Cilla Raven's Blog

Top 10 Things I Wish I Knew About Self-Publishing (Before I Started Writing My Book)

Writing a book is not an easy task, let me tell you. It was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, ranking right on up there with childbirth and saying ‘no’ to chocolate. I’m not traditionally published; I never even attempted to use that method to get my book out there… for a plethora of reasons I won’t really get into right now.

And since I chose to go the self-publishing route, there was a...

Top 10 Things I Wish I Knew About Self-Publishing (Before I Started Writing My Book)

Writing a book is not an easy task, let me tell you. It was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, ranking right on up there with childbirth and saying ‘no’ to chocolate. I’m not traditionally published; I never even attempted to use that method to get my book out there… for a plethora of reasons I won’t really get into right now.

And since I chose to go the self-publishing route, there was a gigantic learning curve I had to navigate in order to publish the book I’d been pouring my heart and soul into; so many instances where I just couldn’t find the answers to the questions I had.

I am by no means an expert (I’ve only published one book so far), but I can tell you some of the things I wish I knew before I started writing; ten things that I think a lot of aspiring authors would want to know while they’re on their self-publishing journey.

While there are other methods of publishing to look at and consider, in this post, I’m just talking about the solo route. So, without further ado, we’re going to do this countdown style because… why not?

#10 – You are alone in the process, for the most part…

When you self-publish, you’re going to be doing most, if not all of the work. It’s not as simple as writing a book and handing it over to a publishing company to do with what they please while you sit back and enjoy your royalty checks. Though that can and does happen with some popular and experienced authors, for the most part, self-published authors are their own agent, marketing team, advertiser… you get the idea.

I don’t say all this as a deterrent, quite the opposite in fact. I personally enjoy knowing that I did all the work on my own. It means I get to make all of the creative decisions I want and I get to keep the rights to the things I’ve written, which matters a lot to me. What I make may not be the best out there, and it may never become anything big because I didn’t go the traditional route, but I’ll know I did my best. And that’s enough for me.

I say this so you don’t go on this journey with the wrong mindset.

There are going to be times when a question will pop up in your mind about how something is supposed to go or how to proceed, and in those moments, you’ll wish you had someone to ask for help. I know I did. Multiple times. But there was no one around for me to ask.

I had to do a lot of my own research to figure everything out, and honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever know this game through and through. There are just too many facets to this ever-changing industry for one person to learn.

There are groups and forums out there that can answer a lot of your questions, and you could probably build a group on your own if you wanted to. Reedsy has quite a few helpful tools and resources to help you, I’ll list their link with others down below.

#9 – You’ll need to learn the jargon…

AMS ads, keywords, categories, IngramSpark, POD, perfect bound…. Holy crap. There were so many things I didn’t even know I needed to know; so many words and acronyms that made no sense to me. I’m not going to give you a vocabulary lesson on all of these key terms, (unless you want one – let me know in the comments section if that is something you’d be interested in) but I will tell you that you need to know these things and what they mean for you and your book.

A good place to look for answers and learn more is IngramSpark, again I’ll link to them at the bottom.

#8 – The actual writing!

There’re 2 parts to this...

First, your writing needs to be the best it can be. But remember, there’s no such thing as perfect when it comes to writing, at least not in my opinion. Everyone has room for growth, and if they don’t, they’re not someone I want to be around, lol.

I am not perfect. I have a lot of room for growth, and I will constantly be working on honing and perfecting my craft. However, if I waited around for perfection, I’d never write anything! Eventually, I had to let that unrealistic expectation shit go if I wanted to progress at all. And I’ll tell you, it was remarkably freeing to do so.

Hopefully, my readers will see my growth with each new book I put out. Maybe one day I’ll look back and think my first book was atrocious. But, not this day. This day I am just super, uber happy that I completed it, and it's out there for the world to see.

Second, don’t get so lost in the ‘how-am-I-ever-going-to-get-this-done?’ rabbit hole. It’s full of deadline vipers, sharks that circle money pits waiting to sink their greedy teeth into an unsuspecting victim, and hidden passageways that lead to exhaustive dead ends.

So many potential authors never even become legitimate authors because they find the process of publishing so intimidating.

