What Would I Have Done Differently? My Self-Publishing Experience, Part 12

I learned a lot when I self-published my last book, as documented throughout this 12-part series detailing my self-publishing experience. Would I do it again? Heck yeah. Here’s why.

The folks at BookBaby asked me to wrap up my twelve-part series on my self-publishing experience with The Dragon Squisher with a summary of how I thought everything went: what I liked, what I did that worked, and what I might have done differently. This isn’t necessarily a review of BookBaby’s products or services, though I will touch on that. It’s more of a, what did I learn from all this?

Self-publishing was a big win for me

So that no one accuses me of burying the lede: Self-publishing my novel with BookBaby was directly responsible for my landing a publishing deal with Audible, and that helped build my fan base, which has increased sales of my other books and has led me to become a full-time writer. I now have a lot of people begging for a sequel.

It also landed me several discussions with a Hollywood producer, and while those eventually proved to be fruitless, it was still exciting.

So, all-in-all, I’m ecstatic.

I started this journey three years ago, in June of 2019. Although I had traditionally published several books before, when I began to shop The Dragon Squisher to agents, I was finding no takers. Having been through the whole agent-querying thing before, I decided to just skip that whole frustrating process and self-publish.

It helped to have help with book production

I’m glad I decided to go with BookBaby for my first self-publishing experience. Speaking to one of their publishing specialists on the phone was especially helpful in guiding me through the process and helping me with some of the decisions I had to make in terms of trim sizes, metadata, setting my prices, and more.

I’m also glad I got their Complete Self-publishing Package. This was an all-inclusive, turnkey package, so I didn’t have to worry about anything.

The finished products were all first-rate. My printed copies are of high quality, my eBooks look professional, my distribution is far-reaching, and I love the cover design they provided me.

The marketing services helped too!

I added BookBaby’s various marketing consultations to my package as well, and this proved to be fortuitous, especially the social media consultation with Smith Publicity.

I was a social media newbie. Thanks to what I learned from my consultant about quote graphics, literally one day after posting one, my editor at Audible contacted me to say she wanted to take another look at it The Dragon Squisher. This led to my landing an audiobook publishing deal.

As far as book sales have gone, I did better than expected, though certainly not enough to retire on. The majority of my 11,000+ sales have come from Kindle Unlimited, which is the least-lucrative way to sell a book, but that’s OK. Each sale is a great way to build up my fan base.

COVID didn’t help any

One thing that definitely hurt my book launch and my sales was something outside of my control, and that was the pandemic. Although I began this project nine months before the pandemic hit, my Audible deal required delaying the publishing of my print and eBooks for about a year. This wouldn’t have been a problem in any normal year, but that meant that when I finally did go live, it was October 2020, which curtailed my ability to attend conferences, have a proper book launch party, or do author signings.

What would I have done differently?

As a side note, unrelated to this particular project, if I were starting my writing career all over, I would have done so using a pen name.

Bookshop

I love BookBaby’s Bookshop. People often ask me where is the best place to buy my book, and I always send them to Bookshop. It offers far and away the best royalty rates and it’s very easy to run sales.

As a matter of fact, I’m running a sale right now! Save $5 on either the print or eBook edition of The Dragon Squisher through December 31, 2022! Use coupon code SQUISH at check out.

But using Bookshop as a destination for my Facebook ads was ineffective — for me, at least. I ran two tests with identical design and copy, one pointing to Amazon and the other to Bookshop. Almost no one clicked on the Bookshop ads, whereas my Facebook ads that went to Amazon were highly successful. If you’ve had different experiences, let me know in the comments below.

Bookmarks and posters

I included posters and bookmarks as part of my order, and although they look great and are nice to have, I’ve not been especially proactive in finding ways to use them. Before the pandemic hit, I had visions of using these at conferences and signings, but when those events were unavailable, that left two boxes sitting in my closet. I plan on attending a book conference this fall, so I will bring along some bookmarks to serve as a calling card, but as for the beautiful posters, I’ll have to figure out how to use them.

Would I self-publish again?

Absolutely, though I will still pursue the traditional route first for my upcoming books. Having done both, I love how quickly you can get books into the marketplace via the self-publishing method, whereas the traditional method is glacially show. But I’m also not the best at being proactive with marketing, so I definitely benefit from having some help on that front. And it is very nice getting an advance.

But any books that I can’t find a home for I will definitely self-publish. I just don’t have the patience to play the traditional publishing game anymore. And now that I know how easy is it to do — and now that I’ve gotten a bit of a fan base — I’m hoping I can leverage that into boosting my self-publishing sales.

The sequel to The Dragon Squisher will certainly be self-published.

How do I rate BookBaby?

My self-publishing experience with BookBaby was great. They’re friendly and helpful and their products are fantastic. I’m also a bit biased as I used to work there, but I whole-heartedly give them my stamp of approval — especially for first-timers. Honestly, I can’t stress enough how comforting it was to have an actual knowledgeable human being guiding me through the process.

So thumbs-up to self-publishing and to BookBaby!

What are some things you wished you had done differently in your self-publishing journey? Comment below!

Read the Self-Publishing Experience series:
My Self-Publishing Experience. Part 1: Placing An Order
Book Marketing and Social Media Promotion: My Self-Publishing Experience, Part 2
Book Editing: Part 3 Of My Self-Publishing Experience
Amazon Optimization: My Self-publishing Experience, Part 4
Metadata Optimization For Your Book: My Self-Publishing Experience, Part 5
How To Get Great Cover Design: My Self-Publishing Experience Part 6
How I Landed An Audiobook Deal: My Self-Publishing Experience Part 7
eBook Distribution: My Self-Publishing Experience, Part 8
Successful Book Printing And Distribution: My Self-publishing Experience, Part 9
Facebook Ads: My Self-Publishing Experience, Part 10
Earn More Royalties With Bookshop: My Self-Publishing Experience, Part 11
What Would I Have Done Differently? My Self-Publishing Experience, Part 12