I want to start off by saying that, of course, this isn’t about either of my real children. That’d be horrible, and besides… they’re not ugly. This is about my manuscript, which in a lot of ways, is like my child. The writers out there know exactly what I’m talking about. Between the edits and rewrites, sending it off to reading groups and editors alike, then editing / rewriting some more, I spent YEARS on this thing. I’m proud of the result and like the story a lot. I think it’s good. No, great! Now, I’m sure I’m a little biased–no one thinks their kid is ugly after all, but the feedback from those who read it has been positive. So there’s that.

Before I get too long-winded about this and lose you, let me get to the point. I’ve been trying to get this thing traditionally published for over five years, but it has yet to pan out. I keep my rejection letters skewered to a long nail on my nightstand (a story for another day), and let me tell you, there’s a book’s worth of paper there.

Despite the lack of interest from agents, I still think I’d be doing myself a disservice to let my story rot on my hard drive. So, I think I’m going to try the self-publishing route. Please know that by no means do I think this is going to be easy. Quite the contrary. I respect the hell out of anyone who can actually do it. I figured it might be fun to write about the process as I go–a complete noob trying not to fuck it all up.

As it stands, I have about 40 or so more queries left in the ether. I’m thinking that I’ll give them 3 more months to come to fruition–so like, some time in May. Until then, I’m going to be doing as much research on self publishing as I can (and I’ll gladly take any and all advice I can get along the way). Then, if I haven’t heard anything in three months, I’ll hopefully be ready to hit the ground running on the self-publishing track.

All I’ve done so far is create a ToDo list. There’s no order to it. It just consists of things that will probably be important at some point in the process. Again, I’ll take any feedback I can get.

• Complete a ‘Road Map’
• Blog
  • Post more
  • Figure out how to do promotions, stir interest
• Choose a Self-Publishing Platform
  • Draft2Digital?
  • KDP (KDP select)?
  • Ingram Spark?
• Cover Design
  • Do it myself?
    • Research covers for similar titles
    • Get specs / dimensions
    • mock ups, etc.
  • Get it done professionally?
    • Cost?
    • Research companies
• Marketing
  • Reviews pre-launch?
    • NetGalley?
    • StoryOrigin?
    • Other methods?
  • Paid advertising?
  • Blog?
  • Newsletters?

To be continued. Thanks for reading!