Meet A.g. Howard

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to A.g. Howard. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

A.G. , so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

Throughout my childhood, my family bounced around the U.S. as dictated by my fatherʼs Air Force career, making it difficult to forge lasting friendships. I filled the void with books and a vivid imagination. Having these as my constant companions inspired a thirst for storytelling. My earliest attempts were tales about little girls and talking horses. Later, in my adolescent years, I flexed my creative muscles with oral storytelling, inventing adventures for the kids with whom I babysat. I cobbled together a homemade felt board and used pictures cut from magazines (putting Velcro on the back so they’d stick—I was crafty, too!) to illustrate my stories.

While attending high school, I lost sight of storytelling—too busy hanging out with friends, studying, and considering options for a future career. I didn’t rediscover that passion until 2004, when as a wife and mother of two small children, I lost my precious grandfather to brain cancer. On the eve of his death, I wrote a poem in tribute to his special relationship with his grandkids. I emailed the poem to my cousins, who upon reading it, requested it be used as part of the eulogy.

After the funeral, people sought me out—some of whom I’d never met—saying they remembered the same things about the incredible man he was while sharing memories of their own. As we bonded over those emotional touchstones, I realized the true power of stories, how they can connect people on an intimate level—even if they’re complete strangers. That discovery breathed new life into an ember I’d unintentionally stifled, and the flame rekindled. It was then I decided I wanted to be a professional author. Over the next few years, I read books on the writing craft and wrote hundreds of poems which led to short stories, and then finally novels. Ever since that turning point, I’ve held my grandfather up as my purest inspiration, because the end of his journey was to be the beginning of mine.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

Officially, I’m a hybrid author, meaning I have books both traditionally published (sold and marketed by recognizable, reputable publishing houses) and indie published (sold and marketed by myself). Yet, when I first began, my sights centered solely on traditional. Back then, almost twenty years ago, self-publishing was considered amateurish and I wanted to build my career the “legitimate” way. Today—with the emergence of eBooks—indie authors can utilize freelance editors, cover artists, and formatting services along with a plethora of self-publishing and online marketing tools, to be just as successful and polished as those who publish with traditional houses.

However, in the early 2000’s, the road to traditional publishing held an air of illustriousness as it required a literary agent’s faith and support to even get your manuscripts read by publishers. In my case, this path was to be a long and circuitous one. It took me four books, hundreds of rejections, and four years to land my first agent, as I fancied myself a romance writer so I tried to query my work accordingly; but after writing two more books that my agent turned down for being too fantastical, I realized I wasn’t writing romance at all. Although my stories had strong romantic elements, they leaned too heavily on world building and never followed the expected romance formula—not even when I tried to structure them as such. Instead, my voice blurs the lines between commercial and literary with genres spanning from urban and gothic to high fantasy. This self-realization led me to write my seventh manuscript: book one in my Splintered Series—a young adult Alice in Wonderland inspired trilogy which ultimately severed my contract with agent one after only two-and-a-half years together (having never sold a book), because we couldn’t see eye-to-eye on the high fantasy aspects of my Wonderland.

I’ll skip over the tears and self-doubt that shook me to the core after this breakup. I was terrified to put myself back out there, but I did, and a few months later I signed with agent number two for Splintered. After receiving twenty-four passes from publishers, we went to auction between two houses. I’m so glad we hung in there, because the Splintered Series launched the traditional side of my career (I now have a total of eight young adult novels under my belt) and went on to hit best-selling lists both nationally and internationally. Who would’ve thought, after all those rejections, the series would be published in over twelve languages?

Looking back, I’m grateful for every challenge I faced, as they shaped me into the professional writer I am today. All that waiting and hoping—while trying to find agents and later a publisher—gave me time to hone my craft. I read novels in the genres I wanted to write; studied books on worldbuilding, plotting, and characterization; joined critique groups to get peer reads; and despite receiving rejection after rejection, continued to pen multiple manuscripts upon which I enacted edits and revisions, incorporating each new skill I learned while refining my own unique voice. This discovery period taught me how to turn out very polished first drafts and prepared me for the multiple editing phases every book goes through before hitting the shelves. It also gave me a thicker skin and a renewed faith in myself and my ability—something every author needs in order to survive the harsh critiques their work will occasionally receive once published.

As a bonus, all that time writing and revising resulted in two nearly-complete adult book series(es); and with the help of my first traditional publisher’s brilliant marketing of the Splintered Series, I had built up a fan-ship who eagerly supported my forage into self-publishing in 2016 with book one of my Haunted Hearts Legacy (a romantic paranormal four-book series set in Victorian England). I’ve since launched two more sequels, along with a standalone vampire fantasy. And now, at a time when traditional publishing no longer holds the same cachet for me as it once did, I’ve flipped the coin on my pilgrimage and am concentrating solely on the indie-side of publishing.

My trajected goal is to put out two books in 2025 (both from my as-of-yet untitled witchcraft romantasy series) with subsequent installments publishing every few months, allowing me time to write and publish book four of the Haunted Hearts Legacy by late 2026. I’m also planning to expand into proofreading and editing this year, in hopes to help other aspiring authors—be they indie, traditional, or a little of both—forge their own path through the ever-changing landscape of publishing.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

The triad most impactful on my journey was talent, tenacity, and timing, which I believe is true for most traditionally published authors. Out of those three qualities, only two are actually within your power to develop and improve upon.

