It’s the end of a week in self-publishing which has had a lot of ups and downs. Last week I was positive because I had got a lot of work but life has a way of messing with you.
An exciting update – I’ve started using Pinterest to connect with readers and share more of the writer’s world. I posted this article on a premier self-publishing blog – have a read and let me know what you think.!
When editing the book, I found it appalling, complete rubbish! What possessed me to think I’m a writer. I was feeling miserable and then out of nowhere I got a boost.
At church on Sunday evening I met a friend who I don’t see too often who deliberately stopped me to chat and said “Oh Susan your book is so wonderful!”. She was talking about my first book, the Camino Ingles. Her husband had just read it and had said how wonderful it was and how they would like to do the Camino Ingles and take my book along! The Camino Ingles was my first foray into self-publishing.
That was a reader’s compliment out of the blue. I felt really good about my writing and about myself! So thank you Mary for telling me that when I was feeling low. So if you like a book, tell the author – it makes a huge difference to them.
A book is of no use unless someone reads it. It’s just a figment of my imagination that only comes to life when someone reads it.
What you have to do when you are a self-publishing or an unknown author like me, is to get a street book launch team. I’m building it up, I have about 60 people in the team. A lot of them have joined the Facebook group, but they have not responded to my emails and signed up. Last week I did a bit of rounding up of the troops and saying hey look I can’t just send you stuff if you’re not on my email list. The whole book launch runs through an email list. Most of the people on the book launch team are personal friends and all of them tell me I already have their email. Yes, I’ve got your email but I cannot add it to an email list without permission, you have to opt in to it.
I’m talking about book writing and self-publishing and this weekend is a big weekend again for me because I do most of my writing and book publishing work on the weekend because I work for time. This weekend I will edit another couple of chapters of my book. I’ve had my book edited already by a beta reader a friend of mine.
I was in negotiations with a professional editor. It’s the editor who did my first book, he’s fantastic but prices have doubled in in the year and a half since I wrote my first book so I’m rethinking whether to get my book professionally edited. I’m going over the book again, carefully and rewriting bits of it editing it, taking out extraneous words which I use all the time like just and actually.
In another author’s group other words to get rid of – wondered, realized. thought, almost, nearly, very. I removed all of those words from my writing and it is reading much better. Those are just fluff words which do nothing for your book.
I am getting more active on various book sites now and one of the things is to get book bloggers to get interested in you. So if you know of any book bloggers who do adventure-writing, who are interested in new new authors, new books, connect me up to them.
This whole gig of book publishing is about getting a big audience when I launch. I’ve done my book titles, I’ve got a couple of book covers out there, with team members still mulling over titles and book covers. I will have to order my book cover properly before I go ahead, that would take five or six days. My edit is not over, my formatting is not over. It’s probably delayed by a month.
I need to get maps done because it’s an adventure book. It’s a book about climbing in the Himalayas, even though it’s not a guidebook per se I think people want some pictures. Colour pictures are very expensive, I’m thinking of getting some sketches or line drawings done. I’m looking for an artist for that
These are the ups and downs of my book writing life this week.
Thanks for being part of my Himalayan journey.