When I first published Malignant in December of 2015 I pushed the button and it went live on Amazon. It's that easy -- the publishing part at least. It was a whim, a fancy, and a flop.
What I didn't know about publishing is that writing the book is hard, but it is equally as hard to market the book. And marketing doesn't stop. What I've learned in the past year and a half is that if I'm not actively marketing Malignant, it floats around in the bowels of Amazon where people will never find it.
I have since then decided to take writing more seriously, and with that decision came a phone conversation with a friend who is a more successful author than I am. He gave me lots of helpful tips so that marketing my book didn't sound so big and impossible.
Is Malignant a best seller? Nope. Will it ever be? Probably not. However, I have learned a lot from the experience, mostly by doing the wrong thing. But I have confidence that when I'm ready to release book number two I will have a better handle on the process and hopefully a better outcome.
One of the most important things I have learned is to find my tribe in this industry. I needed to find a group of like-minded people of varying levels of success who are actively trying to help each other by sharing their wins and losses. And I did, thanks again to my aforementioned author friend.
What I'm trying to say is, if you have a dream, go for it, but don't go in blindly. Find your tribe and watch them. Read their to-do lists. Learn from their successes and failures. Lift each other up rather than tearing each other down. Work your heiny off. And, perhaps most importantly, enjoy the process.
What I didn't know about publishing is that writing the book is hard, but it is equally as hard to market the book. And marketing doesn't stop. What I've learned in the past year and a half is that if I'm not actively marketing Malignant, it floats around in the bowels of Amazon where people will never find it.
I have since then decided to take writing more seriously, and with that decision came a phone conversation with a friend who is a more successful author than I am. He gave me lots of helpful tips so that marketing my book didn't sound so big and impossible.
Is Malignant a best seller? Nope. Will it ever be? Probably not. However, I have learned a lot from the experience, mostly by doing the wrong thing. But I have confidence that when I'm ready to release book number two I will have a better handle on the process and hopefully a better outcome.
One of the most important things I have learned is to find my tribe in this industry. I needed to find a group of like-minded people of varying levels of success who are actively trying to help each other by sharing their wins and losses. And I did, thanks again to my aforementioned author friend.
What I'm trying to say is, if you have a dream, go for it, but don't go in blindly. Find your tribe and watch them. Read their to-do lists. Learn from their successes and failures. Lift each other up rather than tearing each other down. Work your heiny off. And, perhaps most importantly, enjoy the process.
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