What I'm learning so far

Hey Guys!

It's Nova again, back for my second post on the lovely Paranormal Wire Blog! Thanks Natasha for allowing me to be a regular here.

So as most of you know, I'm really new to the author game and I don't know a whole lot about how things are done. So far though, I have discovered that I suck at marketing my book. I often have to remind myself to talk about it sometimes. It's not that I expect my book to sell without any work, it's just that I get so caught up in making friends and connecting with readers and other authors that I forget why I'm doing all of this.

But all in all, I'm having a blast...even though it's A LOT OF WORK! I may not talk about my book a whole lot, but I do a lot of interviews and stuff. They just take forever to show up on the web.

I also found that NOT talking about my book sometimes works in my favor. I consider myself a pretty decent person. I mean I'm not a dick or anything and I get along with most people. Usually after a few conversations, people go and get my book without me ever mentioning it. I think that's great. With that said, I've realized that authors sell themselves before they sell their book. Scratch that. Self-pub/indie authors sell themselves before they sell their books.

Traditionally published authors don't really work to build personal relationships with each individual customer. At least not the ones I know of. Everything is done through a 3rd or 4th party. I for one enjoy speaking and connecting with fellow authors and readers. I've found that they are the COOLEST people ever.

The best thing is that many of these people are from places I've never traveled to before. Getting to know people from all over the world is so awesome.

I'm also a little more aware of my writing style than I was ever before. Sometimes I'd be sitting at home doing nothing and I think to myself,  "Oh crap! I should be writing right now!" and I try to get some work in on my WIP. I've discovered that the worse things come out of my brain that way. About 90% of the time when I do that, I wind up deleting everything I wrote the next day because everything just sounds forced.

I've realized that when writing starts becoming a job or a task instead of something you want to do, that's when you have to take a break from it. I don't want to write because I'm thinking of making a deadline that I set for myself. I want to write because I feel inspired at that moment. Setting goals for myself like "writing 3,000 words today" doesn't really work for me. It always become 3,000 forced words that don't really fit right with the rest of the story. It's a waste of time...for me. It may be different for other authors. When I feel inspired, I write until I can't keep my eyes open. That's when the best stuff comes out of me.

Lately, I've been sitting on my ass doing absolutely nothing towards my WIP. I wrote a total of "one paragraph" last week. That's it. Hopefully this week I can do a little more but I rather not destroy myself by writing because I should...

This is what my Self-pub journey is looking like right now. :-) And I'm still learning. I learn something everyday. Just yesterday, Nat from Reading Romances taught me how to cross out words on the computer! For some reason, this won't allow me to do it :-(. I know that has nothing to do with anything I've been talking about so far but I'm really happy about it!

Nova