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August 6, 2015

Self-Publishing? Which Path Is Best for You?

Stick figure at a chalkboard with text: Fiction University Day! Know Your Goals

Here at my blog, I have a long history of covering all issues related to writing and publishing. That means I’ve covered writing craft, the various steps of the editing and publishing process, the publishing industry, and writing life.

Even though I’m now indie published, I don’t want my blog to turn into “all self-publishing tips all the time.” First of all, I know that’s not what all of you come here for. Secondly, I’d get bored without a variety of topics. *smile*

But I also do want to share some of my indie publishing insights and advice. So when my friend Janice Hardy asked if I wanted to join the Indie Author Series at Fiction University, I jumped at the chance.

In person, Janice is just as awesome as her amazing blog, so I’m doubly honored to become one of the faculty at her Fiction University.

Janice Hardy's Fiction University banner

Once a month, I’ll be posting over there as part of the Indie Author Series. Luckily for me, my assigned slot always falls on a Thursday, so I’ll be able to coordinate my guest posts with my blog schedule here. (The last thing I needed to do was add to my already overstuffed schedule. *smile*)

I’m starting off with a series that’s going to dig into some of our options for indie publishing, and my posts will run the first Thursday of every month.

In the writing community, we talk a lot about the traditional vs. self-publishing path, but there are options along the self-publishing road as well. Today marks my first post, where I talk about the first step we have to take to find the best indie publishing path for us…

Indie Publishing Paths: Do You Know Your Options?

One great thing about the indie author community is the willingness to help each other out. A quick search on the KBoards Writers’ Cafe forum can often provide information from those in the trenches who are ahead of us on the indie publishing journey. Everywhere we look, authors share the pros and cons of methods they’ve tried and “what not to do” advice.

So it’s no surprise that many new indie authors choose “virtual” mentors. We can watch what successful authors are doing and try to emulate them.

That’s a great technique, and one I’ve followed as well. However, we need to keep in mind that there’s no one right path to success. Many indie authors are successful, and they didn’t all do the same things as far as pricing, release schedules, choosing vendors, etc.

There’s no one right way to be an indie author, and hopefully, with a little information, we’ll be able to find the right method for us.

Please join me at Janice Hardy’s Fiction University for the rest of this post!

Are you familiar with Janice Hardy’s blog? What are your favorite features of her blog? Are you self-publishing or considering self-publishing? What self-publishing “paths” can you think of? What questions would you like to see answered?

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Ashley
Ashley

Haha, love your bio-blurb on her site. One of the best/most amusing I’ve ever seen.

Serena Yung
Serena Yung

(Hmm maybe I should post both here and there:) Yeah, I agree with the point that there is no right path for everyone. I recall a post I read somewhere that we don’t need to use the social media we feel uncomfortable with. We could just use the marketing tools we are comfortable with. So for instance, we don’t need to use Twitter if we don’t want to, lol. There are many ways we can promote books. Just a side: I find that personally, when I decide whether or not to buy and read a book by an author I don’t know, I care most about the blurb. So I care even more about the blurb than about the title, cover, even sample, and even whether I already know and like the author as a person! However, I know not everyone is as blurb-focused as I am, lol, so I can’t generalize my preferences to everybody. Ah, I remember the artist-author vs. professional-author distinction! Well, I’m still pretty much the artist-author, where things like enjoyment, writing high quality books, constantly improving my craft, and getting to know and meet awesome story characters, are still my number one goals. But I’ve become a little more open to the professional-author kind of perspective, as I’m at least willing to try to reach as many readers as I can, since I recognized that among my family, friends, and acquaintances who are willing to and actually read and finish my books, there may not…  — Read More »

Evolet Yvaine

Congrats on becoming Faculty over at Fiction University. I subscribe to that blog as well and have enjoyed the posts I’ve read so far. As far as the publishing paths, I recently decided to do serial fiction. I was working on my first adult romance novel during Camp NaNoWriMo last month, but I was just writing random scenes, no writing in sequential order. When I was done, I was going to post those random scenes–raw, unedited, with plenty of filler phrases (ex: INSERT INFORMATION HERE)–on Wattpad. Then I read a blog post about writing serial fiction and it intrigued me enough to do a little more research on it. I don’t plan to make a career out of writing adult romance, so I’ve decided to edit those scenes, put them in order, post them on my site, and then finish writing the book on my site. I’m a little superstitious about my writing. I don’t like to let anyone read it until I’ve completed a first draft, so we’ll see how this goes. 🙂

Tamara LeBlanc
Tamara LeBlanc

I’ve heard of Janice’s blog, but I’ve never had the pleasure of visiting. I’ll have to make it a priority.
Love that you’re wisdom will be shared with her followers!
Have a great evening,
Tamara

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