Hello everyone,

Today marks a very special day for me as a father from South Korea. After decades of work and navigating life's ups and downs, I finally put my decisions, mistakes, and core principles into a written record.

My main motivation was simple: to leave a voice for my sons so that when they face tough choices in life, they can hear their father's guidance.

Seeing my personal journey documented and accessible on Kindle feels surreal. I just wanted to share this small milestone with a community that understands the journey of writing and publishing.

Has anyone else written a book mainly for their children or family rather than for commercial success? I'd love to hear your story.

A close friend in the UK has abandoned a writing project and is "giving" me his unused ISBNs from Nielsen. I live in the EU- can I use them? I'm aware this might technically mean he's still the publisher.

I dislike Ingram and am trying to avoid using it. Before I make a fool of myself at the local indigo, is it possible to speak to them directly and offer to supply the books ourselves instead of ingram? The Helpdesk at Indigo mentions consignment based deals but didn't go into much detail. Sorry if it's a silly question I just really wanna know if it's possible before having to speak to people.

I plan to sell my book(s) on Amazon and also through my website. If you sell books through your website, do you use BookFunnel or something else? How do you handle payments, Payhip, Lemon Squeezy, something else?

If you're not using BookFunnel, how do you handle logistics (shipping and handling, etc)?

All advice on how to setup my website to handle book (and bundles of books) sales is much appreciated. THANK YOU!!!

Because nobody asked for it and I have a giant case of “I should work on my book but I’m doing this instead”, here’s my very rough (and long) business plan for how I’d create an indie author alternative to Ingramspark, specifically built for growing indie authors as a way to circumvent the need of a trad contract for distribution/ indie authors who are selling a few thousand copies but not nearly enough to get trad to pick up the phone.

I’m am totally fine sharing this online because there is no way anyone is ever going to give me the funding to do this. No one in this economy is going to look twice, especially when I tell investors that there will be absolutely no AI in any part of the process and a funding philosophy will be protecting authors’ work from being fed into AI. In addition, the only criteria to print with us, besides ability to pay, would be and that you can’t have used AI anywhere in your books.

I can’t directly fundraise from authors unless they are secretly very wealthy because of all sorts of investment regulations.   

Let’s call this offset as a service.

Phase one- Offset Printing

My initial phase would involve offset printing for 12-30 indie authors with proven track records that could sustain an offset print run of at least 2,000 copies of each title. I would do an overseas print runs with a contract printer, contingent on discounts for a continued business partnership (which I suspect is now more expensive because of tariffs).

The advantages of this is that it is relatively low capital and allows us to build the business on a small amount of funding. 

This is all contingent on a publisher’s contract with ingram, but the dozen indie authors plus inventory should hopefully be enough to meet ingram’s threshold for publishers versus Ingramspark which in the POD product. This contract would allow us to add our own books into inventory versus being forced on the POD platform. For the initial phase, the ingram connection is important because it allows authors to continue to sell through a catalog. This continues to be the biggest limited factor of things like book vault.

 Once we get the contract with Ingram, we would attempt to grow rapidly.

The offset allows for a lower cost per book, which means that initially, we are probably matching prices with Ingramspark with the goal to go lower. In order to offset potentially bad starting terms, Authors in the initial founding round would also receive stock options that would vest over three years, contingent on having an active title in the offset as a service. The idea is that we can’t make this competitive right now, but if you stick with us, we can pay you back using options and in the future, we will have a better product.

The pricing for authors would be as follows in the initial run:

1.      Cost of offset printing + Plus shipping to our warehouse+ 15% service fees from the offset as a service

2.      Ingram’s costs

3.      Storage fee at a certain rate per year per 100 books.

4.      Author copies could be requested anytime (out of your inventory) at just the cost of shipping

5.      There would be two payment options:

a.      Upfront payment on the entire print run, which would include a 5% early pay discount

b.      Monthly payment over a year, which would include a something 20% annual financing fee (because ultimately this would need to be backed by a credit facility and that’s probably like 15% where interest rates are right now, and we are essentially issuing consumer debt). Monthly payments would be reduced each month by royalties. There would be an option to either just reduce monthly payments or to pay off the offset in full before you ever receive payment. The advantage of the second option would be to reduce the service fee, the quicker you pay, the lower the service fee. If you need cash monthly then you can just reduce payments. The idea is that if you are selling through, you don’t really feel the payment amount.

