The Allure of Self Publishing from a techie's perspective

Self Publishing

       Self publishing has been a big craze producing both good and bad books and creating some big time author's like J. R. Tolkien and +Mark Twain. But obviously it is not a get rich quick scheme. I have been doing a lot of homework on the topic and there are a lot of articles, books, and communities that can help you on your authorship. Self publishing has been a revolution and now is a journey. There are many paths with pitfalls and hedge robbers on the way. There are companies to beware of ie (Vanity or Subsidy presses like: Xlibris, Outskirts Press, and Tate Publishing) who may vocally say they are not but their track record shows it. The writing process is a lot like Pilgrims's Progress. There will be people to help you, hurt you, but depending on how well you fight your end can be glorious. So I am going to detail my experiences in this brutally vicious game called publishing. 

          I am 13 which makes self publishing easier than if I was 12 and harder because I am a "minor." I finished my book Operation Hammer November 29th just in time for NaNoWrimo! It barely eeked over 50,000 words which made me very happy because I got all types of free stuff like 5 free books from Createspace and some free memberships to different websites. After NaNoWrimo was over the help I was getting from it suddenly died because all of the active members left because NaNoWrimo. So I wandered from forum to forum giving advice taking advice and creating a base for my fledgling book. I made a website, I made a Facebook page, I made a Twitter page, Google +Animal Conflict Series, and a Goodreads page for the book. I published my book on Smashwords for $1.99. After my big social blitz I regularly checked on them and tried my best to get as many likes, followers, and +1's as possible. As a techie I knew it was important to branch out to everyone in every possible way so I did. I got an editor and formatter +Ashley Clarke to help make the book go by smoother and look  better. I did a cover for my print book with the massive help of +C. Sheehan. On January 20th 2013 I entered the ABNA (Amazon Breakout Novel Award) and published my book on Createspace and Kindle. Now I felt I was ready to take on the world. Oh how I was so wrong...
       
           Now it is the 3rd of February with 9 sales on Smashwords, 1 kindle sale, no print sales, and a whole lot of despair. I still fail to get into the premium Smashwords catalogue which means I am missing out on sales in iBooks, B&N, Kobo, Feedbook, Diesel, and Sony's stores. But hey my story is not a reflection of the entire market. I am not a very happy camper but with a big marketing rush and some money coming in I am going to publish on Lightning Press to get it into Ingram distributing to expand my  market reach and be able to do book signings etc. Now on for the perspective...

Perspective

     The indie author community has become vast with 1,000 of authors and a lot of them being 13 - 18 growing in every state making it almost like a movement. Tools like Createspace and Smashwords are easy to use even if you are not a Power User. Nowadays you can publish to almost every platform in about an hour e-book wise. That compared to what it used to be is very impressive. Still it has a long way to go in terms of paperback publishing. Independent bookstores are not the best to deal with and big bookstores require you to sign up with a service like Lightning Press and pay money to get your book in all the big places. So depending on how you play your cards you can come out either good or bad. Just my Humble Opinion