Behind The Scenes!

Everyone knows that writing a book takes hours, on top of that there are hours upon hours of edits, but what else does the self published author have to do? The answer is a lot!

This week I have been laid up with back pain so most of my work has been in my head plotting and planning various things. On the practical side, I have been creating some new stickers to advertise my Patreon page, which I am still working on getting going properly.

Two of these will also form the images for the tiers and be made into badges for those who join up. At the minute there are three tiers however I am looking to add a fourth premium tier with more of a personal touch.

As a self-published author you have to do a lot of the things that the money behind big trade publishers would normally take care of, adverting, getting the word out there. Even if you hire editors, formatters, proof-readers and PA's, the fact is you have to double check everything personally still. At the end of the day anything missed will reflect directly back on you, not on those you have called in to assist you.

It also means you spend hours trying to find ways to keep yourself in people's minds, you cannot write and spend every hour on social media reminding people you are there so you need to find items for swag and giveaways that will stand out. I noticed a lot of the book bloggers and more increasingly readers are investing in cases and wheeled crates to bring to signings with them and many are decorating them with stickers from authors.

The challenge is to find things that represent your brand and work but also that stand out from the other swag that they will receive at signings and with books to make sure you stay fresh in their minds.

My next project is to look at some bookplate style stickers to send to people overseas when they buy print copies of my books so they can have a signed copy too.