4 Things You Didn’t Know About Becoming a Self Published Author

Self Publishing is Time Consuming: I didn’t realize how much time I’d be putting into my book even after I was finished writing it. I knew there would be some work involved to help my book become known and I’m still working on that. I’ve spent countless hours slaving over my manuscript to try to perfect it the best I can. I’ve went several rounds of editing with beta readers and a professional editor. Not to mention the promotion it takes to get a book noticed by a small amount. I promote my work every day, even several times a day. Most mornings after getting my daughter off to school, my time goes directly to my books. I work most of the school day on promotion and writing. At night is when I am able to relax and read a book.

The Importance of Social Networking

As a self published author, most of my time is put into the social networking world. I use Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and many more sites to help me get my work out there. Word of mouth is good too. My friends and family have done an amazing job with helping me spread the word about Silenced, but that’s only part of the marketing. With Silenced being available on Amazon mainly, I strive to keep up in the social network among the hundreds of other authors out there trying to shine too.

It’s Hard to Stand Out

The self publishing industry is booming right now. It seems like everyone and their brother is an author. Therefore, there’s a lot of competition out there. But I don’t like to think of them as competition. I find it easier to become known in this tough industry is by helping others like you. Teaming up with other authors that write in your genre have helped me get my book out there to a bigger audience. But even after all the help, it’s still like I’m one small fish in the vast ocean of books.

Creating a Professional Book is Hard

I didn’t realize how much it would take me to get my book to some what stand out until after I hit that publish button. I didn’t realize how much the cover matters and how much the editing matters. I designed the cover of the Kindle version of Silenced. This took a lot of time. I had to learn Photoshop, find the perfect pictures, purchase the rights to them, and then begin designing. Even after it was said and done, I still felt it could be better. This is how the paperback cover came to life. I got with another designer, worked with her to create the amazing cover, and this took time. I was blessed enough to have the designer help me as I helped her. Then, once the book was listed on Amazon I realized there was something missing. Page numbers! Yes, I formatted Silenced without page numbers in the paperback. It actually took my six year old daughter to point this out to me. Ughh!! So not only do I have editing issues I need to fix within the text, I now have to fight with the formatting of page numbers. 

So in conclusion, even though it sounds like a headache.... I still love what I do.