Something crazy happened since I last posted a blog back in April (!). I had all these grand plans of publishing my novel in May; yet I felt really lost in how I was going to go about marketing my book. So I started following on YouTube all these successful indie authors to see what they do. I was overwhelmed by all the information, but I reluctantly came to terms with a few things.
If I want my first novel to succeed, it should be part of a series. I may not hit it out of the park in sales at the first go, but often indie authors find success as they have more and more books to promote and offer at a discount or in bundles. I already knew I wanted to write a series, but I had to ask myself honestly how badly. It’s a huge long-term commitment, and it’ll require a lot of disciplined writing and planning. So I started plotting out my series as I was learning from indie authors.
In this deep-dive into the world of indie publishing, I realized I needed to offer a freebie to entice new readers. As I may have mentioned before, I knew that my book was a hard sell to agents. “Finance” fiction? No thank you. But if I offered readers a taste of my writing—something short and free—they’d all get a sense of my writing style without having to commit much time or any money.
So I had to figure out how to write a novella! I thought it would take me a month tops to finish the whole thing. Hahaha. It took me nearly two months (June to now) because it included editing, designing the cover, and updating all the graphics on the website and social media.
Oh, and as I was working out the plot of the novella, I was losing sleep over not having the second edition of Loonie to Toonie published. So I decided to write the second edition and make it free for all. That took me a month (all of May). It was killing me that I was neglecting the final edits of The Georgia Rules, but I’m really happy with the way things have turned out.
It’s funny to think I’ve just put out two books before even putting out the main book!
I’m pretty wiped after all this, but I couldn’t wait to share with you all my novella, Georgia’s Promise. Please sign up for my newsletter (you’ll get additional fun stuff to this blog!) and enjoy the book. It’s a fun read, I promise!