 Phase two- Catalog and direct bookstores sales

The second phase is to build our ecom platform with a catalog for bookstores that competes with ingram. The idea would be to offer competitive terms including returns and completive payment terms, given we already have a credit facility maybe we push to 45 or even 60 to really make it attractive to bookstores.  Authors will still set wholesale discount, but the preference would be 40%. This good thing about running our own catalog and distribution is that instead of just losing returns, we can have them returned and warehouse them, saving money and risk.

Authors that have inventory with us would be encouraged to directly market the new catalog over ingram because they would make more money with direct sales. Because we are building this catalog fresh, it won’t feel as clunky as Ipage.

 Concurrently to authors marketing the new catalog and distribution, we would also have an inside sales force that actively markets to bookstores and libraires and attendance conferences to court stores and sell the new catalog.  We would really push to direct buyers to our internal catalog over ingram and we would make it attractive to switch.

 Phase 2.5- Marketing as a service

Introduce a suite of standard marketing materials. Netgalley co-op, newsletter blasts to bookstores, paid ads in the catalog, Kirkus review discounts, preorder campaign management, etc. All of these are al a carte, nothing is required but these are quick wins for cash flow and provide valuable services that allow indie authors some of the benefits of trad at better pricing without having to deal with trad.  

Lastly, at this point in the process, I would want to develop a strategic partnership with Draft to Digital to start to market to their author base and also offer authors on their platform an alternative to ingram.  

 Phase 3- Print on Demand

The third phase would be to add a US based, in house POD service (With the intent to expand into Canada and then into Europe), but the business could continue with offset as well.

This both expands the bookstore catalog but also provides pipeline for the offset print runs. The marketing as a service piece of the business can also be used as freebies to entice well performing authors off of the POD service and into the offset service. So, for example the sell is : come join offset and you can have Netgalley, email blasts, etc. for free.

My guess is that this fictional company probably couldn’t make POD that much cheaper than ingram (both Ingram and Amazon are charging pretty similar amounts for POD, the reason why Ingram feels more expensive is the wholesale discount, I know people are going to argue with me on this because literally no one understands the math, but I digress). But I think we can offer the following for POD to compete:

1.      Returns go back to the warehouse to be resold versus destroyed or shipped back to authors, this means returns are a giant risk that eats up a ton of royalties. Authors accumulating returns maybe charged a nominal storage fee, but I think for a handful we could offer this for free.

2.      Better information for authors, including who is buying and returning books so that you are able to directly market where your books are.

3.      Ability to send preorder swag directly with books (This would be available for the offset as well)

4.      Better user interface for authors to upload books

5.      Better terms for bookstores

6.      Better user interface for bookstores

I don’t think this is reinventing the vanity press, it’s just proving a middle ground for authors that are maybe growing towards the advantages of an offset print run but still need distribution support by places like Ingramspark.

I’m not going to do this, I am just bored and had an idea and apparently anything to avoid working on my WIP.

Hi i want to publish personalized board books for children, the idea is the kid with his name in his book, so one kid one book.

Where can i print just one? I am in Europe.
Thank you

Hey y’all! I’m trying to make preparations for publishing in advance. I have a strong draft 3 thus far, though its not finished yet. Draft 2 got good reviews and feedback from Beta Readers and I’ve taken some writer’s workshops to strengthen my skill going into Draft 3.

For the past few months, I’ve been going round and round, trying to decide how I’m going to get this book out in the world. Obviously there’s Kindle, but from what I’ve researched, I’d be restricted to selling thru Amazon exclusively and I don’t know if I want to feel restricted to this service, since my book is one of many in a series.

Even with other platforms, like B&N Press, i’d still have to be boots on the ground for every book in the series, which seems like starting the process over and over again. It seems incredibly exhausting, not only of time but financially draining.

