Welcome to the final post of my five-post series! Last week I talked about the fourth thing I learned on my journey to publishing my novel – you’re not going to make any money. You can read the previous posts in the series here. 

Although I’m still pretty new in my “published-ness,” I’m still on an important journey. This is my publishing dream! Whether the book sells or flops (it’s selling, so fingers crossed that continues!!), it’s still a pretty awesome achievement.

However, it can be frustrating and crushing, especially when things don’t go well, and with so many pitfalls, many would-be writers give up..

This is why I didn’t.

The Ups And Downs

When my eBook went live on 31 March 2017, I had a panic attack.

The first in quite some time. I’d been stressing in the days leading up to the launch, wishing I had another week, another month, another year to polish and refine and get it perfect.

Deep down in my heart I knew the book was half-decent, otherwise I’d never have published it! But the anxiety was not so easily squashed. Not quite a publishing dream, more a nightmare!

Everyone would see the weaknesses and not the strengths, wouldn’t they? So why did I put myself through it? Why do I continue to market the book? Push myself through the stress and anxiety? Why do I still get butterflies when I see I’ve made a sale, or someone leaves a review?

Because writing is my passion.

I Have The Writing Bug (would you believe it, through my procrastination!?)

If I don’t write for a few days, I feel the bug creeping in. Even if I write a page or two of nonsense, the bug begs to be acknowledged.

I’m honoured to be part of the fantastic writing group, Garage Fiction. It’s comprised of people from all across the world, with all manner of strengths and expertise. Being part of a supportive community is wonderful, and, I’d say, absolutely necessary.

You can feel very alone when you write, with no measure to see if you’re improving or just writing drivel. It’s scary to share what you’ve written (especially something unedited!), because you feel vulnerable. You’re opening up the world to what goes on inside your mind, and the world can be a very harsh place that does not hold back if it dislikes something.

But Writing Is My Life

Publishing a novel is an achievement that can never be taken away, and I long to improve my craft and refine the process and do it again, and again, and again, until the whole series is released and my next publishing dream is achieved! The pleasure of writing ultimately outweighs the fear of judgement.

Lesson: Writing is a collaborative process. Writing constantly evolves, and it’ll never be perfect, so focus on continuous improvement, take the compliments when they come through, and push through the negatives.

P.S. I hope you enjoyed this blog post (and are enjoying the series)! If you have any comments or questions, feel free to get in touch below, or through Garage Fiction’s social media. You can also email me direct! lauren@llmcneil.com.

P. P. S. If you’re interested in grabbing yourself a copy of my novel (adventure fantasy!) then you’re in luck!

 

You can buy Moroda in paperback directly through my website.

You can buy Moroda as an eBook through Amazon.

Read the book? Please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads!

 

 

Welcome to post four of my five-post series! Last week I talked about the third thing I learned on my journey to publishing my novel – research, research, research. You can read the previous posts in the series here.

Self-publishing has pros and cons like anything. Self-publishing costs, however, can add up.

Pros = you get 100% complete creative control, and you probably stand to make more from each sale than you would with a press – after all, no-one else is taking a cut of your direct sales!

Cons = you have to do everything yourself, and that includes an awful lot of homework, too. You also have to outsource, if you want your book to stand out and have a chance of doing well.

Worldwide Best Seller Dreams

I know the writer’s dream is to become a best-seller and earn millions. It’s a pipe dream.

Still more of us dream of simply writing books full-time, paying the mortgage through royalties, maybe even getting picked up by one of the big five publishers.

The truth is less rosy. It’s pretty unlikely to happen. That’s not to say you can’t be successful (you ABSOLUTELY can!), and everyone has a different measure of what success is.

For me, I wanted to break even.

A breakdown of my self-publishing costs so far:

£300    Cover Design
£150    10 x ISBNs
£550    Printing
£80      Domain purchase and website hosting
£470    Concept Artwork

£1550 Running Total

That’s not even looking at the Facebook and Twitter Ad campaigns I’ve run, and will run in the future.

