Starting out Indie

(photo source)

I get emails from a few friends who were like me, querying for years with a lot of bites from agents, but no contract. They see my books hit the best seller lists and stellar reviews on Amazon and want to know "How does self-publishing work?"

I can't say that I recommend self-publishing for everyone, but the longer I've gone Indie, the more I don't know if I could ever go back. But after a year of doing this gig, there are some definite things I wish I knew when I started.

1.) Your book needs an editor. You may have awesome grammar skills and have had eight critique partners read your masterpiece, but another set of eyes that is attached to it never hurts. An editor doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg, you can pay anything from $100-$1000 depending on the editor and if you need a lot of editing or just some proofreading.

2.) A kick butt cover can sell your books. When looking for covers for my next New Adult book, I thought of doing it on my own, but I don't have the eye that the professionals do.  I hired the awesomesauce Steven Novak for my alien series and I'm using Mae I Design for my New Adult (since she has the market cornered on "panty dropping" covers). A cover can cost you anything from $50-$1500, depending if you also want to do print and if you are using custom photography, etc.

3.) Paying for a blog tour is worth every penny. I did do my own blog tour for How to Date an Alien and My Paper Heart, the problem? I didn't know that many bloggers who would take the book on, some didn't post on the day they were supposed to, etc. I finally decided to use blog tour organizer for my last alien book and she brought me thirty people that hadn't read my books who were interested in participating. It opened my book up to a new audience and now I can have those contacts for future book reviewing. There are many blog tours out there and you can go for as little as $30 for a few stops or even up to $300 for massive like multiple month tours with multiple stops.

4.)  Learn to format properly or find someone to format it. I learned to format my first ebooks and the paperback process took me almost a whole day to figure out. There are services that will do it reasonably, but you have to figure out what software is available and if you just can't get the right formatting to upload your word doc or epub file, then maybe it's time to hire someone. These can costs anywhere from a bout $20-$50.

5.) Stop reading reviews. It's tempting and there will be some that will gush for your books, but the ones that hate it will bring you to tears for no reason. I remember reading one for My Paper Heart that attacked me as an author and said they literally wanted to slap me. I wanted to cry, wanted to respond to the reviewer, but I held back, because nothing good ever comes from responding to a reviewer that writes something negative (as we've seen the stories).

6.) You wont be an overnight success. Yes, there are some Indie authors that do make those tremendous overnight successes, but then there are those that have a slow build up and rock it (M. Leighon had 14 books out before she made the NY Times best seller list). If your books don't sell, don't give up, just keep writing and keep on trucking.
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Magan Vernon is a Young Adult and New Adult writer who lives with her family in the insurance capital of the world. She is in a very serious, fake relationship with Adam Lambert and constantly asks her husband to wear guyliner. He still refuses. She also believes her husband is secretly an alien, disguised as a southern gentleman. You can find her online at www.maganvernon.com Or check out her awesome book covers and purchase her books at all online retailers including Amazon and Barnes and Noble

Coming full circle as a self-pubber

(Magan circa her first pregnancy 2010 with authors Claudia Gray, Kiersten White, and Sophie Jordan)

 

 

 

When I decided to go the indie route I was completely delusional. No joke I thought I'd put up my first alien book and be the next Amanda Hocking. It didn't exactly go that way and I went through some stages of grieft.

 

1.)  I suck

That's the first thing that went through my head. No wonder my books wont sell, I'm a terrible writer, blah blah blah. But I had a supporter group of writer friends that pushed me to keep going.

 

2.) Everyone else sucks

 

This is where it got really sticky. I put out a ton of money for ads, new covers, all this other stuff and my books didn't sell. So I started attacking other others. "How does her book sell so well? IT SUCKS!" It wasn't one of my finest moments and it just made me angry and not fun to be around.

 

3.) Maybe I'll try something else?

 

I think this was my turning point. This was the moment I decided to put out My Paper Heart on a wing and a prayer. I thought maybe it would be nice to at least have another book on my shelf and then the sales blew me out of the water. The fans of the original alien books weren't as excited about a New Adult contemporary, but from it I found a whole new crop of fans.

 

4.)  OMG this other Indie author is awesome, buy her books!

