My First Self-Publishing Experience

by CARRIE J. KEATON
(HOLLY GROVE)

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Hello Everyone! My name is Carrie J. Keaton and am the first-time, self-published author of a contemporary romance novel titled, TWO LOVES, ONE HEART. A few people have asked me for advice on self-publishing, but believe me - I'm no expert. Much of my knowledge was gained through trial and error. But I will gladly share my experiences with everyone who cares to listen.

My experience with self-publishing has been an OK one, but I was afraid in the beginning. I had no idea where to start or who I could trust because there are so many scams out there. So I began by doing internet research on different self-puiblishing companies and requesting their literature. Would I advise you to self-publish? Sure, as long as your expectations are not too high. Keep in mind that you will not make as much money from self-publishing as you would with traditional publishing.

Writer's Note: Some people do make thousands from self-publishing.

It is better to see the world of POD (publish on demand) as a hobby, but nothing else. Don't set your expectations too high. In my opinion, the royalties in self-publishing are so low that you actually have to sell thousands of books to make money. After careful research, I decided to go with Authorhouse and accept their royalties because I wanted to get a start for my book somewhere and self-publishing is better than nothing.

I hope that I can beat the pavement long enough for a traditional publisher to notice me. You just can't give up if getting you book published is your dream. All I ask is that you be careful.

I put a lot of effort into my writing and promoting my self-published book. Writing is hard, but promoting your book is even harder. When you choose a self-publishing company, make sure you read the fine print carefully. The company I chose is Authorhouse. What I like about Authorhouse is that so far they have been the only self-publisher that pays me 50% royalties on my book sales, and they do work hard to create you cover design to your specifications. Make sure that you are very specific in what you want your cover image to look like. Their editing services are expensive so you may want to shop around for a reputable person/business that does manuscript editing. If you have the budget, I do advise you to buy editing services, such as line editing. This is what I did to correct the grammar and spelling errors.

Many self-publishing companies offer several services, depending on how much money you want to invest in your book. Keep in mind that you will not make the money out of self-publishing as you would with traditonal publishing.

Writer's Note: Intention is everything... so be realistic, and try not to set yourself up for failure.

If you are a very talented writer and you think you have an amazing book, I would advise you to keep looking for a traditional publishing house to publish your book. I have been trying and will probably continue to try to publish my book with a traditional publishing house, but so far it has really been a 'mission impossible.'

A few other traps to look for in self-publishing: there really is no need to keep pouring money into your book. There are many companies out there who will do anything for your book for a large sum of money.

iUniverse for example, offers expensive editing with the help of skilled people. After a few thousand dollars invested in your book, you can get the label 'Editor's choice' and if you sell five hundred copies, you get a chance to see your book re-published by a traditional house. It sounds very promising, but from my experience, to sell five hundred copies is a really hard thing to do. Many people are still very skeptical about buying a self-published book and some reviewers will not review a self-published book. The biggest newspaper in the state in which I live would not even interview me because my book was self-published. Their exact words were, "We don't interview self-published authors, we only interview traditonally published authors." Expect this type of reaction from some radio and other media when you are marketing and promoting your book. I believe that this type of reaction from media sources is because they feel you have no big company to support you and your book...there is only you. They don't have anyone to validate your work nor you. It made me feel like it was "me and thee against the whole world." Please don't let rejections discourage you...it's a fact of life. Give out, but don't give up. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep going.

I worked very hard at promoting my book. Here are some ways to promote your book: send it to reviewers; distribute printed postcards about your book; tell all your friends; and advertise it as much as you can on the internet (or anywhere else).

Here are a few self-publishing houses that you may want to look at: iUniverse, AuthorHouse, Infinity Publishing, Llumina Press, Aventine Press, etc. Of course there are other companies out there, some more expensive then others, but these are the ones I would suggest you check out. I do not recommend the really cheap self-publishing companies, such as Lulu, because they do not check the content of your book. They will print just about anything for money. If you think your book is fantastic and needs no additional work, then you can publish very inexpensively with them.

There are many places where you can send your book for review. BookConnector has been a great help for me in finding internet sites that do book reviews. I personally do not believe that you should have to pay for a book review! I had very positive experience with most of the review sites, except for one, from where I got a bad review. Try to read other reviews first to see if they give decent reviews. Some places might scrutinize your book too much and you really don't want that for publicity. In the writing business, opinions can differ so much from one person to another, so you really need feedback from a lot of people before you decide if your book is good or not. If ten people gave you good reviews and one person gave you a bad review, you might tend to forget about the later one. Otherwise, I had a good experience with reviews, so I definitely recommend you to send an email query first to ask for a review.

If you believe you have a fantastic book, you can also send it to local newspapers or radio stations for interviews. But really, try to query the place first to see if they want to accept your book.

Self-publishing is a great hobby and unless you have a passion to write and promote your own book, you may not be able to succeed. A traditional way of publishing is definitely the key to success, but it really is almost impossible to get in. My next romance novel titled, ALWAYS IN MY HEART, is nearly complete and I will be using Authorhouse once again to publish my book until I can do better.

Writer's Note: I do STILL believe that you may get better results promoting and marketing your book with traditional publishers because that publisher will do most of the legwork that is involved in publicity, marketing, and promotion. I don't think that none of us can escape that one!