After the hard lesson learned with the Blog #6 fiasco, I’m writing all of my blogs in Word, with auto save fully engaged. A hard lesson to learn, I’m totally past it now. Mostly. Okay, I may be a little bitter and frustrated with myself. I have a lot of user errors as I explore this new adventure. I am learning from my mistakes, so take that as you will.
The blog I lost talked about ISBNs. I won’t go into the depth I did before, but I will tell you the important bits. Buy your own ISBNs. Bowker is the site to purchase them from. You can buy one or a set of ten or more. It’s extremely cost effective to buy bulk, I did the math. You need an ISBN for each format of your book. Paperback, ebook, and hardcover. Amazon will give you a free ISBN when you publish through KDP. Great, right? Nope, nobody else will accept their ISBN. If you want your book on bookstore shelves or in a library, you must have your own ISBN. I didn’t know this; the learning curve has been all uphill. I put my debit novel on KDP pre-order. I got the free ISBN. Now my debut novel is on Amazon with a different ISBN than it will have every place else. Another lesson learned.
Now, since purchasing my own ISBN, I have been able to put my novel on Barnes and Noble for pre-order. I have to say it’s pretty cool seeing my book on a real bookstore site. Eventually I will have it on their shelves. I have touched base with two indie bookstores in my area and have a plan to meet a few more. I will offer free materials (bookmarks, coffee cups, stickers, etc.) to accompany my book if they will sell it. I will also be available for a book signing or any other event they request. I’m also willing to sell the paperback on consignment with indie bookstores.
One of my local bookstores is a huge advocate for indie authors. She has a monthly indie author book club, a mainstream author monthly book club, and a bring your own book club. One of her meetings happens to be on my book release day. I plan to ask her if I may bring refreshments for that evening, to celebrate. I'll let you know how it goes. I love that she supports indie and local authors. I want to support them too. I have learned in my life that similar businesses to yours aren’t really your competition. If you reach out and help each other, your industry can improve and everyone can be successful. You don’t have to cut other people’s throats to get ahead.
I also believe in supporting my community and local charities. I worked for a few years with kids in foster care and I will support organizations that support them until I die. Maybe even after that! This particular indie bookstore supports local literacy charities. I plan to ask her if she would be willing to support foster kids with donations or books. She has an annual sidewalk sale to benefit that year's chosen charity.
The update on my writing progress is a little messy, and maybe great. We'll find out soon. I have submitted my debut novel, Force of Corruption, to a proofreader after completing the edits. I had a bit of a rough transition, a bunch of completed edits disappeared. Are you seeing a theme? Yes! It was again my fault. Auto save was on, but I didn’t understand how to use “track changes” and I apparently deleted some of my updates. I searched and found the word “but” appeared 378 times in my novel. That includes its appearance in words like “button”. I spent about three hours removing it and re-wording to improve the prose. Then I hit the wrong thing and those edits vanished along with all of my chapter 14 edits. Thankfully, it wasn’t worse. I’m learning how to use Word correctly. YouTube videos are free training!
My second book in the series, Force Majeure, is at 108,000+ words. I’m focused on the end, I can see it on the horizon, finally. It has a beautiful cover designed already. When it’s finished, I’m going to take my time editing and work hard before I give myself deadlines to be ready to publish and release it.
My third book, VioleNt, will be after that. It’s at about 20k words. I put it aside to focus on the series. It’s a standalone horror, whereas my series is romantic suspense. I already have an outline forming for book three in the series. There will be more in the series, each one will focus on an individual couple. Therefore, they can be read as standalone books as well. No cliffhangers.
I'm gaining a little traction on social media. I have 370+ followers on FB, 830+ on Instagram, around 85 on TikTok. I’m also on LinkedIn and Pinterest. It’s more than I’ve ever had before. I always tried to be a private recluse on social media in the past. It’s strange actually posting every day and engaging with strangers. I like it more than I expected. I’ve made some friends. One particular author has been a total sweetheart. I can’t wait to read her books. The first one is Dream Lover; her name is Louise Glass. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet or read anything, because I’m focused on getting my book out there on time. As soon as it’s live I’m going to binge her book!
Hopefully I won't trip and fall on my face trying to launch 11/28. I've been begging for ARC readers every chance I get. I have almost twenty signed up so far. I want fifty. Everyone says less than half will actually post a review. Maybe my efforts will pay off and I'll get enough to make a dent in the review game. Apparently, the algorithm needs a lot of reviews and they have to be over 3 stars in the first couple weeks to avoid tanking the book on Amazon. I will let you know how that all works out.
That’s about it for now. Thanks for reading! Support an indie author, buy a book and post a review. Or borrow a book and post a review. Read on KU and post a review. You see where this is going right?
PS! I forgot to tell you, I heard back from the 24 hour writing competition. I won an honorable mention. Out of 500 possible entrants, 100 won something. It's the least recognition, but I'm thankful to have positive feedback. Makes me feel like I'm not wasting my time with all of this. Carry on. ;-)