I’ll be the first to admit, when it comes to self-publishing, I always saw it as a bit of a cop-out for the people ‘not good enough’ to be traditionally published. My perspective shifted over the last couple of years as I watched clients of mine go through the process themselves. There’s a misconception that self-publishing is only for people who cannot get a publishing agent or publishing contract and that is far from true.
My plan was always to reach out to traditional publishers and agents and see what happened. In one of my previous blog posts, I talked about what it was like to receive rejection emails and what that meant for FOUND YOU, my debut thriller novel. You can access that blog post here if you’d like to: Dealing with Rejection. There are some agents I never heard back from. They could well have not yet gotten around to reading my manuscript but, at this point, I’m tired of waiting. I want to get my book out there and self-publishing was the best way for me to do that.
I’ve spoken to a lot of people about self-publishing and done a hell of a lot of research. There are some fantastic eBooks on Amazon on this topic, as well as plenty of websites and blogs too. I would highly recommend joining this Facebook group if you’re considering self-publishing as I’ve received some great feedback and support there: Self Publishing Support Group. I’ll also link some resources at the end of the blog post.
Once I made the decision to self-publish, I knuckled down to figure out the best way to do it. If I’m going to do something, I don’t do things by halves. I wanted to know exactly what would be expected of me in order to show my book in the best light possible. Publishing was never about making money for me, although I know everybody says that. For me, it’s about getting my book, and my name, out there. Self-publishing means that I can publish on my terms and I’m excited about what this means for me, and for FOUND YOU.
In the next few blog posts (I’m envisioning three, but who knows) I’ll talk about what I did in order to get my manuscript ready for publishing. It’s been a learning-curve and, hopefully, by talking through the process of self-publishing step-by-step, I’ll be able to save some of you from having to figure it out as you go. On that note, who knew there was so much maths involved in self-publishing a book?!
I will post an update here when FOUND YOU is available for purchasing. Stay tuned for the rest of the series on my journey to publication.
Thank you for your support, as always. I love hearing from you so please do comment or get in touch with any questions or stories about your self-publishing experience.
Self-Publishing Resources:
Sarah Jules Writing Services 