 

I'm going to have to give it up to Chelsea Cameron on this one. I approached her about being critique partners and that was when I got a sneak peak of My Favorite Mistake. I was blown away by her writing and wanted everyone and their mom to read her book. She probably just made the NY times best seller list because I wouldn't shut up about her.  (Actually she wrote an awesome book that's how she made it).

 

Yeah, it looks that simple when I write it in these four steps, but there was a lot of heartache before I came full circle. There are still days that I wonder if it's worth it to keep writing. Those are the days that I go to my Twitter or check my fan emails from people that say they love my series. I may not be one of the self-pubbers with a six figure deal or hitting the New York Times best seller list, but at this point I'm super exciting for those that have.

 

Maybe someday I'll get there, but for now I'm going to keep writing and keep being a cheerleader for all my self-pub brothers and sisters. We can only hold on to so many grudges for so long and there is no reason to be angry at someone for doing well. If I fall back down, I know my fans are there to help me back up again.

 

Have you come full circle as a writer or an author? What are your set backs?

 

 

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Magan Vernon is a Young Adult and New Adult writer who lives with her family in the insurance capital of the world. She is in a very serious, fake relationship with Adam Lambert and constantly asks her husband to wear guyliner. He still refuses. She also believes her husband is secretly an alien, disguised as a southern gentleman. You can find her online on her blog or purchase her books through Amazon or Barnes and Noble. She also blogs and talks about randomness here.



Self-pubbing: Not a fad diet

About five years ago now, after years of the college lifestyle hit my waist line, I decided that yo-yo dieting was enough and I had to do something to change.  I joined Weight Watchers, lost almost 50 lbs and felt better than ever, but of course the weight eventually came back on after having a kid and my love of french fries.

I tried to go back and do Weight Watchers again, tried every diet in the book and none of them worked. Why? Because it's not about doing a fad diet it's about a lifestyle change.

The same thing can be said for self-pubbing. People look at the careers of authors like Amanda Hocking or Hugh Howey and think that is their fast track for getting their book out there and become a billionare. I'm here to say that like a fad diet, self-pubbing success doesn't always happen over night and it's more about changing your attitude then just putting something up on Amazon.

Not all diets/books are created equal.

So your friend self-pubbed her book and now makes 10K a month from writing? Why can't you? Well, there is a possiblity that you can, but more than likely it's not going to happen overnight. Your friend might be Amanda Hocking that hit it big when self-pubbing started and for some reason your little book about aliens just isn't getting an audience. Does it mean you give up on your self-pubbing diet? Now on to exhibit two...

You have to be in it for the long haul

Sure, there are people that you see their success and you think "Man they did that in no time!" But then did you look at the big picture? Did that person spend three years building their platform before they published? Sure, some people will get success right away and then you see amazing authors like M. Leighton that have fourtneen books published and it was their fourteenth book that got them on the NY Times best seller list. Patience is the key.

Shortcuts don't help you

Think you can just go a few days with eating salads and the weight wont come back when you eat normal? Wrong. It's the same with self-pubbing. You want to get the book out quickly and start making money so you scimp on editing, having your critique partners look at it, but still think it's fine. Then the reviews role in complaining about typos, you get returns galore and wonder why all your "weight" came back.

Jealousy doesn't help you

I whine all the time when someone bounces back from having a baby and looks like a model, but does it help me feel any better? No. Don't compare yourself to anyone because all that is going to get you is dissapointment. Sure she may have sold more books than you, but maybe look at what she's done to market her books. If you do the same thing and it doesn't work, remember that not all fad diets are created equal. I did some paid advertising that other Indelibles did. They had a multitude of sales, I think I got one or two.

Sweat is just weakness leaving the body.

I saw this in a Nike ad. Throughout my weight loss time I spent a lot of time crying and a lot of time sweating. There were weeks that I lost two pounds and weeks that I'd gained two pounds. The key is to not give up. The same goes for self-pubbing. There will be days you sell absolutely nothing, heck, with the first six months of How to Date an Alien being on sale, I barely sold a book a day. I cried a lot, put a lot of effort in to marketing, and still nothing. I cried a lot, A LOT, but then I realized that I had to pick myself up and keep pushing. I put out the second alien book and then put out My Paper Heart. I'm not making 10K in sales a month, but I'm doing well enough that I think I can get that new MacBook Pro I've been eyeing and possibly get the bigger car I really want in a few months.