The best way to counter this mindset, I’ve found, is to get back to what you love doing when you feel overwhelmed or intimidated. Get back to what you started this whole process for in the first place: the writing!

Writing is a passion of mine. So is reading. Living in my own little world is more than just a past time for me… it’s almost like a different personality altogether, lol. If writing weren’t there for me to fall back on as a stress reducer, I don’t think I would have published at all.

But when I was getting frustrated with all that I had in front of me, I would write to make myself feel better. And when it was my WIP (work in progress) that was driving me nuts, I started writing something else, if for no other reason than to leave one world for a minute to enjoy and relax in another.

Don’t forget why you want to be an author to begin with… for the love of writing!

#7 – Wearing a bunch of different hats…

Like I mentioned earlier, as a self-published author, you are going to have to be your own advertiser, marketer, promoter, designer, etc. You’re basically going to have to be an author, publisher, and distributor all wrapped up into one human package.

Some may find this intimidating, but personally, I like to think of it as always having something else to do, but in a good way. If I get tired of doing one thing, there are plenty of other tasks I can work on in the meantime.

All the decisions are made by you. And you alone for the most part. Even if you’re hiring out services for things like cover art and editing, everything will ultimately be up to you. Do you like this model for the cover? Do you think the editor really gets what you were trying to convey here, or should you change what you wrote so it's grammatically correct? All of these things will be in your wheelhouse, so be ready to make a ton of decisions in a ton of different areas because I promise there will be a lot of them.

#6 – Editing… OMG.

Speaking of editing, this can and will be one of the biggest decisions you make. It will also determine how your book will end up performing with your audience. However, something no one told me to prepare for was the cost of editing services. The prices can vary greatly depending on the type of editing you’re getting done and by the length of your manuscript.

There are three basic types of editing. You could only need one kind or you could find yourself needing more than one. It just depends on your manuscript.

The first is your developmental edit. Think of these as your ‘big picture’ edits. A good developmental editor is going to go over things like how well your plot reads, whether your characters have the right amount of depth and intrigue, your pacing, tone, and even how well they think your audience will receive your work. These edits can get pretty costly, but honestly, all of them can.

Next, are line edits, often called copyedits. This kind of editing consists of your editor sitting down and going through your manuscript line-by-line, sentence-by-sentence with a fine-toothed comb. They are looking for grammar, punctuation, tone, flow, and consistency. They will also bring up word choice questions, seeing if you are using the best terms for the best readability.

Line edits are normally charged by the word count. I was quoted $0.04 per word of my nearly 85,000-word manuscript. That would have been around $3,400 in line edits alone; a pretty hefty price tag if you’re not planning for it.

The last of the three basic kinds of editing is proofreading. This is just like it sounds. An editor reads through your manuscript right before it’s to be sent into production where they check for last-minute errors and typos. They are not looking at the structure of your plot, the readability of your piece, word choice, or flow. They are just giving it a once over before you send it out. This can be the cheapest form of edits since they aren’t going into too much detail.

When it comes to the cost of hiring an editor, let's be honest. Not everyone can afford to pay thousands of dollars to get their book edited. Especially if they are just starting out and haven’t made any money yet. This is one of the things I struggled with tremendously while I was preparing to launch my book. No one was talking about what to do if you couldn’t afford a fancy editor or an editor of any caliber for that matter.

However, I’m pretty transparent. I’ll let you know that I did my own editing on my novel. Everyone says that’s a gigantic no-no, but sometimes, rules need to get broken in order to get your foot in the door, so to speak. I would’ve loved to have had an awesome editor go through my book and point out everything that could’ve been better, but my wallet just wasn’t giving permission. In fact, my wallet laughed my naïve ass right out into reality.

So, I did what I could. I used Microsoft Word’s spelling and grammar check. I used Grammarly and paid for the premium subscription so I could access all of their features. I went to a read-aloud website and had it read my book back to me multiple times. I printed my book out (twice, OMG, so much paper!), and red-line edited my book myself. And even with everything I did to edit my own novel, I’m sure there are still things that I missed.

Love it or hate it, I did the best I could with the resources I had available to me. Hopefully, in the future, I’ll be making enough off of my writing to be able to send my manuscripts through the whole editing process. In that way, my writing could pay for itself, but until then… I’m just gonna keep winging it, lol.

