Hard Lessons I Learned While Indie Publishing
Harsh Truths About Trying to Publish Your Story
Welcome to the Apple Hair CANON!
Here, I’ll explore creating a fictional universe, and I’m hoping you’ll follow along with your own world. I’m by no means an expert, so let’s discuss how to create a believable, magical, and captivating world. Let’s be storycatchers together!
Want to read Apple Hair, the boy band fantasy novel, from the very beginning? You can start here! Apple Hair is a fictional, Asian American boy band from Hawaiʻi.
Welcome to the newsletter, and I’m excited to lay down the foundations of our storyworlds together, one word at a time.
Hi, storycatchers! In the last edition of the CANON, I talked about marketing—the most important mindset you should have, and what all good marketing boils down to. This time, I’m going to be exploring the cruel realities of indie publishing. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m super thankful for being able to publish independently! But these are some things I needed to learn and accept. This post is great for those of you interested in the indie book world! But even if you don’t want to publish a book, I believe you can learn a lot from my setbacks and mistakes.
The first lesson was: People aren’t going to flock to your book—at least, not without a lot of effort. Now, I was already preparing for this one. I’ve heard of many stories of indie authors publishing their book, waiting for sales, and being sorely disappointed afterward. However, I still held out some hope that many people would find my book. I took a month to speak about Apple Hair on social media and my newsletter, but a part of me knew that I wouldn’t be driving in a large crowd. I had to really remind myself that I’m in publishing for the long run. I shouldn’t worry about the beginning too much—especially when I can slowly build my back list and gain a following.
The second lesson: It’s a pretty big investment, of both time and money. I built out a budget for Apple Hair early on, but it still shocked me to see the costs add up—for ISBNs, editing, cover art, marketing, and more. Indie publishing definitely needs you to put the cost in upfront, rather than traditional publishers, who handle editing and cover art. Beyond money, the time that goes into making the manuscript shine—and up to standard—is a whole different beast. Fortunately, I found my excitement growing as I worked on polishing the book. I think that’s a good sign and shows an alignment with what I’m meant to do as an artist. I had to learn not just to set a budget early, but to set time in the week to work on indie publishing tasks.
Here’s my third lesson: Believing in your product, even when there are negative reviews. This ties back to my marketing post. How are we going to tell someone about our story when we secretly think that it’s not worth it? When I received lower star ratings for the first time, I thought my world was ending. I had to remind myself that as authors, we put our work out there. Readers have the right to rate things however they like. It’s our job to believe in our work and to keep going, never to let that discouragement stop us from being writers.
There are many more lessons that I learned and still need to learn! But maybe this post will call for part two. Anyway, I’ll leave you with a bonus lesson: There is no one magical path to success in indie publishing. Everywhere I look, I see authors blowing up with Meta ads, and others find success through TikTok. Sure, there are best practices to follow. But I truly believe that as creative people, we have to forge our own paths. Beyond telling our unique story in our book, we need to find the tactics that work for us. For me, that’s a focus on newsletter and social media, with learning one ad platform to leverage with promotions.
Now that I’ve talked about my lessons, I have a question for you. How are you going to share your story or product with someone this week?
Thank you very much for joining the CANON this week. What would you like me to discuss in the next post? Comment below. Or jump into my Chat or on one of my Notes, and I’ll be happy to hear your input. Let’s keep our heads up this week while we continue to dream!