It’s that time of the year again when I don my self-publishing hat and launch again. On November 1st, I’m releasing my new science fiction book ‘Forgotten Star’ and let me tell you, the journey this book has been on has been one of the hardest, for a multitude of reasons. This book has been, without a doubt the biggest jump in terms of my writing learning curve to date. I originally finished the final draft of this novel in August 2019, where the manuscript sat for months in a drawer, while I took a break from writing after several years of non-stop novel writing to focus on a feature film screenplay that was, and still is, in development with Northern Ireland Screen. I came back to the manuscript before Christmas and began sending it out to agents, while several full manuscripts were requested from my queries it wasn’t picked up and after a full readers report I decided to go back to the drawing board and rewrite it, almost from scratch. And then a global event for which we are all very much aware struck the planet. This book has been a passion project for me. A new science fiction adventure set seven hundred years in the future when humans have colonized the stars with the help of a rather unusual piece of alien technology. The story focuses on the Captain of a rescue ship called the Massey Shaw. Her name is Tamara Cartwright and has spent her life searching for her missing parents amongst the stars.
Nowadays there is an abundance of self-publishing resources available to authors. After already self-publish four novels to date it’s something that I’ve become quite used to at this stage. One of the biggest expenses will be hiring a good editor which will cost you between €1500 – €2000 depending on a word count of between 80,000 to 120,000. The best part is choosing your cover. You can buy off the shelf pre-made covers from anywhere from €80 – €170 or if you fancy spending a bit more €300 on sites like 99 designs. I used a brilliant book cover off the shelf company called Book Cover Zone, which also includes pre-made social media icons and marketing material as well as your cover. I was so impressed with the result and for the money, it’s the best investment I’ve made to date. The strategy I’m using to launch my kindle version is creating a pre-order giving me a lead time of about three months. I’m also using a BargainBooksy promotion which is costing me €80 on the same day as launching the book. This has the added benefit of getting on an email list of close to 250,000 people for their science fiction lists. I highly recommend using these lists as I’ve had fantastic results and they really boost your sales. I generally do maybe two of them a year for all my titles as they boost both your Goodreads and Amazon reviews, which are crucial.
Along with launching a self-published Title, I always submit my books to BragMadallion and Kirkus to get independent reviews. I have an Author Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and now TicTok account, which I post to using relevant hashtags to keep the brand going.
Amazon now allows you to publish both your ebook and print versions all from the KDP author platform which is new. They can track and give you all your sales figures all in one place, which is just super.
