Be Patient, Wait... It'll Happen. Adventures in Self-Publishing

"Be patient," I tell myself.

"Wait," I tell myself.

"It'll happen," I tell myself.

It's been nearly a year since I wrote and published two children's books, The Cloud Show and The Little Bear and the Lollipop Tree, but since my friends purchased Little Bear when it first came out I haven't sold anything more. Not even one copy.

Yes, I've been a bit lazy in the promotion department lately mostly because of frustration at having no results. I did advertise one of the books once which created some traffic, but still no purchases. I've come to the conclusion that I need to pay for advertising on Facebook, Nextdoor, as well as my website, Visages Gift Store on GoDaddy.

I was hoping for better results without using money I can ill-afford to spend. It appears as though that's not going to happen.

So, this is what I'm doing to bring in more income so that I can afford a small advertising budget. First, I amped up marketing my Zazzle store, Visages Gift Store. Again, I don't have an advertising budget for my store, but I'm doing more blogging and I'm making a sale here and there. It takes a bit to reach my payout threshold, but I eventually will which will give me a little for advertising.

Second, I've begun taking surveys at GoBranded.com. Sure, it takes a few hours out of my day to earn a buck (per day), if I'm lucky, but that money goes toward my grocery bill. I don't spend a whole lot for food and such. Last week, the $17 I earned doing surveys went toward my $28 grocery bill. This week, $14 went toward my $20 grocery bill. What I don't spend on groceries will go towards advertising this year.

So, between Visages Gift Store on Zazzle and leftover grocery money, I'll be able to begin advertising.

As always, I try and keep my blogs short and sweet. I don't want to overstay my welcome. Hopefully, I'll have some good news in a few months.

The Little Bear and the Lollipop Tree

The Cloud Show

 

Adventures in Self-publishing and Marketing My Book, The Little Bear and the Lollipop Tree

I'm going to make this as brief as possible. This is basically an outline of all that I've done since finishing my first children's book June 3, 2023. I've never self-published before so I had to learn everything from scratch.

I wrote a book and illustrated, The Little Bear and the Lollipop Tree. I uploaded it to Amazon's Kid's Direct Publishing, Barnes & Noble and Kobo after satisfying the different formats each company demanded. It wasn't easy, but I got it done.

JPG Cover Image

Now I'm marketing my self-published book rather than going through an aggregator/marketer. Aggregators/marketers take a percentage of the profits as does each of the previously mentioned companies. Remember, those companies also charge you for printing so price your book accordingly.

Researching marketing ideas was overwhelming. Where do I start? I don't have extra money to advertise so I need ideas that cost very little to nothing. I'm retired and live on Social Security.

On a phone call with my son, I told him I was a bit overwhelmed with all of the marketing research for self-publishers I was doing; that I didn't know where to start. Well, my 42-year-old is wise. “Take one at a time,” he said. With that advise in mind, that's exactly what I did and it helped a lot.

First, I hit all of my social media and registered on those that I wasn't a member of. One day, I put a picture of my book cover and wrote an announcement that I had written and published my first children's book. My friends were thrilled for me. First one friend then another then yet another bought my book.

Two days later, I took two sample pages of my book, turned them into PDFs and placed them on all of my social media. A couple of more sales came from that.

I also used the same steps with all my blogs that I had done with my social media.

Next, in my research, it was suggested that I create a website. For about $12, I created a website on GoDaddy. Creating a website is daunting and very slow. For every one thing I did, I had to wait a few seconds for the task to complete. It wasn't instantaneous as I had hoped it would be. Add several seconds to each task on GoDaddy and it adds up to many minutes.

My website, Visages Gift Store, is still in construction, but I've published the pages that I had created thus far which includes announcing my book.

Next on the list was creating a video. Again, I had to research free video-making software. I settled on Microsoft's Clipchamp.com since I'm a member of Microsoft. I spent hours learning the web-based software, but at the end of the day, it was done. I introduced myself and added illustrations from The LittleBear and the Lollipop Tree.

The following day, I added the video to all my social media (or those that allowed it. One or two didn't.) as well as to my blogs (posted here on June 19, 2023) and website.

A couple of days ago, during my research, one of the “self-publishing experts” suggested using hash tags. Since I didn't know anything about hash tags and how they work I had to read about hash tag application and usage. I headed back to all of my social media and blogs. I have to hash tag!

Now I'm writing this blog outlining my adventure. I'll copy and paste it to all of my blogs as well as my website.

If you're on this same adventure, be sure to leave me a comment about your experiences. I'd love to hear from you.

One last thought: You have essentially started a new business. You'll spend eight hours a day reading, learning and applying what you've learned. Don't forget to take breaks and eat.