The Joy of Self-Publishing

I am now the very proud author of an internationally downloaded novel!  Granted, I’m talking 9 downloads in the UK and 5 in Denmark.  That’s 14!  I’d be writing this post if it were only 1.

I tried the traditional publishing route.  I spent countless hours querying agents and many more days worrying over and reworking my query letter.

For my trouble I received, on occasion, a response: a polite form rejection letter.

I looked into self-publishing.  Should I go through a company with paid services or do it on my own?  It all felt too hard, and besides, I wanted a publishing house to pick up my book.  I wanted an editor all to myself, to help make The Knowers the best possible book it could be.

This was not my path.

Instead, I took the hard route of asking favors of my friends.  Please read and offer suggestions, please catch my grammatical and spelling errors.

I have awesome friends.

After a long process, this fall I chose to go through Amazon and publish The Knowers as an e-book.  A month or so later, I decided to make a paperback edition and I logically went through Createspace (owned by Amazon).

Createspace is amazing!  I used the free tools available, only paying for my own ISBN.  The paperback edition of The Knowers looks beautiful.

When I went with Kindle, I chose the Kindle Select Program.  One perk is the ability to offer The Knowers free for 5 days in the 3 month period I’m enrolled in the program.

My enrollment comes to a close mid-December, so I decided to make The Knowers available free for Kindle downloads Dec 4th – 8th (if you’re reading this entry this week, download a copy!).

I awoke the morning of the 4th knowing there’d be a glitch in the system, that I hadn’t done my homework about the Kindle Select Program.  Maybe there was a code I was supposed to tell people about that I wasn’t aware of?  Something.

After I showered, I checked my computer at 6 a.m. and 7 people had already downloaded it!  I hadn’t told any yet it was available, and yet 7 people found it and chose it.

I checked my computer after my morning classes, at 12:35p.m. – 57 downloads.

I checked before my last class of the day, at 2:22p.m. – 74 downloads.

I checked before my kids went to bed, 8:35 p.m. – 178 downloads.

And before I went to bed, 11:05 p.m. – 243 downloads.

When I realized I’d be the one publishing The Knowers, my best ‘real world’ scenario was 100 people reading it.

Today my expectations have been blown to bits.  I never realized, never dreamt, self-publishing could feel this good!