With the magic of digital art and commercial use photos, I finally created my first book, “Wake Up!” I had written it two years prior. I spent a lot of time playing around with those photos to give my book the right feel. It wasn’t perfect, but it was cute.
Now how to get it into the world? I looked into “pay to publish” options. Do I have two grand to invest in my first book? No. What is a girl to do… And Amazon is almost always the answer to that question. I figured that millions of people shop on Amazon, so at least a few will stumble across my book if it’s there.
The next challenge was navigating Amazon’s self-publishing platform. It should be relatively simple. The process is laid out really clearly. They even provide templates to use. I grabbed a template and quickly learned that there’s like… pixels to think about? Margins? Gutter? Bleed? What?
To avoid some of the groaning, eye rolling, and loud sighs, I recommend taking a peek at a guide like this one.
After some trial and error, the book was published! I sold 9 whole copies that year, and I even think 1 of those was purchased by a total stranger. I thought this was pretty great. To be honest, I had given zero thought to how I would promote my book. I shared it on my personal Facebook page and put out good vibes. Unfortunately, good vibes can only take you so far.
Up next…that time I sat around doing nothing about my amateur writing career.