We caught up with the brilliant and insightful H.K. Green a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

H.K., appreciate you joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

Writing and publishing a book, for me, was a spur of the moment idea. I loved coming up with stories growing up. I wrote in loose leaf notebooks at school and on my mom’s computer, but I never actually finished a book, unless you count the story I wrote on printer paper in 3rd grade.

I’ve also always been a reader. In my childhood, I loved getting lost in pages. You never saw me without a book in hand. When I went to college, I didn’t read as much because I didn’t have the time but once I graduated I started falling back in love with reading.

In the summer of 2022, I started a Bookstagram account where I shared my reviews and thoughts with other book lovers. Flash forward to July 2023, I was texting a friend about the book idea she had while I was running errands with my fiancé. I remember turning to him and saying, “What if I wrote a book?”

We spent the remainder of the day brainstorming ideas. I remember writing down ideas in my notes app at ten o’clock P.M. and realizing that I was really going to do this. I wrote about five thousand words that month, but then took a short break until September when I really decided to commit. I finished my first draft at the end of October.

The next few months were hectic. I spent about six months editing. I took time to self-edit the novel, had two rounds of beta reading feedback, worked with a copyeditor and a proofreader and by June 2024 my book was ready to be sent off to early readers.

Now, in the time that I wasn’t editing, I was marketing on social media. I didn’t publish my debut novel until August 2024, but I began developing a social media presence in December of 2023.

Independent publishing is a lot of work. You’re not only a writer, but you’re an editor, you’re doing marketing, you’re managing your own finances. And the work isn’t done once your book is out in the world. There’s a lot of different hats to wear and it wasn’t until I was knee deep in the process that I realized how amazing indie authors really are.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is H.K. Green and I’m a contemporary romance author based out of Montana. I write raw, emotional stories that will break your heart then piece it back together. My books explore topics of mental health, found families, and emotional angst, all wrapped up with swoon-worthy romance, sharp, witty banter, and happily ever afters.

My debut novel, The Pieces We’ve Lost, came out in August 2024 and is a story about grief, healing, and finding strength for the people you love even when you feel like you’re at your weakest. It follows a woman healing from the loss of her father at a young age in a rodeo accident, and a team roper, who has also been affected by the sport, who learn to heal together and find their way back to the things they once loved.

My second novel, The Chances We Take, just came out and is the second book in my interconnected series, The Road and The Rodeo, and is the follow-up novel to The Chances We Take. It follows the best friends of the main characters in the first book, who, after accidentally friendzoning each other, work together as the best man and maid of honor in a wedding. It’s a slow burning, friends to lovers romance filled with pining, yearning, and romantic tension, but it also explores mental health, taking chances in love, and learning how to let people in.

My ultimate goal with writing and telling stories is to make people feel seen. My books discuss the heavy, real-life topics that we don’t often talk about because if my books help just one person, then I’ll have met my goal.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I decided that I was going to start my author social media from scratch, despite having already built an audience on my other book related account. I wanted my growth to feel authentic and also didn’t want to force people to see content about my book if they didn’t want to.

I debated how early to start my social media account, but an author that I really look up to advised me that it’s never too early to start promoting your work, especially since it takes about seven times seeing a book or product before someone will decide to buy it. So in December of 2023, despite not planning to publish for a long time, I created my account.

Social media is something I absolutely love, so building my account came easily to me. I enjoy making graphics and promo material and I created an entire social media marketing calendar that I still use to this day.

In terms of building an audience, I think it’s so important to be authentic and show your true personality. Sure, your audience is there for your writing and your stories, but they also want to know who the person behind those stories is. My advice to anyone starting to build their social media presence is to be yourself, find your own unique style, and stay consistent.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to unlearn in the writing community is one that I’m still learning. When I first started writing and putting my work out for people to read, for feedback, not even publishing yet, there were a lot of people trying to tell me how to write, or how to publish, or that I HAD to do things a certain way. Take advice with a grain of salt. Yes, there are some extremely helpful people who are giving advice with your best interest at heart, but there are also people out there who aren’t.

Keeping your inner circle small is also something I’ve had to learn over the past year and a half, which has been a hard lesson to learn for someone who is so trusting and a people pleaser. Writing can be really lonely and isolating, but you also have to protect your work, and protect yourself and be careful who you trust, who you surround yourself with, and who you work with. It’s unfortunate that a lot of people have to get burned before they learn their lesson, and I’ve seen it all too often, so just be cautious and careful of who you’re putting your trust in and make sure they have good intentions.

Finally, find the process that works best for you. What may work well for one person may not work well for another. There’s no wrong way to put words on a page and at the end of the day, that’s all you have to do. And then once you have the story, you can figure out your process for editing and publishing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.authorhkgreen.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/authorhkgreen
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/authorhkgreen
• Other: https://tiktok.com/@authorhkgreen