New Blog Series – The Ins-and-Outs of Self-Publishing

As I have shared with a few people, I’m rapidly nearing the end of the writing and editing portion of my next novel. As I was working on this today, it struck me that I have learned quite a lot about the self-publishing journey and that perhaps this knowledge could be useful to others. So here’s my goal.

Goal: Lay out the process for self-publishing from the bottoms-up to provide lift for folks who might be thinking about taking this journey on for themselves. I’ll use my current project and some past projects to provide examples but only when absolutely necessary. Below are what I plan to write about, in some order:

Why? Well, I don’t find a lot of good discussion on the tips and tricks (and motivational techniques) for the complete end-to-end self-publishing journey. As I have gone down this path multiple times in the past and it is fresh in my mind due to my upcoming book, I hope that my notes may be helpful to others who might suspect that this is too difficult or expensive. Hint, it’s not. It just takes time, thoughtfulness, and discipline to complete.

Outline:

• Project inspiration and organization
• Research, note-taking
• Setting up a Project for Success
• The writing process (building discipline, maintaining enthusiasm, unfolding plot-lines and emerging characters)
• Thoughts on the Character’s Journey
• Typesetting and Tools
• Self-Publishing: The Art of Editing
• Self-Publishers (I use lulu.com)
• Getting your work in the Amazon store
• Marketing, tracking sales, etc. (I’m still learning here)