About Me

♡ Author & Book Nerd ★ YouTube Vlogger ★ Budding Fitness Bunny ★ Movie Lover ★ Big Dreamer ♡

Lindsay Mead lives in Michigan’s lower peninsula with her small dog, Suzie Q. When she isn’t writing, Lindsay is replying to comments on YouTube. There, she uploads videos about her everyday life and hosts a weekly live stream to talk about bookish stuff with readers. 

Get more from Lindsay on:
-YouTube: Book video every Wednesday!
-YouTube: Watch her vlog!
-Books: Follow her on Amazon!

Bio: Becoming An Author 
I published my first book on June 22nd, 2015. Titled The Beast, it is a fairy tale retelling of Beauty and The Beast. The book was received well, reaching 1,000 readers by the end of August. On October 7th, 2015, I was able to quit my part-time job in favor of being a full-time author. 

But that was the start of my career, not how I became an author. Becoming an author took most of my young life and a whole lot of soul searching...

I am an avid book reader and have been so since a very young age. It first started with Dick and Jane, then it became All American Girls (Felicity was my fave). That turned into Thoroughbred books and then I was introduced to the The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe-- My life was never the same.  Many years went by after that where I read any fantasy book that I could get my hands on, which wasn't much. Living out in the country, trips to the bookstore were rare. I remember reading Tamora Pierce books as slow as possible just to make them last longer-- that was not always easy. 

Somewhere around the seventh or eighth grade I wasn't happy with the way a book had ended and decided to do it my way. Next came nearly two decades of pursuing the creation of my first novel. I know this may seem like a long time to some people, but not all of us have the luxury of writing a novel in three months. Nope, I had a lot to do first. I had to feel the loss of death, the glory of love and along with that the pain of heartache. I had to see things, do things, learn things, and as I grew-- so did my characters. Now I have more ideas than I can handle and I'm pushing to get them out there.

But again, I'm getting ahead of myself. Even though I decided to write a book, it took a long time for me to realize that I wanted to write for a living. Writing the book was just something that I wanted to do. I had a story to tell! But I never considered it to be a viable career option. 

I hopped around from job to job once I was out of highschool and spent much of my early twenties trying to find a career path that made me happy. The writing was something I did on the side. It wasn't until I read Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer that I finally figured out that I was supposed to be an author. I was honestly amazed that I hadn't made the connection sooner.

So I shifted my focus and made finishing my book a priority. At the time I was writing a book that I called, Exaulta. It was a great, high-fantasy young adult story that I loved. It was that story that I first started writing back in the seventh grade. Yeah, I'd been working on it for that long. Eventually, I reached a point where I felt I was ready to really take the publishing bull by the horns. So I launched my first crowdfunding campaign on kickstarter. In all honesty, it did pretty well. Somewhere around $500 was donated to help me finish Exaulta. But it wasn't enough to reach my goal, so the money was never collected.

(Side Note: Looking back on Exaulta's crowdfunding campaign, I can completely see why it was never funded. For one, I set my funding goal way too high. Two: if someone wanted to fund my campaign and get Exaulta, they had to donate at least $100! I understand what I was going for with my campaign setup, but my process was flawed. This tells me that, even though I probably could have gotten the funding had I set it up better, I was absolutely not ready to publish. I had so much learning that I still had to do.)

Not reaching my funding goal had the effect of making me rethink my writing choices. I can't really say why exactly, but it made me realize that I needed a break from the fantasy book. I loved it, but I was too close to it. For crying out loud, I'd been writing it for over a decade. Though I still wanted to finish and publish Exaulta someday, I decided that it was time to move onto something new.

At the time fairy tale retellings were huge and I'd had the idea for The Beast for awhile. Even though one should never write to trends, I decided that The Beast was where my focus should be. With a renewed purpose and a clear view of what I wanted in life, I surged forward and finished the book in just two years. Again, two years may seem like a long time but compare that to the decade I'd given to Exaulta-- yeah...

When The Beast was close to being finished, I launched a new crowdfunding campaign. This time on Indiegogo. The campaign was a success, reaching $745 to pay for publishing costs. That was 34% more than what I had originally asked for.

But I still had a lot to learn about writing. Thankfully, because of YouTube and social media, I'd made some good friends who were willing to look at my book and help me make it into a cohesive story. Rewriting and edits spanned almost another year before I was finally ready to publish. 

And so, I became a published author.

Bio: My YouTube Experience
I first stumbled upon youtube in 2007. I remember specifically that I was bored because I typed "bored" into the search bar. That's how I found a video by Charlieissocoollike. I was hooked. From there I found Philip Defranco, Michael Buckley, TheVlogBrothers, and other greats. 

It wasn't long before I had my own camera (a $20 POS bought on ebay). It had to be the worst camera ever made. It makes me wonder why anyone would choose to create such a product. I started posting videos on my own channel; videos that were greatly hindered by the camera's lacking abilities. I still somehow managed to amass a small following, but I had no purpose and every channel needs a purpose.

The majority of my YouTube years were spent trying to figure out who I wanted to be on YouTube. My videos ranged from spiritual, to editorial, to short and quirky. For a time I made book videos and classified myself as a "BookTuber". I gained a rather large sized audience with those videos. However, after about a year, I started to lose interest in the topic. I loved books, but they were still only one part of my life. 

When people ask me for advice on starting a YouTube channel, I always say to love what you're talking about. If you do not love your videos, than you won't keep making them when nobody's watching. Apparently, this holds true for even when you have people watching. Making videos had become a chore for me. I loved YouTube, but I wasn't loving my channel at that time.

Looking back now, I can see that my whole life was going through an overhaul. Things just weren't going my way. I was struggling. Since I wasn't happy with making booktube videos anymore, I decided to return to the original channel that I started on YouTube. My plan was to use it as a motivational tool for myself.

And thus began my daily vlog. I started documenting my daily life; writing, dieting, depression, happiness, makeup done and not done-- all of it. It wasn't long before I started to realize that I should have started vlogging years ago. When a person finds the right spiritual path for them, they often describe it as a feeling of "coming home". That's how making a daily vlog has felt for me. My audience is about 70%  smaller on my vlog channel than on my booktube channel, but I'd still rather keep posting videos about my life. 

They are more personal to me. I'm sharing more of myself and I'm getting more from my audience in return. My viewers are there for my ups and downs. They cheered me on when I was working to publish my first book and they were inspired when I was finally able to quit my day job. But when I've failed to stick to diets, they've given me support and encouragement. I know for a fact that I wouldn't be where I'm at today without my viewers and this daily vlog. I can also say with a certainty that even if nobody ever watched another vlog...

...I'd still keep making them :)  -Lindsay Mead
            

My Suzie Q.