Dear Literary Comrades,
Greetings! I must say that my life has been a bit frantic once I opted to self-publish my first book entitled Brave Soul Rising: Tales From The Trenches of An Uncharmed Life. Frankly, there have been moments of pure glory and times of deep despair. It has been a lot like life itself which is often one hellish and screamingly fun roller coaster ride.
Initially, I saw my first sales figures one month after self-publishing via CreateSpace and Amazon Kindle and thought maybe I should just throw in the towel right then and there. To my great delight, sales started picking up for my paperback and ebook once I hit two months post publication. I was doing my own publicity and found that to be entertaining, exhausting, and frustrating. First, I began by hosting a book giveaway on the literary site known as Goodreads. Wow. I had 616 entrants and gave away five books so that at least got my name out there in the publishing world. Whew. Next, I began contacting libraries and independent bookstores across the state of North Carolina and the entire Southeast. Big Cheer when I was invited to speak and present my book at a beautiful library in Calabash, N.C.! Thank you to each and every person who attended. As a former teacher, it was good to once again experience the thrill of a captive audience. Next, I received an invitation from my hometown library in Kernersville, N.C. to speak and present my book. Kudos!! And then I quickly encountered some independent bookstores that adamantly dislike Amazon and CreateSpace. Seriously, a good fifty to seventy percent of bookstores will only place a self-published book on display if you sign a consignment agreement with a 60/40 split and that's after you complete an application for the bookstore owners to determine if your book is of high enough quality to warrant being on the shelves in the store. And at one store they even wanted me to pay an application fee! Wow. I took a step back and a deep breath. Then more deep breaths. First, I wondered if the independent bookstore owners realize I think their policy violates the U.S. Antitrust Law which ensures consumers fair competition in an open-market economy? Next I started feeling like a second class citizen in a third world country. And yes, I will report that I truly felt that I was experiencing discrimination because I opted to publish via Amazon and its affiliates. I think bookstore policies like the ones I have seen are fertile ground eventually for a class-action lawsuit as I fully realize I'm not the only one to self-publish via Amazon. Have any of these folks heard the saying, "Don't poke the beast"? Or how about the one that goes, "If you can't beat them, join them"??
Next, I began to connect with other authors via the website known as Goodreads. I particularly wanted to make connections with other first time memoir authors. And I also thought, well, why not see if some of my favorite famous or bestselling authors have a profile on the site and attempt to connect with them as well. I was elated when first time memoir authors wanted to connect with me on Goodreads! Hey! There are people out there just like me who are trying to get a foot in the ever revolving publishing door! Thanks be to Mother Mary! And then it happened. I opened my email box one day and discovered that one of my favorite authors had actually connected with me on the Goodreads site.....my teeth almost hit the floor. I sat there stunned surely for at least five minutes. Two weeks later another famous favorite author of mine also connected with me via Goodreads. Some people I know have each and every one of this author's books sitting on shelves in their home. My dad loved this particular author, too. So since I recently lost my dad to cancer, this connection was especially meaningful to me. I had to text and call my teaching mentor, my brother, my mom, and my husband after this author connected with me. Talk about the wind lifting your sails. And man, did that connection come at an especially good moment. Finally, a famous female author, who writes such amazing thrillers that I cannot be alone when reading one of her books, reached out to connect with me and I attempted cartwheels through my apartment foyer! Fortunately, I didn't break anything or pull a muscle either. Thank God there are bestselling, famous authors who still connect and are willing to extend a hand to a small, non-famous self-published author. Bless you.
Where am I in the process now? Still attempting to get the word out about my book; contemplating offering another book giveaway, and trying to get the attention of my small hometown newspaper so they might actually do a little ditty about my book. Thus far the newspaper editor to whom I sent my book publicity kit says she never received it and would try to locate it and speak with the publisher of the newspaper about my story. I let some time pass. The editor never got back to me. I tried emailing her once again only to receive a cursory reply email stating she nor anyone else at the paper had received my book publicity material and she forwarded my email to the paper's lifestyle editor. This was not exactly the type of response I was hoping for seeing as I grew up in that little small town, graduated from a high school in that small town, attended and graduated college in a nearby medium-size town, and my mother has lived for forty-three years in that small town and still lives there to this day. Oh well. I think my book would have resonated with many readers in my hometown. It's about a small town girl who marries way too young, realizes quite quickly that her marriage is riddled with domestic violence and she opts to leave the marriage and take life by the horns and make her own way in the world. Making her own way in the world meant taking a low-level job in corporate America with its own insanity and then finally getting to use her degree to teach in a volatile, inner-city middle school where no one thinks she will last more than five minutes. Guess what? She lasted more than five minutes in a chaotic and oftentimes violent school environment. Actually, she went from being a timid, wind-swept daisy to a hardy steel magnolia. And her story isn't finished yet.
Till next time,
Grace
(Amy)
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