Amelia Wilson: Business

Do you struggle with staying organized and maintaining a routine? I know I do. I’ve decided to whip up a little post about what online organizational tools I use to keep my ish together. I want this post to be inspirational and to help give you an idea of what’s out there and how these tools can help you become more organized and in control of your life.

Disclaimer: All of the views and opinions in this post are solely my own and are not sponsored. This post includes affiliate links, meaning I earn a commission through links at no cost to you.

Online Organization Apps that are truly lifesavers

Calendar by Luni

This is one of my favorite Calendar apps to date. At the moment, since school is only online and my hours at work are relatively steady, I haven’t been using it. However, it has been one of the BEST calendar organizers I’ve ever used.

There are so many great features and functions with the pro access ($1.99 a month) like group calendars (that you and the family can contribute to together), monthly overviews that are clear and labeled, reminders, connections to Facebook and iMessage, etc. I love the layout the most, it’s super compatible with iPhone and Facebook and resembles the iPhone calendar except in a more concise and easier to understand layout.

If you're looking for physical planners (which I use just as often as digital ones), Erin Condren is an amazing site with beautiful, affordable, and customizable planners!

Productive - Habit Tracker

This is by far my FAVORITE app in the entire apple store. Productive helps encourage routines and offers so many amazing ideas, inspiration, and info. There are trackers for drinking water, exercising, night routines, morning routines, chore lists, work lists, etc. You can create your own custom list OR you can use a pre-made one.

Productive has really changed how my daily routine looks. It’s a great app for notes and for recording your time spent doing certain things. I can set timers and alarms to keep me on track. I can set limitations on phone usage and duration for my work or for chores. This app is brilliant!

The only downside is that it costs money to use these amazing features. I was turned away at first because of the price (I don’t remember it off hand). However, I do think it’s worth the buy even if you decide to use only the free portion and gather inspo when necessary.

Time Planner

Time planner is another Calendar app that I love and it’s free to use. Hear that? FREE! It’s a really simple calendar that can connect to apple calendars and provides small alerts for events. I use it mostly to plan out the hours of my day, specifically for events outside of the house. I track my work schedule, my classes, my family visits, and any other big events using this app.

The great thing is that you can view your day in an hourly overview, add commuting time, and set alerts for yourself before the event. It’s easy to organize each event by color and title with a little icon depicting each. You can also set reminders and create notes.

Super simple app, but really helpful!

Lifesum

Somehow, I keep coming back to Lifesum. I delete this app a lot (mostly because I’m a cheapskate and don’t like to spend money) yet, I keep re-downloading Lifesum because it’s great. I got this app years ago before they restricted a lot of the features for paid access only. Let me tell you, even though I’m cheap, this app is totally worth the monthly subscription.

Lifesum lets you track your diet and set dietary goals for yourself. You can track water, veggies, fruit, and meat intake. You can scan barcodes on packaged food to add to your food diary. You can look up recipes. Create diet plans. Track your weight, calorie intake, body mass, and so much more! The app is easy to follow and super visually appealing. I love all of the emojis and the calming setup.

Lifesum is great even if you don’t purchase the subscription! You can still use the food diary daily and can view some recipes/create dietary goals. It’s really helped me push myself towards cleaner eating.

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Mealime

Another meal app and one of my recent favorites! Mealime is a simple and sophisticated way to create meal plans, grocery lists, and view delicious recipes. It’s so much easier to find good recipes on this app compared to scrolling through long winded and ad-ridden food blogs on pinterest. You can favorite dishes that work well for you and your family and can create a sense of easy meal-prepping.

I love it mostly for the fact that I can schedule days for my recipes so I know when to prepare them. But, it also makes grocery shopping a little less stressful and I’m thankful for that as well.

Egenda

I exclusively use egenda for homework assignments. I stopped using a paper agenda after high school because I didn’t need it. My college classes only met once or twice a week and I never felt the need for a daily planner.

Egenda works wonders for me because I can write down each assignment and color code it by class. I can list whether it is a test, project, homework, or quiz and can mark the assignments by priority. It’s an easy way to view my homework by the week. I’ve also found that it is better to have my homework on my phone so that I can view my assignments on the go rather than having to wait when I get home to do them.

