Trey Stone's Blog, page 36

Why I Quit Writing On Tuesdays

Let me just get it out: I’m all for habits. I’m super habitual. It’s how you learn anything really, sitting down and grinding at it, again and again, until it’s done. I love habits.

At the same time, I’m very against the ‘you have to write every day’ philosophy toward writing. I can’t write every day, I’m not a full-time writer, and life gets in the way. Hey, I don’t even do my full-time job every day, so why should I expect to be able to do that with writing?

You just got to find your methods, lay down your habits. Every other day, every third day, once a week, twice a month. Whatever you have time for, you do you.

I try my very best to stick to a relatively strict schedule of writing every evening, except for the weekends. Then I do mornings or afternoons. And most of the time that’s fine, but I realized this year, that I was biting over more than I could chew.

Tuesday is my busy day. From when I get home from work, I usually have around an hour or so to get changed, eat, and be out the door again, then I’m not back until late. Sounds like plenty of time to get some stuff done, right? That’s what I thought. So I shoehorned a session in. Every week, every Tuesday.

But I realized by the time I’d sit down, get my documents ready, get in the zone, it was nearly time to go. I kept disappointing myself. Week after week, that session would turn to shit in my hands, and it ruined my day.

Which is why I finally decided to stop trying. I don’t write on Tuesdays anymore. I’ll read, blog (like I am right now), check my Twitter, or maybe write up some notes from my phone, but that’s it. Those 30 minutes of actual work I might have been able to do, those can wait till Wednesday, and that’s fine.

My habits are still the same, just an hour shorter. I don’t think it’s affecting my writing much, but it’s making me feel a lot better about it when I sit down to work.

And that’s worth a lot to me, I realized.

 

Book Review: Emergence by Jacki Rawlinson

Emergence is an action-packed, space-opera, scifi adventure, where we follow our protagonist Emily as her true identity and destiny is revealed to her at age 21. She is in fact Emiliana, daughter of two powerful beings from far away, and heir to a legend.

This book is packed with everything a scifi lover loves: cool other-worldly tech, mysterious alien races, exciting planets, and lots of fighting. It’s an adventure from start to finish, and it goes from sweet to dark to funny and back again, all the time. Rawlinson’s style is unique, and she won’t let you rest for even a minute, constantly keeping you on your toes. I would blurt out in laughter at one moment, and then it would turn horrific the next. I loved it.

I’d like to say that this book is kind of a Coming of Age+Batman+The Scooby Gang. That’s a weird comparison, but as Emiliana realizes who she is and starts taking on the world, she gains a lot of new friends at the same time, along with a lot of responsibility. It was exciting and fun reading about her growing up, building relationships, and dealing with the new-found dangers her life suddenly posed.

Occasionally there’s a bit much showing instead of telling, particularly in the beginning perhaps, but it’s not something that isn’t in line with the genre and the setup of an immense scifi world. The books a perfect length as well, which I’m always happy to report. Any longer would have been too long.

Rawlinson has made a tremendous effort on her debut novel, and it’s a gripping and adventurous start to The Emiliana Chronicles. If you’re a fan of scifi, looking for a different but fun story about a girl who takes on the world, all the while learning to fight crime with her group of friends, I suggest you check this one out.

You can check out Emergence by Jacki Rawlinson here.

How I Got Past My Slump

If you’ve been paying attention to my last few posts, you’ll know that I worked really hard on my writing during December and then writer’s/worker’s block hit hard in the beginning of 2019. Good, now you’re up to speed.

It was weird, because it wasn’t that I didn’t want to write. I would sit down to work and not just get anything done. It was awful and extremely frustrating, regardless of how well I know that you’ve got to take the good with the bad. I wanted so fucking much to work, to keep my streak going, and I’d sit down every evening and do nothing.

So I decided to do something about it. I knew I needed to refresh, to his ctrl alt delete and reboot my system. I needed to get back into the habit of things, the habits I’d lost over Christmas. I’m very habitual of me. In a perfect world I’d have a strict time schedule where I did the same thing everyday, ate the same foods, and could work on my writing at set time.  Over Christmas everything had fallen apart, so I started with those things. I needed a fix.

