Less than a week ago I myself decided, I wanted to become a self published writer. I've taken my writing quite seriously over the past 3½ years and I've tried to become published the tradional way without any luck. It hasn't been that the publishers didn't like my work (or so they told me) but they believed the segment of customers my stories appealed to was too small - and then they wished me luck in the future.
Having been on this route of rejection for a couple of years and still believing that my stories actually deserved an audience, I finally decided to give the world of self publishing a go. With this series of blogs I will tell you about my experiences (both ups and downs) and maybe give you an insight to the thoughts going through my head all this time. I have decided to write this blog in English even though I'm a Danish writer. I'm doing this because I intend to publish my books in both Danish and English, and as I consider myself confident in my native language, I will also use this blog to improve my English. My books will naturally go through a copy writer, my blogs won't, so bear with me.
I finally decided to go this way after I began to follow some indie writers on Twitter. Specificly a writer named Micael R. Hicks, who among other books, has eBook self published his own Sci-Fi series "In Her Name" (which I highly recommend - review coming later). My plan is to incorporate some of his methods while trying to figure things out myself, as I believe there's quite a big difference on how you do things in the US and in Denmark.
It's not that the route to become self published is harder here in the sense, that yes, I can convert my documents to ePub format or the Kindle format without any problems. But it's all the other considerations comming along the way. Should I create a website? Am I expecting to make money on this? What about taxes? What about publicíty? What about marketing? What about book covers? Should I do print on demand? What expenses do I expect? There's a lot a whats here and as I go along this route more and more keep popping up in the distance. And I deem it nescessary to answer these questions along the way - or at least try to.
First of, I consider my first two stories finished and the only thing I feel it nescassery to do is to let my mother in law, who is a copy editor, go over the stories one last time. And only one of stories exist in an English copy as I wanted it to appear in some American horror magazine, so the novel will naturally be translated ASAP.
Ok, that out of the way, the most important part of my future career as a writer, it's now on for the other consideration as I expect to be able to write on a steady flow after I've set up shop and figured the best way to do things in the future. And now that we're talking about setting up shop... I have a day job, naturally, and one that I expect to keep. But I pay taxes while doing this and I'm going to pay taxes of whatever I will make on my writings. At the same time I would like to keep all my expenses for this new venture seperated from my house hold budget so I've decided to become a firm as well. Now the consideration aren't as much what kind of firm to create but more about how to do it and what to consider in this regard. I've done a lot of reading on this subject during the week and I'm not finished yet. Lets just say I've learned a lot and hasn't been discouraged... Yet. I will try to get by with a little help from some friends.
The Danish govournment actually encourage people to try some kind of venture on their own and they are very helpful in this regard. There is a whole lot of information out there and the hard part is to figure out what I can and can't use.
As a creative I have also done a lot of thinking about copyright. I've read On Writing by Stephen King and he mentions something about a poor mans copyright - in which you mail yourself the very first edition of your printed work by snail mail. The verification will be the stamp the post office has put on the package when they recieved it and let it continue its journey back to you. What I found out is that there are also firms out there whose sole job it is to make your work copyrighted in an unquestionable matter. I think I've decided to it this way from now and onwards. And it's not that expensive as a matter of fact.
I feel I need a homepage and until I get one, this blog will work as my blog, naturally. I have some expirence in creating a webpage myself but I actually find the creation of the page quite boring. I'm more into delivering the written content, not hard code the thing myself. I've put the word out to some friend who knows someone who might know someone but my past experience tells me I'll probably end up programming the damned thing myself. I only hope I'll be able to create something not too amateurish but if it looks like crap I'll pay someone to do it for me, just trying to save a little money where money can be saved.
I've also had a lot of considerations about future marketing etc. and I think I'll give the viral marketing a go, hoping to let the word of mouth do its magic. Naturally I will do a lot to encourage this and I am convinced I will be even more active via the social media than I already am. At the same time I'm seaching the web for review blogs whom I will give a copy of my stories and hopefully they'll like my stories. And if they don't, maybe they'll tell me what they don't like and I might be able to learn something from that expirience as well. In the Print on Demand department I'm currently looking around for cover designers and considering what, if any, firm I should pick to do the POD. And with POD I also think I will need to contact some real life book stores to do signings in etc. but that's way out in the future, and it will only be done in Denmark if I'm going to do it.
As you can see, a lot of considerations has already gone through my mind and I've not even begun. The stories are there, just need some proof reading, but there's still all the other things I need to consider. At the moment it seems my hands are a little bit too full, but I need to figure if I can go on without some of the things. But, if my goal is to sell my stories, I firmly believe I need to do this proberly from the beginning, so at the moment I'm not prone to cut down in the to-do list.
Well, more on this next week. Until then: happy writing or reading.
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This weeks ups:
- That it really does seem like a very possible project.
- I've learned a lot of new stuff.
This weeks downs:
- It still seems like a big project.
- No real writing while I'm setting things up and I still need to take care of family and day job.
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