Pandragon Dan

So I was all ready to just settle down and do some writing over this weekend – then I read this interview. Now, normally I enjoy reading author interviews, especially by big name authors , I love reading their insights into their inspirations behind their writing, their success and even advice into helping authors with their works.

But reading this interview with author Sue Grafton, author of the Kinsey Milhone series (which is a number of novels done in alphabetical order like  A Is for Alibi, B Is for Burglar, C Is for Corpse, all the way up to V Is for Vengeance)... well, let’s just say THIS was my reaction to it!

Ok, it will probably be best if you read the interview first to understand where I’m going from. Long story short, she seems to have this idea that self-publishing is a crime against publishing and any who do it are “lazy” and “wannabes”. Check out the link below first, then come back to this blog to understand why I’m so utterly amazed at how much of an epic fail this is.

http://louisvilleky.com/2012/08/louisville-author-spotlight-welcomes-sue-grafton/

Read it? Good. Moving on.

Now, if that is the way Mrs Grafton thinks about self-publishing – fair enough. That’s her opinion and she is entitled to it. I actually would not have a problem mentioning this as part of her interview in of itself. But what concerns me is that the question prior to all this was “Do you have any words of wisdom for young writers?” Therefore, she wasn’t actually giving this information as an opinion but rather ADVICE to all authors out there. This troubles me because someone of her statue should know better – considering that even authors like J.K Rowling don’t seem to have a problem with self-publishing.  And, as a supporter of self-published and indie authors (and being one myself), I feel that I just can’t let this go.

Now, this post had already been discussed by author Benjamin X Wretlind, which is how I found out about the interview (I’ll leave a link to his blog below), so I have asked him if I could also do my own blog on this, which he kindly agreed to. Whereas his blog was extremely impassioned  (and I respect him for speaking his mind), I’m going to take a more subjective view on this post and give my thoughts on this.

Before I start, I want to say that this is NOT a personal attack on Mrs Grafton, nor is it a personal attack against any of her fans or any published authors. I just disagree with many of the points she raised and feel I should express an alternate view. Additionally, I am not claiming to speak for all the self-published authors out there (I would not be so arrogant) and I am aware that many authors can speak their own mind, so the points I raised are purely based on my own opinion and life experiences. Please bare that in mind when reading this blog.

What I have done is taken a few segments of the interview that I think are particularly bad and put my thoughts underneath. Let’s get to it.

Don’t self-publish. That’s as good as admitting you’re too lazy to do the hard work

Sorry to pour water on your fire, but what you said here is utterly, completely WRONG! Being self-published means you HAVE to do all the hard work. You have to promote  your own work however you can, you can’t just sit back and wait for the monies to start rolling in – because they won’t. In fact, many authors get turned off by self publishing when they realise what hard work is involved. If anything, you need to be prepared to work twice as hard if you decide to self-publish.

By your argument, I could say that YOU are lazy getting your work published through an agent/publisher as they are the ones that do all the work for you and all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the royalties. But then again, that would be an ignorant statement wouldn’t it?

Perhaps you should try self-publishing before bitching it. You may actually prefer it. Just saying.

The indie success stories aren’t the rule. They’re the exception

Surely ANY success story from any author (self-published or otherwise) is good. Why should you say that indie author successes don’t matter? That would be like saying Tom Daley doesn’t deserve our respect because he only got a bronze medal in the London Olympics!

Yes, I will admit it is always a heart warming tale to hear of an author being accepted by a big name publisher and becoming a bestselling author – but surely it’s equally as amazing learning about an indie author becoming a bestselling novelist without the support of a major publisher. And it has happened! M.R Mathias, author of the The Wardstone Trilogy  is one of the best selling indie authors out there, for example as is author L.M Preston, who’s book Bandits was the number one best selling free ebook, alongside The Hunger Games, which was the number 1 purchased ebook. Surely that must count for something?

ANY success story deserves to be praised as far as I’m concerned, regardless of where it’s from. Discounting a book's success just because of the way it’s published is just stupid.

The self-published books I’ve read are often amateurish. I’ve got one sitting on my desk right now and I’ve received hundreds of them over the years. Sorry about that, but it’s the truth

That's actually a legitiment argument - at least to a certain extent. I have read some self-published works that are pretty bad and often put together very roughly or poorly – but at the same time I have also read a large number of self-published works that are beautifully put together, formatted and printed to a professional standard. So, to me, saying that self-published books are amateurish is as ignorant as saying all blondes are dumb (they aren’t by the way).