In conclusion

Some people will get published and do well and some wont. But if you want to do well in self-publishing you have to remember, it's not a fad diet, you have to be in it for the long haul to see results.

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Magan Vernon started her writing career by writing fan fiction about olympic athletes. Now she writes young adult and New Adult including the international best selling MY ALIEN ROMANCE series and MY PAPER HEART. When not writing she tackles insurance claims, a curious toddler, and a husband who is not an olympic athlete but sometimes she pretends he is.

You can find her online at www.maganvernon.com
www.thepunchingbagfightsback.blogspot.com

or support here and pick up a book on Amazon (she promises that none of them are about fad diets, but do include prailines)

Where are the books for my age group?

When I was in high school there wasn't much for the YA genre. I think the only young adult book in my school library was Sloppy Firsts and that technically wasn't even considered YA. So, I spent most of my young adulthood reading VC Andrews and learning the real meaning of flowers in the attic.

Fast forward to college. I didn't have time to read much more than a college textbook, but my roommate was OBSESSED with the Twilight books. I didn't want to read them. They couldn't be like my favorite Anne Rice novels, could they?

They weren't. BUT there was something about the young adult writing style that drew me to it. I always thought I COULD be a writer, but just figured I could be the next AC360 instead.

Fast forward again and I'm a college graduate, working part-time and studying for some insurance exams. I wanted a story for something in MY age group, the college kids. I thought about my own college experience and wanted to write a book about a girl that fails out of her freshman year of college and is forced to move with her great aunt in the rural south.

I wrote it in a few months, edited, used critique partners, and then I learned about the path to publication. What did people mean when they said there wasn't a genre for this age between young adult books and adult books?

I queried anyway. Some agents wanted it, some didn't. I did end up finding an agent. I thought she was my golden ticket! I even found out a publishing house had branded this genre 'New Adult' and had a special section for these characters in the phase between young adult and adult.

I brought this up to the agent. Her response? "Yeah, that's one publishing house. It doesn't mean that it's going to create a new genre in the book store." So I re-edited it, again, this time to make it more of a women's fiction piece. It didn't work as women's fiction. It didn't work as a story with a sixteen-year-old girl getting it on with her southern boyfriend. It was time to shelf it and time for my agent to shelf me.

I worked on How to Date an Alien and eventually indie published it, but the voice of my New Adult characters still lingered in my head. As I got deeper into the indie world I realized that New Adult and Upper YA was alive and well. There were best sellers like Abbi Glines and Jessica Park who were flying up the charts with their college-aged characters. I knew at that point that my former agent wasn't completely right about New Adult. Sure you can't go into a book store and find it, but if you check the Amazon best seller charts, you will see that New Adult is alive and well.

I hope you all had a chance to join our #indiechat on Twitter the other night and got some awesome information about the New Adult genre. If you didn't, our transcripts are always available!
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There are worse things in life than failing out of college- such as having your parents receive the letter that you’ve been kicked out.
Now to appease her parents self-proclaimed sorority princess Libby Gentry is packing up her Prada bag and heading to work for her great aunt’s antique store in tiny Elsbury, Louisiana. She’s pretty sure she can tackle the swamp and deal with her great aunt and tom boy of a little cousin, but what she doesn’t know is if she can handle the local town playboy, Blaine Crabtree.

As Libby's feelings for Blaine grow, so does her need for acceptance and all of the insecurities she has kept inside are coming out. She may have survived the Louisiana swamp, but she may not survive Blaine's reluctance to say the 'L' word. When Blaine finally commits to the three words Libby’s been waiting for, she only hopes they haven’t come too late.

Available for your Ereader on August 6th, but add it to your GoodReads now!


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Magan Vernon is a self-proclaimed geek-to-glam poster child and the Amazon best-selling author of the My Alien Romance series. The first book, How to Date an Alien is currently FREE for Kindle and Nook and just about anywhere else that sells ebooks.

My Paper Heart is her upcoming New Adult novel that was a labor of love and almost four years in the making.