I’ve released four books since 2023, two series with two books each, and I’m currently working toward releasing three more this year, not counting a few picture books I’m creating mainly for my children.

I’ve tried many of the usual ways of promoting my work, but I recently realized I wanted to try something different. Profit has never been my main motivation. Of course, making money from my books would be great, but what I really want is for people to discover the worlds and stories I’ve created.

So I’ve decided to start documenting the journey.

Instead of only marketing the books, I’m going to try marketing the person behind them. I’m starting a vlog where I’ll share my writing process, works in progress, successes, mistakes, publishing and marketing experiences, and parts of my everyday life.

My thought is that if people become invested in me and the journey, some of them may naturally become interested in the stories I create as well.

I’m not expecting this to suddenly sell a ton of books. I’m more interested in building genuine connections with readers and other writers over time.

Has anyone here tried something similar? Did documenting your writing journey help you build an audience or connect with readers? And if you watched an indie author’s vlog, what would actually make you keep watching?

I want to have a home for an ebook for select individuals to be able to access (without ability to download or redistribute) that I can have available for free. Suggestions?

I started uploading on kdp and it seems like you can’t just have a $0 limited access ebook - you have to give it a price and publicly publish it. Started digging but figured Reddit would save some time

Hello, I am trying to get started with the writing career but am having difficulty with it. I tried to go with a traditional route but the only query in the last year that said yes to me changed their mind after a month when I didn’t have money to split publishing costs and they told me to self publish on Amazon.
Whenever I look for information one link leads to two, and soon one tab turns into a dozen different websites and I loose track of what’s what. The type of book I write is fantasy with the first complete at 77k words, and a second at 3/4 completion. Maybe my lack of comprehension is due to neurodivergence and hearing from those more experienced would help, which is why I have come to consult here.
From what I understand I need create something called a mailing list, build up online presence on all the major social media somehow, have beta readers review but I’ve heard it’s not necessarily, and only then publishing on Amazon. Am I understanding or missing anything?

I know everyone warns you that the day you publish will just feel like any other day to everyone else, but it's so quiet. Not even my family bought my book. It sucks to see art so devalued in everyone's lives. Blah.

hypothetically speaking is it possible to write a whole book in 14 days? i've got the entire structure and plot down to the T. it's just the writing part that's left. i have adhd so i feel like setting a deadline would work but i want to know if it's actually probable. even if it isn't, i feel like if i don't write with a deadline, i'll never get closer to writing as opposed to writing 10 mins daily.

Hey, I have a book I'm self-publishing through a print-on-demand website. I've faced a few issues with formatting/cleaning the document to ensure all text is visible after printing. If anyone thinks they can offer some guidance for ensuring the manuscript appears the same online as it does when printed as a novel, a direct message would be appreciated. I have access to Word and InDesign for my editing process. Thank you for your time.

In low cost investment - suggest me some ways to publish my first erotica. How do I get the maximum number of ppl to read it.

Just published my 6th book (dark gothic/paranormal romance, EN + ES) — went top 1% of 14,570 entries in the Novel Beginnings contest along the way. Built my own full production pipeline doing it myself: Vellum formatting, cover design, Amazon sales copy, KDP setup.

I've started taking on a few other authors' books to do the same for — mostly because I like the process and want to keep doing it between my own releases. If you're sitting on a finished manuscript and the publishing side (formatting/cover/KDP setup) is the wall, happy to answer questions here about what that actually involves, or take a look at what you've got.

Писала довго, редагувала ще довше, вже текст вивчила майже напам'ять. Тепер думаю друкувати для самої себе через bookprint24 (в Європі). Але далі планів на книгу в мене немає. З однієї сторони ця історія була як процес розвантаження для мене і закінчений проєкт це ще одна галочка, що я щось завершила, але тепер коли на руках готова **книга** хочеться і чогось... побільше. Якось показати її, просунути далі, тому подібне... Але такі новачки як я особливо і не мають шансів просунути щось досить далеко. + жанр може здатися трохи специфічним, бо є християнський контекст. Хоча це і не просто довге свідчення. Це історія де показано травму і те як можна навчитися із нею жити далі. Я навмисно писала так щоб і невіруюча людина не відклала книгу після перших 10-20ти розділів.
Але питання: що далі?
Про книгу не знає ніхто окрім мене і моєї сестри, я дуже не хочу щоб мої рідні дізналися про неї, тому тримаю це в секреті. До того ж я проживаю не в Україні, тому мені ще важче знайти читачів...
Якщо хтось міг би дати пораду, допомогти мені із цим, була би дуже вдячна.
Заздалегідь дякую!

I have published on both sides of this and I want to describe door two honestly, because I do not think anyone does.

You write the book. You upload it to Amazon. You are free. You are also completely alone.

No editor who has spent twenty years in your genre tells you that your third chapter is where the book actually starts. Nobody designs a cover that does not look like it was made in Canva by your nephew. There is no marketing system. You run ads at six hundred dollars a month and watch the money evaporate. You ask your friends for reviews, and most of them do not leave one, not because they disliked the book but because nobody wants to put their name on anything any more.

Door one is not better, it is differently bad. You query for months or years. If an agent takes you, editors say no, or they say yes but only if you change the thing that made it yours. You sign away your rights for an advance that might cover two months of rent, and you get a publicist with forty other books on their desk. Your book comes out, it sells to whoever the algorithm thinks will buy it, and you never find out who read it or whether it mattered.

I have had the good version of door two. Three of my books went to number one on Amazon. It did not make any of the above less true. The number one did not tell me who read it, did not build me a list, and did not make the second book easier.

What I actually want to ask this sub: for those of you who have been through it more than once, what did you change the second time? Not what you wish existed. What you actually did differently, and whether it worked.