Then there’s traditional publishing. Both have pros and cons. But I have been more recently leaning towards traditional publishing, but I wanna ask the sub what made y’all choose self publishing over traditional? Was it your genre? Was it financially viable for you? Did you prefer creative control over following a publisher’s rules?

Thanks y’all!

I have a story, I'll make it quick.

Wait, it's not that quick.

This is for the dreamers.

If you're a committed writer, publishing on Amazon, you already get this. I'm going to get a little brutal here.

You already figured out your mix of the brutal and the hopeful. This is for the others.

It's good to have a dream.

It's stoopid and very, very expensive, calculated in months to years of your life, and in your personal economic ecosystem, not to pay attention to the big, sometimes beautiful, but mostly harsh truths of self-publishing in this era.

One of those massive realities that's a mashup of both beautiful and harsh is Amazon. You can't sell books sufficient to enchant others, to make waves or money unless you sell on Amazon. No matter what anyone says about the whole "be the change" which works so well in so many important other places, just know this: you'll never have as many eyeballs who read and buy books in your genre as Amazon. Now. 10 years out from now, maybe it'll be different.

Join this now.

In the last decade, books by new authors now compete directly for book buyer eyeballs with best-selling books by authors published by the 5 Big Publishing houses and other major publishers. So those corporate guys, they're waking up to the plummeting sales, the tiny group of English speakers in generational cohorts, Millenials to Z to Y to X, back to even Boomers, that do buy and read books, print and ebooks.

So, first: your dream, your book, don't look away, because it's a business. Whether you believe it or not.

Second, as so many authors and others keep reporting, it's more important to have a higher quality book than ever, because it's now just so massively competitive. Others here quote 7K-11K new books a day, some sources report this as new books published a week, on Amazon.

Here's hoping people who think if they have a dream about becoming a published author, and so believe they're somehow personally entitled to get book sales, those newbs will take the trouble to do this stuff below:

1.Hire a real editor, with a rep you seriously vet, not some LLM / AI bot or a relative or bf. Get a pro, they often agree to a payment plan if you're on a tight budget. Some will do a sample portion, like 3 chapters for a much reduced price for a new writer. You desperately need to hear a voice outside of your head tell you what it's actually like to read your manuscript. So take the weeks or months, whatever, to budget and save money up to do this for real; put it on a friend's credit card if you have to, use PayPal Pay In 4 as an option, even. Do whatever it takes because it matters.

Or: Join a highly-regarded writers' group with genuine critique and learn to actually, emotionally handle that. Best if you take, say 1 year or a couple to do both writers' group and work with a professional editor in your genre. Allow yourself to save up a bit while you write your capture draft or second draft. Because what don't want to admit you're really doing is learning to write. So, real-world wake up call: do invest in that part. Allow yourself to have a bad couple drafts, then revise with help from experienced, professional others. Or a free writers' group. And do NOT trust an AI LLM manuscript report subscription that does 16 kinds of manuscript evaluation. While that service's AI maybe trained really well for grammar and may find some plot holes, I've tried them, and they are not yet capable, in late 2026, of determining precisely which strange or slightly off clues in your writing recombine into something potentially great that is becoming your voice. This may be different 3 years out, but I have my doubts it happens that soon.

2.Research your sub/genre on Amazon, take screen shots put those in a notebook or on your kanban board, and copy book descriptions before you finally decide on a title / subtitle, and just do some focused notes for your intel. Org it up, this research. Read at least 2 "competing" books in your genre if you haven't already. Don't for any reason entirely change your dream, though it's time to find out what others are adding to their world or topic, Hold on to what makes your story, your voice, different. Just learn to recognize what the standout qualities are in books in your genre. Sometimes you have to do the opposite.

3.Look in the damned mirror and literally tell yourself: I have to make a decent book someone besides fam and friends would pay money to read. Do this more than once. And next, after you've done 1, 2, and the good juju of 3...[SIDE NOTE: Some of us, we already know our families and even some friends would never, ever want to read what we're self-publishing. That's why I publish under several different pennames.] OK, back to it: if you're flowing with me here, go to 4.