The Gym

I don’t necessarily like going to the gym, but I like that I go to the gym. Does that make sense? I like that I am a person who does it, even though I don’t like doing it. Anyway, I needed to get back into my routine, so I forced myself to do that. Even if it meant I wouldn’t have time for editing or writing that day. I needed the habit back. I didn’t even want to go, in one sense, because after having most of Christmas off I was so out of it. But I set an alarm, picked myself up, and went. It wasn’t particularly useful training the first few days, but that wasn’t the point either. I just needed to go there and go home again, get the rhythm going, get used to it again. At first, it didn’t help with my writing at all, because obviously I was spending time somewhere else.

Twitter

For some weird reason I decided to spend more time on social media, not less, even though I spent a loooot of time there over Christmas. I have so many awesome friends there, the #writingcommunity is so amazing, and I needed to have that. So I did. I engaged with people, played games, read about what everyone else is writing. It inspired and motivated me, if not for any other reason than spite, me feeling like I have to catch up and be ‘as good as’ everyone else. It’s also, (at least to me), good to to see that other people are struggling, to talk to people in the same situation, and listen to how they got out of it. I suppose that’s why I’m sitting here now, writing this.

I’m not saying it will work for everyone, but I remember at least two full evenings I “wasted” just chatting to my buddies. Thanks guys, you’re amazing.

Friends

My wife and I decided we needed to get out, to socialize, meet our best friends. They’re busy with their toddler, but they agreed, we needed to hang. So we took a weekend, stayed overnight, partied, ate, talked, played games. It was amazing. I’m not a very social person – or rather, I’m very happy to be alone. So I don’t really notice if I haven’t spent time around people in a while, because I don’t miss it. Except my body does. I think. I don’t dislike interaction, in fact I love it depending on the people, but you get what I mean. It had been a while, and I needed to see them. At first it was difficult to try and step away from the writing, and my phone (because when I was sitting at home at least I was on Twitter, which often feels like a good substitute for work.) But I kept thinking that this was counterproductive, that this wasn’t what was going to help me get back into writing. Except it was. When my wife and I came home the next day, all of the stuff below happened.

My Writing Space

This is probably the biggest fix of all. My mind and habits were cluttered because I felt my writing space was cluttered. I felt the whole house was cluttered. So I cleaned it all. Then I tidied everything up. Threw out lots of old shit. It was soul-cleansing. And I didn’t stop there. I did the shed. All those boxes we all have stored with our old shit, the ones with things from the place you used to live before you moved to where you lived before now, you know those? I went through all of them. Threw it out, rearranged it, gave it away. But my writing space was still the same. So I threw out the table. Hell, I threw out two tables. Got a big, old desk from my father, one he’d inherited. It was old and beaten up so I sanded it down, oiled it, found a place for it, my wife rearranging the whole living room.

At the end of all of it, our whole apartment looked like a different place. Seems like a lot of work to go through just because I felt demotivated with my writing, right? But that evening, the first evening after everything was done, I got more work than I have in the last two months. My 2nd book is soon off to my editor, and then after a round of beta reads, I’ll be ready to publish. Again.

I’m back.

Book Review: The Odyssey of the Dragolitha: A Fantasy Adventure by Caleb Wright

I won the audiobook version of this book in a giveaway, which was amazing because I never win anything. Also, free book! So here’s the review!

This is the first indie audiobook I’ve ever listened to and I realized that I don’t really pick up on names very well. Of anything, characters, towns, nothing at all. Usually I can just google the book and get an overview of names and spelling but I can’t really do that here, and I’m too lazy to listen to the audiobook to get those, so sorry.

But the plot is simple: a group of 5 adventurers are given mythical superpowers, and become The Dragolitha, a group of magical-dragon creatures. They are thus destined to save the world from Zero, our evil villain. You know, it’s the usual, they get powers, learn to use their powers, fight enemies, grow closer, and all in all they become heroes. I liked that all the five characters were so different, so varied, distinct to one another. And they’re powers played different parts, playing off each other, like a gang of Dragon Power-rangers.

The book is different from the fantasy I usually read. It’s light, it’s easy, it’s fluffy. It’s funny and casual. It felt like I was reading a J/RPG, where everything just a tiny bit crazy. The heroes are powerful and unafraid, and you get a sense of there not being a whole lot of risk. This actually bothered me a bit at first, but when you get used to it, when you expect it, the book gets better. And like I said, this book is funny. I love when a book can make me laugh.

