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| Image courtesy of lusi (sanja gjenero), rgbstock.com |
You've got nothing to lose.
The publishing world is changing enormously at the moment and its
becoming increasingly easy to get your own books out there.
If I hadn't gone ahead and
self-published and, instead, waited for an agent to accept me, I'd
probably still be wondering whether my book was good enough. Now I
KNOW it is because of the fantastic response I've received from the
awesome people who have bought it. Here is just a small sample of
what some people said about Raven, my first book:
“Couldn't put it down.. willing to
pay to get the next book in the series.. I thought it would suck
kinda since it was a free title but it didn't and I was glad I
downloaded it :)”
“Omg!!! This is the best book I
have ever read. It was so detailed in everything that happened to
Lily. This is the next big book.”
“I enjoyed reading.This book
it.gives New.meaning.to.puberty. my preteen girls say they understand
how Lily feels. Can't wait to read the rest of the series”
The best thing a reader said about
Raven
was that her heart ached for the main character, Lilly. I would never
have known that my book had that effect on people had I not published
it myself, would I?
The most important aspect of being an
author is to have people read your book, right? If you're sitting at
home waiting for the phone to ring, who is reading your book? Nobody.
So why wait? If you're still holding out for an agent or a publisher,
they are more likely to pick you up if you've already got a decent
following, don't you think?
So get your book out there on Amazon
(US and UK), Kobo and Smashwords. Send out as many review copies as
possible, ask book sites to interview you, offer to do guest posts on
as many different sites as possible and get your name known. Or pay
to do a book tour if you struggle with time. There's loads of amazing
tour hosts out there.
So what are you waiting for? Go for it!
If you're considering making your first book free of charge, check
out this post
to see what happened after Raven became free. It was such a success
that I made the first book in my next series, free too!
I actually wrote most of this post back
in 2011 – now I've published a few more books (six in total –
Raven,
December
Moon, The
Lost Soul, Daisy
Madigan's Paradise, The
Ghost of Josiah Grimshaw and The
Temporal Stone!) and I continue to gain great reviews from
readers across the world. Of course with the good comes the bad and I
do occasionally get negative reviews as well (fortunately only a
fraction of the total) but I've learned to live with this. It's
something every author must accept. So if you're still wanting to
become an indie author, make sure you're strong enough to take
criticism as well!
If you're looking or advice on self
publishing, I'm always happy to help. Plus, if you're a woman (sorry
guys!), I have a women's fiction blog called Fiction
Dreams where I post about other authors and their books – I'd
be delighted to feature you once you're published. Oh and I do post
all things YA here on my YA blog (if you're a guy that's ok lol!).
If you've written your book and are now
wondering about how to go about the cover, here's some advice
from another author that featured on my blog some time ago. And
here's a post
from a (then) 12-year-old author Spencer Brokaw. How awesome is that
huh?
If you're still wondering about going
down the indie route, here's just a small list of some of the amazing
authors who are all doing enormously well after self publishing:
- Amanda Hocking
- E.L James
- Lisa Genova
- Bella Andre
- Nick Spalding
- Samantha Towle
After writing this originally a few of
years ago, I came across this very interesting post
and thought it might back up my points.
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