Spiderwize's Self Publishing Blog

Today’s post is by guest speaker Rosie Milton, enjoy:

Whilst it might be appealing to imagine that you’ve written such a wonderful book all you need to do now is list it on Amazon, kick back on your recliner sofa and wait to become a bestseller, it sadly doesn’t work that way for anyone.

Even the most well-established authors still have to put the time and effort into promoting their books so that readers know it’s out there for them to buy and read, so if you’re just starting out in your writing career, you’ve certainly got some work to do.

When you make the decision to go down the self-publishing route, you should know that this means you must also become your own publicist. Of course, if you’ve got the funds to hire an expert, that’s great. But the majority of aspiring self-publishers won’t have that kind of money and will have to do some DIY platform building.

Getting Started

You’re probably already familiar with the basics of platform building on the internet. Most of us have a Facebook account, maybe a Twitter account, etc.

If you use Facebook, you can create an author’s page so that people who aren’t on your friends list can ‘like’ you and follow your updates. This is a good idea if you don’t want to add just anyone to your friends list. Many writers like to keep their personal online presence separate from their author’s presence. To create a page, sign into your Facebook account and follow this link.

Many writers also have a website or a blog which they use to promote their work.

Joining writing communities such as Critique Circle and Authonomy is a wise idea too.

Basically, any way in which you can create a stronger web presence is a good thing.

Yet there’s an important element to platform building which is often overlooked.

You Reap What You Sow

A lot of new authors make the mistake of thinking that all they need to do is get the word out about themselves and their work as much as possible. But there’s more to building a platform than endless self-promotion. A big part of the process is making friends and connections with other writers, not just so you can tell them about your work, but so you can help to support them with theirs too.

Its common sense – if all you’re focussing on is getting your name out there and expecting everyone to come to you and buy your book, and every other author is doing the same thing too, not much is going to happen.

It’s easy to talk about yourself all the time. Lots of people are doing that. But it’s important to get involved with what other authors are doing. Read writer’s blogs, leave comments, join forums and read other self-published books. Talk to other writers on Twitter and Facebook. Post links to writing you’ve enjoyed.  The more involved you become in the online writing community, the stronger the platform you’ll be able to build. If you can make friends with other authors, they will be more likely to help you promote your book. Many authors write book reviews or post blog entries from guest bloggers, so build relationships with people you can share those processes with.

Be Authentic

It does take time, and you need to approach online networking with authenticity, because it will be obvious if you’re just commenting on someone’s blog to earn back-scratching points from them.

Connect with authors whose writing you’re interested in, rather than simply targeting anyone and everyone. If you spread your net too wide, you’ll end up having to trawl through a lot of stuff that isn’t helpful, let alone enjoyable.

Authenticity is also important in a wider sense. Your online presence needs to reflect who you are. If you’re trying too hard to be something you’re not, people will see through that. It also creates more work for you if you’re having to ‘keep up appearances’.

Have Fun with it

Although it requires some work, try to relax and enjoy the process. Remember that you’re making new friends, not just promotion buddies. Writing is often a lonely profession, so it’s nice to talk to other like-minded souls. Connecting and communicating with other writers is also bound to help improve your writing anyway.

Overall, the best advice for any author trying to build an online platform is: Be yourself, and be sociable; just as you would need to be in real life.

This self publishing game is okay, some of you – especially newcomers to the field – may be thinking, but can I actually earn any money at it?  After all, unless it’s a real personal project where the author only wants a few copies to show his family and friends and for his own personal pleasure, the great majority of writers would like to see something for their efforts – something such as decent money, mainly.

Unfortunately, there is no hard and fast rule for how much you can earn as a self published author.  Book authors do not get a salary – how much they earn depends on how many of their books they can sell and what royalties they then receive from those sales.  Some self published authors have been successful enough to earn something like 100,000 US dollars inside of six months.  Others would be lucky if they earned that much in a lifetime.  Some self published authors, of course, can end up selling not so much as one copy of their book, so you can probably guess how much they’re earning.

The truth is that the success of a book is something like 20 per cent writing, 80 per cent marketing, so to be a success as a self published writer, being a good writer simply isn’t enough – you need to be a good, if not great, marketer as well.

p.s. Quality writing and canny marketing skills are the only ways to make good profit as a self published author.

Continuing on from yesterday’s blog post, I thought I’d add a few more tips for those of you into the whole self publishing game (hey, when you’re on a roll, it’s best just to go with it, after all).

Serious self publishers need to start thinking about the marketing of their book probably before they’ve even starting putting pen to paper (or “turning on Word” perhaps, the former makes me sound about 80 years old, doesn’t it?). You need to find the market for your potential book and then work out how exactly you are going to target them. Let’s face it, there may well be a potentially sizeable readership for your work, but if you can’t find a way for them to even realise your book actually exists, it’s not going to do you a great deal of good in the long term. Make a list of which associations, catalogues, newsletters, and magazines you could target in order to market your book to the right people. Look through your personal and professional contacts and see if you can identify anyone who could possibly help you with the process.

Another important tip is to find the right title for your book. It might sound simple and obvious, but you could have written the greatest book ever (self) published and yet if you call it something incredibly dull chances are no one will pick it up and find that out. The title needs to be snappy, to the point and interesting without being too clever.

p.s. When it comes to self publishing, it’s all about marketing.

Most people will probably have heard of blogger.com, the online blog publishing service, and it could be a good idea to start using it. Yes, I know what you’re thinking – I’m not a blogger, I’m an author – and besides, what the heck would I even write about?

Well, the clever thing about blogger is that you can write about absolutely anything you like and while some may take the opportunity to write film reviews or give a fascinating and in depth account of their morning toenail cutting activities, there is actually no reason at all why you couldn’t use the service to help your ‘real’ writing. You could be using it as a marketing service to help promote your latest tome, particularly helpful if you’re going down the self publishing route.

It is free to join blogger, and it is an excellent way to connect with people such as potential readers and maybe even fellow authors as well. You can use it as a means of promoting both your work and your personal activities in general. It is important to keep it constantly updated, though – the whole point of a blog is that it has new content on a regular basis, and the more you post, the greater the chances of being noticed.

The system also comes with easy to use editing features to give your blog the ‘look’ that is most appropriate for the content and there is even the chance of making some money – presuming you can draw enough of an audience – via the Google AdSense program.

p.s. Make money, promote yourself and your work – and all at no cost? Perhaps the question should be, “Why wouldn’t you join?”