Self-Publishing Part 10: The Launch—How Does One Person Do It At All?
Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of
A Perfect Blindness
I’d been working hard following all this advice from people who seemed to know, or certainly gave the impression that they should know. Yet when I looked at what I’d done to get people to know the book exists, to entice them, to encourage them to buy, or at least find something out about it, I saw it amounted to, effectively, nothing. Things were sort of in place to give information about the book, along with a couple of items might engage people, but there was no reason for anyone to come to the website to see what I’d built. It was a sandbox for me to play in and build fantasy castles of 5-star reviews and royalty checks that filled my bank account. Read More
Self-Publishing Part 10: The Launch—How Does One Person Do This All?
Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness
I couldn’t shake the thought from my head at first: I’d botched this. Badly.
That everything I’d been doing, including publishing the book in the first place, has been a huge waste of time, effort, and money. My wife had trusted me, and the book and I’d let her down, let us both down.
That—
Hang on here, man. Look at what you have done. Read More
Self-Publishing Part 10: The Last Couple Of Hurtles
Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness
Before I was able to dive into all these remarkable new ideas about social media, email lists, outreach and the like, the nearly complete book still had growing pains to overcome. Once iUniverse effected the newest round of changes, they sent me another PDF version of the typeset book. I had only to check the few changes I’d last requested, so I attacked that right off. The cover changes looked good, and I had to convince myself, again, that not asking for more changes was the right choice. Read More
Self-Publishing Part 10: The Launch—Social Media and email: A Couple Of More Questions To Ask In A Mirror
Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness
So, what is social media good for an author if not selling books?
Reframe the approach, and put yourself in the position of the person cruising Face Book. Are you looking to spend money? Looking for a book to read, perhaps? Doubtful. If you wanted to buy, you’d be on the websites of Amazon or Barnes & Nobel or be walking to the local bookstore. Looking for reading recommendations? That’s imaginable, but most people looking for recommendations either ask someone they know, or they go to goodreads.com, Book Bub, Book Shout, or again Amazon, Barnes & Nobel or the local bookstore. If they’re just browsing, they’re looking for something interesting, something that will catch their attention, not something that will demand a credit card number. They want stuff. Good stuff. Free stuff. Twitter, same thing. Think of the platform, and most likely you won’t find people hungry to buy books, clicking away to find the right ad. Read More
Self-Publishing Part 10: The Launch—Social Media and Email, with A Couple Of Questions, One To Ask In A Mirror
Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness
In writing as in life, most of what you do depends on what you know and when you know it. There are luck, circumstance, and people that can help of course. But what you know and when you know it allows you to better take advantage of luck, your circumstance and anyone who can help. At the very least, it can prevent much frustration and head pounding by evading journeys down fruitless trails. Read More
Self-Publishing Part 10: The Launch—Awaiting a Metamorphosis
Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness
The last changes sent, the manuscript now started forming its chrysalis.
Now all I have to do is make sure nothing breaks before it emerges as a fully formed book, such as checking the changes once effected. Protect yes, but also work on getting people to notice it exists once its pages can be touch or swiped: Major shifts, yet the transforming manuscript weighs on my mind still. These last changes don’t nettle me as much as the lyrics I used or transformed, and that because of silence: Neither an “okay, you’re good,” nor a “look, you can’t use this, so change it.” Simply nothing. Read More
Self-Publishing Part 9: The Galley Proof—Do Changes Ever End or Have I Lost it?
Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness
The latest round of changes sent, I returned to a holding pattern, and it remained hard to relish how near to publication my first novel was. After twenty-two months of work, from initial contact and submission in May 2015 to waiting on the second round of updates in March 2017, the work on the book itself is not yet done. I cannot recall my exact expectations of how long it should take from submission to book in hand, but probably 4, perhaps 5 months. Perhaps I never had a specific number, but nearly two years is much longer than whatever notion I might have had. Read More
Self-Publishing Part 9: The Galley Proof or between a Hard Choice and Remembering Fine Print
Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness
Well, the book had gotten the Editor’s Choice designation with the italicized text, so, I figured, it makes sense to put the italics back in, and then, push come to shove, make that argument—the changes weren’t my fault, and I’m really only making it right again—and see what happens. At least, I hope the manuscript was read in the form I sent it in. The launch was getting behind for an April launch, in fact, the whole process was months behind what I had anticipated, so I shoved that worry to the side and pressed ahead. Read More
Self-Publishing Part 9: The Galley Proof or How the Worst Might Force a yet Another Hard Choice
Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness
With the first proofread, all I was allowed to do was respond to the changes the proofreader made or suggested, as listed in a pre-formatted Word document. Any additional changes I wanted were to be held for this second proofreading. In other words, I hadn’t any reason to reread the manuscript, which was going to be changed anyway after I submitted the proofreading sheet. Occasionally, I flipped to the manuscript when I needed to check some context, but that happened rarely.
Now that I looked at the typeset manuscript carefully, the advice of the Quality Editor came back: that after the book is typeset, it needs to be proofread as things can happen when the conversion is made from MS Word to the typesetting software. Read More
Self-Publishing Part 9: The Galley Proof and Worse Does Come to Worst
Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness
While waiting on the response to the lyrics from songs I’d pressed into service, I sifted through the collected lists of every book, movie, music venue, bar and club used or referred to in the book, organizing them by chapter, coding them by how a work was referenced or used, or if a venue, whether a scene is set in it or it functions as set dressing. These venues are as important to the book as the music, in fact, they can’t exist apart from one another, and I had plans for the venues with scenes set in them, especially given that several no longer existed, yet people still speak fondly of them on social media. Read More
