Greetings and salutations, Blogoramans! Welcome to the final post in this guest series on self-publishing at mystery author and contracts lawyer Susan Spann's Spann of Time blog. In this final installment, I offer what words of advice I can about the marketing and promotion side of being a self-published author. I hope you glean some valuable information, and I wish you the utmost success in your writing and publishing endeavors!
You’ve done it. You have achieved a dream—maybe one that was lifelong, or perhaps more spur-of-the-moment, but an achievement to be commended for. Take a minute and think about that. Thousands of people want to write a novel. Of those, only hundreds begin, and of those, fewer still ever get beyond crafting a very long, wordy file that pulses in electronic bits on their computer or fades from ink to obscurity in a notebook. But not you—to paraphrase T. S. Elliot, you have turned blood into ink, and now you are ready to hurl it at the ravenous hordes of voracious and inkthirsty readers. Or, you know, sell it. Continue here.
Full Series Posts:Week 1: Research. An overview and comparison of the self- vs. traditional-publishing paradigms.Week 2: Business Plans. What an author needs to know to create and adhere to business plans and deadlines.Week 3: Distributing Your Novel. The general considerations regarding distribution sites.Week 4: Creating eBooks. Details to consider in regard to ebook creation, and why and how to do it.Week 5: Plan ahead to hire an editor, proofreader, and cover designer. At minimum, start looking six months before you plan to publish.