Wright has crafted a gripping and intricate story, which was fun and and exciting to read and he should be proud of that. However, the book was a bit short, (and as much as I love a short book, because we all know how incredibly long fantasy novels can get), this was maybe a bit too much on the shorter side, at only 2 hours for an audiobook. And the ending… well, I definitely expect Wright to make a series out of this.

All in all, a great fantasy debut and a fantastic audiobook! I was really excited to listen to my first indie audiobook, and I’m happy to say it was very good. I loved the production, the narrator was great, everything made it sound and feel like any other book. It actually made me want to start the process of making my own writing available in that format.

Go check out Caleb Wright’s work here.

Why Am I So Out Of It?

I’ve not been doing much since before Christmas. I had one really good and productive day since then, but other than that… nothing.

Most days I just sit here. I plan to work, and sometimes life gets in the way or I don’t have time, but I usually do. Yet I don’t work. No writing, no editing, hardly even reading.

I had most of December off (had too much holiday/overtime piling up), so before Christmas I was a beast. I was editing, writing and reading nearly every day. Making headway here and there, working on something new and old constantly. It was great. At Christmas that productivity took a natural hit. You gotta go out, meet family, dress up for all the things. I hate those things. It’s boring, and my extended family isn’t particularly nice to each other. So I was happy when the 3-4 main days of Christmas was over. I could get some work in before New Year’s.

But then more stuff piled up. I did some work the day before New Year’s, but that was it. Fine, I thought. I’ll get on with it as soon as we hit 2019.

Yet here I am. It’s been a week now. I’ve had that one day of productivity. I’m falling behind. I need to pick myself up, get on with it. All I really have to is finish a round of edits so I can hand it off to my editor. Then I can relax with some drafting, some new writing, (which I find sooo much more fun).

But I can’t seem to get there, and I don’t understand. What happened? What happened during Christmas that made me fall so out of the rhythm? Where’s that energy?

I don’t know why I’m whining. I know it’s normal. You can’t have ups without downs, and you need to know that. I need to know that. I did great in December, so naturally, when it changes to something “less” than that, I perceive it has worse.

I’ve been doing this for my entire adult life. I value productivity. If I’m not making an effort in producing something, creating something, doing something creative, I’m not good enough. And when I try to those things and fail (or at least perceive it as failing), that’s even worse.

But it’s not. It’s normal and it’s fine. Don’t let your mind trick you into thinking your not working hard enough.

You’re doing fine.

I’ll keep on trying to pick myself up, and hopefully one day soon I’ll reach something close to that December-level of productivity. But if I don’t, that’s fine too. This is just different, not worse.

Being a writer is about creating stories, creating art. It’s not about how quickly or often you do those things, and it’s not about the amount you produce.

I’m in a slump now, and that’s okay. If you are too, that’s okay too. Don’t worry.

Book Review: A Dream of Steam by James W. Barry

This surprised me. It’s not my usual kind of read at all, but I was intrigued and wanted to read something new, so I picked up this historical fiction about two brother operating a sawmill in the late 1800’s.

The writing is superb, Barry is really good. Detailed, beautiful, engaging, without becoming boring or purple. I noticed right away that I was going to like this book. I like a book who can captivate me without droning on, without becoming overly descriptive.

The story fascinated me more than I would have thought. It’s the simple story of two brothers; Thomas and William, who own a transport ship; the Genevieve, and a sawmill respectively. They try to live their lives, earn their wages, but life gets in the way. The invention of the steam engine brings with it big changes to both industries, and it’s a costing affair to keep up with the times.  I was very surprised about how much this book managed to be about. It sounds simple, and it kind of is, but at the same time this book is about family, companionship, love, lies, deceit, murder, and money. All at the same time. It was very exciting – like I said, this isn’t my usual jam, I tend to lean toward thrillers, fantasy and sci-fi, but this was still right up my alley.

Barry has made an amazing effort here, in an incredibly well thought-out and written book of a seemingly simple story. Best thing of all? It’s all true.

Highly recommended for any historical fiction fan.

End Of The Year

I wanted to write an end of the year thing, both to sum up what I’ve accomplished this year (because it’s been an amazing year for me), but also to say thank you.

This year I’ve made so incredibly many awesome connections with people. I’ve read a ton of great books. I’ve been sending out my book, The Consequence of Loyalty, and received amazing feedback. I’ve written book 2, and completed another first draft during NaNoWriMo, and I’ve even started the third book in my series. It’s been a roller-coaster of high-pitched screams into the void, but also a thrilling ride that I wouldn’t want to be without. This year’s been great, I hope the next one is just as good.

So…

Thank you to everyone who follows me, or have started following me on Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads and Facebook. It’s amazing to have you by my side, to wake up to your kind words, funny rants, and motivating tweets. To see what you’re doing with your life, to hear what you’re talking about. It’s awesome. Thanks to everyone who reaches out, thanks to everyone who cheer me on.

Thanks to everyone who’s bought and read my book, The Consequence Of Loyalty! My book has been doing amazing this year, especially during the last four months and I know I have all my followers to thank for that. It’s been such a wild ride, and I’m so incredibly grateful to be able to be on it.

Thanks to everyone who sent me books to read. I love reading your stories, I love connecting with you, I love having your words in my hands. Thank you for letting me. I hope will continue doing so in the future, and I hope maybe I get more thrillers and horror as well. I hope I’m being kind in my reviews and in my feedback, I try my very best, after being honest, of course.

Thanks for a great year, everyone. Here’s to 2019 being a better one!

Book Review: 1984 by George Orwell

This is one of those books I should have read already. It’s one of those everyone should have read. If you haven’t heard of it before, I’ll give you a brief introduction:

Winston Smith works for the Ministry of truth in London, chief city of Airstrip One. Big Brother stares out from every poster, the Thought Police uncover every act of betrayal. When Winston finds love with Julia, he discovers that life does not have to be dull and deadening, and awakens to new possibilities.

That’s just part of the blurb, but the premise is simple. The government rules with an iron fist. Everyone is surveilled, at all times. Big Brother and the Thought Police decides what you are allowed to think, what you’re allowed to say, and how you’re supposed to act. Anyone who goes against the grain is removed.

But that isn’t all. They’re not just removed as in killed or imprisoned. They cease to exist. Their lives, their history is wiped from the face of the Earth.

This is the reality for Winston Smith. He works for the Ministry of Truth, and his job is to alter history. He goes back to old newspaper articles and edits them, making sure that the truth was reported, or that what was reported was the truth. Winston also makes people disappear, by removing them from the history books. Or, on occasion, he’ll make someone up. The government is never wrong.

This book is called 1984 (in case you didn’t get it), because it’s set in 1984. This is the reality George Orwell envisioned in the 40’s, when he wrote it. I picked this up in an airport earlier this year. I’ve heard about this book all my adult life. Everyone recommends it, it’s one of those “have to read before you die”-books. I picked it up without even thinking about it, and though I should have read this ages ago, I’m very happy I waited until I became a writer.

This book isn’t perfect. It’s amazing yes, but in one sense, there’s hardly any plot. Not much happens at all really, and stuff that does isn’t super interesting. And besides Winston there’s maybe two other characters I can remember, and even they weren’t all that – neither was Winston. You don’t read this for the storytelling or the characters. It’s about the ideas. The concept. And about the language.

No, I don’t mean Orwell’s writing style, I mean the language in the book. In 1984, it’s called Newspeak. When Big Brother has decided to alter history, they’ve also realized that Oldspeak (the way we talk and write now), is both useless and inefficient. All you need is Newspeak. It’s concise and simple. Instead of good and bad, you have good and ungood. Instead of super good you have plusgood, or doubleplusgood if you want to go crazy. This is why I loved reading this after I started writing myself. This whole idea of a different way to speak and write was mind-blowing to me. In a strict, efficient way it’s so logical and sensical, but of course, it kills everything called art, passion, and writing. It’s devastating.

In case you hadn’t noticed, this book is terrifying. A political kind of horrific. Imagine that the government knew everything about you, could see and hear you at all times, and could decide whether you existed at all. Reading this in 2018 – on the tide of fake news and all the political chaos we are experiencing in our day – it makes me wonder if George Orwell wasn’t some kind of psychic, albeit 35 years early.

I don’t often read books suggested to the masses, the ones on the read-before-you-die lists, but I’m glad I walked through that airport bookshop and picked it up. Glad and horrified.

