As of the twenty-second of April, I will have a book out into the world. Lady of Fire & Lord of Ash took so much grit and determination. I often remark that it was an easy process and while that’s true, getting it to where it is now was full of hard work. Many tears and late nights went into my book after several rejections from big-time publishers and literary agents. So, making the decision to self-publish isn’t one I took lightly. However; this process taught me a lot. Now, to share a few of the things I learned to help another soul on their self-publishing journey.
- The Writing Process:
I’ll start at the beginning. The very beginning. I am a person who has been writing for the majority of their life, but I have found some ways to make it easier. The first thing is that you want to have an idea. Now that you have an idea, it needs to go from up in your brain to on the page. If you’re a free-flow writer like me, it might help to plot out major events that need to happen within the story. From there, just start writing to bridge your story from point A to B and so on until you’ve got your first draft completed.
- Editing:
Editing is daunting. As much as you think your first draft will be your final draft, it won’t be. Trust me. Within my own editing process, I moved scenes around, deleted scenes, and added scenes. I personally edited my draft over five times and even then the editor caught easy-to-sight mistakes that I missed because I read it so much. So, hire an editor or at least have a few trusted friends read over it because you know what it’s supposed to say so it can be hard to spot mistakes.
- What now?
Now, we get into the self-publishing process. There are a lot of things that come together to make a book great. However; if you’re on a budget like me, pick what matters to you most. For me, that was cover art because that is the first opinion people form of your book and editing for obvious reasons.
- Finding a Cover Artist:
Find and follow artists on Instagram. Go to the search bar and scroll through hashtags of your favorite books. This works best for young adult or new adult series such as From Blood and Ash, A Court of Thorns and Roses, or the Cruel Prince. There are hundreds of great artists and if you find some you like that are open for commission, ask. You can also use a site I found called Reedsy, but you do have to pay a site fee which is applied to any service you actually use. Reedsy also offers other services like connecting you to editors and publicists.
- Where to Publish:
I am personally using Kindle Direct Publishing. With KDP you get to keep 70% of the royalties and is free to use. With that, your book will be sold on Amazon and you can have it sold as either an e-book or paperback or both. It’s really simple to set up. However; you will need to upload your manuscript into their e-book formatter which is different from the word doc size suggestions they will give you for the paperback version. I have heard good things about Ingram Spark which will allow for wider distribution and also hard copies. However; you have to pay for Ingram Spark.
- Congratulations, you just wrote a book!