Self-Discovery Through Self-Publishing

The more I learn about self-publishing the more I learn about myself.

Self-publishing is a lot of work.

You'd think that would be obvious. It's starting a business, solo, of course there's lots of things that need doing. But I never thought about the full scope. 

There's the book writing, the book editing, the book formatting, the book publishing. All obvious. There's covers and blurbs and profile writeups, which are also directly related to the book, all with their own different nuances and genre expectations to communicate to potential readers at a glance whether or not they will like the book. (You only want people who will like your book to buy your book, after all. Collect those positive reviews. Sales may get you money in the short term, sure. It's the genuine fans, though, that will matter in the long run.)

But there's more. There's mailing lists and marketing. There's so many different decisions about how and where to publish, each with their advantages and disadvantages. Should I rely on Amazon, since it's already the majority of the market, and sticking with only them provides some rather nice income perks? Should I publish wide, giving up a large fraction of potential Amazon income to instead publish on a multitude of different storefronts to diversity my sales? Do I try a little of each?

And then there's the websites. And the social media presence. And trying to navigate those waters in the even trickier environment of today as so many newcomers fight for the spot Twitter seems intent on vacating. And learning to talk about myself and my work when I was taught most of my life to make myself small.

Self-publishing has been an enlightening journey deeper into myself, in a way. Courtesy of the wide array of responsibilities on my to do list, I've gained new insight into myself simply by watching what tasks I avoid and which I jump to finish immediately after I think of them. Updating the website to talk about my friends is fun. Writing what I'm up to is fun, although I haven't set a schedule for myself yet so I tend to be a bit erratic about it. (Sorry about that! I'm working on it.) Marketing myself is...

Difficult.

I've always said I've learned a lot about myself, just from what I write about and how I write about it. Never realized I'd learn even more, just from the ever growing to do list that comes with trying to finally publish those novels.

I'm looking forward to seeing where this journey takes me.