Preview app (Instagram)

It is so hard for me to build an honest instagram following. I lost two followers the other day after posting a photo session with my little sister on my stories. Look, I’m not great at this instagram thing and will likely never be one of their influencers and that’s okay!

Even still, I’ve found the preview app to be extremely helpful. It makes cataloging and scheduling pictures easier whilst also allowing me to “preview” how my instagram will look before I post any photos. There is also a great hashtag feature (that I no longer use, sadly) that has been really helpful when it comes to building a following, if you’re into that sort of thing.

And that’s all I have for this post! I hope these online organizational tools benefit you or provide some sort of inspiration for getting your life together. Not that it isn’t already!

If you like this post, check out some similar posts of mine below:

Feel free to leave a comment below and let me know any good online organizational tools you prefer!

You can also email me with questions or concerns you may have at info.amelia.wilson@gmail.com

Also, check out my poetry book, The Lights are on but Nobody’s Home, available now on amazon for $6.99!

Disclaimer: All of the views and opinions in this post are solely my own and are not sponsored.

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Write your rough draft in one go if you can

This sounds crazy! I know. But it works so well! I used to write my rough draft in segments of about 500-1,000 words and I found that my writing was very choppy and disconnected. There were more plot holes and awkward breaks that I had expected. Not to mention, my quality of writing waxed and waned each time I took a step away. Now, I’m not going to lie, sometimes I still write in segments like this. And you know what? I can TELL that there is a difference from when I crank out a piece in one go.

It’s perfectly reasonable to knock out a short story, a poem, a chapter, or a blog post in one sitting given you’ve set aside some time to do so. (I’m not suggesting you write a whole book in one go. That’d be impressive, although highly impractical).

Short stories and blog posts are my most common forms of writing. This means that it is entirely possible for me to write a rough draft for each in one sitting. Doing so keeps my writing fluid and allows me the opportunity to avoid plot holes or odd sentence breaks.

When writing a book, I write a chapter at a time or at the very least, a scene at a time. I don’t take breaks between scenes and often try to push through even if I feel stuck or have writers block. I can edit and revise later. But the best way to maintain a similar linguistic style, hold the voice of my narrator, and avoid choppy writing is to just write it in one go.

If you can’t write in one go, write down a summary/major plot points

You read that right. Do NOT under any circumstance write a partial scene or partial story if you don’t have the time to curate the whole thing. If you don’t have the time, write down a summary and be sure to include major plot points. Think of this in a similar way you’d jot down dreams in the morning. You want enough detail that you remember the story but you don’t have to write out the whole thing.

Writing down a summary/major plot points ensures that you won’t forget the story later on when you actually sit down to write it. You can go back and view this as notes and use them as a sort of guide or outline for the story.

This action has helped me SO much! I often have dreams or story ideas during times when I’m super busy or unable to sit and write and it helps to jot down the important points so that I’ll have them for later. It’s also nice because after a while, I’ll have a build up of story ideas and outlines that I can fall back on if I’m stumped, have writers block, or just want to write.

Once draft one is finished, leave it alone for three days

This rule is actually something that I’m still new to doing and it absolutely KILLS me to follow it! I like to get things done, and I like to get them done quickly. I hate putting projects off, especially if I’m super invested in them. However, this rule has been life altering.

I picked up this rule after scrolling through Pinterest on topics about writing techniques (I know, I’m a nerd). I don’t remember which writer/author suggested this rule, but it’s one that stuck with me.

The idea is that if you leave your rough draft alone for three days, then when you come back to read it, you’ll view the story with fresh eyes. A big problem for writers during the revision process is that they tend to over-revise to the point where draft two or three is worse than draft one. They manipulate and alter the story a bit too much. I know I’m a victim of this. Essentially, if you leave the draft alone, it’s thought that you’ll come back and pick out only the errors. You won’t spend too much time trying to revise one word and will focus more on the story itself.

This is kind of a complicated rule for me to articulate, but the general idea is that you’ll revise and edit with a fresh state of mind and go into your writing with clearer expectations.

All I know is, this works wonders. I really enjoy coming back to a story after a break and then implementing my revisions. It feels fulfilling and it makes my writing more vivid and lively.

You don’t have to love your story/assignment, just write

So this rule is more directed towards writing majors than passion writers. But I also think there is some benefit to writing things you don’t necessarily love. For example, fiction writers may be appalled at the idea of writing a nonfiction essay. But writing is writing! And you know that rule about being a good writer coming from writing? Yeah this is that rule in practice.

Write. Write. Write.

That is how you become a better writer. You WRITE. And that includes writing on topics you don’t necessarily care about. So long as you’re writing, you’re improving and it’s beneficial.

Journal EVERY DAY

This goes along with that “if you want to be a writer, then you have to write” rule I mentioned above. Journaling is an amazing hobby/skill to get into. It’s therapeutic, introspective, and beneficial to your writing.

I have a blog post here dedicated to the benefits of journaling and how to get into it.

When you journal daily as a writer, it helps you in a number of ways:

you can jot down story ideas and outlines for later
You can develop character sketches and traits
You can create lore and history for your stories
Copy down sites and articles to reference for later
Begin a story/write a short story
Write a scene
Jot down dreams
Form a creative nonfiction narrative

Honestly, journal entries are endless! I hope the list above helps you get started or continue (if you’re a seasoned journalist). I journal twice a day. Once in the morning: either to jot down dreams, plan my day, or reflect on my morning reading. And once at night: to reflect on my day, jot down any thoughts or stories that are at the forefront of my attention, and to create a list of to-do’s the next day.

My daily journaling isn’t always exciting. If anything, my exciting stories are the ones I write randomly throughout the week when they take my attention. Some days, I’ll pick up my journal midday and write for an hour or more.

Journaling is a writer’s must-have and is by far one of the best practices for any creative writer.

Check out my post for a beginner's guide to journaling! It's a life-changing habit, well worth getting into!

Talk to yourself/someone else. Tell your story out loud. Listen.

This rule/suggestion is a bit obscure and unique. This is something that I’ve found to be truly beneficial, though others might find it a bit odd. Talk to yourself (or someone else if you’re worried about appearing crazy) about your story.

The goal is to tell your story out loud. Throughout history, most stories had been passed down orally and were created for oral tellings. Humanity is highly influenced by oral story tellings and it's a wonderful way to become a better writer. There are a few key points I want to share about this rule so I’ll divide them up a little bit.

Telling yourself the story

This is such an amazing practice and I encourage every writer to do this. Tell yourself your story. Start from the beginning and talk to yourself as if you’ve never told this story before. Include the details, talk about the characters, talk about the plot, character desires, setbacks, world-building, etc. Talk about ALL OF IT! This will help you to further develop the story in your mind and will help you to create a more in depth and responsive memory to your story.

I don’t know the science behind why this works so well, but it works in the same way as giving yourself positive affirmations in the mirror or telling yourself your to-do list. For some reason, this helps retain the story in a greater fashion than when you write it down. AND it helps you grow more personal to the story.

It can be a tricky thing to get used to if you don’t normally talk to yourself in this manner and that’s okay! Just keep trying and reap the benefits of this practice!

Telling someone else the story

If you do nothing else on this guide, at least do this one. Writers love telling their stories. I mean, that’s the whole point isn’t it? Talking about your story is super important and even healthy for you. Get those words out of your head and off the paper. Find someone trustworthy, and vent. Get the whole story out if you can.

This is beneficial in a number of ways. Like above, telling the story out loud is a great way to grow closer to the characters and plot. Additionally, telling the story to another person is a fantastic way to further develop the story narrative. By this I mean, it’s easier to find and fix plot holes and to come up with solutions to things you’d never considered in world building. A listener will ask questions you’d never thought of as they attempt to understand the story. They’ll ask why things are the way they are, why a character might act a certain way, or why the society in the story holds a certain belief system.

I like to think of this as a Tolkien-esque writing experiment. That man had every single detail configured for his story. You should too! You should know EVERYTHING about your story, it’s characters, and the world they live in. Having a listener will help you develop that further.

Retelling a scene from someone else’s work

I’m not going to lie, this is actually something I hated (and may or may not still despise) from my fiction writing classes in college. I hate retelling scenes from other people’s writing.

Now to be clear, I love to retell stories I’ve read to my friends and family. But the retelling I'm talking about is VERY different than giving your friend a quick rundown of what happened in a book or ranting about why you’re upset that your favorite character died.

Retelling a scene as my fiction classes had me do is...interesting. First, you have to retell the scene as if it’s happening in front of you. Let’s say I’m going to retell the scene where Harry Potter first steps into the great hall at Hogwarts.

This is how it would go:

Harry is standing in front of these large wooden doors just before Professor McGonagall opens them. He’s surrounded by other first years, including Ron Weasley, his new friend. Ron wears hand me down robes and has messy red hair.

And on and on we go.

Ideally, you want to talk in present tense as if it’s happening right in front of you. You also want to mention as many details as you can that incorporate sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch into the scene. Be super specific!

You also want to focus on where everyone is spatially. Are Harry’s classmates clustered together? Are Ron and his shoulder touching due to the clustered first years? How far is Harry from the door? Etc.

This is about what you see in your minds eye when reading. I might see Harry about five feet from the door while someone else sees him much further away. Unless the author specifically mentions how far he is, the distance is left to the readers interpretation.

The whole point of this practice is to become an effective storyteller and to be as descriptive as possible. It’s about comparing what you saw in the story to what another reader saw (as this practice is usually done in groups). As much as I hate this practice, it’s super beneficial for writers to reflect on what they’ve read and to compare elements of another’s storytelling to their own.

(And though I didn’t include this next tidbit as a rule, I consider it highly valuable:

Analyze other stories and writing. Have philosophical discussions with people about the story. Analyze the voice and characterization. Annotate works you love. Really dive deep into hidden meaning and language. This will help you grow as a writer.)

Talking/reflecting with yourself about what you’ve written and what you’re going to write

This goes along with talking to yourself but reflecting on what you’ve written or planning your writing (you typically do this in a journal entry) can really help you to move your story along. It helps you identify problem areas and gives you goals to reach.

Use the “take a place” method! (Something college taught me)

This is one of the simplest and yet most meditative things in writing. In my fiction classes, typically towards the end of class right before we journal or begin writing for a short story, the professor would have us “take a place.” Essentially, the professor would use guiding sentences and techniques to help you curate a scene.

Examples include:

imagine a place in front of you, what do you see? Is it dark? Light? Rainy? Sunny? Indoor? Outdoor?
Are you alone? Are there people with you?
How do you feel in this space? What is the physical temperature? What are your emotions?
Is there an object in this space? What is it? What does it feel like? Sound like? Look like?

And of course this goes on. It’s a really meditative way of building a scene. You focus on where the scene takes place, who is in it, what are they doing, what are they feeling, etc. I really enjoy “take a place.” I often use it in my own meditations where I build a little safe haven/sanctuary for myself and my thoughts.

I highly recommend doing this before you write a scene. It really helps you to focus on the senses used in the scene and to understand what is taking place and what is worth taking note of.

And that's all I've got for now! I hope these writing tips are helpful and you can begin implementing them into your every day writing gigs!

If you like this post, check out some similar posts of mine below:

Click here to view

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Feel free to leave a comment below and let me know if you'd be interested in more Creative Writing tips!

You can also email me with questions or concerns you may have at info.amelia.wilson@gmail.com

Also, check out my poetry book, The Lights are on but Nobody’s Home, available now on amazon for $6.99!

Disclaimer: All of the views and opinions in this post are solely my own and are not sponsored.

Thanks again

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Alright, so I’ve been asked by dozens of people, “how did you self-publish your book?” Well, let me tell you, it was a process! So, I’ve decided to write this post for those of you who are curious and for anyone who is looking to self-publish, themselves.

I am also in the process of creating a video discussing the process on a deeper and more

detailed level! Follow me on Instagram or in my newsletter to get notified when it’s up!

I’m going to sort my self-publishing journey based on these categories:

The process
The cost
What I wish I did differently/knew beforehand

I feel that this is the most concise way to depict my journey to you. I’ll try to include as much

detail/info as I can!

(You Can buy my book, The Lights are on but Nobody’s Home, here for $9.99!)

The Process

I’m going to list this in steps. Hopefully this will keep this post clean and concise, as well as

easy to follow.

Step one: Write the poems (duh)

All of the poems in my book come from 2014-present day. I’ve been writing poetry for years. So, naturally I’ve procured a decently sized collection. I didn’t have to spend any time writing poems for my book, meaning that I could just start putting it all together without the extra time.

Step two: Print poems and sort them

The first step for me actually began here. The only feasible way I could imagine putting this

book together was to be able to see all of my poems at once in order to sort through them. I printed them off months before I ever actually dived into the publishing process.

I have two documents for poetry: “manuscript” (which I consider my good poems) and “poems not as worthy” (which is exactly what it says).

I printed off both of these documents (front side only) and began sorting them, first, by the

quality of the poetry. That cut out about half of the poems. I seeded down further, sorting by category. I made piles of certain themes: dark, light, fear, religion, love, loss, etc.

I then went through these themes AGAIN, and sorted out the ones that still weren’t as

“worthy.” I found it easiest to print off my poems to sort them. I liked being able to physically move them around. It saved a lot of time. Though I won’t lie. This step took me days to finish.

Step three: Finalize manuscript order

This goes along with step two. Basically, once I had my poems sorted, I started putting them

together into a “sort of” manuscript. I began creating the story and building the poems around my main theme. The result was very similar to the book you see today!

Step four: Put the poems into a document

This step took a very long time as well. Essentially what I did was I opened up three different

tabs on my computer: “manuscript,” “poems not as worthy,” and “the Lights are on but nobody’s home,” and began to copy and paste.

I used ctrl F to find the poems amongst my other documents, copied them, and pasted them to the new document.

This also included formatting. So each time I copied and pasted, I would highlight the text and

set it as Times New Roman 11pt font.

This step took a decent amount of time as well. In total, I think it took about two weeks.

Step five: Contact my illustrator

While I was putting my poems into my main document, I contacted my illustrator. I’ve known Tessa McKenney for quite a few years now and I’ve always been a fan of her art. So, naturally, I reached out and asked if she would be interested in creating some art for my book.

(There is more info about my experience hiring an illustrator at the bottom of the page under the “what I wish I knew” category).

After contacting Tessa, she went to work creating beautiful illustrations for me and I continued working on my book.

Step six: Edit poems

While Tessa continued to work on the sketches for the book, I began to edit the poems. I chose to do this myself 1) because I knew I could without straining too much and 2) because it was cheaper than hiring an editor.

I edited my poems one at time by reading them aloud and fixing where necessary. Editing took quite a while as well. Thankfully, they were poems and were often very short. So I never felt too stressed going through them.

I read through each poem about 3-5 times. I read through the entire book about three times. It was a lot. But it was necessary and I’m glad I chose to do it myself so that I could preserve the style and craft of each poem.

Step seven: Put illustrations in document

Once Tessa had finished the illustrations and scanned them in for me, I began editing them and pasting them into my book. She sent me PDF versions of her scanned in art which provided more clarity and better quality for the images.

From there, I cut, cropped, edited, and pasted each image for my book. I used PicsArt, an app from the Apple store, to do most of the editing. The typical editing process included: making the background completely white, darkening the lines in the image, sharpening the image, and erasing any smudges that passed through scanning.

It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, as far as photo editing goes. And it was fairly simple to save each illustration and paste it into the document.

Step eight: Begin the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) set-up

I actually tackled this step somewhere in my poem sorting process. However, it couldn’t fully be set up until I had a working manuscript. Therefore, I began to actively use KDP around the time the illustrations were finishing up.

KDP is a very user friendly platform and I’ve enjoyed it a lot. It’s made creating my book very easy and straightforward. I definitely consider it a wonderful self-publishing platform.

I set up my account and began plugging in any information needed in regards to publishing the book!

Step nine: Cover creating!

This step right here might have been the most challenging and unrelenting part of the entire

process.

I came up with the title fairly quickly as I love to use idioms for titles and the phrase “the lights are on but nobody’s home” resonated well with my theme.

The tricky part was creating the cover. Gosh! This is certainly something I wish I had known

before (check out that section at the bottom of this post).

