So there it is, the book, the cover, the full 400+ pages I’ve been working on for the last few years.
More information about Emily Voss’ story is available on the dedicated page.
If I’d known how much work there would be between writing “The End” and getting the book into the world, I might have given up before I’d even started.
Self-publishing means you do away with the long and painful process of getting an agent (or, perhaps, failing to get an agent). But what you inadvertently buy in return is everything the agent and the published would otherwise have done for you, including:
- a lot of editing (which I can’t afford and so was painstakingly done by me and volunteers I found online),
- cover design (which I had to buy, because graphics really aren’t my thing),
- advertising and marketing (it’s very uncomfortable for me to have to push my own work, and I found it very unsettling)
- obtaining reviews (getting advance reader copies into the world, which basically amounts to handing free copies of your book out, turns out to be much harder than you’d expect)
- publishing on KDP (which, weirdly, is the easiest item of the lot, although not trivial either)
All this also includes drafting a lot of blurb, copy and communications that you didn’t think you’d have to write. I prefer to focus my output on my fiction. Sadly, as a self-published author I had no choice but to use my drafting skills on everything else as well.
I’ve been sending weekly emails to my list (sorry guys) for the last 3 weeks. I will continue to do so for another 2 weeks before I drop back to my fortnightly routine. That means that every Wednesday I get an alert that I have to draft a message for Thursday. Then I need to find some content that actually brings some value to my readers.
What Could I have Done Better?
SEO, for sure. This message, for example, isn’t drafted in an SEO-friendly way at all. My bad. I only have so many clock cycles to burn in my head. The only way to get it all right at the same time would be to lean into AI. That, however, is not something I’m prepared to do. No judgement to the pro-AI clan, but I want to be able to publish without a disclaimer.
If you’re reading this, then thank you! Please consider jumping over to Amazon in whatever country you’re in, and searching for “Past Mistakes Nick Lavitz”, or just click here for the USA, or click here for the UK, and pre-order it. Years of work and over 400 pages of fiction is, I hope, worth the price of an espresso!
More news once it’s released!