Thank you so much for saying so! I actually hired a web designer, so I cheated a bit, and as we were going through the design phase she asked me what three words I wanted visitors to say about my website. My very first answer was "clean!" I've been to messy websites and nothing makes me bounce faster out of a website then one that is hard to maneuver. I wanted people to navigate my website with ease.
Really? Wow, nailed it. And that's not cheating, it's smart. You don't currently have a blog on your website. Do you plan on adding one?
Yes! I want to so bad, but I'm just not sure what to blog about. I would really love to do some sort of POD Cast blogging or video blogging and use it to help promote independent authors like myself. But I just can't think of material that I can blog about regularly.
I'm good friends with a professional editor up in Canada that actually works for a publishing company, and she really dissuaded me from going the traditional publisher’s route because you lose so much control over your book. You lose your cover design, you have to do a million rewrites that you most likely won’t agree with, you lose a huge percentage of royalties, and to top it off publishers apparently don’t put any effort into marketing a book unless you already have a best seller on the shelves. No thanks.
Maybe I'm lazy too because I just did not want to put the effort into the formalities of submitting my work to a traditional publisher, only to most likely be rejected, after waiting 6 months to hear from the publisher at all. There are just way too many negative sides to attempting the traditional publisher route when it's so easy to self-publish, expensive in a lot of cases, but easy.
There only really seems to be one upside to attempting the traditional publisher route, if you get a publisher at all, and that's getting your book into book stores. I would love to walk down the aisle at my local Barnes & Noble and see my book on a book store shelf! But the negatives of traditional publishing far out weight the positive I think.
I went the middle route, small traditional. I just didn't have the confidence to do it myself. Still don't (and love my publisher). What site or media has been most beneficial to you in marketing your book?
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Facebook, for a few purposes. My absolute greatest resource is the several independent author Facebook Groups I'm a member of; Indie Author Exchange, Indie Author Group, and Indie Authors Unite. I'm a member of several others but these three have been the absolute most help I could have dreamed for or asked for. A good number of them are experienced authors and they never withhold advice or help. They also don't allow spam or promotion which is wonderful because it keeps things clean and advice is easy to see. They are such great people and always willing to help out a rookie self-publisher with tons and tons of advice and help and aides and resources.Hear that other newbies (I count myself among you)? Lots of help out there. Thank you, Nichelle. Remember to stop by her page for a free electronic copy!