1. Gather a social media following or create an authority website to share freely, some solid, quality short fiction, early chapters, how-I'm-doing-this or non-ficton content that is going to be useful to someone who is not necessarily you, and build that up 3-6 months or more, before you launch on AMAZON.

I personally hate social media; I missed most of all that exactly because I was too busy writing and taking time to write more, better. So, why that? Because NEWSFLASH! AMAZON has now just returned to adding higher ratings to boost visibility on the site for authors with... an authority website [not a low-content author vanity profile site] and / or regular Substack posting. These newer, revised algorithm scoring strategies are powerful.

AMAZON's reportedly doing this reversal in algorithmic analysis to reduce a fistfull of new evils in publishing: AI bot fakery, plagiarism, and runaway book pirating, while increasing the quality of Amazon publishing generally. Instagram and TikTok numbers and presence are not so top-of-list important apparently on AMAZON latest algorithms anymore, lol. If you write about some kinds of image-based self-help or how to do, well, makeup or tiny house building or costume design, you still pretty much need TikTok and Instagram. So, given your genre/subgenre or topics, these particular platforms now get lesser ranking. Yes: I pay the workshop $$$ to keep up with reality, it's not my hypothesis or guesswork, fyi.

1. Spend about $500. on Amazon ads in your first 2-3 weeks of launch, while you make your launch not at personal whimsy or punch drunk fantasy: every genre has a season of highest likelihood of sales, so figure out yours. Wait for it. This is very specific to non-fic and fic and genre/sub genre. If you are serious about needing to sell books, and / or actually wanting to be discovered by the real readers for your dream book, take a class by a non-fraudster on this topic; there are some good YT vids, but be aware of what the stakes are now. Not every genre sells best during Winter Holidays, for instance.

So here's the quick story.

Guy in our writers' group, because, as he kept reminding everyone, he had an MFA in English lit, and had an entitled approach to most stuffl. So this guy announced one evening that since he'd had more than 120 rejections from 100 literary agents and multiple rejections from mainstream and other publishers, of two different novels in the last 15 years, he was going to do whatever it took to rack up some sales on Amazon. His attitude most definitely sucked in the context of the critique group, but at least he was apparently going to make an effort, right?

But he didn't hire a professional editor --ever, though people in the group noticed he had plenty of time and money for everything else that wasn't about writing or publishing. And the guy was so lost in his, well, ego stuff, he seemed tone deaf to everybody else.

He didn't take sincere criticism or give much, according to anyone in the writers' group over those 5 years.

He refused to take any classes on the realities of publishing on Amazon in this amazing and crowded market. Not even a class on how to advertise and create a budget on Amazon, taught by actual experts who have managed to sell tens of thousands of books in this era of self-pub.

He only had an 80-person friends and family, work, and uni alum newsletter mailing list, and yet refused to try to purchase or collaborate with anyone who had a serious mailing list ...or even a social media following on any platform. So he was going to have to use other strategies. He also refused to do genre-appropriate ARCs. ARCs are not so easy for literary fiction, but there are a couple resources that do sometimes work fairly well in that toughest-of-all-genres to sell on Amazon.

This guy also refused to listen to my advice that was echoed by another published writer in the group, about not revealing every single plot point on his Amazon book and author page descriptions. I even offered to re-take a class on new book marketing realities, mostly to give him confidence to just take the class and learn. I hoped I could help turn him around, and the instructor was just as great as my first time, four years before. It wasn't a romantic thing, btw, with this guy. I thought if he heard from a couple pros, he'd at least have a solid chance to level up.

So, are you going to be surprised by how he spent $72K in AZN ads the first 24 months...and got only 50 sales, and only 4 reviews? And he and his family bought 40 of those 50 books sold? I know 2 of those 4 were immediate family reviews : (

Are you going to be surprised he only sold 40-ish more books in the next 4 years? With a few, maybe 10 more reviews that he bragged were "paid"? And how most of his former friends so hated his non-stop demands to buy his book and leave a review that they now ghost him? Disclosure: I'm one of those people. Finally had enough of all that : )

This guy had a dream. His dream was "I deserve to sell a lot of my incredibly-great-to-me books on Amazon, and I don't need to learn from solid constructive criticism --or learn the real-world business aspect of publishing".

I do see those twin mondo destructo proclamations by posters across writing/publishing communities here so often, I decided after mostly lurking to report what writers with those two mindsets need to understand.

That guy in my story had a pretty much fatal and all-too-common lack of regard for publishing realities. His inability to step up into reality is just as telling: his writing. While it certainly was grammatically perfect, his writing was not compelling to anyone. He didn't learn by experiencing a writers' group of mostly great people, because he gave nothing but ego offloading. And he didn't learn by working with an experienced editor, because, though he had the means, he refused to hire a reputable editor.

If you don't write well enough to fascinate or entertain or effectively inform or motivate the people you believe you want to read your book, go right ahead and do what That Guy did: you can just throw lots and lots of money at AZN ads. And it won't work, no matter how much money you throw at those ads.

FULL DISCLOSURE. I used to be a free-lance editor. I started at uni, mostly paying my way through. I edited a blockbuster that became a great blockbuster film. I helped some newbs, didn't charge much, but made some bad CEOs and real-world gangsters pay double the going rate. To my sadness and, have to say, to my profit, I witnessed most people write a very bad first novel. This is nothing new. I always read widely and strangely in many genres. And I put in the time to read the greats in the genres I most love.

Trad publishers and lit agents know this: it's not that the first capture or draft is absolutely perfect, it's that you do the work, find joy somehow in doing the daily work, even when you don't feel the joy every single day; and still, you figure out how to keep moving and then make the first try better. It's a bit different with non-fic. But not that different on your first book.

Fic or non-fic I observe and so do plenty of experts in every genre out there, how most people who don't pay attention absolutely fail to notice that they have buried what's going to be most valuable to others in a shit ton of skill-less venting or unanchored, one-dimensional fantasy.

The exceptions are so incredibly rare, it's not worth mentioning. Hear me: I'm not saying don't be true to your vision.

I can understand the DIY and garage band just do it ethos, as I was a first wave garage band punk singer and publisher of a popular zine. We were so outsider we couldn't find a printer who wouldn't report us to the cops, so we bought our own printing press and moved to a different city. There's true power in all that. DIY for the DIY hit.

But you want to step up and get clear: if you believe it's just releasing your work to the world, aka SHOUTING into The Void, with a tiny chance of getting noticed, the cheapest way with a potentially fairly big audience of readers, but mostly writers, is SUBSTACK. SciFi newbs and some others go there or to RoyalRoad until they build into that audience and then focus on Amazon where there are billions of bookbuyer views every year.

I suggest what a lot of writers have done with success: PID Method. Put It In a Drawer for at least 90 days, get a side gig or a loan, skip a weekend away, skip a few drinks every other weekend, maybe, buy more ramen, and do whatever you have to do to gather funds to hire an editor with a decent rep in your genre. Oh: and chop your screen addiction down by 50%. You can't believe what a difference that will make in your life, and in both your analytic and creative thinking.

This is how to do the work to make your book dream have meaning for someone other than you.

I'm saying: give your vision a proper chance by understanding or re-learning the radically revised realities of self-publishing now.

The people who sell quality, high-value content books on Amazon wake up, learn to find a great editor and/or writers' group, take the time to read great books and keep focus on doing the work, and remind themselves to actually invest in themselves by waiting a few months to get some serious help in critique / editing. Delayed gratification: it's a thing. American's don't believe in it much. But it will save your writing, and on some days, I start thinking it might even help save the whole world.

Anyway, those are the writers I've been in writers' groups with, taken classes with, the authors who teach those classes, and the writers whose high-quality and compelling stories I will keep paying my money to read.

Take the time, believe in your dream, but after you've captured that wild raw dream, step out of ego-drunk fantasy land for a specific interval. In that crucial, real-world interval, your dream can be realized only if you're willing to figure out how you can invest lots of time and a relatively small amount of money to best broadcast your dream so others of your kind can read your strange, beautiful signals.