#5 – Covers, Front Matter, Back Matter, & Blurbs Matter…

Alright, here’s some fine print for ya: LOOKS MATTER!

Your cover is one of, if not THE first thing a potential reader is going to see when they are considering buying your book. It needs to be eye-catching, fit with the genre, and it needs to stand out; but not so much that it doesn’t look like it goes with the books listed for sale around it.

A DIYer to my core, I thought I could figure it out on my own. Just buy Photoshop, buy rights to some cool stock photos, slap ‘em together, and then, BAM! I’d have a cover.

Nope. I was wrong on so many levels.

My frustrating and time-consuming attempts to make my own cover were hideous!

I ended up talking to Madelene Martin of Mad Book Designs and commissioned the cover of my book as well as advertisements to run on social media. Honestly, she was a dream to work with and going that route was probably one of the best decisions I made throughout the entire process. Yes, it can get expensive, but there are very qualified artists out there that won’t gouge you, and it’s well worth the investment, in my opinion.

When it comes to front matter and back matter, your best bet would be to work on them a little bit at a time while you’re writing. Some of the issues I had centered around one simple question… What do I need to include in the front and back of my book?

Here’s a general rundown (the basics, you can add more if you want) for anyone seeking answers to that very question:

In the front, you’ll need your cover page, copyright, dedication (this is optional), table of contents, and if necessary, your prologue will go there as well.

In the back, you’ll want to include an ‘About the Author’ page, links to your newsletter (if you have one), social media links, acknowledgments, and an ‘Other Works’ page (if applicable). Acknowledgments can be optional as well, but if you’re using editors, beta readers, cover designers, etc. it could be a really nice way to say thank you for everything they’ve done to help you. Also, I personally wanted to thank whoever actually read my book for giving it and me as a debut author, a chance.

Blurbs are what go on the back of your book in print form and what people read in the description next to your eBook online. The importance of this blurb cannot be ignored. Most of the time you only have a sentence or two to convince someone to buy your book. Make it count.

It needs to hook the reader in a matter of a few words, hold their attention, and intrigue them enough that they want to find out what happens in your story.

You should have two versions ready to go when you’re ready to hit that publish button. A short one and a long one.

Generally, on Amazon for instance, when you click on an image of an eBook, a sentence or two will pop up beside it. Those are the first words you’re speaking to the reader. It’s your first impression. If the reader likes what they see there, all they need to do is click on it one more time to see more. It’ll take them to your long description (which includes the first few sentences you use for your short description) where you really get a chance to compel people to buy your book.

Your long description is also where you’ll need to include any warnings for your readers. For example, if your book is only intended for adult readers, you might want to mention it there. Also, if what you’ve written could be triggering for some readers, you would want to include that there as well. No one wants to have a panic attack from reading words on a page. (However, if you’re a good enough writer to have that kind of reaction from your readers, please, please, please send me the names of your books, lol)

#4 – Advertising & Marketing & Research… Oh my!

I am still learning this. I’ve taken webinars, paid for email correspondence courses, and researched my butt off to find the keys to success when it comes to advertising and marketing my book. I can’t tell if everything I’ve learned and implemented is leading to more sales of my book.

There’s probably no right way to get the word out about your book, but here’s what I’ve done:

I post to Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter a couple of times per week, making sure to comment, retweet, or like other people’s posts during that time as well. I made an author website… this is probably a must-have. I created an author page on Facebook, Goodreads, and Amazon’s Author Central, and I included all of the links to each of my social media platforms in my books and on the different websites, cross-promoting as much as possible. I made a reading group from my author page on Facebook and I try to post to all of them at least one time per week.

All-in-all, I’m trying to put my eggs in as many baskets as possible, and just hoping one or some of them hatch.

There are other ways to promote your book, but I haven’t tried them, so I don’t want to talk about something I haven’t done. However, a quick search on how to promote your book will turn up a million and a half results that could lead you somewhere helpful, I’m sure.

Point being, you need to promote your book so that people pick it up and read it. I will probably add to this blog at a later date when I can really tell what has worked for me and what hasn’t, but right now, it’s still up in the air.

#3 – Organization is key!

