I still remember the first
time I read a book and thought “I can do better than this” to myself. At first,
I dismissed the idea as rampant hubris. Everyone knows writers are specially bred
from some kind of mad genetic combination of Shakespeare and Tolkien and then
trained from birth in a specialty crèche system. Regular people can’t possibly
become writers, much less have someone pay them for their stories.
Yet
somehow I still couldn’t shake this idea that maybe I might have the skill to
become a writer. I started taking my writing more seriously. I wrote my first
manuscript and joined a writers group. I realized how much I still had to learn
and started working on another manuscript.
As I started to finish the new
manuscript, which eventually became Revelations,
I realized I had to think of more than just writing the book. I had some very
serious decisions to make. Did I want to pursue traditional publishing with the
New York publishing houses or did I want to self-publish? I was hearing some
very encouraging news from self-published authors about the amount of money
they were making and the freedom they had.
As Teresa Morgan, author of Handcuffed to the Sheikh, put it: No one
can tell you “no” anymore. She had been turned down by the major houses but
discovered a rich niche market when she self-published her first sheikh
novella.
I was also hearing a lot of
discouraging news about the New York houses. How they were no longer promoting
and building new authors. How it was getting harder and harder to find an
editor or agent without a substantial author-built publishing platform. How
difficult and complex (and sometimes opaque) the system of advances and
royalties could be.
I went back and forth and in
the end, I decided to self-publish. If I was going to have to do the work, I
reasoned, I wanted the reward to go with it. I knew it would be a lot of work
and that I would have to distinguish myself from the mass of badly written amateur
fiction.
Before I published, I took Revelations
to an editor and spent six months ripping it apart and rebuilding it until I
felt I had the best possible manuscript. I got a professional cover. I did all
the steps and work to ensure I had a quality book to offer.
Through my research I had
discovered that 15,000 books is the standard run for a first-time author. It’s
the basis for most advances. I had heard of self-published authors selling ten
or twenty thousand books a month but I decided to give myself a more modest
goal: 3,000 to 5,000 in the first year. If I sold 500 books, I would break even
on the costs of the editing and cover. Only 10% of my modest goal and 3% of a
standard print run. I’ll be honest and admit that my imagination and heart were
dreaming much bigger but I am a prudent soul when it comes to a business plan.
And if I had been publishing
three or four years ago, I probably would have had no trouble. But since Kindle
Direct Publishing opened its doors, they have been flooded with people lured in
by the promise of easy money. Individual authors are getting lost in the din
and readers are expecting more from them.
Since releasing Revelations in January 2015, I’ve had to give
myself a crash course in self-promotion. I’ve had to learn how to effectively
use Goodreads, Facebook and Twitter (a work in progress but coming along). I’ve
heard many debates about the effectiveness of tools such as giveaways,
contests, mailing lists, blogs, review sites, and personal appearances.
Everyone
has their preferred techniques. Some are free, and those ones tend to be
flooded. Some are paid services and have strict standards and their
effectiveness vs the cost is sharply argued. Some are paid services which are
scams, delivering few or no sales to the author in the long term.
I’ve had people tell me to
break up my story into shorter novellas and release them serially. I’ve had
them tell me to get any material I have up as quickly as possible. I’ve been
told to take my time and make sure I’m delivering quality over quantity.
I’ve
been told certain sites are sure fire hits and been told those exact same sites
aren’t worth the time or money it takes to use them. I’ve been told that I
don’t need to worry about promotion, word of mouth will separate the good from the
bad over time. I’ve been told that I need a detailed marketing plan with a
budget of several hundred a month if I ever want to sell a single book.
After
listening to all of this, I’ve come to the unsurprising conclusion that there
is no magic formula to follow to be a successful author. Whenever someone
begins to have success with a certain technique, then lots of people jump on it
and dilute the effectiveness.
So I have to keep thinking and
listening and trying new things to see what I can do. I’m limited in both time
and budget, so I’m careful and try to research as much as I can. I’m lucky to
have a mentor, S.M. McEachern, who has been incredibly successful with her YA
trilogy, Sunset Rising, and is
generous enough to share her tips and contacts. But in the end, it boils down
to getting your book in front of people who will read it and start to tell
other people that they should read it, too.
I did a massive blog blitz
when Revelations was released and I am
looking for a suitable organizer to run a second blog tour later this year. I
will be running Kindle Countdown Deals and am looking into affordable
advertising options. For social media, I’m sticking to Goodreads, Facebook and
Twitter for now. I have a twice-weekly blog at www.pastthemirror.com and I’m
setting up a mailing list. I have a short story set in the lalassu universe to be released in September and, if all goes
according to plan, the sequel to Revelations,
Metamorphosis, should be released in
early 2016.
I’ve been enjoying connecting
with my early readers and reviewers. There is nothing more thrilling than hearing
someone say that they loved your story, that it made them think, that it took
them away from ordinary life for the space of a few hours. In the end, I like
to believe my natural stubbornness will help me to make it through. Because I
believe that dreams do come true, and even though they are a lot of work, it
makes them all the sweeter in the end.
About the Author:
Jennifer Carole Lewis is a
full-time mom, a full-time administrator and a full-time writer, which means
she is very much interested in speaking to anyone who comes up with any form of
functional time-travel devices or practical cloning methods. Meanwhile, she spends her most of her time
alternating between organizing and typing.Check out the first chapter of Revelations here.
UPDATED: Check out my five-star book review of Revelations here.
Get in touch with Jennifer:
www.facebook.com/pages/Jennifer-Carole-Lewis/266116980245327
http://www.pastthemirror.com/
Links to
Authors mentioned:
Teresa
Morgan: http://teresamorganauthor.com/
S.M.
McEachern: http://smmceachern.com/
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