Noticing Newbies

Hello! I'm Alesa Corrin, an aspiring YA fantasy author!

I put lots of details about myself in my bio, so instead of listing a bunch of things here, I'll just tell you a bit about my lifelong dream! It's one I'm sure that I share with many on this site...I dearly want to become a published author!

At one time, I thought vanity publishing was the way to go...unfortunately I was young and inexperienced and it turned out to be a giant flop and one of my biggest regrets :(
Then, I thought that maybe I needed an agent to be a successful author! I thought of days long past when the greats were having their books published: CS Lewis, who published his successful Narnia series even despite scorn from his colleagues that he was an adult writing "silly" kid books. Or Mark Twain, whose fans were so devoted that they would jump in the river and swim to the boats delivering the latest installments of his stories because they were too impatient to wait until it docked.... But either my writing is actually terrible and unmarketable or many agents are no longer interested in a good story and are instead just thinking about paychecks and politics :(
So now, though I'm still querying agents when I can, I'm starting to focus on self-publishing. My plan is to develop an excellent marketing strategy, create a beautiful, eye-catching cover, and then put my books into as many hands as I can.

Frankly, I don't care about the money. I have a job as a teacher for that (though I wouldn't complain about a second source of income! :D) What I want above all else, is to amass an audience of folks who just want to discover themselves in the land of adventure, whimsy, and wonder that I've created. I want their consciousnesses to merge with mine as they read so that their imaginations are adding to mine and together we're building a place where we can truly discover who we are, just like the characters in my novels do!

I've already had my work edited, but what I would really love at this point is advice about my future pursuing authorship--and people willing to read the first six or seven chapters of my book as Beta Readers! I want to make sure my novels "click" with my target audience :P

Nice meeting you all--I'm looking forward to getting to know you better!