Also, what you said is YOUR truth, not THE truth – there is a difference.

Don’t forget that not every author is as lucky as you, we can’t all get a publishing deal – that’s why self-publishing is offered as an alternative. And with the release of the ebook, it’s now easier than ever for an author to get published themselves. But just because an author isn’t publishing through a major publisher doesn’t make them any less readable than a publisher author. Again, you’re making judgments without actually doing any research into it.

The hard work is taking the rejection, learning the lessons, and mastering the craft over a period of time

Surely self-published authors can do this WHILST they are putting their work out? I’ve learned more about my writing craft through self-publishing (from reviews and tips from other readers/authors) than any English class I ever went to. Writing is always a learning curve and authors are always learning as they go along. I find it very hard to believe that any published author gets it right first time – they still learn all throughout their lives and improve on things to be a better writer. Well, most of them anyway.

And again, why should they have to go through rejection from publishers/agents when they can just do all the work themselves? No, for me the hard work is learning to take criticism for their work and learning from the reviews of their books. I think so anyway.

To me, it seems disrespectful…that a ‘wannabe’ assumes it’s all so easy s/he can put out a ‘published novel’ without bothering to read, study, or do the research

Actually, most self-published authors DO research the world of publishing in their selected writing field – and many of them are readers as well. How else are they going to learn how to write and publish a book.

To me, it seems disrespectful...that an ‘author’ assumes that a ‘self-published’ writer doesn’t do their research or reads any books without actually doing some research themselves to make sure her point is justified. Just saying.

Oh, and one more point, many authors prefer to go down the route of self-publishing because they would rather have control of a project themselves. That was one of the reasons why I decided to self-publish. The major advantage of this is that indie authors write the story the way they want to write it and you often find that they go against many conventions to tell a unique story. Some of the most original books I’ve read have been self-published books.

Self-publishing is a short cut and I don’t believe in short cuts when it comes to the arts

No it isn’t. It’s an alternative. I’ve covered this before so don’t need to go over it.

I compare self-publishing to a student managing to conquer Five Easy Pieces on the piano and then wondering if s/he’s ready to be booked into Carnegie Hall

And I compare you, Mrs Grafton, to a troll! Someone who publishes comments on the internet without properly researching or having any logical thought to their comments and then expecting everyone to go along with them.

In all fairness, Mrs Grafton is entitled to her opinion and if that’s the way she feels then fair enough. However, the fact that she was trying to pass this off as actual advice to aspiring writers did actually make me cringe. Once again, I like to reiterate that I am not doing this post to discourage fans of Mrs Grafton, nor am I trying to give her a bad name. I just felt that her comments were (with all due respect) elitist and ignorant – and someone of her standard should know better. Don’t forget, despite what you may believe, indie authors are readers too – and based on the amount of negative comments on the interview post, I worry that you may have bitten the hand that feeds you. If you anger readers, you can see your sales drop pretty quickly.

Then again, I don’t know Mrs Grafton personally and I’m sure she’s a nice person at heart. Maybe she meant no harm in these comments, but she certainly should have phrased them better. Reading her comments, they just come across bitter and laced with jealousy that so many indie authors are topping the Amazon bestsellers lists (or at least doing very well). I would hope that she would look back at this interview and realise what a big mistake she had made, if she hasn’t done so already.

Perhaps the title of her next book should be W is for What the hell was I thinking?

Be sure to also check out Benjamin X Wretlind’s original post on his blog at http://bxwretlind.com/blog/2012/08/18/f-is-for-f-you-sue-grafton/ and please do follow his blog for some interesting insights on the writing world. Please also leave your comments about this post below to let you know her thoughts.

Thanks for reading guys! Until next time!

Pandragon

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About two weeks ago I did a little Top Five Tips on reasons not to self publish (see here) . I have to admit I thought I was going to get some backlash from this post in case people thought I was coming across negative or “preachy”. Thankfully, I got a lot of good praise and emails about it so it seems to have gone well.

Let me make one thing clear – I was NOT trying to discourage anyone from self publishing. I was merely trying to clear up some pre-conceived myths that people have come to believe about the process. But I also said that self publishing is a great way to get your book out there and I truly recommend it. It is hard work and I always make sure that there are no illusions in that fact. It seemed only natural that I should do a little post giving writers some ideas of how to self publish their book.

