Olivia Washington on the struggles of self-publishing

Olivia Washington had a dream to publish her first novel. After exhausting many avenues, she decided to self-publish.

Washington shared her inspirations, trials and tribulations about publishing her book, "Jupiter."

"Jupiter" can be purchased through Amazon.com.

Q: Tell me about your book, "Jupiter."

A: "Jupiter" is a fictional sci-fi/adventure that follows the journey of Jupiter, a crimson-eyed young man determined to find his soon-to-be obliterated birthplace, a habitable star, which was sadly kept from him.

Ignoring all life-saving advice, Jupiter quickly leaves Earth to begin a new life on the star, but beginning a new life isn't easy as he assumed. He is faced with secrets, secrets too complex for him to understand, as well as temptations that he never encountered while on Earth.

To make matters worse, his jealous and destructive elder brother, Ganymede, runs closely on his heels, determined to oust Jupiter and anyone else who stands in his way.

Q: Tell me about your struggle to get "Jupiter" published.

A: I had to overcome hundreds of obstacles to get "Jupiter" published. Being unemployed twice in one year, constantly job searching and working feverishly on my manuscript to get it into tip-top shape forced me to push back the date that I wanted to begin the self-publishing process.

Finding a cover artist also took some time, but luckily Nikki Wynne, an artist in the United Kingdom, designed a gorgeous book cover for me. It was hard, but fortunately I managed to reach my goal and proudly published my final work.

Q: What are you currently working on?

A: I'm working on the sequel to "Jupiter," which actually picks up from the end of my first novel. After Jupiter reunites with his daughter, Astraea, he winds up taking her with him to the place where he remained hidden for nearly 20 years.

Q: Who are you three favorite authors and why?

A: My three favorite authors are Maki Murakami, Gary Paulsen, and Jaylee Marie Strawman.

Maki Murakami is a Japanese manga author. I love the personality of her characters and how they react to one another.

As for Gary Paulsen, I haven't read any of his books recently, but I remember reading "Hatchet" in middle and high school and instantly fell in love with it. "Hatchet" was full of suspense and I couldn't stop reading it because I wanted to know whether or not the main character was going to make it out of the wilderness alive.

Jaylee Marie Strawman is a good friend of mine. She's a fellow author who focuses on the mythical and romantic genre, and I've even had the chance to read some of her work. Her characters are full of personality and she describes them perfectly, an image of them instantly pops into my mind!

Q: What advice would you give to local writers?

A: I would say to never give up, especially if writing and publishing your own novel is something that you really want to do. If someone tells you to wait a little while longer and publish your work "some other time," by all means don't.

Do it now if you're able, and once it's done, once you have YOUR book in YOUR hands, the decision that you chose to publish at that time will be worth it.