I’m Finally Done – Summary Of My Overall Self-Publishing Experience

Wow.

That’s the only word I can think of. Exciting, stressful, fun, infuriating, extremely difficult . . . if you’ve self-published before, I’m sure you know all about the roller coaster ride. If you’re just getting started:

I’ve not been on the blog for two weeks – even though I promised myself to get on at least once a day.Things have been so busy with my freelance writing, meeting with the editor, and doing my final runthroughs of Grandfather.

The Exciting Part

What’s not exciting about publishing your own work, ya know? I worked for years on this, and knowing that it would be digitally available before Christmas was exhilarating.

The book cover was probably one of my favorite parts. Starting this blog was fun too, because I got to connect with others trying to publish and just readers in general. I always thought blogging would be lame, but no . . . it’s pretty cool.

Believe it or not, I really enjoyed a lot of the editing process too. After I got the copies back from my editor, I loved seeing the suggested edits and explanations. I really got to see the mistakes in my work I made without realizing it. For example – I loved repeating certain phrases like “he/she/I smiled” or “It seemed.” It’s always exciting to learn about your mistakes because in the end, it makes you a better writer.

 The Stressful Part

I think what got to me the most was managing my time with other current projects in order to make the December 20 deadline. There were a few times I seriously didn’t think I was going to make it – like Wednesday and yesterday.

Some of the editing changes that required plot changes throughout the entire books got to me too. It’s easy to change one sentence or paragraph, but with something major . . . even something simple like changing hair color, you have to go through the ENTIRE piece carefully tomake sure you changed every single detail.

The Fun Part

I mostly touched up on the fun aspects in the exciting section above. But I have to bring in my thoughts over these past few months.

Seems weird, doesn’t it . . . having fun thinking?

But just thinking about how my book will be published soon was so much fun – even if it’s not through the traditional route. I was in control of everything, and that’s something I love when it comes to my work.

I love trying new experiences, as many of you already know. This was definitely new, and while it was stressful and hard, it was fun learning about the entire process. Before, I knew a very little about self-pub. Now, if somebody told me they were thinking about it, I would have a list of what I learned and some great advice to make the process a lot easier.

The Infuriating Part

*Sigh*

Many of you guys can probably guess it was the stupid formatting process. These last two days, I’ve wanted to pull my hair out and chuck my laptop over the deck and let the dogs have it.

I swear, I ran into the same problem over every time, and no matter how many times I followed the directions on KDP’s help forum, nothing worked.

During the conversion, my first-line indentions were getting all screwed up. None of them lined up, and sometimes, it looked as if I had a seizure and repeatedly hit the ‘tab.’ I found out that you’re supposed to set the indent numbers manually in ‘paragraph‘ rather than using ‘tab’ I did so, and no matter how many times I tried, it didn’t work.

What I ended up having to do was forget about saving the document as a doc. and saved it as a web page HTM. I just figured this out yesterday, and after following the first-line indention directions and praying like crazy, everything worked out perfectly.

So angry.

The Difficult Part?

EVERY SINGLE BIT OF IT. Fun and exciting doesn’t always mean easy. Writing is fun, but it’s very difficult. Playing an instrument is fun, but it’s extremely difficult. Just the emotional roller coaster was difficult. But it’s done. I can now move on to Book 2.

I’m hoping to write a detailed post in the future containing some tips for those getting ready to enter the self-pub process. I know I’m not the only one.

Anyhow, if you’re interested in Grandfather, just keep an eye out for the release post tomorrow!

Note: The Grandfather Campaign is still going on, which you can learn more about here.

[PhotoCredit: Giphy]