In the Beginning…
My Self-Publishing Story
I’m starting out as a self-published author. How hard can it be?
Starting your self-publishing journey can be overwhelming. There is so much to learn and so many decisions to make. Half of it I hadn’t even considered when I decided to write a book. Sure, I knew there would be challenges of writing, rewriting, editing and just plain finishing the book. But I hadn’t even thought of marketing, building a platform or designing ads.
I’m not a marketer. I don’t have a background in business or sales. And I sure don’t have a platform of followers or fans. I’m right at the beginning. Starting from scratch.
Over the coming weeks I’m going to be sharing my progress — what I’m trying and whether or not it’s working. If you’re a writer, or just interested (or want a laugh!) hit follow and come along on this adventure!
So…who are you?
I’m K.T. Holder and I’m an Aussie living in Houston. I made the brilliant life decision to actually try giving this author business a go right around the time I left my job of over fifteen years and moved internationally. (Spoiler: this method is not recommended.)
I have a sci-fi/fantasy series (let’s talk about genres later — groan) that is almost ready to launch. Book one, Royal, is available for pre-order on Amazon and books two and three are about to go to the editor. And I’ve got a prequel novella to the series available to people who sign up for my newsletter.
Start state
This series of articles is going to follow my journey from where I’m at now in trying to build a following and market my books, but we’ll also delve back into what I’ve learned along the way to get here.
So far I’ve built a website, I have a Facebook page and an Instagram account (neither of which have any followers), I have an email platform with a welcome sequence — I use MailerLite which is amazing and simple to use — and I’ve dabbled with boosting Facebook posts and their ads.
To do all that, I’ve been following the Launchpad course from Mark Dawson’s Self Publishing Formula which has been amazingly helpful for someone like me who has no clue. If you are able, I’d absolutely recommend giving it a go.
Where to from here?
Good question! My main focus at the moment is on building a following. Figuring out how to go from zero to finding people who might like my stories. I’ll be playing with Facebook ads a bit more, trying some promos on Bookfunnel, and diving deep down internet rabbitholes to try and figure out how to find an audience.
At the same time I’m starting a new series because once I find the people who want to read my stuff, I want them to have stuff to read!
What’s in a genre?
Which brings me back to a big lesson I briefly referred to above. Picking a genre. I fell into the trap that I think (or like to think because it makes me feel better) a lot of new authors do. I came up with a fun idea for a story and wrote it. I didn’t even know about the marketing stuff, let alone think about who might buy it.
And so I managed to write a story that probably straddles enough tropes so that it ultimately doesn’t appeal to anyone.
There’s magic and cybernetic powers, but they’re more a product of the world the story’s set in. It is a different world, but it’s not overly dissimilar to our own. And boiled down, the main story is more about nefarious forces trying to bring down a country and start a war, and the main character trying to stop them.
Categories and keywords
When I uploaded it to Amazon, I wound up putting it in urban fantasy, fantasy, and young adult fantasy. I didn’t even think about including sci-fi. Even though the main character goes through a portal to another dimension and in that world are people with cybernetic implants…
I also had a crack at finding keywords. When you upload your book to Amazon, you can pick about seven keywords that the algorithm can use to figure out who wants your book. I had a similar problem here where I just didn’t know so I plucked a few words and phrases and figured I could figure it out later. (Which is a terrible plan, by the way, but still better than getting bogged down trying to find the perfect ones).
Next steps
So the new book will still be an idea I’m keen to explore, but this time I’m picking the idea that has a more clearly defined genre; that has similarities to other books, so I can say ‘fans of X will love this too’; but is similar enough to this first series so that any audience building I do won’t be wasted.
At the same time, I’m going to keep cracking on with trying to build my mailing list. Join me next time and we’ll talk about how that’s going!
Cheers, K.T.
