Journey to Self-Publishing 03

If we needed reminding, life has a way of telling you how difficult it can be to fit in the writing amongst all the other stuff.

I’ve had a tough couple of weeks with work, late nights, 90 hour weeks, preparing for a trade show. I have asthma and am used to the daily fight of it, but this week it temporarily floored me with a choke, I blacked out and fell to the floor, waking up with blood everywhere, a gash on my forehead, black eye, bruised ribs and a very worried family. Hospital ensued and acres of time spent waiting for the kind attentions of various medics. Back working, but at home the next day, dealing with life as it is, not as I’d like to be!

So how did this impact my self-publishing journey? A little, reading from one eye for a start.

We’re all different.

For me this highlights the different circumstances we all face. The impact of family, having one, or not, the ages of children/teens, and partners, parents, each of us is pulled in so many directions. And work, either the intensity or the drudgery of it, the ever-presence of it, or the lack of it, this feeds into how we feel about our writing, how we fit it into our lives. Sometimes I find I invest too much onto the little spaces carved out for writing, they have to be productive, at all costs!

Some Things We All Must do.

So, be realistic, but positive: that’s life’s clear message of this week for me. For anyone with a desire for self-publishing it’s critical to think long term, so that immediate events don’t have cataclysmic effects on the overall flow. 

Reading this week has focused on building audiences. It’s perfectly clear that if we want people to read, to buy what we write, we need to build an audience in a huge, competitive market. All the writing advice websites say we must be entrepreneurs, engage with influencers, and fellow enthusiasts, give more than sell. Some even recognise the challenge for a lonesome writer suddenly to become a marketing extrovert, but tangentially I bumped into this advice from the great George R.R. Martin on his website (link below):

I would also suggest that any aspiring writer begin with short stories. These days, I meet far too many young writers who try to start off with a novel right off, or a trilogy, or even a nine-book series. That’s like starting in at rock climbing by tackling Mt. Everest. Short stories help you learn your craft…Once you’ve been selling short stories for five years or so, you’ll have built up a name for yourself, and editors will start asking you about that first novel. George R.R. Martin

Actions

Here’s an update on progress:

Reading. See the links below for some pretty helpful posts, I seemed to spend quite a time reading Lawrence O’Brien’s really helpful BooksGoSocial articles at services4authors.com (links below)
Editing and beta-reading. Not ready to move on this yet as I have to books edited, so trying to prioritise
Covers. Definitely settled on the look for the series. Just need to do the beta testing, with Pickfu (link below)
Marketing. Back on Twitter, listening and learning. So many people promoting their books, it seems hard to break through to actual readers.
Sales channels. Am still settled on KDP for 90 days to see how the sales go, then either add other sales channels through Smashwords, Lulu, BookBaby or Draft2Digital. Trying to work out the most effective way of reaching readers, and managing the time.
Writing, drafting. Still not writing much, but waiting for a short story submission update. 




The Wrap

Thanks again for the read, I hope you find the links below useful. Let me know if you have any comments, or email me on jake@thesefantasticworlds.

This week’s Self-Publishing Links





Some distilled advice from BookGoSocial with a few concrete actions.

Another one from BooksGoSocial with basic advice on avoiding basic mistakes.
This one’s about persistence really, but concise, from Bespoke Book Covers.
FAQ from George R.R. Martin’s website, with some pithy advice for writers.
The first article in this series of self-publishing posts on These Fantastic Worlds appears here.
The second article in the series is here.




Self-Publishing Standard Links




Nick Stephenson’s thought-provoking current pitch
Mark Dawson is great at sharing his experiences
The ever-excellent Joanna Penn
Book Baby has a useful set of articles: https://www.bookbaby.com/
Orna Ross’ ALLi is a hotbed of advice and encouragement.
An ex-HarperCollins senior exec and former publisher of Writer’s Digest Jane Friedman has turned herself into an online author guru. Her website is a fantastic one-stop shop for advice on all aspects of publishing.
Author Earnings report for 2017. A year out-of date but still packed with useful and motivational information. Added this to the standard list as it both realistic and heartening.
Pickfu for cover testing. It costs, but not so much, compared to covers and editing.

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