My only reason for not doing that is the simple fact that, despite what some people may think, I am NO expert at the self publishing process and there are plenty of self published authors that have had more success than me and I’m sure can give better advice than I can, which is why I avoided doing a post like that before. However, I have learned a wealth of information from other authors and Trial and Error exercises that I think have made me a stronger person. And I do like to share tips with other authors in the hope that we can both learn something from each other.

So rather than do a definitive guide of how to self publish and promote your work, I thought I’d do a Top Five Tips based on things that have worked for me PERSONALLY. These are the five things that I have done myself that I think have helped the sale of my books substantially. Obviously there are plenty of other ways to promote yourself other than the ones listed here and I’m sure more experienced authors will be able to assist, but I can at least share the basics.

Disclaimer: Doing the below things is NOT a guarantee that you will get hundreds of sales – but they will certainly help.

1. Start a website/blog

This may seem like an obvious thing to do – but you’ll be surprised how many authors I’ve met that don’t have EITHER of these things. Given that we live in a world that is pretty much controlled by the Web, it makes it a necessity to have these things. However, I think a lot of people that don’t have any web experience can be intimidated by creating a web site of their own as they don’t know where to start.

However, fret not! For there are plenty of online companies that can help you create a website. I use Wix (which is also where I have my blog) and speaking as someone that had no prior web experience before using it, I find it a very easy tool to use. It’s all based on “drag and drop” technology which you can also add links to, photos, etc. It’s by far one of the easiest ways to create a website if you have no experience. It also has a lot of great, user friendly advice on how to create web pages if you’re not sure. And it’s free to use as well (so long as you don’t mind Wix adverts going round your website). Maybe it’s not the absolute best website creator in the world – but I never had any problems with it and recommend it for beginners.

As far as blogging goes, this is also a must for any author. I actually shirked at blogging before trying it myself, now I wished I did it sooner! A blog is a great way to get your name out there and get more potential sales for your work – because if they like your content then they’ll definitely check out your work. I actually think I got more readers through doing a blog than putting up adverts about my work on Youtube or Facebook.

When doing a blog, there are many schools of thought on how often you should write and what you should write about. For me, I’d say you should update a blog at least once a week – more so if you can. When writing content, try to mix it up a bit and don’t just talk about your books as this may come across as boring, or sometimes pretentious. Yes, you want people to read your work and you want to tell them when you have a new book out – but you also want people to respect you as a writer, so it helps to be varied.

I blog at least 4 times a week and have a kind of rota. Mondays I talk about my writing, Wednesday I host guest blogs/interviews or talk about other authors/films I’m into. Friday is a general blogging day where I talk about anything that interests me or any general subject and Saturday is my Top Five Tips day. Occasionally I’ll blog about other stuff if I feel the need to on other days – but I find that this schedule works fine for me just fine.

Blogs are a great way to communicate with potential readers, so I highly recommend it.

2. Do guest posts/blog tours

If you run a blog, then doing guest posts and blog tours on other blogs comes highly recommended. Many bloggers are always on the lookout for people to do a guest post – so don’t be afraid to contact them, especially if they are asking for bloggers. Guest posts are a great way to get your name out there on other blogs – especially if that blog has thousands of readers! By the same token, you can also offer to host guest blogs on your OWN blog/website. If you host a guest blog from a popular blogger/writer, then it will bring all their readers to your site, thus increasing your range. Potentially you could get thrice as many readers as you have already.

Blog tours are also a great idea – although it’s best to plan them months in advance to gauge how many dates you’ll need. I’m currently organising a blog tour for my novel Trapped on Draconica in the next few months. Many believe that you should only do blog tours for new books that you have out – but my belief is that if you have a book out, why not do a tour about it?

Guest posts and blog tours aren’t only a great way to promote your work – but also make great contacts. Having done guest posts myself, I have made friends with other authors/bloggers and I’m thankful for them giving me the time to host on their site. And you can always repay the favour to them when they need a guest post or blog tour. So if you’re running a blog, this is something that I also highly recommend.

3. Use social networking, like Facebook, Twitter, etc

With social networking pretty much dominating the world right now, there’s never been a better way to get your name out there. Obviously, just having Twitter or Facebook alone doesn’t guarantee you any huge success – but it certainly doesn’t hurt!

If using Twitter or Facebook, don’t just post or tweet about your blog/book, try and mix it up a bit. Even if you just want to tweet about making yourself a drink or whatever, it’s ok to just tweet general stuff. Also, retweeting posts from other authors/bloggers is a great idea as they will often do the same for your posts. With Twitter you’ve also got the added advantage of being able to use hash tags to tag your posts. Put in the right hash tag and you can potentially get more people to read your posts – you might even find your posts trending on Twitter if you’re lucky!

