We were lucky to catch up with Cara Blaine recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Cara thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One deeply underappreciated facet of being an entrepreneur or creative is the kind of crazy stuff that happens from time to time. It could be anything from a disgruntled client attacking an employee or waking up to find out a celebrity gave you a shoutout on TikTok – the sudden, unexpected hits (both positive and negative) make the profession both exhilarating and exhausting. Can you share one of your craziest stories?

One day in the late spring of 2024, I received an email from a Barnes & Noble employee in a different state. Her name is Brenna. She told me a friend of hers had gifted her my book, Luxe in Between, which is book one Luxe’s Lullaby Trilogy. Brenna loved the book so much, she wanted to build an end cap at her store for the series and run a B&N book club event for Luxe in Between, and she was asking for my permission.

Of course, I said yes, but she was a stranger and I wasn’t sure if she would follow through or what might come of it. I replied and thanked her, gave her permission, and didn’t think about it again until she contacted me awhile later to ask if she could use the character art I had commissioned. I still didn’t think it would be a big deal.

Then, I started seeing the orders coming in through Ingram Spark, and eventually she sent me a photo of the end cap. She did a SPECTACULAR job, it looked amazing. She included the character art and character bios, and also credited the artists like I requested. Then she got to work selling my books and getting folks to sign up for the book club.

She ended up selling hundreds of copies and 50+ people signed up for the book club. The end cap display was great for visibility and I got a lot more orders than usual through Amazon and my website as well that summer. My favorite part, though, was joining the book club event via Zoom in early August and getting to chat with the readers who attended. The entire experience banished any imposter syndrome I had about calling myself an author, and I will always be so grateful to Brenna (and Belle, who gave her my book!) for believing in me and my novels.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’ve been a writer ever since I can remember. I started writing stories in the second grade. I studied creative writing alongside psychology for my BA and won a couple of awards for my poetry during college. However, I always considered myself a poet and occasional short story writer; I never thought I’d write a novel.

I didn’t write much for the first decade of being a mom. With two young children who I ended up homeschooling for years, writing wasn’t a priority. In 2018, I got back to my passion by taking a poetry workshop. And in 2022, I wrote my debut novel.

One of my motivations was that during the first couple of years of the COVID pandemic, I read a LOT. I’ve always been a bookworm, but it was a lot even for me. And of course, I didn’t like every book I read. A little voice in the back of my mind said, “If you’re not finding what you want to read, then you should write it.”

I turned 40 in May 2022 and had my own little version of a midlife crisis. Forty years on earth, and what had I accomplished? (Sure, I had a degree and was the full time caretaker for two kids… in my mind, that wasn’t enough. I have ridiculously high expectations of myself.) So that feeling was bouncing around my head and then I saw a title of a show one day that gave me a story idea. In August 2022, I drafted my debut novel, a YA fantasy story. After a lot of research, I decided to go the self publishing route. I’ve now written a total of nine novels, two novellas, and I’ve released one small collection of poetry.

Being an indie author is a grind. It’s a lot of work and some aspects can be very frustrating. But I’ve found what I want to do for the rest of my life–I can’t imagine ever stopping.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

It’s easy to feel invisible as an indie author. It can be incredibly difficult to get your books in front of new readers. For me, the most effective strategy to building this small business has been to build community. I have connected with so many amazing authors and readers via social media and at in-person events. As an introvert, it hasn’t necessarily been easy, but it’s been worth it.

The key is that your interactions can’t always be about selling your product. It’s about connection. If you’re not engaged, if you don’t care about your audience, why should they care about you or your product? Once you’ve built this core community, word of mouth comes into play and can make a huge difference for small businesses.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I think what many don’t understand is the amount of courage it takes to put your art out into the world for pubic consumption. It is *terrifying* for almost every artist I know. This book, or song, whatever it is–it’s a piece of ourselves, and we put so much blood, sweat, and tears into it. And we know not everyone will like it. Inevitably, some people will think it’s trash, and tell you so in no uncertain terms. Everyone has a right to their own opinion, of course, and art is subjective. But I think a lot of people who aren’t creating and sharing art have no idea how scary and vulnerable it can feel to share your work. It’s something to keep in mind every time to pick up a book or listen to a song or study a painting. You might not like that piece of art, but hopefully you can respect the effort and courage it took for the artist to share it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://cblaine.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carablaine.author/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carablaine.author
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@carablaine
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@carablaine
  https://linktr.ee/carablaine

Image Credits

The Luxe’s Lullaby Trilogy character art was drawn by Kaytalin Platt. All book covers and other graphics designed by the author.