I’m doing something a little different today. This post isn’t on the craft of writing, it’s on the publishing side of things. More specifically, me publishing 🙂 I’m not ready to “really” publish, as in set up a business publishing house, figure out the perfect formatting, typography and cover design, market and put out my book. The one book I think is ready for publishing prime time is still in the beta readers stage, but it’s getting there and once I fix up stuff based on my beta readers’ feedback, it’ll be time. Meaning I’ve got to start marketing now.
Yikes.
I have a handful of short stories more or less ready to go. I’ve sent some to magazines and contests and gotten a no, but usually with some good feedback, and then sent out more. But why am I sending stuff to magazines for a few hundred bucks when I can put it out myself, like $0.99 a short and $1.98 for a pack of three?
First of all, because if I put out shorts, I have to market them, and I don’t know how to do that. *Hides behind my lack of knowledge, secure in the thought that I won’t have to face my fears and publish something!* Enter my boyfriend. He does marketing, mostly in the form of product pictures and articles for weapons companies and he has a huge following from his work, his forums, and his blog. It’s not exactly my demographic, but some are and some are married to or have adult children in my demographic, and would spread the word.
So he yanked my security blanket of I don’t know how off me and we’re publishing. But not “officially.” We’re putting together my Evie Jones shorts and formatting them nicely in a PDF and when those are ready, we’re going to put out the announcement of a ‘testing the waters’ publishing. We’re going to ask people if they want to try these stories, if so, we’ll email them the first story in PDF (with some sort of cover, probably staring our black cat Gremlin :). If they like it, they can pay $0.99 through PayPal for that story if they wish, and/or pay $0.99 each for the 2nd and 3rd.
It’s not putting it up on Amazon in e-book format and Kindle Select and stuff like that, because I’m not quite there yet, but it is something.
It’s testing the waters, and that’s a lot less scary. So be on the lookout. We’ll be putting these out probably next month (because it’s CampNano time again and I’ll be busy) and it’ll be a low key, you can have it emailed to you if you want type of thing.
I’m scared, I’m excited, I’m writing 🙂
Alright, get your butt in the chair and hands on the keyboard because it’s CampNano time!
Happy Writing 🙂
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