I recommend it.

Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects

I’ve just finished this, and it’s not for nothing that Warcraft is one of my favorite fantasy universes and Golden is one of my favorite fantasy authors.

This was absolutely amazing – and though I love all the Warcraft books written by anyone – Golden is simply superb.

To give you some plot: Thrall, former warchief of the Horde, now shaman of the Earthen Ring, is given a personal quest, by none other than Ysera, Aspect of the green dragonflight. Thrall must leave the Earthen Ring and his duties to heal Azeroth to go find Nozdormu, Lord of the Bronze dragons and Aspect of the bronze dragonflight, who’s gone missing. But Nozdormu isn’t missing just anywhere – being the Timeless One and guardian of the timeways – he is of course missing in time. With the help of first the green dragons, then the bronze dragons, Thrall ventures into the timeways, looking for Nozdormu and along the way he comes face to face not just with own past, but his past friend’s futures as well as horrible alternate realities.

The conclusion of this quest accumulates in the clashing of new Aspects, Deathwing, The Twilight Father, abominable twilight dragons, and a horrid revelation of the interconnectedness of all of it and the evil forces behind it.

To sum up, this is an amazing story with Thrall at the center, learning about his life from infant to warchief to shaman, while the whole of Azeroth is on the brink of destruction.

I’ll say it again, I love Christie Golden, her writing is just superb – and to have her write a big background story like this on Thrall, where we explore the past, the future, alternate timeways is just my every dream come true. Thrall is such a loveable character, a strong and deadly warrior at one end of the spectrum, but a caring, loving thinker at the other. Is arc is incredible to follow, and he’s had such an impact in this world that I’ve loved for the last 20 years, that every story about him is a gift for me.

If you’ve played the games – any of the games, I would absolutely highly recommend reading these novels to flesh out the background story. There’s so many cool details, so many puzzle pieces that fall into place, it’s just amazing.

But even if you’ve never played the games, or even if you’ve never heard of the games, I can absolutely highly recommend these books. Maybe start at the beginning then, to get a sense of who people are and what they’re roles are in the bigger picture, but like I said, this is probably my favorite fantasy universe ever.

My Experience With Self-Publishing

This is a long post, so before you go scrolling through, 3 things:

This is not a ‘How To’ guide to self-publishing. If that’s what you’re after, Google’s your friend. These are my thoughts, opinions, and experiences. There are no definite answers here.
I don’t intend to convince you to go indie or traditional. I’ll tell you a bit about what I’ve done – you take it from there.
I can’t teach you to earn money. My goal is to write and sell books, not get rich. Your goal shouldn’t be that either, but hey – you do you.

All right – before I start: this post is the result of a few things I’ve wanted to talk about, a few things people have asked me about, and a Tweet where I asked if people had questions regarding particular aspects of self-publishing. Therefore, the answers given to various things may vary in length and detail – also, if there’s anything else you’re wondering about, just ask.

And just because you’re probably asking yourself: “Why does Trey think he knows anything about this?” I written since I was young, wrote my first novel in 2015, self-published  in May, 2017, and intend on publishing the next one in 2019. Buckle up.

Why I’m Self-Published

First of all, if you’re aiming for traditional publishing and you’re in the middle of querying, well done! I’m rooting for you, you can do it, just don’t give up. I’ve been there, I went down that route to begin with. After a while I noticed that the constant work (because it is a lot of work), and the rejections wasn’t what I was after. I wanted my book to be read. So I went this way.

Notice, I’m not saying one is better than the other (and you shouldn’t think that, because it’s not true), I’m just saying: this is what worked for me at that point in time. I fully intend to try querying again, at some point. But right now I’m happy.

And you should be too, again: if you’re going traditional, that’s amazing! If you’re not, that’s also amazing!

Economics

Like I said in the beginning, I can’t teach you to earn money, because I’m not earning money. I’m selling books, but that’s not the same – and if you’re aim is to get rich, sorry, can’t help you. With the costs of equipment (pen, paper, laptop), services (editors, proof-reading, cover design, webpage), and marketing (ads), I’m losing a lot of money. But I have a day job and like I said, I didn’t get into this for the money.

