Hi, welcome to my new blog post. Well, it sure has been a busy month. I completed and published my third book 'Antics at Agility' with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and in my Etsy Store.
The formatting of the book takes such a long time, as each platform has their own specific requirements on size. Because I am using a non-standard book size for my picture books, this has made it even more difficult. Formatting as an e-book is difficult, as it may look fine with iBooks, but not so good through a Kindle, because of the size and layout of the book.
It is important not to give up or get disgruntled. All a self-publishing author wants to do is see their books on sale, however there is a mountain of things to do to get to that stage, after completing the book. Most self-publishing authors would prefer it this way, rather than handing the job over to editors and publishers who may want to make lots of changes to the book, which can also be disheartening.
Once the book is published, a self-publishing author also has the job of promoting and advertising the books if they don't employ someone to do that side of things. I would rather, at this stage, do this myself. The main reason is money. It costs to promote and advertise, whoever does it, but you have the added cost of paying someone to do the advertising with no guarantee that you will get anymore sales by using someone else.
I am in a quandary at the moment. Do I start writing my forth book in the series, or do I have a break and concentrate on promoting the books I have already published?
I am hoping to write two more picture books for this series, one book per adventure and then my plan is to split my sixth book into separate adventures as a new book series as they will all be based on the same theme. My other option his to do my sixth book in the same way as I did my first book - as a chapter book for older readers. Decisions! Decisions!
I have also lost a week this month, due to being ill. I had my 2nd covid vaccine and really suffered with side effects. This took me out of action for six days and I feel that I have lost so much time promoting my new book. I am fully well again now and ready for the new month ahead.
May brings lots of things to look forward to. In my family, we call it 'Mad May', as lots of family members, including myself, celebrate birthdays in May. Every women living in my cul-de-sac also celebrates their birthday in April/May - the Taurus season. This was such a revelation and a synchronicity experience when we all realised last year that we were all Taurus babies. We are all looking forwarded to celebrating the end of the pandemic and our birthdays, sometime during May and officially opening my gin palace 'The Bull Ring Bar' for these celebrations. The gin palace could only have one name after this revelation.
If you are an author, what takes up most of your time? If you are a reader, how you you want me to proceed with my future books?
If you haven't seen my new book, or any of my books, check out my book trailers on the 'published books' page.
Have a great weekend!
Jayne