One thing I would advise – and I only say this because this is a pet peeve of mine – if you get followed by someone on Twitter or added on Facebook, DO NOT automatically message them with links to your books or website, or asking to like your Facebook page. This is something that really winds me up as it sounds like a hard sell and it can gain the ire of people. If people want to check out your website or whatever, they will – but they don’t like being pressured into things.

However, it is perfectly acceptable to send them a message thanking them for the follow or like. In fact, I actually don’t mind people sending me a DM when I follow them on Twitter thanking me for the follow – as long as they don’t try and sell me something. It makes it even better if you personalise your thank you (i.e., if they say on their Twitter they like a certain author you like, tell them you also like it). I personally don’t send DM’s to anyone that follows me because I have a pretty tight schedule and it would take me too long to reply to EVERYONE that follows me – but I am always grateful for the follow regardless.

Like anything, there are certain do’s and don’ts with using social networking. But as long as you don’t try and sell anything to your new followers or try to force them towards your website, you should be fine. Leaving a link in your description and tweets to your information is more than enough.

4. Approach bookshops

For those who prefer the more “traditional” approach to self publishing, there are still many book shops out there that may be interested in selling your book, so don’t be afraid to contact them. I myself had copies of Trapped on Draconica sold in my local Waterstones (one of UK’s largest book chains) and this was without needing to contact their head offices first.

Naturally, not EVERY bookshop will want to take copies of your book – but don’t be afraid to approach them. In the old days, bookshops used to refuse to take self published novels – but if I can get my book into Waterstones, then that surely proves that bookshops are more willing to accept these types of printed books if the quality is right.

Here’s the best tip I can give if you want to do this. Try and get a name of the person you need to speak to at the bookshop. Tell them you are an author that would be interested in doing business with them and find out a name of who you need to speak to. If it’s someone you need to speak to in store, find out when they are next in then pay them a visit on the off chance that you can speak to them. You could also try calling or emailing them, but I find it much more effective to try and speak to someone – although I’ll be honest I can get quite shy and nervous when speaking to people direct so it makes me even prouder that I was able to get my book into a Waterstones with that insecurity.

Like I say, if you prefer the more “hands on” approach, then try this by all means. Even in this day and age of digital ebooks, many people I know still prefer holding a book in their hands – so if you can exploit this then go for it.

5. Attend conventions as a seller

Out of all the above tips above, this is one that I thoroughly recommend – especially for those who write Science Fiction and Fantasy as there are tons of conventions for those genres. I myself attended a Manga convention earlier in the year and I felt that it was a huge success for me. I may not have sold as much as I thought I would, but I got more readers in those two days then an entire month of trying to promote my book through Amazon.

Conventions are a great way to network and promote your work. Even if you don’t sell everything – you can make some great contacts through other dealers that may be able to sell your book. Of course, attending conventions aren’t cheap and you often have to supply your own costs. Not to mention that trying to get into the most well known conventions is next to impossible unless you’re an established name – but some of the independent conventions are always on the lookout for exhibitors and people to attend.

Even though you aren’t guaranteed to sell a huge amount of your works, you never know what contacts you might make. Just by doing the first convention I did, I was later invited to attend a convention in Newcastle later in the year – so that’s certainly one way of getting my name out there. And that’s the point of conventions – getting your name out there.

If you can attend one then I recommend it without question. If nothing else it will be a fun day out for you! If you want to see how I got on, check out THIS LINK.

So those are my Top Five Tips. Please feel free to comment below if you found this helpful or not. I welcome all comments. Like I said, these are not a guarantee for success – but just things that I have done and have worked for me. I’m sure that other can recommend plenty more ways to get your name out there and if you wish to share them, please do. Whichever way you want to promote your work, I wish you all possible success!

Thanks for reading! Have a great weekend.

Pandragon

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As I’ve said on many occasions, I am a self published writer – and I love it. I love the way that I am in control of how I want to write, distribute and publish my books. Whilst I am sure having an agent and a publisher would be a great help to me, I feel that I’ve accomplished more by publishing myself than I would have if I had either of the two things. Mainly because I have faith in my project and producing it the story the way I wanted it to go, without it having been changed to conform to any current trends in the book world.