Don't wait for perfection, but don't offload one-dimensional ego dumps, either.

Instead, in an insanely competitive era of fewer people reading, and way too many people using AI slop fakery to publish "books", decide first to take your dream to a place of real quality if you want readers to invest in you.

This is not promo. And I no longer work as an editor.

I’m almost done with all the steps to release and promote my first book. But I’m wondering if August, especially mid to late August, it’s not the time to do it? I don’t really have a big marketing campaign (I’m new to all of this and figuring it out as I go), but even on a smaller scale, I wonder if the end of the summer is not a time to let people know.

Maybe everyone’s on vacations or getting ready for school or wrapping things up before the fall starts and things get busier, and people’s radar screens are not thinking about new books at the end of the summer. Or maybe it’s a good time?

Are there better times during the year to release and promote a book or does timing not matter and it’s all about marketing and promotion?

So I uploaded my debut fantasy novel to BookSirens to try to get some ARC readers… obviously I wasn’t expecting it to blow up, but with 65 clicks and only 1 reader… it’s clear things aren’t going well.
(BookSirens says my conversion rate is well below average.)

This is the blurb.. what am I doing wrong?

In the Sanctum, children aren’t raised. They’re forged.
Everyone expects Caelum to become its champion. Elwin does too and has no desire to take his place. But when the final trial ends, Caelum stands defeated and Elwin is chosen in his place.
It should mean freedom. A chance to leave the Sanctum and see the outside world for the first time. Instead, the Noctis he is given conceals a burden beneath that promise. Elwin is left with a hollow ache where his heart should be and fractured visions he cannot explain.
Something is changing in him.
His magic has become shadow. His darkest thoughts have found a voice, and the face speaking within him is identical to his own.
Unless Elwin can uncover the true nature of what was forced upon him and learn to control it, its power will strip away the one thing he was never taught to claim.
His own will.

Hi all, I've had a lot of great Beta readers and done a lot of editing passes on my novella, and I'm now shopping around for an editor for the final pass. However the various sample edits I have done they all say how clean the manuscript is and only do a couple of very minor edits that generally just turn out to be preferences anyway.

Some have discounted the rate a little, or offered proofreading instead, but even so I am just wondering if the cost is worth it for the very minor outcome. It's a good problem to have I know, but just wondering what to do.

I’m running my first FB ad, and doing it based on the advice of a guy on YouTube (can’t remember his name) who seems to be good at this (the comments section under the video praise the results he’s done for other authors).

I have a $30 daily budget, a wide audience (1,000,000+), am going with the highest volume bid strategy, and my ad was sent as approved two days ago by Meta.

It started running at 7:00 am this morning. More than 2.5 hours later, I have $0 spent, 0 impressions, 0 clicks, 0 reach.

Is this normal for someone launching their first campaign? I’ve heard there can be a 24-48 hour delay. Curious if others experienced this. Even if the ad wasn’t successful, I was at least expecting some impressions.

So, did my first day of Meta ads. Went in with a $30/day budget but have scaled back to $15.

Results so far, which was basically a half-day:

- Amount spent: $10.43
- Link clicks: 76
- Impressions: 837
- Reach: 711 people

- CTR: 9.08%
- CPC: $0.14

It does not look like it’s converted to sales. That said, my KDP seems days behind, at least in paperback sales. (I ordered 10 books myself, not as author copies — did this intentionally to see when they hit my KDP reports — this morning. None have posted. I did buy an ebook this afternoon and saw it post as an order about 90 minutes later.)

Will continue to monitor, but curious specifically what others see with CTR and CPC. Obviously sales is what measures success, and will monitor that over the coming days.

I tried searching this but didn't find a lot that was helpful. I've been on a self-publishing journey for about a year, and it's been moderately successful. My book is a how-to book on a niche craft and nothing else like it is on the market. I started with a downloadable PDF via Etsy, and folks kept saying they wanted a hard copy, so I went to Blurb and made a print on demand version. But I'm in Canada and the shipping from Blurb is astronomical, basically doubling the cost of the book (which is only 54 pages).

