I am working on co-writing and self-publishing a series of novels entitled Knights of Balmarrow, a series based in a fantasy world of swords, multiple races, and magic.
It’s based on an RP that myself and a guy named Sean Fotis have been working on for the past 2 1/2 years on Discord. We already have enough material to cover several books.
We’d been writing this in our spare time, for fun, but my new medication has given me confidence and motivation I’ve never experienced before, and made me realize someone would surely pay to read our stories.
Has anyone here self-published a book? Do you have advice? Would anyone like to read a rough draft of the first chapter?
I’m not published yet, and I intend to try trad pub first. Technically I wrote a fantasy novel, only there’s no magic.
What I know with regard to friends that have self-pubbed, they created a newsletter which they update regularly. You can’t rely on social media for a number of reasons - currently you can’t even link to your external site without Facebook deep-sixing your post. They attended multiple writers conferences, they started a podcast, they work tirelessly on social networking, because that is ultimately how successful books happen. It’s really not enough to write a great book. There are a lot of great books that never go anywhere. You have to know the industry, and to know the industry you have to make friends with writers, and eventually you have to make friends with successful writers.
I’d be happy to look at your draft. I’d just be very, very careful about adapting a role playing game to a novel. Well maybe it’s not as big of an issue if you self-pub, but it’s very obvious to agents and they generally don’t like it (unless you’re writing lit RPG.) The key is to make sure it’s a story, a novel, and not just a regurgitation of a campaign.
Since you’re just starting, you need a finished MS before you do anything. Read books about story structure. Read other books like yours, see how they do it, and adapt the things you like while giving it your own spin. You need to find out what your genre is (fantasy is a start, but there may be a certain kind of fantasy you’re writing.) Connect with people who write those kinds of books. When you solicit feedback, solicit it from people who read that genre.
There used to be a website where you could get great feedback for science fiction, fantasy and horror, in exchange for providing your own feedback.
It might be this?
I will keep looking. I think it was called the Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Writer’s Workshop.
So yeah, first thing’s first, get a draft finished. As my editor once said to me, “Give yourself the gift of something you can edit.”
I have an image in mind of what I’d like the cover to look like. How do I find an illustrator for it, and how much should I expect to have to pay them?
Yes, I’ve published 4 novels and 1 comic book. Happy to answer questions!
As far as a cover, I’ve generally paid between $50 and $250 for mine. One recommendation – have a graphic designer involved, not just an artist. Good art is just part of a good cover – it also needs good design.
Congratulations on beginning your self-publishing journey!
I’ve been self publishing since 2015, and have around 55 books out (42 and counting in the same series, 5 (soon to be 6) in one spin-off series, 3 in another, and a few random novellas). I quit my job and went full-time as an author in 2017, and haven’t looked back.
I won’t lie–it won’t be easy, especially now. There are a lot of books out there, with several thousand new ones being released every week. If you want to get your book in front of readers, you’ll need to do several things:
Get it edited, preferably by a professional editor, but at least by a friend or beta reader with good English skills. Readers don’t have a lot of patience for poorly edited books, unless the story is phenomenal. There are too many books to choose from, so they’ll just toss yours aside and go on to the next one.
Get a good cover. Look at other top-selling books in your genre (especially self published ones–trad works on different rules) and try to get one that looks like it fits in. There’s room for originality, but never forget that a cover is first and foremost an advertising tool, not a work of art. You need to show the readers who will want to read your book that this is the kind of book they’ll like. Also, I strongly advise against using AI in your cover. Some readers don’t care (or won’t notice) but a lot do and will refuse to read your book, either because they morally object to stealing art, because they assume if you use AI for the cover you’ve used AI to write the book, or both. There are plenty of good and reasonably priced cover designers out there–don’t chance it.
Promote. There are lots of ways to do this: Facebook ads, Amazon ads, posts in social media, newsletter swaps… pick one or two that you’re comfortable with, but you have to do something. If you publish on Amazon (which I do advise, wherever else you also decide to publish) they will promote you for a while, but it won’t last.
Be very leery of anyone who contacts you with an offer have your book promoted by their “book club,” or anyone who offers to help you with your book for a fee. Almost all of these (especially the ones that reach out to you) are scammers at best, outright crooks at worst. They are not your friends. Check out * Writer Beware before you give anyone your money.
I’m happy to answer any other questions you might have. I’ve been attending various indie publishing conventions for years, so I’m reasonably familiar with the process by now. And don’t let me discourage you–people are succeeding all the time in self pub, even now. You just need to know what to look out for, and what’s expected to rise above the bad stuff and get noticed.
I’ve got a rough draft of Chapters 1 through 4. I haven’t gotten any feedback yet, but is it normal right now to feel sad and discouraged? It’s 40 pages and a lot of it is setup; not a lot has happened yet. I don’t want to bore my audience.
I would say it’s normal to feel sad and discouraged, sometimes, at any point in the writing process, regardless of how experienced you are. It’s extremely difficult work and it sucks when you’re working hard at something but it doesn’t look like the ideal you have in your head. That is being an artist. With time I’ve had to just ignore all of my opinions about my own writing. Otherwise it’s an emotional roller coaster.
IANA author (besides here, and that hardly counts). But this
is a red flag to amateur unsophisticated reading me.
“Show, don’t tell” is a good rule of thumb for writing for a reason. Make things happen to characters which gives you the occasion to mention the stuff you’re setting up. More of which the reader supplies from their own world knowledge than from your words. Easy for me to say; hard for you to do.
Modern popular music has been turned on its head: the “hook” AKA chorus is now delivered in the first 10 seconds, not after 60 seconds of slow layered instrumental fade-in and then a full verse of lyrics. Why? Because the attention span of the audience, and the cacophony of competing product, means that if you don’t hook them ASAP, they’re gone to the next thing.
IMO … your book may not need to hook them in the first paragraph or page. But nobody is going to read chapter two (or buy the book) if they get to the end of chapter one still wondering when / whether the show is ever going to start.
