I like to think that I have a reasonable amount of patience. I've worked in shops and schools for most of my adult life and so you have to learn to have a longish rope. It just doesn't do to be losing your rag in those places, however tempting it may be...
So how does this tie in with being an indie writer? Good question, Einstein!
I think when you start from scratch as I did, you don't really know how your writing will be perceived by other people. Whether it be by your friends and family, or even by those who don't know who the heck you are? When I started out with my series, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B091QCR6XW?ref_=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_tkin&binding=kindle_edition
I really didn't have a clue how it would go down, either sales wise or reviews wise. All I knew was that once I knew that I could publish it, I'd get on with it. Now I know a bit more about how the indie writing world works, I think I've done things back to front..So far, so normal!
I'm very lucky that I know a lot of people who are kind enough to support me who did and continue to do so and to all of those lovely people, I thank you and salute you!
These are all of the people who were the first ones who bought my books, shared posts on social media and were just all round good eggs trying their utmost to help me promote my stories. I am massively grateful to all of you.
As I spent more time on social media and followed other writers, I began to realise that to continue to sell books (be honest, most of us want to!) you need to begin to sell your books to people who have no second clue who you are and this, my chums, is where the patience comes in.
When you're doing it yourself with no publisher backing and have a teeny tiny budget, as I do, this part is tough. Every penny counts.
It is a brilliant thing to be able to self publish your book on KDP. It gives people opportunities to publish who may well never been able to do so or much more quickly than had they gone the traditional route. The downside of that is that it is hard to make your books visible because there are lots of other writers trying to do the same thing.
Unlike Harold, I don't believe that I've made a mistake but I do know that I need to use whatever resources I have to help make the books visible because at the moment, spondoolies aren't it. It's important to find people who enjoy reading what you write because not everyone will enjoy it and dependent on what genre you write there may be loads of people who will enjoy it or fewer. This building a following takes time and that makes sense doesn't it? In every other walk of life, it takes time to learn to trust another person and know that they can be relied upon. It's no different when you're writing and flogging books. You may think your writing is the best thing since sliced bread but people need to find out stuff about you to know that they like what you write. This takes time as it should.
I made a decision this week to record a quick vid of me reading "The Vanishing Office". I popped it on twitter to see what people thought of it. So far, it's going down quite well and I'm going to pop one up every week. I enjoyed doing it and it gives people a chance to work out a bit about the story and me and whether they like it or not. Here's the link, in case you fancy a listen:
So there's a lesson here. This writing and marketing business is a marathon and not a sprint. You have to be much more like the tortoise than the hare and that's cool because anything that's worth doing is worth doing slowly and carefully. Tatty b!