Self Publishing In Perspective

Two years ago, I became a widow at the age of 45. My lovely husband Ian died at home following a year-long battle with cancer. He was only 52. As I held his hand, he took his last breaths and his heart slowly and peacefully came to a stop.

And that moment altered me forever.

Death of a loved one changes your perspective on life. You are intolerant to the small things that used to seem so important. And you become braver in your choices because life really is so short.

I am not telling you this to illicit sympathy, but merely as background as to why I decided a year later to throw in the towel and to take a huge leap of faith. I gave up my job to write full time. I took a package from work and I set up my household so that I could write during the day when my two children were at school.

It was scary, but I took a deep breath and went for it. I followed my dream because let’s face it, no one knows how long they have left and if I don’t go for it now, when will I?

But where to begin? I had already been traditionally published with minimal success. My children’s novels, the DarkIsle trilogy, had been out for ten years and I had also produced a children’s history book in that time. I had texts stashed away that could do with rewriting or I could start something new.

However, it was to an already self-published title that I went back to. Dusting Down Alcudia had been inspired by a holiday I had taken with Ian some years before. I had indie published it via Amazon in 2013 where it had disappeared into oblivion. So, why go back to that when it hadn’t been successful? Well, because it’s a great book and I felt it needed revisiting. It wasn’t the book’s fault it wasn’t successful, but mine. I had not put any effort into promoting it properly.

So, before I re-edited Dusting Down Alcudia, I got to work. I hit the books and the internet to find out all I could about indie publishing and properly marketing my book. I started with Joanne Penn’s How to Market a Book and Hal Elrod’s (and others) the Miracle Morning for Writers. The former gave me my first ‘how to’ for marketing, the latter gave me the boost to start writing every single day. Hal’s book also changed my perspective on me as a writer. Before I thought of it as just writing, but reading his book made me realise that I needed to look on my writing career as a business and start treating it that way.

So, I continued to read and learn. I read everything I could on marketing, on business, on building reputation and trust, and even on the psychology of buyers. I set myself a goal to write 2000 words every day – and stuck to it.  I hired a professional editor to edit Dusting Down Alcudia and when he was doing that, I sought out a designer to do a new cover.

Then I signed up to do Nick Stephenson’s Your First 10k Readers course which is specifically designed for indie writers. And here’s what I’ve learned: your book is not going to attract anyone’s attention on its own. You have to put in the time and effort into making it visible to potential readers.

In order to do that, you need to do these things:

1. Produce a quality product – that means a well written book, properly edited and laid out with a professionally designed cover.  Yes, it means spending money, but it’s vital you have all these elements if you want your readers to a) buy the book and b) buy future books from you.
2. Put some effort into building an email list of your readers – this means collecting email addresses onto a database so you can build a relationship with your fans. It’s not about constantly sending them ‘buy my book’ messages, but getting to know them and them, you.
3. Giving value for money by doing flash sales, permanently free books, joint promotions, and newsletters with information of value to readers and competitions – I don’t have a book available for free yet, but once I have other books written for the series, this will be something I’ll look at. At the moment, readers can get a free Dusting Down Alcudia character book from my website instead. Get yours here: https://danelsonauthor.com/dusting-down-alcudia-character-booklet/
4. The course also spoke about how to choose the best keywords and categories for your novels and which technology to use to create advertising campaigns and to track purchases.

My reading and Nick’s courses opened up a whole new world to me, things I had never thought about and I’ve looked into them all. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t implemented them all – yet – but I’m taking each day as it comes and investing in my business. Time will tell if these strategies will result in success, but I have taken the first steps towards it. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be asked back next year to write an article on how I became a top selling writer!

—

D A Nelson lives near Loch Lomond, Scotland with two children and three small dogs. A former journalist, she also worked in Public Relations for a number of years before giving it up to write full time. In 2008, she won the Royal Mail Award for Scottish Children’s Books for her children’s novel, DarkIsle and has been shortlisted for a few others. In her spare time, she is an avid reader, enjoys cooking, music and photography.

My website: danelsonauthor.com

Dusting Down Alcudia is now available on Amazon on Kindle and paperback.

 

Recommended Books

How to Market A Book – Joanna Penn (www. thecreativepenn.com)

How To Make A Living With Your Writing: Books, Blogging and More (Books) – Joanna Penn

The Miracle Morning for Writers – Hal Elrod

Ask: The Counterintuitive Online Method to Discover Exactly What Your Customers Want to Buy, Create a Mass of Raving Fans and Take Any Business to the (Books) – Ryan Levesque

Marketing for Writers Who Hate Writing – James Scott Bell

Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust (Books)  – Chris Brogan and Julien Smith.

Nick Stephenson’s course:   www.yourfirst10kreaders.com

About DUSTING DOWN ALCUDIA

The first in a brand new romantic adventure series by award winning Scottish writer, D A Nelson.

When top archaeologist Nina Esposito finds a famed treasure hunters’ journal, she knows it will lead her to a lost Roman necklace.
But when an ex and a rival archaeologist come on the scene, things suddenly get complicated as the pair compete for her heart.
Added to the mix is a shady local billionaire who will stop at nothing to snatch the jewels from under her nose.
Now she has to navigate through her confused feelings and find the necklace before anyone gets hurt. Failure just isn’t an option.

“A terrific, fast paced action adventure that I couldn’t put down,” Janice Mitchell.

“This romance is full of great characters and is a fantastic story. I can’t wait until the next one is out.” Laurina Hewson

 

BUY THE BOOK HERE

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips