self publishing advice

[andrewmcquinn]

Hello fellow GA I need some advice. I'm in the process of self publishing my first novel, something that as the holidays hit I have put at the waist side. I've lost some of my drive to complete the tasks needed and feel I'm hitting my own personal road blocks.

 

I'm impatient with the process, and am waiting for the editor to finish editing my novel. However its taken longer than I expected it yo, and with no finished product I have no idea hot to advertise for my book and promote it. Can anyone please offer up advice from their own situations?

[Sasha Distan]

waiting, editing, editing some more, and getting at least three sets of eyes on it, that would be my distilled advice. 

My first self-pub took me well over a year from first thorough edit to printing, and the timescale doesn't shrink much. Remain hopeful, get a second editor to read the script and be patient - these things must be done in and out of our other lives.

[Cia]

You need to be thorough in the editing, yes. But before you even begin to think about publishing you need to start networking. Join author groups with other published authors, brand yourself on Facebook and Twitter, create an author website or blog, etc... You should also track down review websites that often post reviews of material similar to what you intend to publish so you can send them Advanced Read Copies prior to publishing to start the process of getting the word out to readers--these can also be nice to add to your eBook or on sale sites to promote yourself.

 

Identify sites where you can sell your content, and make author/publisher accounts, as these often have to be approved before you can upload material. Then you get into the actual process of creating an eBook. You need to create appealing cover art, research applicable legal notices to your area, format the text, add your author bio, etc... and then create the eBooks. At a minimum, you need to create a pdf, epub, and mobi format. Some sites, like Smashwords and Amazon, will allow you to post from a Word document, but each have their own formatting requirements. Other sites will not make the eBook formats for you, so you need to make them yourself.

 

Once you are ready to place your completed eBook for sale, you need to start thinking about promotion. Where do you see authors of content like yours promote? Consider a blog tour, author chats, doing contests, promoting in yahoo groups and on Goodreads, etc... which often require you to write up posts about your writing, your story, your characters (either about coming up with them or as them answering interview questions), answering interview questions from blog hosts, etc...

 

There are MILLIONS of works online and in stores. Just publishing doesn't guarantee anything, because your story is just one of many to readers. You need to figure out ways to bring your audience to your book instead, and that requires A LOT of work.

 

Good luck!

[andrewmcquinn]

I have a facebook for my book you can find it by searching for My Father's Secret my profile photo on this site matches it.

 

The topic at hand isn't the editor, I'm getting a second opinion later this week, and trust the one I have now. What I'm wondering is what things can I take care of when its in the editing stages. I know I can't copyright it, and I don't believe I can get ISBN numbers yet either.

 

So what can I do? Do those who have self published have advice on techniques and ways to promote a product you can't physically show people? I have my thoughts, I'd love to do a reading but is that allowed? Haha.

 

Thoughts?

[andrewmcquinn]

P.s how so i find reviewers? Does goodreads count?