To Self-Publish or Not

There are many advantages to self-publishing, including having more control over the final product, being able to release your work on your own schedule, and avoiding the potential for rejection from traditional publishers, however, self-publishing has its challenges.

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Self-publishing gives authors a lot of control that they wouldn’t have if they went the traditional publishing route. You get to choose the cover, design the interior, set the price, and determine when the book will be released. You also have complete control over the marketing and promotion of your book.

Another advantage of self-publishing is you don’t have to wait for a traditional publisher to approve your manuscript and then go through their production schedule. This can be especially beneficial if you have a timely message that you want to get out into the world right away.

Self-publishing can also be a great way to build a following for your work, as you will have direct access to your readership. You will be able to connect with them directly, without having to go through a middleman, and they will be able to provide you with feedback that can help you improve your work.

And finally, self-publishing allows you to avoid the potential for rejection from traditional publishers. If you’ve been through the querying process and have been repeatedly told no, self-publishing can be a great way to get your work out there without having to go through that rejection process again.

One downside of self-publishing, however, is that it can be expensive. You will need to pay for editing, cover design, and formatting, and you will also need to purchase ISBNs. In addition, you will need to market your book yourself, which can also be costly. Furthermore, promoting your book effectively requires you to do more than just put your book up on Amazon. You need to create a marketing plan and get the word out about your book. Use social media, start a blog, and reach out to book bloggers and reviewers to get your book in front of as many people as possible.

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If you’ve written a novel and are considering self-publishing, there are a few things you should keep in mind. Firstly, it’s important to make sure your work is edited and proofread. Even if you’re confident in your writing, it’s always best to get a second (or third) pair of eyes on your work to catch any typos or errors. Secondly, designing a professional-looking cover is crucial. Readers often judge a book by its cover, so you want to make sure yours is eye-catching and gives a good indication of what the book is about. Finally, promoting your book effectively is key to getting it noticed. There are several ways to do this, such as social media marketing, paid advertising, and even organizing book signings. By keeping these things in mind, you can give your novel the best chance for success.

Before you self-publish, it’s important to do your research and make sure you’re prepared for the task ahead. You’ll need to decide how you want to publish your book (electronic or print), how you’ll format it, and what services you’ll use to help you along the way.

In conclusion…

There are some benefits to self-publishing, including:

• You’re in control of the entire process, from start to finish.
• You can release your book on your own schedule.
• You can choose to publish electronically or in print, or both.
• You can set your own price for your book.
• You keep all the rights to your work.

 There are also some challenges you’ll need to be aware of, such as:

• It can be difficult to get your book noticed among the millions of other self-published books out there.
• You’ll need to invest time and money into marketing and promoting your book.
• You may need to hire outside help to edit, design, and format your book.

Bird Song and Second Drafts

I’ve finally finished the second draft of my third novel. Seems like it’s taken me an age to read through it, and I’ve realised I’ve not included a prologue, so if I’m to keep in line with my previous novels, I need to write one. However, I’m going to put the manuscript to the side for a while, otherwise, with plenty more rewrites to come before I publish it, I’m going to start getting sick of what I’ve written, and that’s not going to help me approach it with an objective mind.

Still, I did get one piece of motivational good news, and that is someone’s bought a copy of my first novel. It’s the first sale I’ve had in about two years. So if you’re wondering if self-published authors live a glamorous life of multi-million dollar sales, no, we don’t! Writing is a labour of love with very little returns.

In other good news, the house martins have returned (again). Mum and dad managed to survive the attack on their nest, and the decimation of their first brood, and after a couple of weeks of being MIA, they came back to the nest. Dad sang the song of love, while mum cleaned the nest by kicking all the crap out of it at such an angle that it rained in through my open window. Charming! They then shored up the nest by fixing the hole, and on Sunday, they spent their first night back in it. I know, because their squabbling woke me up at 1am.

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#30dayswild day 3: [volume up!] A very welcome return to these two noisy house martins (Delichon urbicum), who went MIA after the destruction of their first brood (& part of their nest) last month. 🎉🐥 . I'm watching them via a makeup mirror I got out of a Xmas cracker. . . . . . . #wildlife #nature #bird #housemartin #birds

A post shared by Kate Llewellin (@kllewellin_cetologist) on Jun 3, 2018 at 1:45am PDT

What’s interesting is they seem to have returned with reinforcements. There’s been a couple of other house martins flying about with them, and trying to get into the nest. It could be that they’re some of last year’s brood, as they do stick around to help with the next clutch, but that’s usually a clutch within the same year of them fledging, not the proceeding season. A year on, last year’s young should be setting up their own homes, with male chicks nesting close to the parents, and the female chicks buggering off to pastures new. Perhaps these guys have failed to find partners, and have decided to stick around with the parents instead. I just hope this new batch survives, because at an average lifespan of 1 – 2 years, mum and dad haven’t got long to go 😔.

