April 2017 Blog
This is the fourth month in a row I'm posting
my blog on time. I'm on a roll!
Must Publish!
I was able to write
outside today. My session started out cold and windy, but about halfway
through, the sun came out and I finished in relative warmth.
Must Publish! A Haiku
I'd share my thoughts with
The world, to the pleasure of
Some, bane of others.
I'm actually still on
track with my mantra for the year:
Must Write! Must Edit! Must Publish! Must Promote!
And this month's post is "Must
Publish!"
Publish or Perish! It's
ever been the rage in academia and is a great admonition for all authors. It
goes along with "Don't hide your light under a bushel basket!"
Truth is, authors must
publish to be widely remembered, and who among us does not wish to be
remembered or at least have our words live beyond us?
"Traditional"
publishing, where you submit your work to an agent or a publishing house
directly, has been joined (and some may say even surpassed) by self-publishing
through one or more of the capable publishing platforms on the internet.
I would have stuck to
submitting the traditional way, were I a whole lot younger and had not nearly
died from heart failure a couple of years back. There's a certain amount of
validation having someone else believe in your work and actually paying you for
the privilege of being able to publish it. However, it's not necessarily the
way to instant riches or a "Steven King-dom".
Also, self-publishing or
"Indie-Publishing" does not carry the stigma it used to – since your
work lines up equally well on sales platforms such as Amazon – and a lot of
readers now don't seem to care who the publisher is or isn't when they pop a
book into their Kindles.
Personally, I have used http://createspace.com/ (the publishing arm
of Amazon) and http://smashwords.com/ (a
multi-platform e-book publishing site) to a certain degree of success. Their
tutorials are relatively easily followed, and they have been around for a
while. I'm sure they'll be around a while longer, so I believe my own catalog
is safe.
Once you make it through
their step-by-step processes and hit that "Publish" button, you will
feel a euphoria unknown to the non-writer, non-publisher. Once you come down
from that high, however, you need to concentrate on promoting and marketing
your offerings. Few self-published books are instant successes without a push
to let the buying public and your future loyal-readership know what you have to
offer and how easily they can purchase it.
But I digress and
marketing is the subject of my next blog. (Wouldn't want to get ahead of
myself.)
Once your manuscript is
written and edited (and re-edited to everyone's satisfaction), you need to
carefully research your publishing choices.
Even if you go
traditional, you need to make sure your publisher or your agent are reasonably
honest and trustworthy. A search online should reveal any problems they may
have in the industry.
Also, you need to be
aware and perhaps wary of the vast array of subsidy publishers out there who
may not have the best of reputations among authors and aspiring authors. Some
may promote a good game, but after a large investment and sweat equity on your
part, you may find yourself with cartons of unsold and/or unsalable books and
the huge headache of selling them yourself. (Maybe not too much of a problem
for our extroverts out there – but many of us fall on the introvert side of the
author coin.)
I will not name names.
Since I have avoided these companies, I have no tales of woe to tell, but again
– "google" them. Find out what others are saying about those in which
you are interested.
If you decide on my
favorites (http://createspace.com/, and http://smashwords.com/), follow their
instructions carefully. Check and recheck every step. If you have
insurmountable problems, they offer excellent professional services, but you can
publish absolutely free with them.) And you will end up with a product of which
you can be extremely proud. A book you can put next to anybody's on the shelf
and smile and say "Hey! I wrote that! Would you like me to autograph it
for you?
By the way, that first
autograph is going to put you on cloud nine. There is no better feeling for an
author than to autograph a book and hand it back to a satisfied reader. (I
know. I've been there. I've done that.)
Sorry, another tangent
there. Back to publishing. You need to consider all the options available to offer
your work to the widest possible audience. Besides print-on-demand books
suitable for every conceivable outlet, you need to consider e-books in all
their varied forms and requirements. It is essential to make your work
available on Kindle type platforms.
Sounds confusing, I know,
but remember Createspace, Amazon and Smashwords. They've got it all figured out
for you. Just follow their instructions.
Beyond all the print and
visual media out there, you also need to offer an audio option. I know I need
to, and I'll be exploring www.audible.com
for my audio publishing needs and will report my experiences in a future
blog.
Remember, next month's
blog should be on Marketing and promotion unless something else pops up that
cannot be ignored. Hopefully, I will be reporting on my own successful efforts
this month. However, I have procrastinated on taxes again this year, so don't
know how much I will accomplish.
If you have any questions
on any of these platforms or options, please leave a comment and I will answer.
That's a new thing I'm doing – trying to be more responsive. I do have this
problem – I am distracted by shiny objects – there goes one now – ooooh, so
shiny…
