Potato is yum

Ads are hard. Like I know I’m doing this whole self publishing thing but holy crap there’s so much stuff to go through. Aight. I’m gonna just step you through the like three major things that are on my mind right now as I figure out this whole mess that is publishing a book.

So there are these things called shouts. Basically someone on RR says “oh look at this cool person’s book!” and you say the same thing for their book. This is cool and all until you gotta figure out who to ask and who would say yes and who would fit into your target demographic. Like sure, any exposure is good but I’d rather get people coming to my book that have a decent chance of sticking onto the story and staying. So that means I gotta look at the market for my book and ask those people who are in my market if they wanna help each other out. But then it gets even harder because the easiest people to find in your market are the ones that are successful and the ones who are successful are most likely already booked for months with people way above your level so there’s no chance to break into the club unless you somehow worm your way into a group of people with a really nice person that would bestow a shout swap upon you. Whew. Alright. Let’s just say I found some really cool people and somehow managed to get at least someone to care about my story enough to shout swap my story.

Now the second big thing is actual ads for like… getting clicks onto the story. Each ad on royal road costs $55. So like… yeah. And I gotta take at least a week to design an ad, run it past various friends to see how it looks and more so it’s a whole process and I’m literally going insane trying to figure all this stuff out. It’s gotten to the point that one of my friends is finishing up two of my ads so I can spend more time writing the damn book.

The final big thing is my cover and my blurb. So the cover I actually got commissioned and finished around 6 months ago and the artist did an excellent job. The only troubling thing is the blurb which is… well.. pain. Pain and suffering to be quite frank. I thought my college applications were painful but this is somehow even worse. I’m currently just showing the draft of my blurb on royal road and probably will change it… if I can make something better… I really don’t know.

This whole self publish thing might be a mistake but like… screw it. I’ve already taken the dive so I’m cooked either way.