I'mma do it (M. York's Self Publishing Thread)

So I never imagined that I'd be self publishing, but I realized that I'm constantly waiting for permission from everyone else to do things, so I'm just going to do what I want to do. All my life I've wanted to be a successful author, with no measure of what I meant by, "successful," but thought that could only be accomplished through trade publishing. And I do think trade publishing is still the best way to reach a measure of success, but my timeline doesn't fit that.

After reaching out to my artist friends, I chose one to do cover art for me and I'm set to release my first book, The Traitor's Daughter, either in May or June of this year. It all depends on how quickly the art is done and how fast I can get my author site up.

Thank you for the advice! I plan to go more into marketing once my cover art is done. I've got the sketch from the artist approved, but I'm waiting to get the finished product before the marketing gets moving.

So my cover art isn't done yet, but the artist is promising it soon (she also has an extremely active day job so I understand). I've been building my own website from the ground up via HTML and CSS, almost ready to launch that, more just need to add in contact info and then I'll be ready, I think. My husband's helping me choose a web hosting service and will help me get that posted, and that would've happened tonight but both he and I are sick, so he's laying down and I'm being a lazy bugger... but will link likely by this weekend.

well, part of it was a cost, part of it was always wanting to code a site (I've had the desire since 1996 but never actually did it). Also, part of it was just not liking the privacy policies of most places to build sites. I was about to just go for a WordPress.com thing, but decided against it at the last moment due to cost. But I purchased my domain via NearlyFreeSpeech.net and use their web hosting because their privacy policy is the best out of all that I've seen. Right now the site is barely anything and likely will remain that way for a long time, but it's something I can be proud of myself for figuring out, putting together, and putting out there.

Edited to add: I'm a Linux user and already hyper-aware of privacy and wanting control over my information. That being said, I understand that sites like Wix, Weebly, SquareSpace, and WordPress are the right choice for most people.

Okay, so my cover artist has sworn she'll finish my cover by Wednesday. Really down to the wire, here @.@ But I guess that's my fault for not giving myself more wiggle room.

On some good news, though, a comic shop and bookstore in my hometown wants me to do a signing there this Christmas season. If I'm able to get my trilogy out before then (which I aim to have my third book out in September or November) it'll be perfect timing

Thanks! It's pretty awesome thinking about it.

My book came out (yesterday for ebook and today for print). And I have sales already. And... I dunno. I have been so overwhelmed by positive emotions about releasing it is... amazing and weird. It's made it difficult already to work on book 2.

It's not a lot, but it's more than I sold when I was with the last small publisher I had. I sold 15 copies of my book in the first month.