I suppose this is what you get for going indie – you have to take the costs yourself, but you’re also in charge of how much you want to spend. It’s all up to you.

I hesitate to use the word ‘hobby’ when it comes to my writing, but I kind of see it like that, same as with my music. If I counted how much I’ve spent on guitar, drums, amps, and software, compared to how much I’ve earned, well… More passion, less career – you get the point.

Where I Published

I went straight to Amazon and KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). I don’t see any point in my book being available anywhere else, and I don’t intend to pursue other publishers (not now, at least). I remember reading articles of how big a chunk of the book market (both physical and ebooks) Amazon own, and it’s a lot. I’m not going to try to remember the numbers, but some quick Googling will give you those. Regardless – if people want your book, I don’t imagine they’re going to care a lot where they’re getting it from.

But then again, I’ve never had issues with Amazon or KDP and I know some authors have. So that could be a reason for wanting to go elsewhere, not a reason I share, because my experience has been good, but you need to decide that for yourself.

Also, by being an Amazon exclusive author, you can put your book on KU (Kindle Unlimited) and KOLL (Kindle Owner’s Lending Library) where customers can read your book without buying it, all the while earning you royalties per page read. I see this happen a lot so again, I’m happy.

Amazon KDP is super simple, you make an account, fill in a short tax form, and you can start publishing your book. The manuscript and cover is just files to upload, and then you fill in various info like title, genre, etc. Super simple.

Avoid The Scams!

I still have a contract from a vanity press lying around somewhere, that I got sent home to my personal address without even sending them my full manuscript or talking to them at all, after the initial query. Apparently they “loved my work,” and wanted to publish it right away, for the small sum of $2000.

Don’t fall for this!

They’ll probably actually publish the book for you, but it will be terrible and they won’t market it for you. I’ve seen people go this route and it makes me sad. In fact, I read a traditionally published book this year which I suspect was published by a vanity press because it was absolutely terrible. Beautiful cover; good premise; bad book.

I won’t name the company who tried to scam me, but on a completely unrelated note I’ve heard Austin, TX is nice this time of year.

Point is, you either do it alone and pay your own editor and your own cover artist, or you go traditional and someone takes the cost for you. You shouldn’t be paying to be published by someone else, not in this way at least.

What You’ll Need

Get an editor. What I did was that I checked up who had edited the indie books I liked and compared prices. Found one I’m happy with and work well together with. There’s a piece of advice that goes around  the industry, saying: “Hire slow, fire quick.” Do your research and don’t be afraid to sack someone if it isn’t working out. Also, if it seems too good to be true, it usually is. My first editor was absolutely horrible, he probably wasn’t even an editor.

If you’re looking to do the editing yourself, I can recommend Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’, and Dennis Hays’ ‘The Fiction Writer’s Handbook: 10 Minute Edits.‘ But these books in no way replaces an editor.

Get a decent book cover, unless you’re some kind of designer. I used a home-made one for a while, it’s not something I recommend. For my cover I found someone on Fiverr. It’s super simple, pay them, send them some ideas, they get back to you with a cover. Usually they’ll do as many edits as you want. You get a .JPG, upload to Amazon, boom! Book=done.

That being said, I’m always looking for new cover artists, so if you have someone in mind, let me know?

Find beta readers and critique partners!

Some people will say that these are different people, but the point is to have someone help read your stuff and give you pointers. I have 3 people I know personally who are all super helpful. They read, correct, suggest, and help me edit. And no, none of them is my mom. I like to use them both as alpha readers, meaning I sometimes send them first drafts to bounce ideas off them, without ever bothering about details, and as betas later for spelling, grammar, and punctuation. I trust them all with my life, which means I can send anything to them, at any stage, and not have to worry.

I have also met authors on Twitter to do this with. I’d say be a bit cautious before you send your manuscript away, and maybe do what I do, and get them to critique only parts of it. That way you don’t have to wait for long turn-over times, and you still get valuable feedback, without giving away your whole manuscript. I’ve had at least one bad experience with a guy who never got back to me, but hey, what are you going to do?

Point is, you should work with people you trust and in the beginning of a relationship like that, maybe swap work to make sure you’re both in the same boat.

(Also, if you end up doing this for other authors, make sure you actually have critique to give. That’s the point, after all. I had someone send me an email saying that they loved it and didn’t have any comments, which though flattering, isn’t very helpful).

