Adventures in Self-Publishing (3)
Hello! Welcome to my third blog post. Hopefully you’ve read and enjoyed my previous two. Over the last couple of weeks I have not been writing as much as usual, the day job beginning to take up more time as we approach the warmer seasons. Hopefully writing will be successful enough to concentrate solely on this one day; that’s the dream anyway.
I have the feeling that I am certainly gaining a better understanding of this self-publishing thing, having only encountered one problem over the past two weeks! It’s certainly an improvement on the harsh learning curve experience in the month prior to that. This problem came, once again, from my submission to Smashwords. You may recall that I had a formatting issue with the original ebook, a slight layout error that customer services were able to clearly explain to me, enabling it to be resolved without any further problems. Or so I thought. Having fixed the original error, I was a little frustrated to find out that there was another problem; this time with the book’s cover. I had, rather stupidly, uploaded two different covers and these were required to match for obvious reasons. Easily fixable and so far, so good. There was also the location of the cover that was causing a problem as it should, quite obviously, be the first thing the reader sees. My cover was appearing after the contents and was a result of my formatting the file improperly with the writing software, Scrivener. A quick glance through the wonderful ‘Scrivener for Dummies’ paperback and all was well, the new file resubmitted and I am now awaiting confirmation that the book can be distributed to the full list of retailers. I should know by the time I next write an update for you guys.
I have been writing, of course, and am four chapters into my follow up novel to The Broken Doll. It’s only first draft but it seems to be going well, with some interesting plot twists beginning to appear, as well as the realisation that I may need to kill off a main character at some point! It really is as if the characters are just doing what they want, my only role is putting it on to paper. Each chapter has been carefully vetted by my ‘editor’ (AKA wife) who is, as Stephen King refers to his wife Tabitha, my Ideal Reader. I write for her, if she is happy with what I have put together then it’s good enough for everyone else.
Whenever I get a little stumped, or just fancy a change, I potter about with short stories intended for my Patreon page. If you are not familiar with it, do go and have a look; it’s a great way for creators to make a little income for their work. I have recently posted my first short story on there, Dream Catcher, which is exclusively available for my Patrons. For as little as $1 a month you can read everything I publish there. I have a second short story, The Devil’s Pocket Watch, ready for publication on Patreon at the end of the month. If you wish to take a look you can find me at www.patreon.com/pjbnauthor
In my last blog post I mentioned a children’s story that I had written for my daughter and it’s very exciting to say that, as a result of my blog, I have made contact with an illustrator for the book. It looks as though that may be actually going into print in the future so keep an eye out for that. The story has also inspired my daughter to ask for a desk, so that she can write stories as well which is rather lovely. She is already working on a sequel to the children’s book I had written for her!
Sales of The Broken Doll have slumped a little since the launch spike, which I had kind of expected but it is still a little disappointing. Because of this, I have decided to offer a flash sale, to run from 5th April to 12th of April, making the ebook half price. Only £1.49!! (What are you waiting for?!) I am also running a giveaway on Goodreads so if you are on there, request the book and three people will be winning a signed copy of the paperback. Who knows, it could be worth a fortune in the future!
From all of the marketing books and blogs that I have been reading, the most important part (along with being found on multiple platforms) is to build a solid mailing list. I set up an account with MailChimp and have been gathering subscribers (slowly). If you would like to be added to this list, for news, updates, giveaways and so on, please get in touch either on whichever site you are reading this, or by emailing directly to pjblakey-novis@outlook.com.
My intention, according to the overly detailed writing plan that I created, is to have reached first draft of chapter 9 of the novel within the next two weeks. It certainly is possible, provided I do not get too distracted by other things such as the day job, the sunshine, food etc.
If you have any comments, questions or queries please do feel free to get in touch.
Until next time
Peter
I have the feeling that I am certainly gaining a better understanding of this self-publishing thing, having only encountered one problem over the past two weeks! It’s certainly an improvement on the harsh learning curve experience in the month prior to that. This problem came, once again, from my submission to Smashwords. You may recall that I had a formatting issue with the original ebook, a slight layout error that customer services were able to clearly explain to me, enabling it to be resolved without any further problems. Or so I thought. Having fixed the original error, I was a little frustrated to find out that there was another problem; this time with the book’s cover. I had, rather stupidly, uploaded two different covers and these were required to match for obvious reasons. Easily fixable and so far, so good. There was also the location of the cover that was causing a problem as it should, quite obviously, be the first thing the reader sees. My cover was appearing after the contents and was a result of my formatting the file improperly with the writing software, Scrivener. A quick glance through the wonderful ‘Scrivener for Dummies’ paperback and all was well, the new file resubmitted and I am now awaiting confirmation that the book can be distributed to the full list of retailers. I should know by the time I next write an update for you guys.
I have been writing, of course, and am four chapters into my follow up novel to The Broken Doll. It’s only first draft but it seems to be going well, with some interesting plot twists beginning to appear, as well as the realisation that I may need to kill off a main character at some point! It really is as if the characters are just doing what they want, my only role is putting it on to paper. Each chapter has been carefully vetted by my ‘editor’ (AKA wife) who is, as Stephen King refers to his wife Tabitha, my Ideal Reader. I write for her, if she is happy with what I have put together then it’s good enough for everyone else.
Whenever I get a little stumped, or just fancy a change, I potter about with short stories intended for my Patreon page. If you are not familiar with it, do go and have a look; it’s a great way for creators to make a little income for their work. I have recently posted my first short story on there, Dream Catcher, which is exclusively available for my Patrons. For as little as $1 a month you can read everything I publish there. I have a second short story, The Devil’s Pocket Watch, ready for publication on Patreon at the end of the month. If you wish to take a look you can find me at www.patreon.com/pjbnauthor
In my last blog post I mentioned a children’s story that I had written for my daughter and it’s very exciting to say that, as a result of my blog, I have made contact with an illustrator for the book. It looks as though that may be actually going into print in the future so keep an eye out for that. The story has also inspired my daughter to ask for a desk, so that she can write stories as well which is rather lovely. She is already working on a sequel to the children’s book I had written for her!
Sales of The Broken Doll have slumped a little since the launch spike, which I had kind of expected but it is still a little disappointing. Because of this, I have decided to offer a flash sale, to run from 5th April to 12th of April, making the ebook half price. Only £1.49!! (What are you waiting for?!) I am also running a giveaway on Goodreads so if you are on there, request the book and three people will be winning a signed copy of the paperback. Who knows, it could be worth a fortune in the future!
From all of the marketing books and blogs that I have been reading, the most important part (along with being found on multiple platforms) is to build a solid mailing list. I set up an account with MailChimp and have been gathering subscribers (slowly). If you would like to be added to this list, for news, updates, giveaways and so on, please get in touch either on whichever site you are reading this, or by emailing directly to pjblakey-novis@outlook.com.
My intention, according to the overly detailed writing plan that I created, is to have reached first draft of chapter 9 of the novel within the next two weeks. It certainly is possible, provided I do not get too distracted by other things such as the day job, the sunshine, food etc.
If you have any comments, questions or queries please do feel free to get in touch.
Until next time
Peter
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