Writers get inspiration from a variety of sources: their personal lives, the news, movies, television shows, or even writing prompts.
Sophie Riley got hers from a 2014 Tumblr post.
“I had saved that [post] so long ago and just put it in my brain,” Riley said. “I just got this idea for a book about the end of the world, but where a mother and a daughter are still going to have their mother-daughter issues and where a teenage girl is just still going to be a teenage girl. She’s not gonna be, you know, kicking butt and taking names. She’s just a teenager.”
Thus, It’s Not the End of the World was born. Riley self-published the illustrated young adult novel—her debut—on May 7 through Amazon and IngramSpark, an online self-publishing company. The print, e-book, and full-color editions are available for purchase through retailers like Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, and Books-A-Million.
The character at the forefront of the novel is fourteen-year-old Layla, a girl whose biggest worries are getting her braces off, making comics with her best friend, and seeing her older brother, Preston, return from a wilderness therapy camp. When a mysterious virus spreads across the country like wildfire, Layla and her anxious, untrusting mother must get to Preston before it’s too late.
While It’s Not the End of the World showcases characters navigating sudden societal collapse, the relationship between Layla and her mom is at the core.
“I love stories that have high stakes or really compelling plots, but I always have some relationship at the center, and it’s typically some kind of family relationship that is maybe a little dysfunctional, but also compelling,” Riley said. “[This book] really gets into this intimate family conflict, even though it’s a broader zombie story. I just love to look at a story through the lens of some kind of messy but enduring relationship.”
Riley has affirmed that the narrative conflict is not based on her relationship with her own mother; rather, she wanted to showcase the complexities and imperfections that encompass what, for many women and girls, is the most important connection in their lives.
“I told my mom that before she read it, too. I was like, ‘This is not you,’ but … I was a teenage girl with a mom, you know?” Riley said. “There’s a lot there that I could pull from—just the idea of really loving and needing your mom, but still butting heads sometimes or still disagreeing with some of her choices because she’s a human. And so, going into this book, I really wanted to show that this mom is very human, and so is this daughter.”
It had been years since Riley first saw the Tumblr post, but a trip with her sister out West in 2024 gave her the perfect backdrop for the story she had been forming in her mind. The writing process began that fall, which included doing a brain dump, outlining and drafting multiple times, applying feedback from beta readers, and lots of self-editing.
“I did all the heavy developmental editing on my own,” Riley said. “And then when I decided I wanted to publish, I had a couple of friends just do some line edits—so just working on the line level and kind of rewording a few things where [it was] needed. But, yeah, most of the big stuff I did on my own.”
The technical logistics of self-publishing didn’t come with a guidebook, but Riley completed those steps herself as well. She formatted the book using software called Vellum, and as a freelance illustrator, she drew the book’s cover and the pictures at the beginning of every chapter.
“I draw digitally through Procreate, which is an app on my iPad, and … I was really committed to this idea of having a fully illustrated YA book,” Riley said. “It’s been fun to put my ideas on paper in a different way and help people kind of visualize the way I see things.”
One of the best parts of the publishing process was the encouragement Riley had from her friends and fellow writers. As the co-founder of NovelBound, a writing community that offers retreats, events, and resources to writers around the world, she recommends that all writers have a support system.
“Having people beside you who can give you advice and share wisdom is so important, but also just having people who can celebrate you and cheer you on as you’re doing this really cool thing,” Riley said. “I think self-publishing can feel very isolating … so I think seeking out relationships within the writing world is very important, and it’s been invaluable to me.”
Riley may just now be publishing her debut, but she’s an experienced writer with nine books written so far and is currently working on her tenth. Despite understanding her love for writing since the age of five, it wasn’t until college that she leaned into her creativity, declaring a creative writing major during her sophomore year.
Now, with a B.A. in creative writing and art & design from Asbury University as well as a certificate from the Columbia Publishing Course at Oxford, Riley has sharpened her creative voice and established a foundation for a career in writing and publishing. She is currently a literary agency assistant at Rosecliff Literary, where she is also represented as an author.
In the future, Riley aspires to have an adult novel traditionally published and release a sequel to her debut, which will likely be a delight to those already in love with Layla’s story. One reviewer described the character as being “more engaging than 99% of the protagonists out there” and “supremely real.”
The novelist’s ultimate goal with It’s Not the End of the World is for people to understand the importance of community and maintaining healthy relationships, regardless of one’s flaws, especially during hard times.
“Despite any dysfunction, there’s always this love that will cause you sometimes to do crazy things, but also cause you to go to the ends of the earth for someone,” Riley said. “I think that’s just something that’s important to remember as we live in such tumultuous, crazy times. Like, who are the people that you are going to fight for, and what is really important to you in life? If everything fell apart tomorrow, who are the people that you should be investing in today?”
Photo courtesy of Sophie Riley | Interviewed on April 30, 2026
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