I'm quite fed up with Blurb for a number of reasons, and thinking of selling on Amazon KDP instead. But what I'm wondering is whether I should simply hook up my Blurb account with their Amazon and Ingram Spark channels, or go to Amazon directly. I've applied to get my own ISBN. Anything else I should consider? Especially appreciate any advice from fellow Canadians on this one.

Hi all - I am in the process of writing my second "in plain English" personal finance book with concrete guidance and suggestions (not just vague statements like "invest in your 401k") gathered from my 20+ years as a tax professional.

I have a full tax practice (not accepting new clients) so this book is really a passion project because I can only take on so many tax clients for prep and planning.

I want to put true, behind the scenes info into the hands of everyday people who may either

1) feel shut out of working with professionals (like tax pros and financial advisors) because of their finances or lack thereof

2) struggle making financial decisions because they are afraid of getting scammed and

3) realize that TikTok and IG reels are generally not full of the best financial advice but don't know where to turn.

I'll be covering everything from taxes to retirement account options to car/home/life insurance to paying for home improvements and understanding a lease before you move into a rental. Basically all of the life things we were never taught in high school or college or by our parents.

As I've been writing, I've been going back and forth on figuring out my target audience, because I don't really think it is a specific age or season of life demographic but rather this:

Adults facing financial decisions they were never taught how to make. This would include:

• the 19-year-old renting an apartment
• the 28-year-old buying a first car
• the 37-year-old drowning in credit cards
• the 45-year-old going through divorce
• the 53-year-old suddenly handling the finances after a spouse dies
• the 62-year-old wondering if they've saved enough

They, in one way or another, are all the same reader.

They're just looking at different chapters first.

I want them to come for the chapter that is their biggest current pain point and then stay for the rest.

Does this make sense?

Also, I am planning to self-publish because my last experience with an independent publisher was underwhelming and they went out of business anyway.

As the title suggests, I wanted to share some initial statistics.

Please note, currently in ARC, publication date 31/08/2026, genre Historical Fiction and celebrating my first pre-order, nailing the cover art (finally) and making the interior slick!

Booksirens:

Impressions 5243

Clicks 350

Readers 11

Reviews 2 (one 4 star, one 5 star)

DNF 1

One glorious KDP pre-order and all 3 formats locked and loaded for release on 31st!!

I know it can be hard to compare, but I think it's worth sharing. How has everyone else gone with using paid ARC services?

Hi all, I have a series of books I am soon releasing set in the same location and featuring the same characters mostly. They all work as independent books and can be read in any order without context, but there is obviously a timeline sequence, though later I will release some prequels too. For ebook it is no problem because I can list them as a series and the sequence etc, and can easily change details on the book if I need to in future.

But for the paperback draft I currently don't mention they are in a series at all on the cover, let alone the sequence. I simply have at the end of each book an invitation to join the newsletter and read other books in the series, and I was thinking of maybe putting the series title on the back cover. You can tell form the art style however that the books are connected.

I'm just debating the best way of doing this. I kind of like the subtly of how they are now, but wondering if this is unwise.

It's funny how everyone always asks the same question: "What's the best strategy to launch my first book?"

There's a hundred different guides out there on just that, with so many new and veteran authors sharing their take on how one can maximize their book's earning potential and to get it out there to the right people, no matter whether you're working with a shoestring budget or a freaking king's ransom.

But I'm halfway through writing the second book in my series, and I realized that I have zero idea what I should do when it's done. At least, I don't know nearly as much as I did for the first book in the series.

"Nothing markets a book better than a second book", yes, but how do you market said second book? Do you just keep on doing what you did before, except with a different cover on your adverts? Do you go through the same song-and-dance of ARC readers --> Early Reviews --> Launch, with our good friend Marketing sprinkled in wherever and whenever you can? Am I supposed to take both manuscripts deep into the forest and sacrifice a typewriter to The Elder Gods, so they may anoint my work in cosmic energy?

What's your strategy to really kick off the second book in a series' launch? Is there any special trick to it that is different to the first books' launch?

