What a timely prompt!
I was thinking today that I wanted to post about my publishing journey thus far. Talk about a HEADACHE! I keep thinking I'll just wait until I'm "successful" because who wants to hear from a beginner? Then I realized I needed to share what I'm learning as I go, because there is so much information!
First off, before anything else gets done, there is the anxiety induced headache of self doubt, worry and then the brain fatigue from trying to figure out how to even do the basics of creating an ebook!
In my case, I wanted to reassure myself that I could actually figure out the technical aspects on my own. I took an idea I had for a compilation book/set about "My First Time" or "Her First Time" kind of stories and I put part one on amazon as an ebook. This was kind of my 'Proof of Concept' thing.
My word, that process was horribly stressful for me. I'm not a technical sort, I hate all things techie, so I think I freaked myself out more than anything else! In the end, it really wasn't all that difficult. Kindle create made it easy to format the ebook how it needed to be and soon I was all set.
I enjoy making graphics and although I'm still REALLY new to graphic design, I like the artsy side of it, so designing my own cover was actually fun. I already find myself wanting to second guess and change it, but I"m going to leave it for now and learn to accept and grow and move on!
I could keep going back a million times and never move forward if I let myself do it!
ANYWAY, after I got my first 99 cent book published, I realized I had NO idea how to properly market a book. I left that book sitting on amazon and I started to delve into learning about publishing and marketing. I don't want to JUST write and publish. I want to make MONEY at it! I want people to read my books!
Fuck me sideways, that was a HUGE undertaking. I felt like every piece of information I found led to an AVALANCHE of information that I still needed to learn! I've been feeling buried alive with all of the things I need to learn for months now.
It is just NOW starting to make some sort of sense to me!
There goes the timer! freewrite prompt headache
I plan to release my next book by the end of this month!
I may do the extra work involved to have it available for paperback as well as ebook, but I'm not sure if anyone even buys paperbacks anymore, especially erotica! Thoughts on that?
Crossposted to my Wordpress Blog