When I began my indie author adventures back in August, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Since then, I’ve come to realize there’s A LOT I don’t know about publishing a book. As a first-time indie author, I knew I needed to educate myself.
There are so many free resources out there for indie authors—books, blogs, Youtube videos, podcasts, newsletters. There are free and paid courses you can take. There’s no shortage of information by any means. Indie author training is an industry unto itself. The trick is to cut through the fat and find the most valuable resources.
Because I spend so much time in my car, I listen to a lot of podcasts and audiobooks. When I first started learning about all of this, I went straight for podcasts. IngramSpark has its own podcast. So does the Kindlepreneur. There’s a podcast called SPA Girls in which four indie author ladies talk about being self-published authors (“SPA”). And then of course there are the behemoths in indie publishing, Joanna Penn and Mark Dawson. Their podcasts are “The Creative Penn” and “The Self Publishing Show,” respectively.
Joanna Penn has created a small empire. She’s been doing her podcast for more than a decade. In addition to the podcast, she’s written books, produced audiobooks, and had training courses on various elements for the independent author.
Similarly, Mark Dawson has written mostly fiction books but offers a variety of resources and is a favorite guest among fellow podcasters. His “Advertising For Authors” course is apparently life-changing, but it costs around $850. From what I can tell, it’s a good idea to have a few books already written—a complete series ideally—before you invest in that course.
Dave Chessen, “The Kindlepreneur,” has a great free course about book advertising on Amazon. He also provided a few solid free tools for marketing your books like How To Choose Keywords, How To Choose Categories, and the Book Description Generator, in addition to Publisher Rocket, a paid tool that helps generate keywords and categories (of which I highly recommend to all indie authors and will receive a modest affiliate commission if you acquire the software through my link!).
I didn’t have to work again yesterday. I drove to Long Beach for a meeting that was a reschedule from last week. I got to the Starbucks, hit the restroom, looked around for someone that might be the client, ordered an iced coffee, and took a seat. I set up my computer and got everything ready. A guy came in and ordered a medium drip coffee. I thought it was my client. He went behind me to the milk and sugar station. Then he left.
A few minutes past 10:00, I called the client. He answered, I told him about our 10:00 meeting, and he said, “oh no, I canceled that.” I called my office. Yes, in fact he had canceled, and the appointment was never taken off the calendar. Good lord. Anyway, I got the mileage and I got to listen to a couple of podcasts. I listened to a SPA Girls episode about holiday promotional ideas and I listened to an episode of the Sell More Books Show podcast. The Sell More Books podcast was sort of lame.
I followed up with Pintado about the cover design. I finalized and sent over the cover. I had noticed there were some missing words in the back cover blurb, so I fixed that before I sent it over. I also noticed the back cover that Pintado created did not have the bar code on it, so I asked him to include that as well. As of right now, he hasn’t gotten back to me. He’s been pretty good about responding. I’m not too worried. If he completely ghosts, I have the Photoshop file. I would just need to find someone else to do it or download Photoshop myself and do it, though I couldn’t imagine working on Photoshop with this tiny little 13-inch screen. I’m confident he’ll get back to me.
Out of sheer boredom, and unable to remain idle, I went on IngramSpark to start the process of uploading my format files and cover files. I figure I can start that process now and see where the speedbumps are. I don’t have the cover file for the paperback just yet, so I needed to stop. I watched a Youtube video about submitting files to IngramSpark. The author’s tip was to submit to KDP first and then copy and paste the information to IngramSpark. Certain things, like pricing in other countries, is converted automatically in KDP. So I went over to KDP and started that process. I submitted the ebook without the book file. It’s under review now, so I can’t upload anything now or change certain things like price or review that I submitted two categories. I started submitting the paperback to KDP but had to stop because I don’t have the final cover. Also, the cover needs to be uploaded as a PDF, and Pintado only gave me a Photoshop file and .jpeg. His instructions were to create the cover for IngramSpark, so I needed to reach out and ask for the PDF as well.
After I picked up the girls from the bus stop, we came back here and I helped my youngest with her math homework. After homework was done, I opened my Swedish Fish file and added some ideas to the outline. I had made some headway on Monday, so I decided to do the thing where I note how many words I’ve written. After Monday, I was at 1770. After yesterday, 2530. It’s mostly notes within proposed chapters, so I’ll need to do some rewriting. But by noting the words written, I feel like I am moving forward on that project.