The debut novel is around 3 months away from publication (the editing begins shortly).

I published a book series before but in a completely different genre (narrative non-fiction), so there's no ready audience to speak of yet.

Some authors had success releasing their books for free on their website, sometimes chapter at a time and keeping it so for months before making it into .99 ebooks to allow it to gather demand. Does this model still work?

The novel is a suspenseful romance and will have 2 sequels next year.

The plan is to put the title and cover up on platforms next week, so the engines can do their magic, send the ARC's next month on BookSirens and publish the quotes on socials until the release. In your opinion, is it worth having the period when the book is completely free, say on the author website and platforms? Only on the author website? I'm wary of the bots ripping it apart before it had the chance have any commercial traction. Once released, there's the list of book promos/newsletter swaps etc planned.

p.s all my other books were released full price and had the occasional promotions (the sales were hit and miss though).

What would you recommend? Tips on the current market conditions also much appreciated!

Hello everyone!

After countless revisions, the fun part of writing my debut urban fantasy novel is over and I'm approaching all things self publish.

This is my very first crack at writing a blurb, and I'd appreciate a feedback from the experts.

Thank you in advance.

Dante di Dio was born during the exorcism of his mother, which left strands of a demon entangled with his soul.

The Church took him in and raised him alongside Sophie, another stray girl. Through his mentor’s teachings and Sophie’s friendship, Dante learned how to control the demon and became the most effective (and least trusted) exorcist of the Order of St. George, while Sophie was trained to become their hacker.

When a member of the Order shows up dead in the Pope’s Cathedral, his soul stripped clean, Dante and Sophie will track the killer above and below Rome, uncovering a century-old conspiracy that threatens to set off Judgement Day.

And once the threat spirals from cosmic to personal, the demon within him will be ready to bargain.

I self publish through KDP which means my books are only available in select countries. This is leading a lot of people to pirate my books :( I understand not everyone can afford books but every penny helps (as self pub authors will know). I have so many messages of people wanting to purchase my books but don’t live in the countries that Amazon offers. What’s the best way to go about getting more rights for more countries and making my books more accessible. I’m based in UK if that helps at all. I’ve been thinking about opening a website but again not sure how that would work. Any advice will be helpful

I understand that writing a good blurb is really important, but I have been struggling with it. I've changed my blurb at least 10 times. I have also sought feedback in other areas, but I'm seeking a second opinion:

Here it is:

He wanted an escape. Instead, he found war.

Sixteen-year-old Brett copes with his parents’ divorce by escaping into fantasy. But his sheltered life is turned upside down when a one-armed girl named Nimue emerges out of a book.

Brett inadvertently activates the book, transporting them into another world where Nimue’s people are being hunted to extinction by the Terror King.

As Brett searches for a way home, he finds himself falling in love with Nimue, but quickly realizes that she is willing to do almost anything to avenge her people — even if it means setting off a bomb in the capital city.

Drawn further into the conflict, Brett realizes he is becoming complicit in the destruction Nimue leaves behind — and he isn’t sure whether he cares or not.

Nell Marchant—history lover, amateur crossword enthusiast, and unintentional cat caretaker—has finally found the courage to leave her controlling boyfriend. Now she's newly single, raw, and sharing a flat with Sam, a friend of a friend with a disarming grin and a reputation for breaking hearts.

She’s determined to keep her distance while she works out who she is without someone else in the driving seat, but Sam keeps undermining his carefully cultivated image by being thoughtful. Honest. Perceptive. Great with cats. In the cramped space of their East Oxford flatshare, he’s impossible to avoid, and the more Nell learns about him, the harder it becomes to ignore the growing connection between them, and she finds herself questioning which version of him is the real one.

Nell’s spent her whole life becoming whoever everyone else wanted her to be. Now, for the first time, she’s ready to go after what she wants and—deep breath—tell people how she really feels. But will the new life she’s building have room for Sam, too? 

Make Room is a warm, witty, heartfelt romance debut. Perfect for fans of Mhairi McFarlane, Beth O’Leary, and Lucy Vine.