Writing a book is like having a thousand-piece puzzle floating freely through your mind, and all of those pieces have to come together just right in order for a well developed and (hopefully) good book to come of it.

Some people choose to ‘pants’ it (writing without much plotting or planning), while others choose to plan every detail so their book practically writes itself.

Me? I’m kind of a mix of both. I plan and plot as much as I can, but when it comes time to write, all my efforts could have been for nothing if my characters decide that’s not how they want shit to go down. However, I still think it’s a good idea to have a general idea about what you want to write… a clear point A, point B, and ending point.

Organization can help with all this. From plotting to writing, from planning your launch to learning how to launch your book in the first place, from setting up a website to working on a newsletter, there are so many ways that organization can help you.

Personally, I took Sara Cannon’s HB90 Bootcamp where she taught me just how to organize my time to get everything done that needed to get done. If you want to check her out, I’ll leave a link to her website and YouTube channel at the bottom.

#2 – Self-publishing can cost a metric fuck-ton­…

I’ve mentioned how much editing can cost, but there are also many other expenses that go along with this journey you are undertaking. Editing, cover art, marketing and advertising, and obviously the expense of a laptop, plus a few others.

One indispensable option I chose was Vellum. It’s a software program that is only available on a Mac (yes, I had to borrow a friend’s in order to use it ‘cause I’m a PC girl all the way). Vellum formats the inside of your book to make it look professionally done. (Whether you use Vellum or not, you HAVE to format the inside of your book!)

Things like chapter headings, making the first letter of your first word into a curvy pretty decorative piece, and organizing your front and back matter become as easy as pie with this software. I can’t recommend it enough. And I wish, wish, wish they made a version for the PC, but until that beautiful day, I’m going to make it work. Even if I have to break down and buy a Mac… oh, how I cringe at the thought, lol.

If you want to take courses to learn more about any given subject, that could be an expense as well. I scrounged around finding as many free learning sources as I could, but there were definitely others that I would’ve taken had I been financially able to do so.

ISBNs… Buy them.

Copyrights, same thing. End of story, lol.

The cost of maintaining a website can range depending on which service you use to host your domain, but I went with Squarespace for mine. It’s working rather well for now, but if I make any changes in the future, I’ll let you know.

I used Scrivener instead of Word or Google Docs to write up my manuscript, and this is really just my opinion, but I like it better than the other options. It was a one-time fee, and it organized my document really well. When you’re typing with Word, after you get to a certain word count, it starts to take forever to load and doesn’t function right. With Google Docs I wasn’t able to do all the things I could with Scrivener, like write in full-screen mode, move chapters around, export seamlessly to a PDF, Word, eBook, etc. It can be a little overwhelming at first just because of the sheer number of things you can do with it, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I use Grammarly for some of my edits, and the pro membership to that software is about twenty bucks a month, but totally worth it, in my opinion.

Basically, publishing your own book can be as cheap as you want or as expensive as you can afford. It all comes down to what your priorities are and how you want your book to turn out. There’s no magic number that’ll make your book turn into a bestseller, at least not that I’ve discovered yet, so just go with your gut and I’m sure you’ll do well.

#1 – The process, once complete (though it might not ever be completely complete, lol), can be extremely rewarding…

I have truly loved writing my first book and putting it out there. The fact that I wrote a book and published it has been one of the highlights of my life. One of those things that I never thought I’d be able to do, yet somehow pulled off. It might not turn into a bestseller or win any awards, but it was the book I wanted to write. It was therapeutic to get my inner demons out onto a page and release some of the ideas that parade around my mind. I feel lighter now than I did before. Freer, if that makes any sense. Yes, it is crazy to think that my words are out in the ether for everyone to see and judge, but it is also extremely liberating.

Never give up on your dreams, whatever they may be. Mine was to write a book, and I’ve done it. A checkmark on my bucket list.

I hope this list has helped you in some way. Also, if you have any questions, feel free to ask away in the comments section or send me an email. I’d love to hear from you! Thanks for reading this extremely long post, I appreciate it!

