Happy Sunday!
I had my first book signing yesterday at Jekyll Market. Not gonna lie – I was terrified. But it was amazing! I met people who’d I’d only met on Facebook neighborhood chats in the past. And I met some awesome new people who had already read “Escape to Jekyll Island” and they wanted to buy Book Two, “In Bloom on Jekyll.” Wheeeeee! Readers are reading!
There was a fairly-steady stream of people for the three hours I was signing, but when it slowed down, I got to dust off my sales skills and meet some new people. There were all sorts wandering loose on Jekyll yesterday because of the Annual Turtle Crawl races and other activities. Anyway, I sold books (they usually bought them both) to almost everybody who stopped to talk to me. There was a reason I was the number one Girl Scout cookie seller in the state of Maryland, eight years running.
Overall, it was a super fun experience and I’m looking forward to going back to sign at Jekyll Market again when Book Three – “Treasure on Jekyll” – is released next month.
If you don’t want to wait that long, I’ll be signing at the Mosaic Museum in the Jekyll historic district this Tuesday (April 30) and Thursday (May 2) from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. or until I run out of books (that’s not likely lol). And I’ll be signing books on May 21st at Golden Isles Olive Oil from 5-7 p.m. Come see me!
Enough beating my own drum – it’s time to talk about new author challenges. I have a to-do list that would horrify my mother if she could see it in its entirety.
- Books 1 and 2 – go in and fix typos (already found), bump up font, and give graphic designer new cover specs so we can print more books
- Book 3 – insert edits from proofreaders – do another really heavy proofread job again myself – and then upload it for printing.
- TikTok – continue wishing I had opened it for the first time more than two months ago lol and figure out how to open a TikTok shop. I’m hearing lots of good and bad about that. But after fighting with somebody in China for two hours online the other night with my corporate docs, I’m seriously questioning my commitment to that platform. Grrr. Must focus on Instagram.
- Marketing – make time to go visit bookstores all over my area to bring the manager my books and a press release and ask them to carry my series and figure out Ingram Sparks distribution (self-publishers cannot just do it one way because the system is rigged).
- Press releases – I used to send these out about other authors – it feels really weird to be pitching myself. But so far, I’ve heard back from everybody I’ve reached out to and they’ve wanted interviews. The problem is that I need to spend about 50 hours on this (I know that from my book promoting experience back in the dark ages) and it’s my least favorite thing to do.
Book Four is already in the works and I am so in love with my characters. I want to tell you about Book Four but I’ve already been yelled at for being a walking spoiler alert. Suffice to say that I could have finished the book by now if I was letting myself write. But I can’t write until everything else on that awful list above has been accomplished. The writing is the fun part. That’s the easy part. So is proofreading, editing, polishing, etc. I object to the marketing and promotions part of it all. I object but I’m learning how to do it.
The opportunity to self-publish is amazing. Unlike traditional publishing (like my first books), you can write as many books as you want, as fast as you want. But you have to build in the publishing cycle time after the writing part is done. And nowadays, traditional publishers rely on authors to do a lot of their own social media promotion anyway, so I’m not really handicapping myself that badly.
Tip of the Day if you’re writing a book – before you try to publish it, invest in Atticus software. It’s amazing. I’m pretty good with templates and format after years of editing for other publications, but when I tried to do it the free/cheap way at first, everything needed tweaking. So, I did homework and found out most authors have something they use and the ones I admire seem to prefer Atticus. I am now in love with Atticus. It’s idiot proof (I didn’t struggle with it) and the places you need to upload your manuscript love it. It was $147 but worth every penny. Nobody paid me to say that. I’m just telling you what I learned the hard way.
I’m having a dinner party tonight so I have to sign off and go clean my house now. And make shrimp spread and set the table and do all the other things. Our house looks like a bookstore exploded. There are boxes of books from two different printers that have to be kept separate. Since we just moved in and renovated and aren’t done decorating and setting up post-construction, it’s basically a disaster zone in one third of the house. But if I wait to entertain until it’s all finished, I’ll be waiting a super-long time at this rate. Books are taking priority.
If you’ve finished my books and need a giggle, try reading “Neena Lee Is Seeing Things” next. It’s by Sheila Athens (another local author) and takes place next door to us on Cumberland Island. It’s set on the anniversary of JFK, Jr.’s death and if you were a “George” fan, you know he got married in a secret ceremony on Cumberland Island. I read it straight through in four hours and sent Sheila a “damn you, I needed to sleep last night” email the next morning. The book is really funny, really insightful, thought provoking, and a fast read. Five stars! I highly recommend!
Until next time, happy reading!
Sandy