Self-Publishing Is NOT Cheap

It can be, certainly. You don’t need to spend a penny if you stick with an eBook (so waive the ISBN and print costs), design the cover yourself, don’t have a website, don’t have any other extras, and don’t put any money at all into marketing.

I could also have saved money if I used a POD service like CreateSpace or Ingram Spark. I was lucky enough to have free editing, so you can easily add another several hundred pounds to that.

This is not to mention doing ALL of the work yourself. From ISBNs to formatting (an additional cost, if you outsource it), all the research, all the social posts and content, all the promoting… the list is endless.

You’re Investing In Yourself

But I wanted to give it a good go. I wanted someone to pick up my book and not be able to tell whether it was self-published or traditionally published. I just wanted people to enjoy a good book.

So self-publishing costs were just something I had to accept.

With Amazon’s 70% royalty payments on eBooks, I earn a little over £2 per eBook sold. If people purchase a paperback through my website and PayPal me directly, I earn about £3.50 per book sold.

(Of course that’s not the end of the story – I have to pay tax on all profits.) So I earn a very, very pitiful amount and all of a sudden my goal of breaking even seems a tiny speck in the distance.

Of course with subsequent books, I won’t need to buy ISBNs again, I probably won’t need any concept artwork, I might get a discount on my next cover design, domain purchase and website hosting costs are covered… so that will help.

But printing another run of 150 copies? That £500+ is a sizeable chunk that I may not be able to / wish to pay. So POD for books two onwards is something to research (see previous lessons learned!), and Ingram Spark seems to be the best platforms for UK authors.

At the end of the day, I’m investing in myself as a professional writer. You can’t really put a price on that, can you?

Lesson: How serious are you? How much are you willing to invest in time and money?

Click Here To Read The Fifth And Final Thing I Learned: Writing Is My Passion!

P.S. I hope you enjoyed this blog post (and are enjoying the series)! If you have any comments or questions, feel free to get in touch below, or through Garage Fiction’s social media. You can also email me direct! lauren@llmcneil.com.

P. P. S. If you’re interested in grabbing yourself a copy of my novel (adventure fantasy!) then you’re in luck!

 

You can buy Moroda in paperback directly through my website.

You can buy Moroda as an eBook through Amazon.

Read the book? Please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads!

Welcome to post three of my five-post series! Last week I talked about the second thing I learned on my journey to publishing my novel – build an audience before you launch. You can read the previous posts in the series here and here.

You might’ve noticed there are a few publishing rookie errors in these posts. In truth, I wanted to get it done because, “is your book published yet?” was becoming a very frequent, very annoying  question, and I was bored of giving the same answer. (Maybe “don’t tell anyone you’re writing a book” could be another lesson?!) So I hurried through when I should’ve taken my time.

 

Know Your Tools

This can be applied to any number of things, but specifically I’m talking about Amazon when it comes to selling your book. I made the decision to publish the eBook through KDP, because it was free and simple to use.

The paperbacks were something else.

I definitely wanted them (to be able to physically hold a book I’d written?! Yes please!), and I’d discounted print on demand (POD) (I’ll get back to this), so I needed to look at some other way to create, sell, and distribute the paperbacks.

 

Method To My Madness

Distributing was simple – I’d use Royal Mail. If I had my own stock, I could sign copies for those who wanted one, and I could include “book swag” like concept art and maps.

Creating was also simple. I vetted various a load of printers based in the UK, mostly those who specialised in helping indie authors. After receiving a fab sample, I settled on Clays. They were able to provide the paper, size, and detail I wanted – including super awesome little touches like embossing.

They provided easy to follow guides to format the pages (I admit, the graphic designer at my work gave me a hand), but otherwise I did everything myself. My book cover designer (Book Beaver) also edited the cover to their specifications, so with only a couple of little hiccups, my order was accepted. 

 

All Hail Amazon?

Selling your book. This was the hard part, and certainly where research (or lack of) came into play.