Links:

https://www.reedsy.com – A source for learning and finding editors, cover artists, etc.

https://www.ingramspark.com – A POD (print-on-demand) service that also offers many free learning resources.

https://www.grammarly.com – Editing software

https://www.naturalreaders.com/online - Have your book read aloud to you through free or paid voices of your choosing

https://www.facebook.com/Madelene-Martin-Author-and-Ebook-cover-designer-457987900926735/ - My awesome cover artist’s Facebook page

https://heartbreathings.com/ - Sarra Cannon’s Heart Breathings Blog

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCasYwEzMc7tjKuAS-vtDYPw - Sarra Cannon’s YouTube channel

https://vellum.pub/ - Internal formatting software (only available on Mac)

https://www.bowker.com – Where to buy your ISBNs and barcodes

https://www.squarespace.com – An option to use to create your own website

https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview - Scrivener software

July 4th, 2019, will forever hold a place in my heart. Not only because it’s America’s birthday, but also because it was the day my very first novel went live on Amazon for everyone to see.

I was driving down the road, my husband in the passenger seat, our kids loud and happy in the backseats of our minivan when my husband said, “Pull over, pull over!”

We’d just had lunch with my mother-in-law and were starting the long trip home when I happened to put the van in park outside some random teenage pregnancy prevention center in the desolate downtown area of some city I’d only ever driven through.

There it was, Beholden To Balance: Initiate by Cilla Raven. The novel I’d been working on for months was for sale right there on my husband’s cell phone screen where anyone could find it.

It started like this:

I love to write. There were times when I would get an urge to write, and I would, but those words were never destined to live anywhere, but my laptop or some random journal for the rest of eternity. They were just for my own enjoyment; a release of random thoughts and faraway places, escapism in one of its best forms.

But one day… multiple days and instances, if I’m being honest… my husband insisted I should write a book. After reading some of my crazy musings, he thought I had something worth putting out there. I didn’t believe him at first, of course, but it did place the idea in my mind to fester and grow until it could no longer be ignored.

Fast forward to when I’d scrapped the manuscript I’d been working on five times, and I was very close to giving up the dream entirely.

I’m a wife and a mother of five kids, you guys; five kids I homeschool. Handling all that entails, along with trying to write and publish my own book, was a monumental undertaking; one that seemed impossible at the outset.

I scoured the internet, hoping I’d be able to find some way of figuring out how to manage it all. There were a ton of helpful resources, but none more so than the vlog I found from one of my favorite authors, Sarra Cannon.

She has a plethora of information and videos for people looking to go the self-publishing route like I was. You can see her channel on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCasYwEzMc7tjKuAS-vtDYPw. I watched her videos and was so inspired, I took her HB90 Bootcamp. Basically, the boot camp taught me how to break down my goals into manageable tasks; ones that would eventually lead me to my ideal life being a published author. Using Sarra’s method, I was able to plan out how I was going to publish my manuscript from scratch. I can’t recommend it enough.

There are so many details and tasks that go into self-publishing. Ones that I had to learn because I had no idea what I was doing. Honestly, I still don’t, but I’m getting there, lol. It’s definitely not as simple as just sitting down and writing a book, that’s for sure. There’s writing the book itself, of course, but there’s also the matter of plotting, editing, and proofing it. Cover art and beta readers. Blurbs, keywords, launch strategies, and marketing. Plus, a million other things I had no idea about. If you want to learn more about the specific steps I took to self-publish, leave a comment down below, or email me through my contact page and I’ll make sure to do a blog and put that info out for you guys.

It took me about three months to pull everything I’d learned together and hit that publish button on Amazon. I was so nervous and scared, it was ridiculous. However, I also knew that I had accomplished something I never thought I could do. I’d written a book; one I was proud of.

It might not be everyone’s cup of tea or what they want to read, but it was what I wanted to read. It was the story I wanted to tell; the world I saw in my head brought to life on a page. Or a couple hundred pages as it were, lol.

I’m steadily working on book 2 in the Beholden To Balance Series, and I am going to continue to learn and improve my craft as I go. There are a gazillion stories and scenarios in my head just waiting to be put to use, and I can’t wait to bring them to life, to hit that publish button again and again.

I hope you stay tuned for everything I have coming up, and if you haven’t gotten your copy of Beholden To Balance: Initiate yet, you can buy the paperback version here on my website, or the digital version on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TSK5ZTT.

Thanks for reading!

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