Let’s start off by acknowledging that the words “self” and “publish”, when used together, create something that’s been a dirty word for authors for a long time.
No longer.
While the publishing houses would very much like to keep it so, self-publishing simply doesn’t have the stigma attached to it that it used to. We can create amazing works of fiction or non-fiction and market and sell them ourselves. No more waiting around to see if those query letters did their job. Create. Prepare. Sell.
So, that’s what I’m going to be talking about over the course of the next few (or perhaps longer. We’ll see) weeks.
How do we create an amazing, compelling (and commercial) work? What are the specifics of the process that can lead us to a product we’re proud of and, perhaps more pertinently, that readers will buy?
Once we’ve written our masterpiece, how do we prepare? What promotional tools do we have already at our disposal? What others can we (and should we) acquire? How do we indentify, target and attain our desired demographic? Once we’ve attained them, how do we prepare them to want to purchase our work of art?
Now that we’re prepared, how do we make sure that this primed and eager group of potential readers actually open their wallets to buy our novel? What can we do to bridge the gap between an excited almost-reader and someone that’s willing to lay down the money to read (and review) our book?
And just so you can see that we walk the walk as well as talking the talk, we are going through this entire process ourselves. I just released Plain Jane: Brunettes Beware under my pen name, Cristyn West. It’s available through Smashwords.com here. You can read for free more than 25% of the novel to see if you’re interested in purchasing it. Give it a try!
Then follow us as we take you, step-by-step, through the amazing process of do-it-yourself book publishing. Not so scary.
And certainly not a dirty word.
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