Advice

Self Published Authors.  Advice.

What to do.  What not to do.

 

                Reader’s note:  I wasn’t successful with the sales of my book.  If you’re looking for how to become rich self-publishing (there are a whole bunch of those) this is not where you want to be.  But, only listening to success stories isn’t always the right thing to do (it’s what I did).

 

A couple of years ago, I set out to write my own series of fantasy books.  I had always been thinking of ideas and had always wanted to make those ideas into a book.  To be honest, I also hoped to make a career out of it.  I didn’t have to make millions like in some success stories, but I did hope to make enough to get by.  I started writing while I was working, but found it hard to do so.  It wasn’t hard to find the time, but it was hard to find the motivation and imagination.  I guess I have a somewhat one-track mind, so when I work (teach) I’m constantly thinking about work… how to make my lessons better and what not.  Also, while working a full-time job, sometimes you just feel like blah afterwards.  So, I took some time off and really put an effort into writing my book.  On April 18^th, 2015, I published on Amazon and since then I’ve learned a few things.  I will summarize those things here, then write an article about each one later.

 

1.  Reviews are important.  My advice is to have some good reviews ready before you publish.  Have friends, family, and maybe even writers’ groups look over and review your book.  If the reviews are positive, publish and ask them to post their reviews.  If the reviews are negative, you might want to take a second look at your book.  Good reviews give your sales a strong boost.
2. Take some time.  Make sure that you take time to write and think over what you wrote.  The more time you spend thinking about what you write, the better your writing will be.  Don’t try to force it, wait for that perfect solution to your writer’s block to come along.
3. Have some money ready.  You can read stories about how people became self-published millionaires without spending a dime, but I’m guessing that the majority of people didn’t share this experience.  Publishing costs money.  You have to pay for an ISBN and other technical stuff.  Then there is advertising and other avenues you may want to pursue.  You may also want to pay for an editor, a good one…don’t go cheap because there are some scammers out there.  If you don’t have the money to spend, you might stress about what could’ve been.
4. Editing.  It’s important to have your book edited, I found this out the hard way.  I thought, “Hey, I write great essays and anyways, I want to keep my book like I imagined it, so I’ll edit it myself.”  I spent a lot of time editing, but editing a 620 page fantasy book is different from editing a ten page essay.  There are also things that you might need to here from another person.  For instance, I had trouble thinking of names and thus used names that weren’t the best.  I knew it wasn’t a great idea, but thought the names of the minor characters would be overlooked in favor of a good story…not all readers agreed.
5. Support.  Writing is a long and tough road, especially if you haven’t done it before.  Getting good moral support really helps.  My wife always listened to me talk about my stories, and this encouraged me.  My parents really liked the story, which also really encouraged me.  Having someone read or listen to you and like what your saying is a good encouragement. 
6. Take a breath.  There are so many articles, so many words of wisdom, that you can read about how to be successful.  You should have an agent, you should get a whole bunch of reviews, you should advertise on facebook, you should have a blog, you should have other bloggers review your book…the list is endless.  If you do a bunch of research, that’s good, but don’t let yourself be overwhelmed by the advice.  I’m guessing that, for most people, most of the advice doesn’t work.   
7. Be happy.  Hey, you sat down and wrote a book, not many people can say that.  Be happy about that ;)     

 

Overall, I’m glad that I took some time to write.  I didn’t earn any money, I think the money I spent and the money I earned balanced out, but hey, I gave it a go.  I do hope to write again in the future, but for now I’m going back to a full-time job and will be putting most of my thoughts into that for the time being.  When I do come back to writing it will be more as a hobby, which I think might be the good way to go.