Back in the day (3 weeks ago), I naively understood self-publishing to be the single last step of the writing process. Today, my half-educated brain has concluded that self-publishing is not a “step”, it is an occupation.
Don’t believe me? Here’s an incomplete list of everything you should be doing to prepare for and then effectively pursue being a successful self-published author. Note that, if you have no interest in being successful, you may feel free to not do any or all of these:
- Have a professional book cover designed for e-book and paperback, if you plan to sell both. The book cover must drive traffic to your book’s page on Amazon, etc.
- Write a blurb for the book that is compelling enough to prompt the reader, already slightly interested in your book because of the cover, to purchase.
- Put back matter in the book that encourages the reader to submit their email address to you, e.g., give them a free book (reader magnet) and offer exclusive content.
- Write said reader magnet, all the while staying motivated even though you’ll never earn a cent directly from the effort.
- Place reader magnet on BookFunnel and integrate your mailing list with WordPress to deliver the freebie to people who want it while collecting their email address.
- Decide whether to publish wide or not. I’m not going to. Instead, I’m going with Kindle Select and KU.
- Create an author page with all the right pieces to it. In my case, that will be on Amazon.
- Participate in enough promos, newsletter list exchanges, etc., to acquire 50-100 reviews, ideally delivered on the launch date or shortly thereafter.
- Create advertisements for all appropriate platforms, but particularly for Amazon and Facebook.
- Monitor and modify advertisements, ensuring success and sales.
- Subscribe to services like Blasty [Note from the future: this site seems to have disappeared] to find unauthorized copies of your work and remove them from the Internet.
- For several of these, rinse and repeat.
Know what? This list is probably nowhere near complete. There’s a ton of work to do if you want this to be more than a hobby. Frankly, while it REALLY IS a hobby for me, what’s the point if nobody reads my work. Might as well make a go of it.
Status of the Novella
Alright, the novella I’m working on as a reader magnet is going to be called DEMERGENCE. Does that sound like an odd title? It makes sense once you understand the world I’ve built…maybe. The novel fits squarely into that world and expands the plot of the first novel, explaining the run-up to an event (related to a character) mentioned several times in the novel.
So far, I’m at about 10,000 words. My goal is for it to be 20-25,000 words, which seems like a lot at the moment but less than it did a couple days ago. For some reason, I wake up on Saturday mornings with good ideas for how the novella’s plot should develop. Of course, I know how it ends already. The fun part is the world of these novels is also developing some interesting characteristics as the novella progresses. I wasn’t sure I’d write another novel in that world, but I’m fairly sure I will now. Maybe several.
Status of the Novel
After exporting the novel into .mobi format to see how it looked on a Kindle, I decided to read a few pages. That’s when I realized that the first couple chapters were still a bit stilted and rough. I’m currently smoothing them out. The book starts to flow after that, but I’ll likely do a full edit to make sure.
I think I’ll wait a little while to reveal the book’s title. My hope is to do that and introduce the blurb once the cover is done. Maybe I’ll change my mind next week and reverse course.
If you’re one of the 3 people who read my posts, I hope you have a great week!