Happy Friday dolls!

The week was long and stressful but it’s finally time to wind down and prepare for the eventful weekend ahead of me ?. In today’s post I’m going to be sharing some exciting news with you all. If you follow me on Instagram then you already know this… On June 28th I published my first ever poetry collection; Soul Food: Words For The Soul.

Okayyy let me start from the beginning. So late 2016 early 2017 I started a poetry series on Wattpad entitled “Dear Black Girl”. It was a collection of poetries about my experiences and observations as a black girl existing in white America. I was documenting my journey through my art; poetry and thought nothing of it. Soon my little book went viral and everyone kept telling me how much they loved it and that I should continue the series. I took a break for like three months and continued the series with some of my old work and incorporated some of my love poems. By 2018 I realized the book could be a solid collection so I set out to publish it. 

I had no idea publishing books cost soooo much money ?. So here I am going to school full time broke as hell and up to my eyebrows in student loan debt. Just imagine. So in January of 2019 I finally decided to give up on the whole publication process, it was too much work, stress,money and definitely not worth me sweating under my wig. I can not come and kill myself before I have started livin’ mtcheeew.

So I focused on publishing as a ebook and my plan was to make it exclusively available through SimplyJaelicious.com. Because you must use what you have ??‍♀️?. So I created the format and everything but before I could complete the ebook I cried like the baby I am. For a good solid three months I use to call my best friend and cry my eyes out. I kept thinking “my life is literally falling apart and  here I am trying to write this childish ass book that nobody is going to read! And on top of that I have not found a single publisher that wants to publish my book it must be garbage.” Out of anxiety I created three versions of my book and sent them to all of my friends. Their jobs were to read them, edit them and if possible add to them or pick their favorite. Simple.

Fast forward to April 2019. I was in my room wallowing in self pity and listening to one of my favorite podcasts: Bobo And Flex. I don’t exactly remember which episode it was but basically Aunty Bobo told me to get my shit together and stop waiting for the perfect time. She said and I quote “ We are all dying and everyday we’re not worried about our mortality.” I don’t know why that struck a cord for me but it was a wake up call. I realized that the only reason why I haven’t published my book was because I was afraid. And then I asked myself “what if today was your last day alive, would you like the life that you have lived?” I had a hard time answering so I knew that I was doing something wrong. I hopped on my laptop and started sending out emails about Minnesota Fashion Week  ( because I’ve secretly always wanted to go but been too scared) I googled how to publish your book on a budget and fell into the rabbit hole. I was on my laptop for almost five hours looking for resources until I finally gave up and went to sleep. The next day I continued my hunt for hours until I came across this site that directed me to Amazon.

I thought: Excuse me…Hanmazon?!? Can you just imagine? Hanmazon?!? A whole me at this my big age is going to pay Hanmazon to publish my book?!? Who gave me the clown juice? WHO? 

After explaining my fears to my best friend I decided to give Amazon a go. Mind you I was skeptical about the whole thing because I had my doubts about amazon and how they’ve duped me in the past (that’s a whole story time I’ll get to one day) I took three days and read through my KDP terms and whatever nonsense that small print was. So from there I strategized a game plan. I created the format for kindle and setup preorder and created the format for paperback and found a date to publish it.  So now I needed a cover. Me being the artistly challenged person I am tried to draw my own but it didn’t end well… we knew that was gonna happen ??‍♀️. I direct messaged every artist I knew on Instagram but their rates were too high. How can you tell me to pay you 600 dollars when  I’m managing 50 dollars a week? Please, are you mad? Who is sponsoring the emptiness of your head?

So as usual I started crying again only this time I didn’t cry quietly, In fact I called my friends and cried so they can cry with me, because it made no sense that fine geh like me was so broke. A week later my friend sent me a screenshot of her messages with this artist she direct messaged on Instagram. Her rates were exactly what I could work with and she even offered to get it done before the due date! I was over the moon. I sent her my draft design and then we got started. 

Fast forward to June 23rd, everything was in place! I got the proof copy of my book and the kindle version was available. After I launched on 28th I got my first order! 

Somebody plissss pass me the mimosas! Mama’s gonna be rich! 

So if you’re still reading up to this point, thank you and now is the time to buy my book. Don’t look away o, I’m taking to you! It’s available on Amazon and it’s only 13$. Buy it please. I will send you a cute picture of me ( no I won’t!) so you can get the full experience.

Soul Food is a collection of poems about love, life, self discovery and moving on. Soul Food is your personal therapist for less. 

Kindle version: https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Food-Words-Jael-Perkins-ebook/dp/B07S6ZJWLZ/ref=nodl_

Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1097523101/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

That’s all for now until next time stay fabulous!
Peace, love and happy shopping

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