The Final Path (so far)

 Well, it's been a long journey but we have finally come to the end, or at least to the present...does a journey really ever end? After my nightmare into the world of hybid-publishing, I finally decided to listen to a local author friend, Jay Foreman, and looked into KDP (formally Create Space) on Amazon. It was relatively easy once I took the tutorials, and best of all free.

As I said in my last post, once I removed all my old books from as many places as possible I began the task of reformatting the interiors of all my books, so they matched, and changing and touching up the covers. Now THAT was a task in and of itself. Thankfully I was able to purchase my completed book files back from Tate, BUT I did not realize that while I was allowed (and expected) to change the barcodes and Tate emblems the PDF was completely set. 

Thankfully I have friends who understand making changes to PDF files and gave me several options for programs to make changes to those files. I downloaded a program that allowed me to make the changes. It was another learning curve for this computer illiterate author. It took several tries (that means weeks)

to move and change the things I wanted. Not to mention that the Tate logo that graced the spine was some kind of mad puzzle of massive squiggly lines that had to be removed one at a time. That took a good few hours to remove all of it.

Because of my many mistakes along the way, I was nervous about uploading. I think I took a week of "should I or shouldn't I" before finally just doing it! The actual upload was easy as could be. It's a process of setting up background information on the book, prices, and exclusivity, but in the end I had a product I was happy with...or was I? hahaha

Thankfully I decided to order proofs and noticed the cover wasn't quite right and there were minor issues inside. But, instead of paying $100 or more to a self/hybrid company, I just went into my files and made the corrections myself. I chose to order author copies after that and they were exactly what I wanted!!!

I haven't made massive sales yet, but I have sold a few books (softcover and ebooks) each month and get a direct deposit exactly when promised. I can check daily sales and also get monthly reports. WAY better than the other companies I worked with. I'm looking into marketing ideas and options. With Covid, obviously book signings are difficult, but I am not giving up! I believe in my novels and totally get that you just need that "one" break to get noticed.

With my next series and a few one off books, I am going to try and get an agent and do the traditional route, but I know that I can always self publish and get the work out the the few fans that I do have. I'm thinking of trying Book Baby to create some hard cover versions of book II and III because I do have quite a few of Book I sitting in my closet...and I have a fan who would like the final book in hard cover. He was lucky enough to get only one of the two hard covers created by Tate.

I hope my journey has inspired someone out there. No matter what, if you believe in your "magnum opus" you can get it out into print. Just keep trying and working. Failure is just a way to learn and move forward. I bet there isn't a writer out there who hasn't made a mistake or gotten rejected many times. I'll have to figure out what my next blogs will be about, as I am going to keep trying to write weekly. If you have any thoughts that you would like me to tackle leave me a message. I'd love to hear.

If you'd like to check out my books or some of my personal story go to my web page at kimsauthorspot or my Amazon author page at kim's author central