Deciding to Print

The Witch Laws will soon be available to pre-order in paperback!

The Self-Publishing journey is one of many twists and turns, a little bit like the arc of a story. You make a decision, think you’re going to stick with it, and then…. Bam. It changes. A twist no-one, least of all myself, was expecting.

I’m lucky enough to have fairly regular contact with the brilliant Helen Scheuerer, and she’s offered me so much advice, inspiration and encouragement. We have a Zoom call about once a month, and during it, I get to regale her with questions about her books and ask for advice about how she started on her self-publishing journey. She also asks me questions, and offers advice, which I’d be a fool not to take. She is a best-selling indie author, after all.

In the last Zoom call, she asked how I was getting along with the launch of my own book; The Witch Laws, and I happily told her that it’s now live for pre-order on Amazon, and will be available on Kindle Unlimited at the same time. She asked if I was going to print it, and I hesitated. It was something I’d been considering, but wasn’t sure how I would be able to afford the costings.
Helen explained that there are virtually no costings – only the cost of a print of a book to see how it looks. I filed that information away in my brain, and we continued chatting about various other bits and pieces (mainly me being nosy and asking about her upcoming books).

Fast forward twenty-four hours or so. I was having a browse on Amazon, looking at low cost marketing strategies for the book. I noticed that there’s a prize for Kindle Unlimited eligible books released between May 1st 2022 and August 1st 2022. My book is due out on July 1st 2022, so I looked more into it.
Enrolled in Kindle Unlimited – check.
Entry Period between 1st May and 1st August 2022 – check.
Use the Keyword “StorytellerUK2022” – easily done.
Published as an e-Book and Paperback – OK, I should do this.

So, I spent a good few hours last night updating my formatting app (Vellum, in case you’re interested, only available on Macs), and messing about on Canva while I tried to re-jig the cover to encompass an actual physical book and not just an e-Book. Then came the uploading to Amazon and trying to make sure everything looked fine. Only after I’d actually done everything, and I mean, everything, did I tell my husband.
I showed him the Story Teller competition page, and then the parameters for entry. He just nodded, and said ‘why not? Is that what you’ve been doing for the last couple of hours?’ I just nodded.

This morning, I had an email from Amazon saying there were a few issues with the cover, so I went back to Canva and had another play. Uploaded the re-worked cover and added all the meta-data. There’s going to be slight changes from the e-book cover to the paperback, for the moment at least. But, it’s still very much in the same style.. I’m now waiting for the confirmation that we’re live for Pre-Order for Paperback.

So, there we are.

When I started this whole process, I was just aiming to get the book onto Kindle Unlimited. I was happy that I’d managed it, and shocked that I’d had pre-orders. I never dreamt that I’d be able to actually publish in paperback, that was a pipe-dream from being a kid. But, hopefully, before long, I’m going to be holding my own book, in my own hands. It’s incredible and scary to even think that I’ve done that! I honestly never saw it coming.

Sall.