How did I come to the decision to self publish?

Gather round kids and I’ll tell you the tale of the control freak.

Once upon a time, I finished my first novel and was super proud of it! I began researching HOW TO GET PUBLISHED and came up against several walls.

1. It was difficult to determine a publisher’s validity UNTIL AFTER they asked for something crazy. Even if you google reviews on certain publishers (vanity, hybrid, or traditional), you’ll get conflicting answers which leas to even further confusion. I hunted for quite a while and found a publisher I was interested in working with. I was excited. Then they asked me for money.

You realize really quickly that vanity and hybrid are EVERYWHERE. But when I finally stumbled on an indie publisher that “liked” my novel, they IMMEDIATELY wanted to change something major in my novel.

2. Traditional publishers are after different things. At the end of the day, they all want a work they don’t have to put much work into, to get it ready to publish. Sometimes that means giving you an in house editor and a cover tweak and sending you on your merry way. Sometimes that means they hate half of your plot.

I was stubborn and unwilling to change something I considered integral, especially since it was the first novel of a series I had only vaguely outlined. So, I didnt.

I know, I know. That’s major. But since I did not have a literary agent or really anyone backing me up yet, I did not know all of my options when I tangled with said publisher. So on a whim, I looked up self publishing and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it sounded.

I was confident that my novel was sufficiently edited (spoiler alert- you can not edit your own works sufficiently) so I whacked it up online with a cover the I made in 10 minutes on the app Canva and called it a day. I did not expect much. I mean, I was thrilled to bits I had even finished the novel so making any money off of it would have just been the icing on top of a sweet cake.

Except I did.

My friends and family rallied around me and got me to my first sales goal. I was completely floored at seeing any success. Don’t get me wrong, I did not make much. If I’m being honest, it was less than $100. But something clicked in my brain and stuck there.

IF you have supporters, you CAN be successful. Now, I’m not the first one to come to this conclusion. It’s probably pretty common knowledge. But it was a light bulb moment for me. I decided to dig in and really build up my social media channels and try to network.

Life got in the way. I haven’t always been perfect about consistency or branching out. But I’ll continue to work at it!

And if you’re curious, the actual self publishing tool I used was STUPID EASY and I’d be happy to walk anyone through Kindle Direct Publishing if they have specific questions! We’re all just trying to be successful! Let’s do it together.

#author #romanceauthor #selfpublished #kdp #modernromance #weareinthistogether