I'm considering going with graphic design services for my book cover but still have questions before committing. How did you vet designers to make sure they actually got genre conventions? Did you go with a book-cover specialist or was a general design service enough? Curious what a normal number of revisions looks like too.

I joined them recently to publish something that I had already published on KDP.

They are not very clear in what they allow.

They willingly take $20 from you to activate your account with them.

BUT!…

They neglect to inform you if they are not taking books in particular genres or niches at that time.

I found their customer service extremely condescending and rude.

I don’t know how it can be legally allowed for a company to act like this.

Me: Joins a site that sells bananas to sell my bananas and pays $20.

Tries to list bananas and site says: Oh sorry we are not selling bananas right now.

Like WTF?? How is that legal. They REFUSED a refund too. Beware of joining them ✋‼️⛔️

Hey folks! Im exploring setting up a storefront for DRM free or Social DRM ebooks for something like an 80/20 split. Just wanted to guage interest from authors before i commit to it.

Would you sell your ebooks on such a site?

What would it take for you to sell your books there?

What would be a deal breaker for you?

👉🏻👈🏻 hii there

So I am a Wattpad writer, but I have come up with a story that I feel is too good to be on wattpad 😭, it's just I have used all my brain cells for this.

So I was wondering if I can make it a paid e-book?

Like on scroll stack

Or maybe kindle

Let's just say i want to start writing but not like wattpad

I want to write it as it's meant to be published (hypothetically)

I am a newbie,

Please guide me

I have a manuscript I’m trying to publish, it’s on Olympiad mathematics. The reason I’m considering leanpub is because there’s the feature of “pay what you want”
Since the audience of the book is highschool students I think that would be helpful for them. However it’s not a well known website so maybe some people wouldn’t want to buy from it or it has some issues idk

Hello everyone ,I am an amature in book writting and I want to publish my own fantacy novel ,but I have no skills in illustration or drawing and I am affraid that if I make a volume with no illustration it is going to greatly affect the books sellings.What are your thoughts

Im trying to upload my book to IS but they are saying that my ISBN does not match the number in their system. Has anyone else had this issue? I’ve asked them for further information but no reply so far. Any ideas? Thank you for any help.

Has anyone ever worked with Arcanecoverdesign? any good (or bad) feedback about the quality of their work, cost, etc..?
Considering using their services for fantasy book cover

​

Hi everyone! I’m thinking about paying for Facebook Ads to reach new readers for my free book.

Has anyone here actually tried it? What kind of results did you get?

I tested TikTok Ads for a while, but maybe I just didn’t know what I was doing. I got roughly 3 downloads for every 100 clicks.

Pretty disappointing.

Hello everyone

I am new to reddit and want to ask you how do you truly promote or you know like make your webnovel famous throught different ways.

Do you have any idea or should you Just let it go with the flow.

I started my second webnovel on Royal Road because the first one was quite hard for me to continue after some 60 chapters so can you tell me some of your insights.🙏

Hi. I’m 1.5 months from my launch date for my debut contemporary fiction novel. I keep hearing you need ARC reviews before launch, but what good does it do if the reviews are not on Amazon itself when my ebook goes live? What am I missing? (I can’t copy and paste Goodreads reviews into Amazon, I assume. Not trying to be dense, really trying to understand how all this works.)

Also, how exactly/“physically” do you get ARCs to people: Do you email them a PDF?

Thanks!

My book budget this year has been rough. I was buying maybe one new release a month and waiting on library holds for everything else.

Then I learned that authors and publishers hand out advance copies to regular readers in exchange for an honest review at launch. Signed up, got approved, and now I’m reading a book that comes out in the fall. I went with Knosit but there are other sites offering the same setup. Anyone else doing this already?

Hi everyone,

I am new to this community. So I published my book on amazon, however, the whole process was a mess. I hired an editor for $700, and it did not go well, I had to do the editing work myself. Even though it's published, I want to unpublished it because there are still couple stuffs need to be fixed. I want my book to be marketed and well known but don't know where to start, I asked couple places online but they quoted me outrageous price, I honestly don't know how to start this again without being scammed.

So, bit of a long story. My wife has been writing books for close to 10 years, and the number tallies to more than twenty over that time, all a continuing story but with many volumes. She feels extremely connected to the characters and the locations involved, more so than any other author I can think of, and cares very deeply about the stories and meaning. A lot of the contents are very detailed and oriented around specific timeframes and dates, with information relevant to time of (self) on-line publication. However, I (acting as her publicity agent) have been struggling for years to actually shine a light on how good they are and getting them out to more people. Numbers are going up on our website but she really wants feedback and no matter what I do, nobody really interacts.

I've tried to get into contact with multiple publishing agencies to not much avail, and the events I've managed to book for her (book signings etc), she hasn't wanted to go to because she's worried nobody will come and she'll look 'pathetic'. She has trouble with self-esteem, and as much as I've tried to support her financially, I'm not sure I've done the same emotionally. However, her worth now seems mainly tied to these books, so I'm not sure to what extent I can support her without it coming out as fake or just filler talk. It's been causing a rift in our marriage for a while and I really do want to fix it but the only way that can happen is if she knows people actually care about her stories and characters as much as she does. I've put out paid advertising over the years and posts on various websites but there's very little engagement compared to the quality and amount of work she's let me put out there.

So, I'm swallowing my pride and coming on here to ask if anyone has any tips. Are there any ways for engagement to go up that I've missed? Many thanks.

I got in a few weeks ago as an advance reader. The premise is simple, you read the book before it’s published and post a real review at launch. What I didn’t think through is what happens if I don’t like it.

The author knows my name. I’m going to write what I actually think, but I’d be lying if I said the free copy doesn’t sit in the back of my mind. I use Knosit, there are other platforms too. Has anyone dealt with this?