I assumed I’d sell my paperbacks through Amazon, too. Mostly so if someone clicks on the link, they have eBook and paperback there. Plus, Amazon reviews are all in the same place, and I’m linked as the Author to both formats.

Seems great. But it wasn’t that simple.

I purchased a batch of 10 ISBNs from Nielsen, and used their Title Editor to update the book info. Online retailers like Waterstones pulled this data from Nielsen so the paperback appeared on their website (still can’t believe it’s on their website!!)

Not so with Amazon. You have to create an Amazon Advantage account to link yourself as a vendor for the book. You add in the price and availability information to your product once accepted, and you’d think that’d be it!

Of course selling your book is not that simple.

Amazon takes a whopping 60% of all sales through the programme (compared to the 70% royalties I earn for each eBook sold). When you factor in the print prices, it meant I’d earn a net of 56p per paperback sold through Amazon.

Oh, and I have to ship it to their warehouse, too. Which I have to pay for. So I’d make a loss.

Selling your book through Amazon? Not so great.

Lesson: Do your research so you don’t end up wasting money.

 

Click Here To Read The Fourth Thing I Learned: You’re Not Going To Make Any Money!

 

P.S. I hope you enjoyed this blog post (and are enjoying the series)! If you have any comments or questions, feel free to get in touch below, or through Garage Fiction’s social media. You can also email me direct! lauren@llmcneil.com.

P. P. S. If you’re interested in grabbing yourself a copy of my novel (adventure fantasy!) then you’re in luck!

 

You can buy Moroda in paperback directly through my website.

You can buy Moroda as an eBook through Amazon.

Read the book? Please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads!

Welcome to post two of my five-post series! Last week I talked about the first thing I learned on my self-publishing journey – finish the damned book before setting a go-live date. You can read the post here.

I’m a first time self-published author, and although I did (what I thought was) plenty of research, I still hit a few stumbling blocks along the way. I’ll definitely be avoiding those with book two!

 

Get To Grips With The Essentials First!

I knew this one before I started. I blame my failing of lesson one for not completing lesson two.

If I’d actually had a finished book two or three months BEFORE my release date, I’d have been able to spend 100% of the time on fancy marketing stuff and building my “author platform.”

Stuff like getting to grips with Mailchimp and having a solid email list, being active on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads. Setting up blog tours, sending out ARC copies, and all that cool fun marketing stuff that’s actually a load of hard work!

 

Fail To Prepare, Prepare To Fail

Okay, it’s not all doom and gloom. I’ve not “failed.” I was flailing, though.

I had to learn Twitter and Goodreads, fast – not just using them, but in a marketing sense. My accounts had some followers, but honestly, it was hardly anything. I just didn’t have the time to dedicate to all the core preparation stuff because I was spending every waking moment outside of work, eating, or sleeping, writing and polishing the damned book!

Although I’ve worked in Marketing for several years and have a fantastic team (who helped brainstorm some ideas for the paperback launch, which followed a month after the eBook), there was still SO much I could have done before to ensure the launch was more successful than it was.

 

Get The Basics Done

Other marketing “quick wins” – like having an author photo (hate having my picture taken!), an author website (all I had was my freelance writing website with one small page mentioning my book), and getting my book in front of top reviewers were really basic things I could have done months before.

Of course there’s the paradox of building an audience for a something that’s not available… but it’s preferable to madly rushing through most of the prep after the book was out! Everything needed to be done YESTERDAY, and technology issues pushed me into a rage I’d not experienced in years!

Lesson: Do the groundwork first, not during, and certainly not after.

 

Click Here To Read Post Three – The Third Thing I Learned: Research, Research, Research!

P.S. I hope you enjoyed this blog post (and are enjoying the series)! If you have any comments or questions, feel free to get in touch below, or through Garage Fiction’s social media. You can also email me direct! lauren@llmcneil.com.

P. P. S. If you’re interested in grabbing yourself a copy of my novel (adventure fantasy!) then you’re in luck!

 

You can buy Moroda in paperback directly through my website.

You can buy Moroda as an eBook through Amazon.

Read the book? Please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads!