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Self Publishing? Here's Why You Should!

And Why I Do It!

By Edwin Betancourt Jr.Published 5 years ago 12 min read
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(Before we begin, I am not at all saying self publishing and traditional publishing is better than the other. I am writing about my experiences doing both, for any writers out there who are also debating on the subject.)

Let me start out by saying, all writers are amazing and creative people!

I have seen so many writers be ridiculed by others in the writing community and it makes me sick to my stomach.

Whether you write fan fiction, erotica, non-fiction, fantasy, memoirs, media tie ins etc, whatever you are able to create in your own mind and write/type it down, you are amazing!

Okay, now let's talk about the elephant in the room, self-publishers. I don't believe this is an "elephant," but I have chatted with writers who publish through traditional publishing (a publishing house). When I talk about self-publishers, they cringe as if I'm showing them my collection of hang nails (which I do not own nor collect!).

I have been writing since the age of 14-years-old. My first story which I published through a site was a fan fiction of High School Musical meets Resident Evil. It was weird, fun and just a hoot! Remember, this was during a time where the site Fanfiction.com was huge!

As I got older, I started to write original stories that took years to develop and mold together because my number one critic (me) didn't like the way the stories sounded.

It wasn't until 2016 where I wrote a story about a Hollywood crisis manager who helps celebrities fix their wacky and crazy scandals, while also trying to deal with a personal tragedy, that I realized I had something interesting here.

I ended up polishing it and sending the manuscript to numerous publishing houses and waited...waited...waited...waited and waited to hear back.

I received a positive email from one particular publisher who even sent a contract for me to sign, but he had made some suggestions.

He wanted me to change my main character's backstory (which is her losing her child, the scene isn't graphic nor do I explain it as such) but to him, male readers wouldn't want to read a story where the main character is a mother...

I explained in depth how that information is vital to my main character's story because it serves as a huge arc for her! He disagreed and so did I.

So I never signed that contract.

Once I received more rejections I lost all hope in ever getting my story published.

That was until December 2016 when I read a blog where a woman self published her story using... get this ... on AMAZON!

I had no idea Amazon even had a department to self publish books. I did my research extensively and before I knew it, I published my book for Kindle on Amazon!

It's to be noted I went through many creative brainstorms and decided to change that particular story so many times, but now it's officially out on Amazon and titled Hollywood's Fixer: Publicity! (Volume 1).

Self-publishing may be frowned upon by authors who publish traditionally, but that's the best part of life! Not caring what people think—unless they've written or are writing reviews on your book of course.

Ever since that day I've been self publishing since.

I have a book that I dubbed, The Gay Brother to The Vagina Monologues titled From a Homosexual Hazard and I had to self publish that book, because it features monologues and dialogues and not many traditional publishers know how to categorize that unless it's a play that has been performed. Since I'm not financially gifted to just put on a performance of the play, I decided self publishing it for actors who are gay to have a monologue to audition with or do a project on, was more important than anything else.

Was that smart? Well, I received an email a few days ago where a professor at a university has asked me for permission for his students (who read the book and cannot stop talking about it) to do a project on it as well as a performance for a contest. If they win a cash prize that prize would be donated to the Trevor Project. I immediately said, "Yes of course!" Well, not immediately as I ugly cried for a few hours. I mean I didn't know the book had that much of an impact.

When I publish online, I keep track of the downloads and purchases that are calculated only through numbers. The only time you'll see a name is when a person reviews that book. So to know someone actually read it and brought it up to their peers and professor for a school project, is amazing!

When you self publish YOU are in control of marketing, promotions, keeping tracks of sales and downloads, reviews and what sites have your stories. You are your own, Kris Jenner so to speak. Which I think is amazing, because no one else knows the intended audiences except the writers.

Another reason why I choose to self publish many times is because of the "Novella vs Novel" fight!

A novella is a story that is longer than a short story, but shorter than a novel—confusing right? Some publishers see novellas as containing up to 40,000 words. Whereas they consider 50,000+ words to be a novel. (Some publishers change the numbers a lot, but it usually tends to be 45,000+ words to be considered a novel.)

I don't keep track of how many words I write because that's not how I function. I tell the story in one book and then I calculate the words after.

Many publishers look to publish novels in both book and kindle forms while some are weary of adding novellas, which I think is insane! But what do I know?

Note: Before you can decide to self publish you must have:

A Completed Story That Is Proofed and Edited!

If you can't afford an editor, get your friends, family, neighbors, English professor, boyfriend, girlfriend, cousin, ghost etc..., to read a copy and share their thoughts with you on any grammar mistakes and if the twist was worth it, if the tragedy was gut wrenching or anything else. It will help you understand if you got your message across accurately. If you want the honest feedback of people, join the writing community on Twitter. They're EVERYWHERE! Use the hashtag #WritingCommunity and you'll see other writers trading ARCS (Advanced Reading Copies) of their books for others to read (I do that a lot and it's been great!) as well as looking for BETA readers (people who read the story before it's released and they write an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads.) You can also follow me on Twitter, @EdwinBWriter. I'm openly gay and my story has LGBTQ+ characters. So, I'm a part of an amazing LGBTQ writing community as well! We do daily prose, share stories, promote our works and they tend to do monthly events where you talk about your WIP (work in progress).

Cover Art

Many stories need a cover to get the message across. I know, you might not be able to dish out $80 or more for someone to design the cover for you and that is understandable. I'm on that same boat! I create my own covers using the site, Canva! They have so many formats to choose from, millions of images to use that are free (some cost money sadly) and the fonts and designs are amazing! (Not being sponsored just telling you how it is).

A Synopsis!

You are a legitimate author if you loathe writing these! They have to capture your readers so that they can purchase the book. Trust me, these are never easy, but when you get the hang of it you'll love it! I like to answer these questions, "who, what, when, where and why?" Leave the how for when the readers read your story.

Familiarize yourself with formats.

EPUB, rtf, MOBI and PDF are formats many Kindle stories tend to be formatted to and when you send out ARCS for reviews, most people request these formats as it makes the story fit easier into their Kindle devices. Just save your final draft as any of these formats and you're good to go!

Must Have Social Media(s)

Maybe you're old fashioned and believe in face to face conversation and nothing is wrong with that. However, it's better to have social media, even if you only want to use it for promotional purposes! Many sites (like the ones I'm going to list below) have specific links for sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google etc, and it makes marketing so much easier!

Know your genre(s).

Knowing the genre(s) of your story is very important! Because every site will ask you to choose the genre(s) and you should know them if you expect to self publish your book.

Now, let's talk about the sites I use which cater to self publishing.

(I have published on these sites below so I'm writing through my personal experiences.)

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing

As mentioned this is Amazon's answer to self publishing and I could not be anymore happy with it.

The audiences that your story reaches is endless! It not only appears in your Amazon (assuming you're in the United States) but in every Amazon! I don't believe they publish your story in different languages though, that's more of the writer's responsibility. It's cool to go on Canada's Amazon to see my story!

They publish through Kindle and take a small percentage depending on what you choose when you upload the story and you can set the release date—whether you want it for pre order as well as the price range-as long as it fits the median price range Amazon gives you.

The best part about this site is that they show you what your story would look like to readers with a Kindle when you preview it. (It is always important to preview with Amazon before submitting the story, just in case a blank page is inserted somewhere in the middle of the story unintentionally, you can go back to your file and fix it!)

There are campaigns and giveaways where you can set your book to a cheaper price or for free and it lasts for five days! What I discovered about this was, when you put your book for free using the free giveaway option and people read the book, you get royalties for every page read! I didn't know that!

Again, the marketing and promotion lies in the hands of the writer in order to make their book a success or even to reach the intended audiences.

Createspace was a site where you could create a paperback version of your book, they are now part of the Amazon Kindle family so you can choose to create a paperback version of your book as well. Unfortunately, if you're seeking to make money by doing paperback, then this isn't for you. Since Amazon does a lot of the publishing and printing you only make $0.25 in royalty—even if you raise the price of your book, your royalty will still be drastically less since Amazon does most of the heavy lifting. And if you're hoping to get a free copy of your paperback, don't hold your breath. You get a discount when you buy the book from them.

Free?

This site is FREE to upload, Amazon just takes a portion from your royalties when your book is sold. They give your royalties at the end of every month

The site is is here.

Smashwords

They have a huge community of writers that are actively publishing stories daily, weekly, monthly etc, so this site never dies down.

You can set your book's price for free or charge the readers. This site is more personal because you get to see how many people downloaded your story (if it's free) and even purchased it!

The upload process is easy. Once again, if you have cover art, your completed story, a synopsis and know your genre, you'll be good as gold!

They not only publish your story on their online catalogue, but they also publish it on various big sites like, Applebooks, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Scribd and Overdrive!

This is only an e-book site! They do not create paperbacks.

Free?

This site, Smashwords is also free to upload to!

Draft2Digital

I was brought onto this site by one of my fellow authors on Twitter.

This site allows you to upload your story, cover art, synopsis and genres to them and you set your price.

Once you do and you submit everything, they distribute your story to various sites like Amazon, Scribd, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books and more!

You get to review the book and change the look of the chapters with the format designs they have before submitting everything in.

They have started a beta run for printing books, but I haven't submitted anything yet for paperback. So I'll definitely keep you all updated when I do.

Free?

This site, Draft2Digital is free to upload stories, they tell you right away what your royalties are so you will not be surprised!

They even have a link that you can send out to your social media pages which shows potential readers all the online stores your book is available on!

There are many more sites that cater to self publishing but these are the ones that I use and have experiences with.

Of course you need to remember the stores you are on, so this way you can keep track of reviews, marketing tools, etc. And if you publish on Draft2Digital, there's no need to publish on Amazon because it'll reach the same people.

Thank you all for taking time out to read this, I hope I helped you with that fork in the road. I also hope I inspired all of you writers not to give up because traditional publishing didn't work out for you. There is always a way to get your work out there! Just don't be afraid to dive right in. And if you are scared, don't worry, you have me and your fellow authors standing right beside you.

Now get back to writing!

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About the Creator

Edwin Betancourt Jr.

Edwin is a published Author, Poet and Playwright hailing from the Bronx, NY. When he isn’t working on stories, he can be found creating homemade lip balms and customizing dolls.

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