Social Media & Marketing

I’m slapping two topics together here and it’s not without reason – they’re so interlinked that you can’t be separating them.

First of all, I’m on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Goodreads, and I’m just going to go right ahead and ask you to follow me on all of those.

That being said, Facebook is pretty much dead. My experience is that no one on Facebook wants to connect with anyone they don’t already know and unless you’re already famous no one is going to like your page. I have a Facebook page for those who don’t have Twitter, basically, and it’s very static, with slow, periodical updates.

Instagram is great for connecting with authors and to get a peek into their lives beyond the writing, so please, do go and follow me there. I love Instagram, I love seeing what people are up to, and I do get quite a few redirects to this blog from there.

Goodreads is awesome for connecting with other readers as well as authors, to see what people are reading and how your book is coming along. If you do use it, jump over there right now, add me as a friend, and please do add my book to your to-be-read list if your interested in crime thrillers.

Twitter is where it’s at though, for connecting with other authors and it’s just an incredible font of knowledge and wisdom. But it’s not a place to market yourself and this is where a lot of people go wrong. I’ve been there myself, when I first joined I walked in there as if I was the only one who’d ever written a book, and began spamming my book. That’s not the way to go about it. The key to gaining Twitter followers is to simply interact with people. Ask questions, answer questions take part in games. It’s what makes it fun, and believe me, there’s plenty of books I’ve added to my list from people I’ve talked to on Twitter, and it’s not because they’ve asked me to. It’s just organic.

Now, you’re probably wondering, “How should I market myself?”

I don’t tend to market myself physically a lot, in the sense that I don’t ask my coworkers to read my book – in fact, none of them know I write. But the easiest and first thing you should probably do, is to just ask people – Hey, want to read my book? I’ll do it right now, and ask you to check out my crime thriller, The Consequence of Loyalty. It’s right there on your right, or you can check it out here. People you connect with organically, will not be offended as long as you don’t get offended when they say no. In my experience it’s fine to talk about and be excited about your book when it’s either, (i) in person, or (ii) one on one. But don’t spam your book on Twitter or on your Facebook wall without any other content. That makes you and your book annoying.

The other thing, which has been way more successful for me, is ads. I’ve tried Facebook ads – thousands of hits and hundreds of click, but no sales. This is what I mean with Facebook being dead, no one there seems interested in anything but memes and fake news.

Amazon ads is what’s worked for me. There’s a couple of different types, and you’ve got to experiment with various keywords and what works best, but in the end it’s just a numbers game. I never realized this, because I don’t use Amazon that way myself, but Amazon is a search engine. People go there looking for stuff, typing in words, and if you know what they’re looking for, you can sell your book. The conclusion is: Amazon ads work, at least for me.

I’ve also tried various sites that promises to send your books off to thousands of readers, without any success, and I don’t think any of those sites will work if you’re not able to sell your book yourself to begin with. By all means give it a go, but for me, that’s not where I want to spend my energy.

Measuring Success

I’m not quite sure how to answer this, but someone asked me how you know you’re successful as a self-published author and I’m not sure. I hardly feel successful now, and my experience has bettered a lot the last 6 months.

I think maybe this is were traditional and indie publishing differ the most, (not that I really know). But with traditional publishing, there seems to be more small victories to celebrate. There’s getting an agent, selling your book, and then 2 years later there’s the actual release of your book. By then you’ve already had 2 years of happy news. With self-publishing it feels slower and more lonely, at least to me, (I like lonely though).

I’m still not quite sure what to answer, but I know that when I started seeing reviews and sales, and lots of KU and KOLL reads – I felt successful, I think. This might be cynical of me, but I feel like I have to tell the cold, hard truth here which is that when you start seeing people buying and liking your book, who the hell cares if you’re self- or traditionally published? It should be all about the book, right? That’s how I see it at least.

 

To Conclude

These are my experiences of self-publishing so far, and however one-sided they are, I hope maybe they’ve been helpful and shed some light on some things? To summarize: go out there, do your thing, don’t be afraid, don’t give up, ask for help, connect with people, interact, and buy my book.

If you have any questions, if there’s anything I’ve missed, gotten wrong, or you just need a hug, I’m right here or on Twitter @TreyStoneAuthor