I spent a solid week, every minute of my free time, attempting to come up with a good cover. I tried so many things, spammed all of my friends and family, complained endlessly, until I finally found the right cover. And believe me, everybody was relieved when I did because they were getting fed up with my consistent frustration at finding the right cover.

I actually came up with the cover idea that you see today after going to a Half Price Book store. I happened by a particular book (whose name I can’t remember) that had a dark blue cover, and big white letters across the front. The cover included vines shaking down from the top, weaving in and out of the words. I knew as soon as I saw it that I wanted my cover to appeal to me the way this book appealed to me.

So, I started working with a dark blue cover as a color. The book in Half Price wasn’t in my target genre, however, I wanted my book to stand out amongst all of the black, white, and pastel poetry books standing today. Though I still wanted people to look at my book and go “that’s a poetry book.”

The lightbulbs in the top right corner are placed in a unique design that I created. Though the

light bulbs themselves are stickers from the app PicsArt (which I used to create my cover).

Step ten: Plug it all in

This is where you see the cover being the trickiest part of the whole process. I had a terrible time plugging in all of my content to KDP.

After a few mishaps, I found that in order to insert my manuscript so that it prints properly, I had to: turn it into a compatible docx. format, turn that into a PDF, fake print it to a paper size of 8” by 5.5”, save it to my computer, and THEN insert it into KDP. I ended up submitting and re-submitting my manuscript dozens of times. I’m pretty sure there are more than twenty documents on my computer from this step alone.

Not only was the document itself hard to plug in, but so was the cover.

Oh. My. Gosh.

The cover was SO hard to submit. KDP has strict guidelines and alignments for covers that I

wasn’t quite meeting. Once I had my image made, I had to send it to my computer, save as a PDF, and crop and resize (resolution, pixel, etc.) just to insert it into KDP so that it looked nice!

And it never worked.

I struggled so hard to figure it out. I didn’t much care for KDP’s Cover Creator. I felt it was restricting and lacked tools that were user friendly or provided me with the content necessary to make the cover how I envisioned it. So I settled for making my own cover in their alternative option. However, it was never the right size and it simply did not work out for me.

By a sheer miracle, I reverted back to Cover Creator as it was the only way to ensure the book met the proper guidelines and alignments. I was devastated. I didn’t want to have to change my cover. I worked so hard on it. At this point, I didn’t want to settle for uneven coloring, or awkward lettering.

And then Matt figured it out.

Somehow, I’m still not sure how, he cleared Cover Creator’s content fields so that I could just input my pre-made book cover into the slot and resize it there.

And it worked.

I wasted so many hours in the last two months trying to figure it out and it took him barely a minute. I wanted to be angry. But I couldn’t be. It finally worked!

Step eleven: Buy ISBN/ Finalize publication needs

While I was plugging in all of the content for the book, I purchased an ISBN. A lot of ISBN’s sell for $99-well over $100. I wasn’t particularly down for that.

I actually purchased my ISBN for $40.

It sounds sketchy right? Well, that’s what I thought too when I first stumbled across Michael

Dowell’s website, www.isbnagency.com. However, I checked numerous reviews and self-publications where his service was used and it was legit. There was nothing sketchy about it.

There were a number of videos on his site perfectly explaining how to download and input your isbn as well as how to build your own website for your book. I was very pleased with the service. It was professional and fast! The payment felt secure and safe. And his automated emails are pretty helpful.

I counted this step as a win.

Step Twelve: Publish

Once everything was finalized (price, print previewed, last edits, names, tags, etc.) I clicked

Publish.

My book was actually published for two days and I didn’t tell anyone. I ordered a copy for myself, unpublished the book, fixed some errors, worked on it for about an hour and a half more, and then finally re-published it to the version you see today.

I’ll explain the reason for this below. But essentially, it was published and that was the process! It was a lot of work...and money. Which is why I’m also going to break down the cost for you.

The Cost

KDP	Free
Illustrator	$75
Library of Congress	$50
ISBN	$40
Instagram promo	$30
Additional marketing	(...)
Amazon promo	(...)
Author copies	$26
	Total: $221+

KDP

KDP was free to use, which saved a lot of money, however, it cost a lot of my time in order to get to publication. The formatting, editing, image inserting, copyrighting, cover creating, pricing, etc. was all done by me.