Talent can be refined via attending creative classes, networking at book and writing conferences, avid reading (including novels and books on the craft of fiction) and practicing what you learn, completing projects, then joining critique groups to gauge your grasp of storytelling from the perspective of both a reader and a writer.

Tenacity can be fostered by finishing every poem, short story, or novel you begin. To reach “the end” gives you a sense of empowerment and accomplishment that feeds your faith in your ability to push through even when the going gets rough. This in turn builds up your confidence, which you will need to survive the rejections, criticisms, and other challenges that pop up along the way and cause some early writers to stumble or even wither in defeat.

Timing, however, is what some might call luck, but in reality is demand defined by the latest cultural craze. In other words, whatever new reads have booktok lit-up (be it dystopian fantasy, fairytale retellings, sci-fi, romance, etc.…), or whichever subject has captivated everyone’s attention via television and movies (vampires, witches, zombies, fairies, etc.…) will dictate what publishers are buying. However similar your manuscript reads and feels to those trends-of-the-moment will determine your level of interest from an agent and/or publisher, the advance you receive, as well as the marketing and promotion put toward your books.

You can attempt to improve on your timing by writing to trend, but there are two possible trip-ups. First, it takes a fair amount of time to complete a manuscript and since whims change with the tides, your moment could be over before you’re ready to seek representation. The second possibility is the market will be deluged with other aspiring writers putting out books of the same subject and genre in hopes to catch that wave.

Those early adult books I wrote, being a combination of romance and fantasy that hadn’t yet risen in popularity, couldn’t find a champion. My Splintered Series (although I hadn’t planned it that way) came out around the time retellings were on the rise, so it had a better chance of being picked up. Yet I still garnered a lot of passes from publishers *because* of the fact that there were so many retellings being submitted at the time and my voice was different enough from everyone else’s to give publishers pause.

In my experience, the closest you can come to improving on timing (while keeping your sanity and passion intact) is to write what you love—the story you would want to read—and write more manuscripts while you query that first attempt. Then continue this process until you reach success. Even if you can’t get one book picked up immediately, it’s probable another will have enough likenesses on trend to make the cut. At some point, the tides will turn, and those earlier books will finally be in demand, like my adult series now riding the wave of romantasy.

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?

Currently, I’m adrift on the same inclement sea many traditionally published authors have had to navigate before me: the need to rebrand due to inadequate and inferior marketing. When you sign with a publisher, it’s a result of an editor passionate enough about your story to go to bat for it through all stages of acquisition: inhouse reads, publicity discussions, and sales and marketing projections. The same acquiring editor also advocates, once the book is bought, to ensure it receives all proposed marketing strategies which in turn helps pay the author’s advance so both the publisher and author can begin to garner royalties. This is a boon for all involved, and is when the machine of traditional publishing works.

However, sometimes the machine breaks down. If the acquiring editor leaves the house post contract but prepublication, the author is in the unfortunate position of having an orphaned book. Hopefully someone in-house still loves the title enough to advocate for all the promotional and publicity steps agreed upon to secure attention from early readers, book buyers, trade reviewers, submission boxes, and book cons. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen since other editors have their own book babies to fight for. Often, orphaned books get left out in the cold, being tossed to the wind to see if they can catch a gust of happenstance that will carry them to success. This was my experience, but instead of drifting delicately on a breeze, my two latest titles crashed and burned.

For me, this has shed light on one of the biggest flaws in traditional publishing: the author’s reputation aka “brand” is—in many ways—outside of their control. Regardless if you write the best book you possibly can, uphold your end through the editing phases, and even let your fan-ship know about an upcoming title, if your publisher doesn’t promote you with the same vigor and enthusiasm by utilizing their professional networking channels, your sales will plummet. This in turn taints your personal brand, since future potential publishers mainly look at the author’s low sales numbers without considering what caused the deficit or even taking into account the author’s prior high sales numbers. So, with just one failing, an author who has put their heart and soul into churning out successful books for years can lose their momentum and be forced to start over from square one.

Although I’m disillusioned and saddened by this deviation in my career trajectory, I haven’t given up on traditional publishing forever. I’ve seen for myself how a good house can move mountains for an author when everyone is on the same page, promoting and strategizing as a team. So, I’m hopeful one day their vetting methods will improve, and publishers take into account all factors leading to a book’s numbers being low, so authors won’t be judged by actions (or inactions) outside of their control.

Until then, I plan to revitalize my brand via indie publishing, taking advantage of the aforementioned tools that are now available to authors venturing out on their own. As for marketing, since I can’t seem to get the hang of Instagram’s algorithm, I’ll return to what worked for me in the beginning: my love of blogging and chatting with readers and writers via comments. This year I’m going to resume a similar format, offering a free interactive newsletter on either Substack or Patreon.

Yes, it may take some time to navigate these choppy waters and make a secure landing elsewhere, but I’ve beat the odds before and am up for the fight. I was born to be a storyteller, and I’ll never give up on that dream. So, in the words of Jack Sparrow, everyone’s favorite Disney pirate: “Bring me that horizon.”

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