You may be thinking, if I love it so much, why I am doing a blog post advising against it? Short answer – I’m not! In fact I openly encourage any author to try it as there is more ways to publish your book than ever these days. That being said, there are certain dos and don’ts that follow with self publishing – and today I’m looking at the DON’TS.

These are five ways of thinking that I don’t think any author should go into if they plan to self publish as, if you follow these lines of thinking, you will fail pretty quickly. If you’re just going to self publish for fun, fair enough, you probably don’t need to read any further. But if you are SERIOUS about making a go of being a self published author, then these are the thoughts that you must banish quickly if you think to succeed.

Like with any of my Top Five Tips, this list is purely based on my own experiences of being a self published author and these are all five things that I myself believed when I was younger. Believe it or not, I actually had another book out before Trapped on Draconica called Satopia – which I believed would be the next big thing. But I was young and naive back then and didn’t have a clue what I was doing, so the whole thing went wrong and today I don’t really like to talk about that novel as it was, in my eyes, a failure. But I also know that part of that was done to my complete lack of understanding of the writing world. These days I’m a little wiser – I’m a long way off from being a famous writer, but at least now I have a better understanding of what I need to do. The best I can do is warn other new writers out there of the dangers and hopefully they won’t make the same mistake I made.

I should also like to point out that this list is NOT intended to discourage new writers, but rather give them a heads up as to what to expect.

1. Self publishing is easy to do and I’ll get a lot of sales

With so many companies out there offering ways to publish a novel (such as Createspace, Lulu, Amazon, Smashwords, etc), it’s easy for a new author to think that once print or upload their masterpiece, all they have to do is play the Waiting Game until the cash comes through. But let me tell you, if this is all you do, you will be playing this game for a LONG time! The companies I’ve listed above are simply means to get your book uploaded or printed – they are not selling tools.

Here is the hard truth – you’re a new writer. You’ve never put out a book before. Why should anyone, outside of your friends and family, buy your book? If a regular reader comes across a choice of your book, or that of a more established writer, which one do you think they will choose? I’ll give you a hint, it probably won’t be you. But that doesn’t mean that you’re not a bad writer – readers are more likely to go with what they know than something they aren’t sure about. As the old saying goes ‘Better the devil you know, then the devil you don’t’.

That being said, maybe you’ll get lucky and one person will buy a book and love it so much that they tell their friends about it and it becomes a huge hit. But the chances of that are small and you can’t rely on just that alone.

The solution? You need to promote your book where you can! Wherever it’s blogs, Facebook, Twitter, approaching shops, review sites, whatever. You need to bust your ass to get people to hear about your book and try and convince them to buy it. How you go about advertising it is up to you – there are no real right or wrong ways to promote a book in my eyes, but some work better than others. If I can give one bit of advice on this subject, what I would recommend that if you use Twitter, if you get a new follower, don’t DM them straight away giving them a link to your book. I get this all the time on my Twitter and it gets on my nerves – and others usually feel the same as well. Leaving a link to your website or any other page on your Twitter profile is usually enough and if people are interested, they will check it out.

Long story short, self publishing is not easy – but the rewards are great if you work at it.

2. Self publishing will make me rich

Short answer – no it won’t! For all the reasons listed above. Authors like Terry Pratchett and Stephen King may be raking it in money wise, but that’s only because they worked hard at it for years to get where they were. And even J.K Rowling wasn’t a major success at first and had to gradually build up a following. Maybe your book will make you millions – but you shouldn’t go into self publishing thinking that as you will only end up disappointed if it doesn’t.

Self publishing is not a get rich quick scheme, so don’t think of it as so. If you want to get rich, get yourself a high paying sales job and be a first class seller – you’ll be better off trying to get rich this way than publishing.

3. All my friends and family think that I’m a great writer

When I hear these words, I cringe. Mainly because I can automatically see where this is going!

Now don’t get me wrong, there is NOTHING wrong with getting support from your friends and family – in fact I think those things are important in life. Your friends and family should support you during your writing career, or through life in general. But, with all due respect, are your friends and family alone going to make you a famous writer? Unless you have a thousand friends that buy a thousand copies of your book, sadly I’d have to say no.

But unfortunately, many novice writers do rely on their friends and family for praise of their work and, in my experience, this tends to lead to overinflated egos. They get so much praise from their loved ones and five star reviews on Amazon (or whatever) that they truly believe that they are a god amongst writers. And, inevitably, once they get their first negative review, they become overly aggressive – sometimes even attacking the reviewer. I think the reviewers of the website Big Als Books and Pals can relate to this when they reviewed the book The Greek Seaman over a year ago, giving it a negative but critical review, and the author lashed out at them online. In the end, all it did was show that she was unable to take criticism and I think she is now regretting her outburst!

