After I lost my job, I turned my self-publishing side hustle into a full-time career. Now I'm a bestselling romance author.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Meghan Quinn, the bestselling author of romance novels like “A Not So Meet Cute.” The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I didn’t think becoming an author would be my end-all, be-all career.

I worked for Special Olympics for four and a half years and then for a national governing body in Colorado Springs. While working at Special Olympics, I read a lot because my commute was about an hour and 20 minutes, and I started coming up with different book ideas.

I decided I was just going to write one and see what happened. I wrote my first book and thought it was the greatest literary masterpiece that’s ever been written. No agent agreed with me.

After my queries were rejected, I didn’t really know where to go from there. Then my mom suggested self-publishing, and I thought it was a great way to see if I could make something of myself.

I self-published a romance e-book on Amazon in 2013 to see if it was worth my time. The next day, I had three sales. My first check from Amazon was about $128.

I started making real money from my books around 2015. When my wife and I bought a house, I was able to put down $7,000 of my own money from book sales. I had never been so proud.

Eventually, I had to become a full-time author

For a while, writing was a side thing. Then, when my wife and I were looking to adopt our son, the company I worked for at the time asked for my baby plan. I gave it to them and went on Christmas break. I came back in January 2016, and they fired me.

My wife had just gotten a new job, and someone had to stay home with the baby, so I said, “Well, I guess I’ll give writing some time to see if I can make it what it needs to be.”

We were matched with our son 11 days later, and he was born in May. I used that time to get ready for him and figure out a writing schedule that could turn into a full-time career.

I was at rock bottom when I was fired, but now I realize it was a new foundation to build something so much better than what I was doing.

The first book I wrote that hit No. 1 on Amazon was “A Not So Meet Cute” in 2021. It took a while — I slowly built a base and worked through trial and error. The first time I hit The New York Times bestseller list was with “How My Neighbor Stole Christmas” in 2024, and that one blew me out of the water. I never thought it would be possible. Now I’m trying to hit that No. 1 spot.

I went from self-publishing to a hybrid model

Self-publishing sometimes gets a bad reputation, but I truly believe it has given us some of the best romance books.

Now, I’m a hybrid author. I keep my e-book and audio rights and work with Bloom, a romance imprint under the larger publisher Sourcebooks, on paperback editions.

I first worked with Montlake Publishing, an Amazon imprint, in 2018. They leveled me up by helping with edits and teaching me about how books are traditionally published. What I really wanted, though, was my books in stores, and it wasn’t something they could offer at the time.

When “A Not So Meet Cute” became a huge seller, I talked to my agent about getting it into bookstores. That’s when we approached Bloom, and they said, “Absolutely, let’s make this happen.” They’ve helped expand my readership in a way I never could have on my own. It’s given me the opportunity to show the traditional publishing world what I have to offer.

Self-publishing takes a lot of hustle, but once you get the hang of it, it gets easier.

When my son was first born, I would have 20 minutes before he woke from a nap or needed something. So I started writing in 20-minute sprints to see how much I could get done. I slowly built up the ability to switch my brain, get right back into the story, and write what I needed to write. Now, in 20 minutes, I can write about 1,000 words, and I can do 5,000 words if I spend the morning doing sprints.

I want my work to bring people joy

In high school, my parents would take me to Blockbuster every Friday. I always gravitated toward rom-coms and musicals. I loved the story of two people meeting and falling in love, so romance was an easy genre for me to fall into.

I get messages from readers who say my books helped them through hard times, and writing them does the same for me. My mom has cancerand I wrote “Rules for the Summer,” my book coming out on May 5, while she was going through her first treatments in Houston. It was a really hard time.

I remember opening my computer and thinking, “I have to write 5,000 words today. I have to do it.” It was an escape. If it weren’t for self-publishing, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get through that moment in general.

All I want to do is bring people joy. Readers can come to me and be like, “Oh my gosh, my son’s in the hospital,” or “I just had the worst day at work,” or “I just got broken up with,” and then they can find an escape in my books.