What They Don't Tell You About Writing and Publishing
When you first start writing, the idea of publishing your work is often never even a topic. Whether you're writing short fiction, a blog post, or an 800-word essay, the story doesn't end once it's been published. As a beginning author, you may think that once you write a book and publish it, that's the end of the story. But that's not true. The idea of publishing your work is just one step in a much longer process.
Even once you've published something and are trying to do it again, you'll come across something entirely new: people will want you to improve your craft. Below are crucial things you may not have been told about writing and publishing
1. You Need Social Media Accounts for Your Author Persona
You can't just sign up for an account, post a few things, and expect people to find you. To personalize your author persona, you need to create and answer questions on multiple platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. For example, the moment you publish a book, people can ask if you had any help from an editor or if it was always your idea.
You can also rebrand your personal social media accounts as professional author accounts. Here are a couple of things you should be doing on all your accounts:
– Proofread your posts and correct mistakes
– Answer questions people ask you
– Tweet or post about anything relevant to your book
2. You Need an Author Website
Why have a book if you can't even get people to care about you as an author? That's where your website comes into play. An author website is a place where people can learn more about you, your book(s), and even get a sample of your work. A website is also an accessible platform for people to discover what else you've written and buy those books.
You can link your social media pages to your website for an even better author persona and avoid any confusion about whether or not you wrote something first.
3. You Need a Blog for Your Author Persona
Your website is also where you can introduce yourself as an author and talk about your book(s) regularly. You can also use that blog to answer people's questions about your work or let others know when you publish a new book.
4. You Need to Join Book Promotion Groups on Facebook
Many authors are happy to share the knowledge they've gained through years of trial and error when it comes to writing and publishing. They do this by creating Facebook pages that promote other people's books while sharing their own. You can join one of these groups as an author and offer advice in return for feedback on your work.
Book promotion groups are also a great place to network with other authors who can help you find new readers once you publish your book.
5. Find Free and Low-Cost Ways to Advertise
It's one thing to write and publish a book, but if nobody knows about it, then it doesn't matter. A great way to advertise your book is through social media, but you can also try things like writing guest blog posts for other authors that get a lot of traffic or joining online forums related to your niche.
Look for every information you need to know about finding places that will advertise your books for free or for very little money.
6. Keep Writing
Writing is something you should do regardless of whether or not you're trying to publish your work. You might not know what your next story will be about or how to write it, but that's okay. The only thing that matters is that you keep writing and improving.
Many books are never even published because they don't have enough ideas or were written poorly. Don't let this happen to you!
Overnight success is created with years of persistence and determination
7. You Need a Calendar
You may not know what you will be doing in a year, but you should still have a calendar where you note every day you write. Not only does this help keep you motivated, but it also gives people who want to buy your book or sponsor something related to your writing an idea of when it was published.
The secrets listed above are just a few things most people don't tell you about writing and publishing. In fact, dozens of things can help you build a successful writing career if you're willing to put in the work and time. Please write a good story, commit to getting your book out there, and really make it happen.
When you are focused and determined to succeed, you will thrive in writing. The only way to indeed fail is if you never even try.
