Writing turned out to be the easiest part of being an author

I have a new appreciation for people, especially self publishers who go out there and not only create their work but market it.

The first draft of my upcoming book only took me a few months. I'm fortunate that once I'm in that zone I can write without distraction and finish rather quickly. But I second guess myself to death and edit upon re-edit took almost as long as writing the story did.

I'm about a week or two away from selling the book as an ebook. Final edits are done, the cover is being worked on and I've converted the story for uploading.

The frightening part is approaching. How to let people know about it. I have Facebook and I've started to really enjoy Twitter and I'm dipping my toe back into the message board waters. My husband navigates the net a lot better than I in terms of promoting his comic so he's been a big help in assisting me but boy is it a lot of work. I'm reluctant to talk too much about it on social media because I don't want it to seem like I'm just trying to sell my friends.

This forum has become a great resource for me in the past few weeks and I really appreciate the knowledge and experience present here.

I'll keep you posted with how things develop

Danika said:

I hope everything goes swimmingly for you.

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Thanks, me too

merrihiatt said:

Elena, congratulations on finishing your book. Hope you'll come back and update from time to time so we can journey along with you.

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I definately will. I'm trying to make myself at home here and check out all the cool threads.

Paul said:

not sure this is the right time to say this as you're a relative newbie, but bare in mind it's a general comment.


i write so that i can avoid work. that's it. that's why i write. and that's the truth. ( i dont regard writing as work, as i enjoy it!)

so, for me, anything other than writing is work. incl promoting etc.

and i'll be making that clear if /when i'm published. (em, i'm drunk btw)

i write, you* publish, you promote*, you sell*. i write

* (the agent publishers etc)

that's it.

fair play to those who feel otherwise, but i know i will not compromise on that.

why?


because i write to avoid work

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Fair points. The social media thing I don't consider work as I'm having fun with it. I just try not to get too distracted with it because whenever I'm on Twitter or message boards it's time away from writing.

Wolfdreamer25 said:

I wish you luck in your journey, and I understand why writing can be the easy part. It is hard to do self promotion, and putting yourself out there is no easy task.

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Thanks. With every step of the process (final edits, cover approval, uploading a demo) I get closer to having to start the hype train and that's where the nervousness sets in

pdblake said:

I hate marketing. It takes too much time away from the actual writing.

I put a post here in the promo forum when I have a new release, another over at Hatrack, a blog post and a tweet. Then update my website and that's about it.

I know I should post here there and everywhere, but I really would rather be writing. I'll never get rich off it, I know, but if all I did was push my books I'd never get around to writing any.

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That's the biggest concern for me (aside from looking like all I do is self promote) too. The internet is full of distractions no mattter how well meaning my intentions