Self-Publishing Young Adult: Author Spotlight: Z. Jeffries
As more and more writers turn their attention to self-publishing, it’s important to me to shed a spotlight on authors who are already in the space.
New Adult and Adult has been taking off in self-publishing, but there are also authors of Young Adult and younger age groups who are turning away from traditional publishing to publish their own books.
Z. Jeffries is a best-selling author of Break Through to “The End” and has multiple Middle Grade and Young Adult novels published under Z. Jeffries and Zachary Jeffries.
I reached out to Jeffries, who is known on TikTok for hosting lives with romantasy authors and readers, to chat about his path to publication and his career.
“I’ve been writing my whole life,” Jeffries told me. “I remember I did a project in third grade about two alien races and their superheroes. I wrote lots of poetry and a [TV pilot] in high school… I found NaNoWriMo back in 2013 and attempted (and failed) at novels for years. I didn’t finish a novel until 2016. Then I was hooked.”
After finishing his first novel in 2016, it was another four years before he decided to self-publish after researching his options. Like with most of us, he was careful about putting his books out into the world.
“Under a throwaway pen name, I published a novella just to learn the platform,” he told me. “Then from the end of 2020 through Spring 2021, I quick released the Hide & Seek Chronicles, an upper Middle Grade SciFi series under the name Z. Jeffries.”
Jeffries continued to release books, including a Middle Grade book, Pro Wrestling Saves Earth. Under the name Zachary Jeffries, he began publishing urban fantasy and Young Adult paranormal romance.
The Challenge of Writing Young Adult
When asked what drew him to Young Adult, Jeffries told me, “I love the accessibility to emotions that teens possess. To be honest, when adult characters are emotionally vulnerable and open to change, it strikes me as false, naïve, or immature. But teens don’t have layers of jaded feelings and defense mechanisms. Teens can be better in touch with their emotions and willing to change.”
The dynamic changes of teenage emotions and personalities call to a lot of adult readers and writers, leading to a large amount of the YA audience being adults, especially women.
In fact, approximately 51% of Young Adult readers are over the age of 18.
But Young Adult is still aimed at teenagers, and writing for teens comes with its own challenges and requirements.
“For me the most important part [of writing YA] is the biggest struggle: not reinforcing stereotypes that media has ingrained in me. There are so many patriarchal and white supremacist ideals that have been adopted as the norm, especially in the US. I’m constantly challenging expectations, biases, and privilege that I’ve picked up over the years while writing a cast of characters diverse enough to reflect the way the world actually is. I rely a lot on my sensitivity readers, my beta readers, and my editor to double check my stories as I work through these ideas on the page.”
Jeffries’ Alpha and Beta readers, lovingly called Zeta readers, help Jeffries develop his first drafts. If you are interested in becoming a Zeta reader, you can email him at Z@JeffriesBooks.com.
Challenges of Publishing Young Adult
When asked about the most difficult part of self-publishing, especially in Young Adult, Jeffries quickly replied, “Finding the right readers.”
“It’s so difficult approaching marketing without making generalizations or treating demographics like monoliths,” he said.
Thankfully, Jeffries had some advice for indie authors in the same marketing struggle.
“There’s a lot of learning from reviews about how these readers describe the characters and tropes. I use these descriptions as a shorthand in my social media. I also creep on authors writing similar stuff and borrow heavily from their promotional work. It gets easier with time, but finding readers and cultivating a community of readers is the life’s work of an indie writer.”
Advice for Self-Publishing Young Adult
“Take your time and do your research,” Jeffries suggested. “There’s no magic feather that will make your book a more satisfying story or take off in sales. Picking singular advice to follow absolutely will lead you to only learn one way of doing things, and that way may not be a fit for you or your book(s). Have the patience to learn several approaches to each step and make decisions based on how you work and what’s right for your book. Learn and collect tools so that as you write, query, or market, you can choose the right tool for the job.”
If you have looked into self-publishing, you’ve no doubt found various people and companies offering different services and advice on marketing.
Like Jeffries has said, however, it’s not a one-size-fits-all. Not everyone wants to show their face on TikTok, and Instagram isn’t as lucrative for some as it is for others.
It is important to find not only what type of media works for you, but what strategies work for you.
Z. Jeffries hosts a TikTok live on Monday Nights called Romantasy Reads and can be found as @JeffriesBooks on all social media. You can find signed copies of his books on JeffriesBooks.com, where you can sign up to read free stories through his newsletter.
Pick Up Zachary Jeffries’ Latest Book!
This Grim Reaper just met his Fate.
High school sophomore MaKayla Colfax was perfectly happy with her life until she inherited a mysterious pair of scissors. They don’t cut, but when holding them, MaKayla begins seeing things like lines between people, connections. With the scissors, she uncovers the ancient power of her lineage of Greek Fates.
If Grim Reaper-in-training Cain Morrigan messes up one more soul harvest, he’ll remain a disgusting human for the rest of his existence. But his new target has supernatural connections tying it to Earth. Now Cain’s only hope is to find some force powerful enough to cut these ties.
Can MaKayla embrace her destiny fast enough to preserve the balance of life and death? Can Cain tolerate a human long enough to make MaKayla into the Fate he needs? And for the love of gods, can the two of them work together for one minute without fighting?
A Young Adult Urban Fantasy with Sweet Paranormal Romance and Greek Mythology reimagining.