Hi
Everyone!
Happy
Monday!! We’re at the end of February. Wow! I can’t believe it. We’re almost
done with two months in 2018 already. Where is the time going?
Today’s
Meredith’s Monday Musing post is all about: Self-Publishing!
I
self-published my first book, The Officer’s Little Girl in November of 2017. It
was so awesome to finally accomplish this goal I had for myself. I’ve been an
author for over three years now and I have very much enjoyed getting to work
with my publisher and I will continue to do so for certain books. However,
after seeing and hearing so many other authors self-publishing, I wanted to try
it out for myself to see how it was.
Before
I had fully committed to the idea of self-publishing my first book, I was
scared to do so. I didn’t think I’d be able to find a decent editor or cover
artist. On top of that, I was petrified about having to deal with Amazon. With
how difficult they could be sometimes, I was scared of what would happen if I
had a problem with them. I wouldn’t have a publisher to run to, I’d have to
figure it out myself.
Once
I got was ready to move past my fears, I asked around to find out who might be
a good editor for my story. After hearing multiple glowing reviews for Kate
Richard’s editing company, Wizards of Publishing, I decided to go with her. Not
gunna lie, it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Kate edited my
story and she really got into it, picking up small errors that I had never
noticed before. Along with that, she taught me a few important things when it
came to telling a story. She really is an amazing editor!
While
I was working on my edits, which there were many, I asked around about who
might be a good to use as a cover artist to make my cover for this book. I
finally decided on Maria of Lunatic Designs. Before she got working, we had a
conversation about what I was wanting my cover to look and feel like. Three
days later, she sent me the cover I have on my story today. I was so impressed
with her. She listened to everything I said and incorporated it all into the
cover. It was great.
The
best thing about these two ladies too were that they were super affordable. I
thought self-publishing would be expensive, but it really isn’t. Within two
weeks I made back all the money I had spent on the cover and my edits. So, that
was really nice.
Now
that I had my book all set to go, I had to format it. I had heard from others
that this was really tricky to do, but thanks to draft2digital.com it
wasn’t. You just simply upload your book and cover and they format it for you.
You save the copies of it and it’s easy peasy. Plus, it’s free!
The
moment finally came for me to upload my book onto Amazon. I followed all of the
steps they laid out and at the end, pressed the “Publish” button. Here’s where
the hardest part of the whole process was...waiting for the book to go live. ;-)
I’m not that patient of a person, so when it ended up taking about 25 hours to
go live (which is completely normal), I was ready to go crazy. But then, I saw
my book up for sale on Amazon and all the craziness melted away and was
replaced by a sense of accomplishment. I had survived the self-publishing
process and it truly wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it was
pretty darn easy.
There
is one thing that I haven’t mentioned yet and is what really made this whole
process as easy as it was. Our author community. When you self-publish a book,
yes everything is on you. However, with how sweet and supportive our community
is, if I had any problems at all, there was always someone there to help me. I
felt really touched with how much encouragement I got from so many about self-publishing
my first book. I think this goes to show just how truly special and loving our
little community is. I look forward to self-publishing more books because I
know that even though everything is on me, I’ll have a great support network
behind me. <3
So,
if any author is thinking about giving self-publishing a try, I say go for it!
It truly is easy and fun. But be warned, watching your sales report on KDP can
get a little addicting. Haha! ;-)
I can't wait until you make the third book telling us what happen with the Serpentines and who will be mated next loved both of your books couldn't put them down. Would love to see The rest of your stories.
ReplyDeleteSorry forgot to add I was reading The doctors little mate and the princes Little to mate
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