my book descriptions. But I love to take a character through adversity and have her emerge triumphant. I want to show women who have been hurt or abused that they don’t have to be victims, they can be heroes, and the best compliments I’ve ever received have been women who suffered violence telling me that my stories got them through their hardship. When I began writing gay romance, my goals shifted slightly. I didn’t think I could write from a male perspective, much less a gay one, but my best friend is gay, and he encouraged me to attempt it. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I loved it. But, even as a straight woman, I’ve been the brunt of anti-gay abuse, and it has opened my eyes to what those in the LGBTQ community go through every day. I thought I knew about the obstacles they faced, but I didn’t. I had no idea. After writing as a gay man, I may not be a member of that community, but I am an even stronger supporter than I was before. It may egotistical of me to try to inspire gay men when I am not one of them, but I don’t see us as different. We are all human. All deserving of respect and love, and I want to highlight that in my work. I want to empower people to be themselves absolutely unapologetically. To claim who they are without shame and love who they want to love openly.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.amysumida.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amy_sumida_author/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1536008099761461/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-sumida-1a4860162/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmySumidaAuthor
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@amy_sumida_author Newsletter: https://www.tiktok.com/@amy_sumida_author Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00BVUWW9K