You have written your book and feel enormous pride. It’s like you’ve given birth to a new born child…..but you are not quite sure what to do with it.
Welcome to the world of traditional versus indie publishing.
Traditional publishing is all well and good. You might have accidentally written a masterpiece. It’s a great idea to try agents and publishers. But they are slow, so slow its like watching paint dry. And even Harry Potter was rejected 35 times!! And if you do get accepted there is a good chance they won’t help much with marketing, which is the tricky bit! This is the reason I decided to go the indie route. And I am glad I did.
Like any great journey you need to prepare.
1) You need a book. And someone has to have read it apart from your mum. Ideally you have an editor. Look for a copy editor. All the online groups agree that they are the most helpful. But it’s expensive and you may have to outsource to a kind friend with OCD tendencies and an English degree. Your goal is to make it appear as professional as possible.
2) You need a cover and everyone agrees it needs to be good. This was a mystery to me as I just don’t care about book cover art. But I did what I was told and hired a designer on Reedsy. I am glad I did as it made such a difference. Definitely the place to spend and make it look like the other covers in your genre. Readers like recognisability.
3) You need a blurb. Join one of the many FB groups for indie writers. They have been really helpful and good to me. I posted my blurb and 89 people reviewed it. Some were so enthusiastic about helping me that they rewrote the damn thing! Blurbs are not my strength. They also gave me 150 reviews of my book cover which was great.
4) You need to format your book. I’m no computer genius but I managed to get there. There are free tools all over the internet. If you are super wealthy and own a Mac, Vellum is the Kardashian buy and you only have to pay once
5) You need ARC readers. I was surprised to find that they are all over FB groups and are enthusiastic. You send them your book for free and they post reviews. You only need a couple of good reviews and it helps a lot. It’s an easy, friendly area of the internet.
6) You then face the eternal dilemma of kindle unlimited versus going wide with your publication. The advice I received was to look at the best sellers in my category and see if they were on KU. 70% were so that’s where I went too. It means readers can borrow your book on KU but you cannot publish an ebook anywhere else.
7) Upload your book for free on Amazon and then plunge into the murky waters of amazon ads for kindle. Dave Gaughran and Dave Chesson will become your new best friends. Both have excellent Youtube videos for free. The most useful piece of advice is don’t panic and rush. It takes time to get the hang of advertising and everyone agrees that Amazon is confusing. The daily budgets are scary but Amazon doesn’t seem to push to use all your money. You only pay for clicks.
What makes it fun is when people from other countries read your book and enjoy it
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