Advice for the newbie indie author

If you’re just starting out in self-publishing with dreams of making it big or at least successful as a writer, you may have already encountered some of the stumbling blocks of the writing life.

You likely learned that after publishing your novel or non-fiction book for all the world to see, your real work commenced.

You want people to read your book and, of course, spend their hard-earned money on it.

What most newbie indie authors quickly find is that the sales don’t come rolling in once they publish. Literally millions of books flood the marketplace and the chances of many people finding your magnum opus is slim.

What to do?

Well … what you’ll likely do is spend an inordinate amount of time, probably more time than is emotionally healthy, searching and scanning the internet for the best and most effective means of marketing and promoting your book.

And boy oh boy, will you find the sites out there, countless of them, making claims that they have the best and most cost-effective strategy for selling thousands of copies of your book. It’s a good bet you’ll try some of these approaches and find they don’t work, and it’s a good bet you’ll question why you ever decided to write in the first place.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the single magic bullet for selling books.

What I can tell you is that I’ve made my share of mistakes, including shelling out money for book promotion sites that brought me little or nothing in return.

Before you go out and spend more money than you can afford to market your book, make sure you first have all your ducks in a row.

Write a good book, free of grammar and spelling errors. Don’t be afraid to spend just a little bit for a good editor or proofreader.

Make sure it has an eye-catching cover. Yes, a cover is important, and there are plenty of talented graphic artists out there you can find who can create one for you without hitting you hard in the pocketbook.

Do a little research on keyword strategies, which help people find your book more easily.

Check out some social media sites on writing where other authors gather and share their concerns. It’s a good place to find out what’s happening out there, and what works and doesn’t work in self-publishing.

Find out who the real experts are on self-publishing. Check out their books or their YouTube sites.

One of the more informative and best self-publishing gurus, at least in my humble opinion, is Dale Roberts, who has a YouTube site called Self-Publishing with Dale. He’s put out countless YouTube productions on a variety of topics covering the self-publishing world.

Meanwhile, keep writing. Get out that next book and the next one after that.

After all, you’re a writer.