Cheers Sid for having me on your blog today!

 

So you want to self publish? Great! Let me share my experiences with you in the hopes you avoid the mistakes I made . . .

Self-publishing. It’s great and I love it, but BOY HAVE I LEARNED A LOT.

Thing is, it’s easy to self-publish. You write your book, you upload it, 12 hours later it’s up for sale.

But it’s hard to self-publish well.

It requires more than writing and uploading, it requires investing time, money and, if you’re anything like me, a few tears and laughs as well.

 

Time.

Self-publishing is not just a click here and you’re done. Before you release your masterpiece it has to go through a chain of beta-readers and editors and rewrites. Please don’t be fooled like I was when I first started out; it doesn’t matter how many times you read and re-read your own work, mistakes will be overlooked. I once had ten different people go over a manuscript and in the first day of publication, I found another pesky little typo, LOL.

And time investment doesn’t stop there. Once your beauty is available for purchase, you need to be able to market it. But doing that takes time and energy—and in my case a lot of trial and error. 😉

 

Money.

Hiring professional editors, proofreaders, cover designers, promotion-packages—easily it can cost up to $2000 (this varies) to get your book super shiny and ready for reader consumption.

This is the part that I learned the hard way.

Many of my earlier books are not professionally edited and I am under no illusion that this has cost me readers.

If you have friends who are editors and they read through and edit your work for you, that’s great. But most of us don’t, but our work needs it.

So . . . what I did . . . I saved up my pennies and reinvested in hiring professionals who know exactly where a comma should go, and exactly why a sentence reads wonky. Hiring professional editors has been the best decision I have made as a self-published author.

That being said, it took time to figure out my editing team. I wanted to work with professionals with experience and good recommendations, and I also wanted to have a good report with them. It took a while, but now I am lucky to be working with a content editor, a line editor, and a copy editor.

What do each do?

My content editorlooks at big story issues like characterization, plot, structure and individual scenes. My line editor looks at things at a paragraph level, searching for flow issues as well as general typos, etc. And my copy editor really gets into the nitty-gritty making sure my novel follows CMOS (Chicago Manual of Style editing rules) and that grammar and style choices are consistent.

 

Tears and Laughs.

This brings me to the thanking part of things. I am just so lucky as to have such a supportive and encouraging family who are always there for hugs. I’m super grateful for my awesome beta readers for reading through and offering their opinions on Liam Davis & The Raven and helping to make the world richer. And thank you to my content editor, Teresa Crawford; my line editor, Lynda Lamb; and my copy editor HJS Editing.

 

Blurb

Liam Davis is a serious journalist, and he’s good at it.

Or at least, he was. Until the chief of Scribe, the campus magazine, makes him give up his politics column to write for the party page—the party page that is problematic for two reasons: One, it threatens Liam’s chance of getting the traineeship with his apathetic father at his prestigious newspaper company, and two, he has no idea what it means to party, let alone how to capture this new audience’s attention!

But Liam Davis is no quitter. He’s determined to prove to his father, the chief, and above all himself that he can do it—and do it well.

Life doesn’t make it easy. Not when Freddy Krueger comes stalking out of the shadows to attack him. Luckily the Raven, the campus vigilante—the vigilante getting hate mail sent to Scribe’s opinions page—comes to his rescue.

Now, between finding the perfect angle for his party page columns and making friends (and perhaps something more?), Liam needs to find this mysterious Raven—not only to thank him, but to warn him to watch his back.

 

Buy Link:

Amazon.com: http://goo.gl/6x3FqZ

Amazon.de: http://goo.gl/0HBzLN

Amazon.co.uk: http://goo.gl/qSkXcE

About the Author

A born and raised New Zealander, Anyta Sunday has been exploring the literary world since she start reading Roald Dahl as a kid. Inspired, stories have been piling up in her head ever since. Fast forward to her mid-twenties and jump a few countries (Germany, America, and back again), and she started putting pen to paper. When she’s not writing or chasing her kid around, she’s reading, hiking, watching Joss Whedon series, attempting pilates, or curling up with her two cats. Updates on her projects can be found at anytasunday.com.

Social Media:

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5155341.Anyta_Sunday

Website: www.anytasunday.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anytasunday

Giveaway

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