I pretty much finished writing my book months ago; so, why haven’t I published yet? When I first thought of self-publishing I thought it would be as simple as write the book, publish to Amazon and wait for people to hopefully buy it. How naive was I?!
Writing the book is actually the easy part. Since then I’ve been bogged down in a whole host of issues. The problem is that there is so much information and advice that after a while your head can start to spin. There is also the issue of the financial costs.
Perhaps if I didn’t care about doing everything properly it would be easier, but I want my book to be professional and I want as many people as possible to buy it. I want to do it right. So, where does this leave me? It leaves me going around in circles.
One thing became clear early on in my research. That was that it is very important to build my author platform and try to get an audience for my book before publishing. This makes sense; afterall, who is going to buy your book if nobody knows about it or you? I have gone as far as creating facebook and twitter pages, and have started this blog/ web site. The only thing is that until now none of them actually had any content.
So, the time has come for me to knuckle down, make some decisions and get started. That is what has brought me here to my blog today. I am going to make a commitment to start building my author platform. Once this is going well, then, and only then, will I finish editing my book and get it ready for publication.
Of course I will then face a whole new batch of issues, like; how much should I charge for the book, what should my outlets be, and what should the cover look like. Whilst it can be a little overwhelming it is also tremendous fun and I look forward to the challenges ahead.
Annabeth Nash 