What I've Learned About Self-Publishing Thus Far

A few months ago, I finally made a life-long dream come true; I now have a book with my name on the spine on the bookshelf behind me. Although part of me feels like it was kind of cheating, I did learn quite a bit about the self-publishing process.

And I can see why people throw so much money at various companies and freelancers to help. It's a very long and arduous process. Especially for someone who doesn't have a lot of disposable time on his hands.

Writing Something People Want to Read

My first book was something simple. I wanted something I could quickly write to start learning how to self-publish a book. So, it was mostly about how I made a career out of freelance writing, making money with content mills like Textbroker, and dealing with one of the worst bouts of depression in my life. It's essentially a tale about hope and never giving up.

Since a few of my viewers on YouTube were asking for the story of being me, I thought it would be something worthwhile. I never once had the misconception of writing a best seller or replacing a full-time income with my first book. It was merely to satisfy a few of my fans while giving me a book to learn from in regards to self-publishing.

Needless to say, I don't make a lot of sales. I mean, realistically, it's a story about how some guy turned writing into a career. I'm not exactly a household name.

If you truly want to make a living with self-publishing, you need to write something a lot of people want to read.

A story about some guy on YouTube with 1,378 subscribers? Not so much.

A horror novel that can get the reader's blood pressure up? This has a much larger audience.

It all comes down to whether or not you can write something a lot of people want to read. The plot, character development, setting, style...all of these will play a major role. Don't assume you can just whip something up and become the next best-selling author on Amazon.

Editing Your Novels Can Be a Pain

No author should ever edit his or her own work. This is true whether you're writing a 300-page fantasy or a 2,000-word blog post. It's much too easy for a writer to gloss over spelling and grammatical errors. That's because of how our brains are wired. We'll skip over the small errors because we already think they're correct. Especially if the piece is fresh in our minds.

One method that works exceptionally well for me is to read the work aloud as if I was recording the audiobook version. Because your brain has to process what you read for speech, you wind up finding all kinds of small errors you missed before.

Another method requires a bit of time. If you write something and then come back to it a week or even a month later, it's no longer fresh in your mind. There's a higher probability you'll come across some of the errors you missed before.

You can also use tools like Grammarly, Pro Writing Aid, or some other grammar-checking app. These are often far cheaper than hiring an actual editor, and some can do nearly as good of a job scanning through your book.

Grammar isn't the only thing you need to worry about, either. Elements such as story continuity, confusing subplots, plot holes, and much more also affect how a book is accepted by an audience.

In the end, though, not much can beat a professional editor who has quite a bit of experience editing your genre of book. Unfortunately, this process can literally cost thousands of dollars depending on the length of your manuscript. Not everyone has that kind of money, especially those looking seriously at self-publishing.

Marketing the Book is the Biggest Pain

Keep in mind that no one is going to buy and read your book if they don't know it even exists. Getting it out in front of as many people as possible isn't exactly all that easy.

Now, there is quite a bit you can do for free such as sharing the link on social media, posting your book on your blog, or informing your email subscribers they can buy it. However, using free methods can only get you so far.

Since November 22, I've only sold 13 eBooks and two paperbacks, one of which was to myself so I had the first printed copy. Here it is, January 6th, and I haven't made a sale in more than three weeks. The reason is that I've only utilized a handful of free methods to market the book.

Remember, I don't have a lot of time on my hands. I still have my full-time work to do for clients, manage my blogs, my YouTube channels, and the podcast every Friday. To say that I am overloaded is an understatement.

My point is that spending time coming up with a marketing strategy is in your best interest if you want to get others to read the book. In fact, I'm actually launching my first Amazon ad starting this weekend.

Marketing is a process that I can see people paying for, as it is quite a bit of a pain to manage yourself. Especially if you don't really know what you're doing and have very little time to spare for marketing purposes.

Sure, I'm dumping a bit of money into ads this week. But advertisements do not guarantee a sale.

Book topic, pricing, available formats, even the cover design can all have an impact on the marketability of your book. And no online marketing tool or expert can guarantee that your title will become a best seller.

Still Walking the Path...

This entire experience has been an excellent learning opportunity. I don't view the lack of sales as a failure. Why? Because the knowledge I'm gaining about the entire process will only increase my chances of success when I publish my next book.

I am by no means an expert at self-publishing. However, I plan on continuing this journey to see just how far it can take me. It's this attitude and mindset that helped me build a career from using content mills like Textbroker. Although I hope I can achieve some level of success sooner than I did as a freelance writer, it's still been an incredible experience.

I can't tell you just how much of an impact it has made on my motivation, determination, and even work ethic to publish and buy my first paperback. This, alone, has made the entire process worth every moment I've spent developing the first book.

Now, let's see what I can do with the next.