Big News!

I can finally reveal why I’ve been silent here for so long, and the reason is, I’ve been hard at work prepping my novels for release in paperback form. All you old skool book lovers (and in all honesty, I don’t blame you if you are) can now get your hands on a physical copy of my first two novels! Woo-hoo!!

And boy, has it been a labour of love…or should that just be ‘been a labour’…to get them ready. First, I updated the ebook editions, giving them another thorough once-over with various grammar/spell-checkers, plus giving in, and introducing the Oxford comma to the text.

Next was the preparing of the covers for Amazon CreateSpace. The cover for Warriors Made of Glass wasn’t too much of an issue, as I’d saved it with excessively high dpi for the ebook. It was A Candle Amongst the Stars which was the bugger, as its size and dpi was the minimum for an Amazon ebook; therefore, too low for the cover, so I had to go about manipulating it in GIMP to try and up the count without distorting the image noticeably. Hopefully, it’ll come out alright in print.

Then there was the formatting of the manuscripts themselves, and I used Amazon’s Kindle Create Add-in for Microsoft Word to automate the process. The app is in Beta, and though it streamlines the process nicely, it crashed A LOT, so if you’re thinking of using it for your own books, save your work regularly! Again Warriors Made of Glass behaved itself, and I got it exported as a pdf pretty quickly. A Candle Amongst the Stars, not so much. For some reason it wouldn’t behave when it came to page numbering, choosing to start at page 2 instead of 1. After several hours of swearing, I found a simple (typical!) solution (I manipulated the footer by hand) and managed to export the pdf before it changed its mind.

So there we have it. My novels are now in printed format. You can find them on Amazon here: A Candle Amongst the Stars* and here: Warriors Made of Glass*. The links take you to Amazon UK, but they’ll be available from your national site too.

Also, I’m planning to do a freebie offer on the ebook versions soon in celebration, so stay tuned for that!

 

*Links via AmazonSmile. Please read this notification for more details.

Marketing Misery

The biggest suck-fest about being a self-published author is having to do your own marketing. Of course, if you have a publisher, there’s no guarantee of help, but as an indie author, you’re pretty much guaranteed to have to go it alone. What’s more, it’s usually a huge time-sink with very few (if any) returns.

Unsurprisingly, I have neglected marketing my novels in favour of writing a third instalment, plus university study, and volunteering. Given that I’ve only sold a grand total of 10 copies, this needs to change. Trouble is, how?

Smashwords provides a free ebook with marketing tips and advice, and I followed a lot of these when I released my first novel, but to be honest, it didn’t do much. However, with us having just landed in a new year, I’m going to give the tips another shot and see if anything helps. I’ve already covered some of the easy ones from way back when, like having a Twitter account, publishing more than one book, having a blog, and updating my email signature. Conversely, some will be impossible to do, like a book tour, because if no one’s buying my book, no one’s gonna want to see me have an anxiety attack in the back room of a bookstore (or maybe they will; there’s no accounting for people’s sensibilities!).

There has been one doable addition to the list since I last perused it, and that’s the ability to publish an in-depth Q&A interview at Smashwords. The site generates some pre-programmed questions and I write my own answers. Therefore, the crux of this post is me inviting you to go read it (here), then comment on this post and suggest additional questions you’d like to see answered in my interview. If I get any, and as long as they aren’t trolly, I’ll answer them too.

Additionally, you can go ask me questions over on my Goodreads author profile. I’ve already answered some pre-generated questions, but I would love to get some interesting Qs to A. And while you’re there, you can also friend me!

5 Reasons to Fall in Love With Self-Publishing

Why self-publish? Outskirts Press has some answers….

Self-Publishing News for Self Publishing Authors

Times have changed, haven’t they? And self-publishing has changed the world … and the publishing industry right along with it. There are so many reasons why authors, including those who may have previously been traditionally published, are eschewing the old ways and trying something new, and February is the perfect month to try it out yourself. Once you learn more about self-publishing, you may even find that you love this option, too! Here are five reasons why publishing in the lead up to and in the immediate aftermath of Valentine’s Day might just be exactly what your year needs to kick into gear.

1. Timing

It’s a new year, yes, but it’s also not quite brand new anymore. Which is to say, the hectic holidays are past, and the doldrums of spring are opening up before you. What better time of year to knock out that project you’ve always wanted…

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Novel Update

Well, I have finally managed my first readthrough of my 3rd novel’s typescript, so now comes more typing. I’ve done a few edits here and there when time allowed, but with the reading part out the way, the process kicks up a notch as I focus all my attention on adding, subtracting, moving, and fretting over passages. It will be the first of around six re-writes, possibly more, but with each one becoming less a ‘slash and burn’ job, and more a ‘tweak here and there’ job.

