J is for Journeys
Life is a journey, I guess.
Each day, too.
We can call almost everything we do a journey as long as it involves going from one thing to another.
From book idea to completed, printed physical copy. Now, that’s some journey! And the one I wanted to talk about today.
Since 2020 or thereabouts, I’ve been exploring and learning more about self-publishing my own books. I’d spent over a decade writing and querying and getting rejected (mostly) for my books and I wanted to find out if there was another way for us talented, hardworking authors who have stories to tell but that the traditional market were not interested in, for whatever reason.
I watched my friends Marisa and Sally venture into self-publishing their own books, and I ate up every spoonful of information and SP that’s out there, and it’s enough to give you a stomach ache, make you sick and then let you swallow even more.
I spent more and more time obsessing over this process and when I submitted to agents for the last time in 2022 and got an offer from an agent that I wasn’t 100% committed to, I decided that this was the time to plough forth and commit myself fully to self-publishing my books for the foreseeable future.
So the journey began:
Setting up a limited company and a business account with my bank.
Buying ISBN’s (went a bit crazy and bought 100 for inspiration!) because I want to go wider than just Amazon.
Getting the book professionally edited.
Getting the cover illustrated.
Build a website and develop a marketing and publicity plan.
Launch the book and keep promoting it.
Experiment with ads. Fail with experiments.
And write the next book and repeat.
There is obviously much more to it but the cycle of releasing 4 books has taught me so much and I’ve changed so much in that time and my experiences have absolutely altered my perspective and approach to self-publishing.
But I’ve landed in a place I’d never have expected when I started out. I know things I could only have known by experiencing it, and falling and failing, and getting up and going again.
To think of some of the niche knowledge I’ve acquired and also how much more I have to learn can be overwhelming at times - mostly at the expense of my actual writing which probably needs to be utilising a different part of my brain from all the other stuff.
Every milestone I’ve set myself so far, I’ve failed on, in some way or another.
I’ve reset my goals so many times I don’t even know what they are anymore.
But I’m back to enjoying my writing and I’m trying to focus only on that for now, after all if I don’t have that, what’s the point in all the other things!
Not that the things are all mutually exclusive, eventually you have to find a way to make them all work side-by-side, but for now I’m a work in progress - my journey for from complete, but that’s the most exciting part - there’s so much more to come!