When you decide to be a writer (or any form of expressive art for that matter) you have to be prepared to take criticism as not every review you get will be a good one. Friends and family are great, but they will generally be overly positive of your work because they want you to succeed. I’m kinda lucky in this respect in that I always get my father to read my novels when they are done and he reads them as a reader – not as my father. He can sometimes be a little harsh in his criticism, but it is always fair and I do listen to him.

That’s not to say that you can’t use friends and family to promote your work. Word of mouth is a great selling tool. Get your friends to tell their friends about your work, and then tell their friends, and their friends, etc! When Trapped on Draconica came out, my parents did this and I actually got some decent sales out of it. I even got some sales from people who weren’t my friends in the long run.

The point I’m trying to make is that you shouldn’t always rely on your friends and family for praise of your work. You need to be level headed – critical and open minded to criticism. This way you won’t take it so personally if you get a bad review.

4. Self publishing is a back door to getting an agent or publisher

I think this probably used to be the most common way for people to self publish – and indeed, there were a few self published authors that did get a publishing contract this way. Christopher Paolini being one of them. But, if truth be told, this happens very rarely – like once in a blue moon!

You might think that if you self publish you will get an agent to recognise your work and be offered a massive publishing contract – but this doesn’t really work. Agents normally get hundred (or thousands) of submissions from authors that are asking them to represent them and they just don’t have the time to go out looking for new authors unless there is something about them that catches their eye. So if you go into self publishing with this idea (like I did), then you’ll be disappointed.

That being said, I do kinda find this method of self publishing a little hypocritical. As I said earlier, the advantages of self publishing is that you are in control of your own project. If you get an agent or publisher, you will have to relinquish control of that somewhat to fit in with their publishing guidelines. You have to ask yourself, would you be prepared to do that after being in control of your own work for so long?

My opinion is that if you’re really good at selling your own book then you don’t NEED any of these things. If you really want to get a publisher or agent then that’s great. But don’t use self publishing as a “back door” as you’ll be waiting a long time (possibly forever) for this to happen.

5. I just want to self publish as it’s the current trend at the moment

Yes, there are plenty of people out there that get into writing just because it seems to be popular at the moment. But not just writing, music, art, poetry, acting, the list is endless. There are loads of people who get into something just because it looks cool.

Personally, I have never been fond of these “creators”, because for me, art in any form should be a personal expression – a love of a certain genre or feeling. The best artists (which included authors, musicians, artists, actors, poets, the list goes on) are the ones who don’t try and conform to any trends and write from the heart. Those who just do it because it’s cool just end up churning the same mediocrity that is overly clichéd and dull. And this doesn’t just go for self published authors – but even some in the mainstream. Ok, J.K Rowling isn’t my favourite author, but at least she writes because she loves it (and hopefully still does despite her fame).

For me personally, I write because I love telling stories – and I tell stories that I myself would want to read. Occasionally, I do take inspiration from certain characters and other writers, but I would never willingly conform to any trends within the genre. I have no interest in making millions and millions of dollars from my writing – just enough for me to live. I know that if I work hard enough then I will achieve it and I hope that any anyone that enjoys creating art will make it.

I don’t mean to sound angry – I just get frustrated when people that churn out the same crap get the attention and people who put their heart and soul into it get overlooked. However, that being said, there are plenty of artists out there in the mainstream that I have respect for and did actually make it because of their love for their art – so I know it is possible.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, write because you want to, not because you HAVE to. Self publish because you want to share your works with the people, not because you want to be famous. Self publishing is a way for unknown authors to finally share their works – we should be able to use it in that way.

Phew! I just realised how preachy that last comment sounded, so I apologise for that. I just get passionate about these things – so I hope I didn’t overstep the mark.

Again, I want to assure you all that this list is not intended to discourage any new authors who wish to self publish. I just believe you need to go into this understanding what you are getting yourself into and not end up making a hash of it like I did. I also want to assure people reading this that this email is not intended to discourage those who want to try and get published the traditional way. Whichever way you want to try and get published, I wish you all possible success in your endeavour.

Please feel free to comment below if you found this helpful or not. I welcome all comments. Thanks for reading!

Pandragon

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