Illustrator

I ended up deciding on $75 for the illustration fee. Tessa and I worked it out, and I would pay her for the job. We are both amateurs so this seemed like a reasonable price.

Library of Congress

Copyrighting a book in the Library of Congress is a good way to ensure your book is protected for legal reasons so I didn’t hesitate to pay the fee to get my book put in their publication data.

ISBN

I am so happy with the quality of service I received from isbnagency.com. Michael Dowell is amazing and very professional. Paying only $40 for an ISBN helped me out a ton. The ISBN is legit and the website was super informative on how to properly go about downloading an ISBN and using it for your self-published work.

Instagram promo

This is something I tried the day of the launch of my book. I’m not sure I am completely satisfied with the service I received. I spent $30 for a five day promotion on my account. I gained a lot of followers, which I appreciate, but I didn’t get as many impressions/likes on the photo as I had hoped. I wish the outreach would have been greater. But at least it was a way to get the book out there.

Additional marketing

I will probably pay for additional marketing at a later date. As of right now, it’s not something in which I need to take immediate action. So I expect my overall “cost” to make my book will go up.

Amazon promo

In the near future, I will probably pay for an amazon promo. I have no idea how much I will end up paying, but I know it’s something to be considered.

Author copies

Lastly, author copies. Through KDP, authors only have to pay for shipping and handling for their books. Therefore, my books are about $2.60 each for me, rather than the $9.99 they are for everyone else. It sucks that I still have to pay for my own book, but I get it. I decided to buy 10 copies (mostly for future giveaways (possibly), my immediate family members, myself, and as an example title for marketing).

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1513648667/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1513648667&linkCode=as2&tag=ameliawils17-20&linkId=a1a4d5c0a9c9e0450394827867812ccf

Click here to purchase!

What I wish I did differently/knew beforehand

Utilize Print Previewer for EVERY page

This was a big “oops” in the process for me. I don't know why, but I didn’t click through every page on the print previewer (the preview option for KDP) and I goofed. I published the book without telling one, ordered a book for myself, and then had to unpublish the work. I chose to do this as prime shipping is two days and reviews mentioned author copied could take three weeks to send. I did not want to wait. But when I got my book, I noticed the printing was a tad off on five of the pages, near the end. This was my fault. So I had to go back and fix the error, redownload the manuscript to KDP, and republish my book.

Use Cover Creator (learn how to use)

I attempted to use the cover creator (KDP’s Cover cresting source) and I hated it. I felt like it was too restricting and didn’t offer me enough freedom to create the cover how I envisioned. I wasted a lot of time trying to use cover creator and moving on to create my own cover in their alternative option. I couldn’t configure the right resolution and format and this set me back a couple months. I wish I had stuck with the cover creator and messed around with it a bit more. I ended up using it anyway and the result is exactly the cover I had originally wanted.

Estimate costs better

I don’t know why, but I didn’t think self-publishing would be as pricey as it came out to be. It’s still much cheaper than traditional publishing, but i didn’t expect all of these costs up front. I wish I would have done more research and written down cost goals and plans before entering the publication process.

Work/plan with illustrator earlier (better)

Tessa and I were both amateurs starting out so neither of us were prepared. I didn’t give Tessa a solid deadline which in turn pushed back publishing because the illustrations couldn’t be produced fast enough. I should have written a stricter deadline for her, laying out days I wanted certain images done and on which poems, etc. There was a lot of miscommunication due to the non-existent contract I should have written up explaining payment, quality, and deadlines.

I hope this helped in some form or another for anyone who was curious about my publication process.

Self-publishing isn’t super easy but it’s satisfying, in the end, to know that all of your hard work paid off.

If you have any more questions you’d like me to cover, please leave them in the comments below!

Check out my book, The Lights are on but Nobody’s Home, on Amazon for $6.99!!

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Disclaimer: All of the views and opinions in this post are solely my own and are not sponsored. This post includes affiliate links, meaning I earn a commission through links at no cost to you.

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Amelia Wilson

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