Quite frankly, the whole editing business of writing sucks. You get to a point where you start hating the very thing you gave birth to, and begin second-guessing everything you’ve written. But for me, it sucks in a different way.

I like to read. I like adding to my reading goal list in Goodreads (didn’t do one this year, unsurprisingly). I like being able to show the world that yes, unlike President Trumpf, I read….and enjoy reading. I am a bookworm, loud and proud! Unfortunately, there’s nowhere to put that I’ve read my typescript for the umpteenth time. No, I may not be reading someone else’s novel, but I sure as hell #amreading.

Panic Stations!

Well these past couple of weeks have been a bit of a freak out. After a stream of application rejections, one suddenly came up golden, leaving me to plan a trip up to Edinburgh, and create an award-winning presentation all in one week. Why is it the jobs I REALLY want, a) accept my application so I have to make a fool of myself at an interview, and b) require me to do a presentation. As if interviews aren’t bad enough for the socially anxious/awkward. It was like the St. Andrews University job all over again, and ho boy, did I die a death there!

Still, for a week I juggled a university TMA assignment with creating a presentation on critiquing the company’s social media account, and what I would do to enhance it. That was all fun and games!

Then this socially anxious bundle of nerves headed north for a stress-filled visit to my favourite city in the UK.

First came train problems. A signal failure down the line meant my connection in Llandudno was delayed by 10 minutes. I had a second connection at Warrington Bank Quay, with, you guessed it, a 10 minute gap between arrival and departure. I don’t know how the driver and conductor managed it, but he made up six minutes, giving me enough time to arrive and pee before my next train. Phew!

The weather was dry, but clearly cold, as the snow-capped mountains en route attested to.

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It's a wee bit cold in Scotland 🏔⛄🌨 #scenery #scotland #snow #mountains #snowymountains #snowy #cold

A post shared by Kate Llewellin (@kllewellin_cetologist) on Mar 21, 2017 at 11:42am PDT

The evening saw me at the Holiday Inn, eating hummus sandwiches using a chocolate wrapper as a plate, while I caught up with my social media stuff, and occasionally reviewing my presentation. That was until the power suddenly went out at 8:45. What was even more fun that the hotel’s water supply seems to be reliant on electric, so I had no drinkable water either. Defeated, I went to bed early. Was woken at 5am by the one light I’d accidentally left on suddenly springing to life. 8 hours it had taken them! The water took a little longer to recover. Brown’s okay only if it’s hot chocolate or coffee. Still, at least the radiator wasn’t reliant on electric, and I stayed toasty, while outside it hit zero. And as I lay in bed, the gibbons in the zoo next door began their eerie dawn chorus. Kinda like this….

The interview happened. I’ve had worse (*cough* *St Andrews* *cough*). Could’ve done a whole load better. Did learn one thing, and that was the zoo had a power cut too, so I doubt I’ll be able to get a refund for my shitty night.

So now it’s a waiting game for the next week until I hear back that I haven’t got it.

Novel update:

That’s a whole load of paper!

After giving my manuscript the once over with the spellchecker and grammar checker, I’ve finally printed it out for its first read through. Ah, the first read through…when you’ve realised everything you’ve written sounds like crap! The joys and self-doubts of being a writer!

 

Google’s Digital Garage – A Review

It all started with Facebook winning the war with Adblock. The sponsored posts and ads that I didn’t want to see cluttering up my feed came back with a vengeance. How I rolled my eyes, after all, it’s bad enough that Facebook keeps changing my feed back to ‘Top Stories’ without having to wade through, what I consider, irrelevant tat. However, one advert kept popping up repeatedly in my timeline that piqued my interest, that being the one advertising Google’s Digital Garage.

What got me intrigued was that a) it was about marketing and the web, and b) it was free. I’m always up for a bit of free training, and as I wanted to learn more about SEO and the like for both marketing my novels, and for gaining extra skills in the realm of social media with the hopes of getting a job, I decided to have a look.

Briefly, the Digital Garage provides “free tutorials from Google on everything from your website to online marketing and beyond. Choose the topics you want to learn, or complete the whole online course for a certification from Google and IAB Europe.”

I signed up using my Google account, after which it asked me some questions about my online needs. Using my answers, the site formulated my personal learning plan, picking select modules from its selection of 23. For me that was 9 modules. Each module came with 3 to 6 videos, which were, on average, about 3 minutes long (overall they ranged between 3 and 6 minutes long).

After each video was a short quiz, and each module ended with a longer quiz. Once I’d watched all the videos, and passed all the quizzes for my selected modules, all the rest of the modules became unlocked, and I could work through them to gain a final certificate. Which I did….

