Once upon a time, self-publishing had poor name and would often disparagingly be referred to as a form of vanity publishing. But done properly, self-publishing can be highly professional, lucrative and rewarding. By done properly I’m referring to employing an editor to work on your story and your narrative structure once you’ve done a thorough self-edit and got friends you can trust to look over your work and give you their honest opinion on its failings and strengths (beta readers). Anyone who simply tells you your work is marvellous is likely a fluff responder and won’t be helpful in identifying what you could do to improve your manuscript.
The reason for employing a second and even a third set of eyes relates to gaining emotional distance from your writing. As the author of the work you’re invested not simply in terms of the amount of time you’ve spent on a piece but also in terms of the emotional connection you’ve developed with your characters. They become a piece of you and very often they are a piece of you, either based on people you’ve met and their experiences or on your own, which is where the term ‘write what you know’ comes from.
The full and rich characters you create in your head are there in glorious technicolour but often this richness doesn’t make it onto the page. It’s the job of an editor to realise what’s missing and to tease those details from you. Additionally, there might be a storyline which isn’t fully believable or which includes characters who simply prop up the main character, rather than having their own perspectives and desires. This is often where the very necessary conflict often arises in stories. An editor will work with you to look at your story and what might work alongside or in place of what you’ve written.
An editor should always work with the sense of your words and should make suggestions for how these might be rearranged or with suggestions that you can write into your own words or use for inspiration. This might also include suggestions for more powerful verbs to better convey a sense of action or emotion. A good editor will make your writing more concise and will suggest other words or phrases and punctuation etc to enrich your writing. At certain stages, they will check your writing for technical accuracy and create a style sheet that will enable you to bring consistency to your writing that might otherwise jar your reader from your story. Someone who rewrites passages of your work isn’t helping you to develop as a writer.
Alongside an editor, it’s important to realise the wealth of professionals who are available as freelancers and companies who offer a one-stop-shop, companies that can source those professionals on your behalf. The acknowledgements section in your favourite books can be a great place to start, as can professional sites, such as: CIEP (Chartered Institute of Editors and Proofreaders), Reedsy and ALLI (Alliance of Independent Authors). Many authors look on social media and sites such as Fiverr etc but please remember to check the background of anyone you’re hiring. Author’s Pen came into being because, as a creative writing teacher, I was always being asked for help with the next step and realised how little reliable support was available and how easily authors could be tripped up – this doesn’t include the professional sites mentioned above. While my work primarily involves editing, I have gathered reliable freelancers to help with other parts of the publishing process. Whether the route you’re aiming towards is for traditional or self-publishing. There are, of course, no guarantees with traditional publishing but I believe that employing the right people will give you a greater chance of success and put you in a better position to self-publish if your hopes of traditional publishing don’t succeed.
As an author, social media is key and if you’re happy and confident to self-promote your writing then it’s important to have social media platforms purely based on your book business, separate from your friendship group. Book folk used to prefer X (formerly Twitter) but many have now moved to Instagram and also use Substack for blogging and other platforms, such as TikTok, Threads and Bluesky.
For your own development, both for social media ideas and also for personal development it’s useful to look at what others are doing on these sites. Look at who authors you respect or who are in your genre are following and follow them. Articles on Substack will be useful to help build your professional knowledge. Authors will often have a Facebook group specifically for their books and book publishing. It’s very easy to connect with people, with businesses and to make friends and gain a professional following. Begin by looking for likeminded people – publishers, authors you respect in your genre, editors, illustrators etc and retweet things you’ve found useful. This will also help to drive people to your site.
Once you’re building a following you can use your social media account for book cover reveals and excerpts from your book. You can produce podcasts where you’re interviewed by someone and post these on your website, or post links on to your social media accounts. Blogging is a great way to create a following and blogging about the things you’re interested in and books you’ve enjoyed, alongside your own books is a great way to attract people and a following to your site. Not only that, but because you’re writing about things you love, your enthusiasm and passion shines through your writing, which is engaging and persuasive to site visitors and potential readers.
You can hire people to give you workshops on social media management, or to run your social media accounts for you – it doesn’t need to be arduous, or to distract you from your writing. Sites like Empowered Author are run by marketing professionals who’ve had decades of experience in the industry and whose advice is trustworthy and tested.
Done properly, there is no reason why self-publishing need be considered as anything other than an alternative to traditional publishing.
Finally, there are a number of benefits to self-publishing: it allows you to keep a higher percentage of your profits from book sales. It also allows you, in many cases, to get your book into the marketplace quickly and to have control over your book(s) and their journey. This isn’t to say that once you’re on a self-publishing trajectory that you can’t change paths; many authors now publish via a traditional publisher and self-publish. A lot of successful self-published authors are offered traditional deals for books they’ve previously self-published.
It’s still important to note that traditional publishing typically takes a year or more to get a book out for distribution. What’s vitally important is ensuring you don’t neglect the areas that a traditional bookseller would be working on alongside getting your book ready for publication: all the vital marketing and pre-publication hype that goes hand in hand with ensuring the success your book deserves.
How can we help you…?
Author’s Pen is here to help authors, so if you’re considering publishing a book please get in touch.