3 Things I’ve Learnt About Self Publishing.

Recently I wrote a short reflection on what I’ve learnt as a writer so far, and today I wanted to focus on the other side of my writing coin: Self Publishing. I won’t go about everything I’ve learnt, but here are a few tips that I think are cool.

1. Self Publishing is super easy.

Yes, would you believe it? I was amazed by how easy it was for me jump on to Kind Direct Publishing and get started. This has been a good and bad. It’s good because it’s simple. It’s bad because it’s tempting to put something out there before it’s ready.

2. Building a Twitter following is reasonably simple. But there’s a catch.

I had 20 followers a month ago. Now I’m almost at 600. How? Well it turns out there are heaps of authors on Twitter just dying to connect and cheer each other on. I’ve found heaps of like-minded people who’ve been happy to follow me. The catch? If you follow the same path as me, you’re most likely not looking to sell your book to other authors, and a lot of authors on Twitter just tweet about their books. So your newsfeed may become… interesting. Does spamming other authors with your books work? Well, I’ve tweeted a little bit about my books (quietly) and I haven’t had a single purchase via Twitter that I know of yet… but you never know! I just just know that I’m not about to start tweeting about my AMAZING 5 STAR BOOKZ all the time.

3. Actually getting people to start buying your books is the tough part.

People won’t just buy your book because it’s on Amazon. They need social proof (reviews), a compelling cover (blah blah blah book by its cover) and a compelling price point. I still haven’t got that perfect mix, but I’m on my way. The cover for The Vanishing Villa was designed via Artcorgi, and has helped shift a few more units for me – well worth paying for.

So those are just a few of the things I’ve learnt so far. I’m realistic about how many books I’ll sell at the moment, and I’m keeping my attention on finishing the final novella in the Inspector Ambrose series. It’s a blast taking this journey. Can’t wait to see where it leads to next.

Unless “next” is desperately tweeting about why you should buy my book. Then count me out!

3 responses to “3 Things I’ve Learnt About Self Publishing.”

  1. samulraney says:

    Re: #1… I always say that self publishing is super easy, which is both good and bad. Good for those of us that take the time to make a great product. Bad because folks can slap 4 poorly written pages together with a cover and call it a “book.” :-/

  2. Thanks for sharing your experience!

  3. […] series – something I can only hope to emulate. There were also practical posts about Twitter, self-publishing, and Amazon keywords. In total, I wrote 75 posts, which were read by over 7,500 […]

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