The videos were easy to watch, and each module can probably be completed in less than an hour. So basically, if you do a module a day, the whole course will take less than 23 days. The quizzes were pretty simple, but if you got any questions wrong you could take them again until you got 100%. The ease of the quizzes might seem a bit of a cop out to some, as basically you can keep trying the answers until you get full marks, but to be honest, the video content is the more important thing.

My completed Digital Garage modules

I have to say, I genuinely learnt some new things, had a few aha moments, and made a load of notes. Now, not every module was relevant to me, for instance, creating a mobile app is probably not something I’ll need to do, but the seeds of knowledge are there should I ever work for a company that might benefit from one. I’ve gained a bit more knowledge about web content, keywords, SEO, and becoming more visible on the web, which as an indie-author is important. Starting up my blog again has been as a direct result of doing the Digital Garage.

Would I recommend doing the Digital Garage? Yes. As I said, it doesn’t take long to do, even if you only do an hour a day, and your online strategy may benefit from the information provided in the videos. To be honest, you have nothing to lose in doing it. And once you’ve completed it you get a nice certificate that you can show off on the likes of LinkedIn.

Imaging the Races – a new Approach

Many moons ago, I wrote a post about how I brought my alien races visually to life through the use of a site called TekTek. Doing so let me get a better feel for the different races, and allowed me to quickly write descriptions of their looks without having to trail through paragraphs of previously created descriptive metaphors. Several of these images can be found on my Meet the Races page, where I’ve gone into more detail about some of the more common alien species in my novels.

Since then, TekTek has become defunct. Because politics. Which had left me in a bit of a pickle when it came to creating more characters, as I had no good way of drawing them. Throwing together a few exoplanets in GIMP is surprisingly a hell of a lot easier than drawing hands, faces, feet and everything in between. I am not a good artist.

Help came with a bittersweet aftertaste. As I’ve mentioned before, my mother died not too long ago, and it was my responsibility as her only child to go through all her stuff, chucking out the unusable, sending good stuff to charity, and rescuing some of my old childhood tat. Amongst my teddies and ornaments were, miraculously, two folders full of old science fiction sketches I’d done when younger. I vaguely remembered them, and had hoped they were still around, though honestly, I’d forgotten how full they were. There were spaceships, aliens, Human characters, animals, and planetary backdrops. I’d been quite prolific!

Many of the animals, ships and landscapes had been drawn free hand. A lot were still unfinished, and were only outlines, but many were coloured and complete. The humanoid aliens had been created by tracing over a couple of fashion model templates I’d nicked from school (FYI, they were only a couple of photocopied pieces of paper. It was hardly an arrestable offence), and this had allowed me to create better sketches.

An example of one of the model templates

I spent a good couple of months scanning each sketch into my computer, and now I have more aliens, people, and creatures than I know what to do with. However, as my novels progress, I can look to these sketches, and finally weave these characters into the narrative that has been in my mind since creating them. Thank you younger self!

Still Grinding

My first (official) WordPress post was going to be a summary of what’s been going on with me, but then America happened. *Sigh*.  Anyhow, here I am, back blogging, for who knows how long.

It’s been a rough couple of years, and it’s still going on. My only parent, my mum, died in 2015, as did my 5 year relationship. I ended up stuck in Holland, still living with my ex, because poverty. Finally managed to move back to the UK in the spring of this year, and have spent my time looking for work, while crashing in the spare room of another ex. Oh yes, and all my stuff is still in Holland. So yay! Basically it’s been a couple of years of fluctuating stress and depression, further added to recently by the stupidity of the masses.

Yeah, this is like totally my workspace (*eye roll*)

Still, during the times of uncertainty, I’ve managed to drag myself in front of my computer screen to write. Plugging on, 500 words a day, has brought me to 111,997 words in my third novel, with more to go. At this rate, I’ll probably publish my novel late next year, early the year after. Hardly a fast turn around, but then I’m not the type of writer who quickly churns half-arse books out for a quick buck.

As for why I’m on WordPress now, well I’ve finally stopped holding out. A lot of organisations use this blogging platform, so it’s really something I should get practice in, especially as I want to move into communications as a career choice. I have less control over the HTML, which is a bummer (no scripts in my posts), and it’s control panel is not the easiest to navigate and figure out, but it does provide a nice clean layout. To be honest, I probably got carried away with HTML and CSS on my other pages, which made things too busy. Minimalism looks more professional. So I’ve pulled everything over from Blogger and Tumblr, which I might add was actually easy once I found the option, and WordPress even brought my separate Tumblr pages over, which was nice.

Now I just need to put into practice what I learnt via Google’s Digital Garage, get a nice following, and try and translate that into more book sales. No pressure!

To end this post off, a bit of fun courtesy of Nukazooka