Eileen Farren Books

Just as the title of this post states, 2024 was the best year of my writing career. And I haven’t even published yet.

2025 brings with it a grand promise of what’s to come; My debut will release in the spring, throwing me into the published author sphere. Years of dreaming and hoping and working are finally paying off. So, why do I consider 2024 the best year of my career when I haven’t even sent ARCs out yet?

• I Found Community.

It was around this time last year that I joined a writer’s discord. Now, the full story of my journey in finding community is a long one, but to cut it short, I found myself in a group of incredibly talented, wonderful authors who write in an array of different genres. We’ve shared the hardships of writing and creating, beta’d each others work and gave feedback and just generally have been there for each other. Joining this group is part of the reason I was even able to finish my novel.

I also started a social media presence. On Threads, I’m able to interact with readers and other writers who are also on this journey with me. Writing is often a very lonely hobby. But with social media and apps like Discord, I’m no longer alone at my computer, mulling over my work and wondering if there’s anything more to writing. I’ve found access to a vibrant, diverse, and creative community.

• I Failed at Querying.

Hear me out. Back in August, I began querying literary agents for my debut novel. I told myself, “If you don’t have an agent by December, you need to reevaluate what you want.” I’d read and heard tons of stories online about authors querying for years and shelving books that didn’t sell and quickly decided that wasn’t for me. My agent pool was small- even smaller if you only count agents specifically looking for sapphic fantasy- so I knew that by December, I’d have my answer.

Months passed. Every single agent rejected me.

Truthfully, I was hoping to have one or two requests. But, with the growing reality that my work just wasn’t resonating with agents, I had to look at how traditional publishing made me feel about my writing. Traditional publishing required me to view the worth of my work in dollars. How much money could this story sell for? Would these giant publishing houses see me as trending enough to make a profit?

I didn’t like the feeling those questions gave me. I didn’t like how querying made me feel.

Failing at querying taught me two things: The industry isn’t quite ready for sapphic stories, even as progressive as it’s become. And two, I don’t actually want to traditionally publish.

• I Made Personal Connections.

As a chronic over-achiever, I hated failing. But once I cried about it and actually began working through my emotions, I found it liberating. Finally, I could start turning my work into an official novel instead of the Word document it was. And then came the third reason I consider 2024 the best year of my career so far.

I had already made a connection with my editor, Rachel Bass. After working with her for over a year to turn my 40k word document into a 90k novel, I found my forever editor. Another connection I made in late November was with the artist @marta.intotheforest on Instagram. Marta was truly so wonderful to work with and her incredible and captivating chapter header art has cemented me as a forever customer. I also reached out to my cover artist during this time, Sofía Sanz, who is also an author.

Being able to personally reach out to these incredible women to work on a story so close to my soul has been one of the best parts of the year. And if I hadn’t chosen to self publish, I wouldn’t have been able to build this relationship with any of them.

The main take away here is that 2024 was a year of incredible growth for me. And all this growth and the people I’ve met, the friends I’ve made… I’m so grateful. I’m excited to foster new connections, to hone my writing craft, to interact with other readers and writers and artists.

Here’s to 2025. To the start of my writing career, and to many, many new challenges and milestones ahead.

-Eileen