My Journey From Aspiring Writer to SELF-Published Author

Just begin.

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At the time of making this blog, it’ll have been a year and six-months since I started my writing journey, and five-months since I published my debut novel, “The Last Guardians Of Atlantis”. And it’s been a wild rollercoaster of emotions.

In this blog post, I’ll share insights of my journey and discuss 3-key points for you to be aware of, should you decide to pursue this lengthy and ‘hair-ripping’ adventure called writing. Let’s begin!

1. Writing is a Marathon not a Race.

2. Seek Feedback often and be okay with it.

3. Do your Research: Self-pub or Traditional
   

   1. Writing is a Marathon

The mistake I made when started work on my novel was thinking I needed to write 24/7. I invested a lot of time into my writing—sacrificing even going to the gym just so I could put down a few sentences. I quickly realized that was a bad idea.

I got burned out fast. I started to feel sluggish and quickly viewed writing as a chore. And I wasn’t the only one. Many new writers felt that way in the beginning but thankfully there are plenty of resources online to help you get out of that rut. One of the most helpful tips was to view the creative process as a marathon and not a race.

Just start!

Just take action, everyday, bit by bit and the lines will add up to pages. Consistent writing will get you a finished book.

All too often, we rush our projects in hopes to get it finished fast. That may seem like a great plan at the beginning but later down the road, it’ll cost you. The point here is to take your time. Let your creativity flourish. Even if you feel stumped and experiencing ‘writer’s block’, that’s fine. Don’t beat yourself up about it.

Stay consistent. Keep taking action, day by day, step by step, word by word. Keep writing everyday, even for a few minutes. And if you don’t know what to write, that’s okay. The other key point is to be consistent and persistent in your writing.

Remember, you’re not competing against anyone except yourself, so might as well take the time you need to finish.

2. Seek Feedback often and be okay with it

Another important point I overlooked was getting feedback about my manuscript. The established belief is once you finish your manuscript, you seek out an editor then do multiple rounds of revisions and finally seek a beta reader. I suggest doing this process a bit differently.

Taken from Steven Bartlett’s book, “The Diary of a CEO”

Skipping failure, Feedback gives you knowledge. The faster you can get feedback and keep on seeking feedback, the faster and quicker you gain knowledge.

What I suggest is to seek out feedback early in your writing. I sought out an editor at 30k words then, I went for more assessments at 60k, 90k and finally at the end of 140k words. This strategy helped me figure out where I wanted my story to go. By receiving feedback early, especially from a developmental editor, I could adjust my story as I go and make quick changes to the manuscript.

Once that was done, I sought beta readers. Here’s another key point to remember: feedback—or rather opinions in general—are there to help you. It’s constructive. They are not there to cause harm, and don’t take opinions personal. See them for what they are: information.

Feedback or opinions are knowledge. They are simply bits of information given to you. I’ve seen what happens when ego gets in the way and misconstrues the criticism they receive. It gets ugly. So to prevent that from happening to you, take the constructive criticism you get as useful data—information need to improve your writing and help you grow.

3. Do your Research: Self-pub or Traditional

I took my time thinking between pursuing self-publishing or go traditional. I spent days researching the benefits of both. I won’t go into too much detail of the pros and cons (you can check out my blog post here about it), but I would like to mention a few points.

The conventional idea of choosing between indie (self-publishing) or traditional, was to ask yourself, “what your end goal is.”

I like to be a bit more specific and ask, ‘how much time and money you want to spend and/or save?” and “are you willing to do everything yourself?”

Do your research!

Choosing which path to take is a big time commitment. But, you can always switch paths but that comes at a price.

Simply put: self-publishing you’ll spend more money and time. Money on hiring editors, beta-readers and perhaps a book cover artist (if you can do all that for free, congrats). Then time and money on marketing—putting your book out there; maybe spending ad money in Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), going to conventions or markets (renting a table).

You could spend a significant amount of time on content creation—crafting social media posts then posting it daily, in hopes of going viral.

Or go traditional publishing. You can spend a large of amount of time querying agents. The rejection rate of getting represented is high but once you do get a representation, you have your foot through the door. However, you relinquish creative control over the book’s content or look, and they buy the rights in the form of an advance.

Royalties vary depending on contract, but traditional publishing houses are notorious for giving their authors small percentages whereas self-published authors get much higher return in royalties.

Either way, make sure to do your research. I chose self-publishing because I wanted full creative control. And of course the royalties are nice.

And that’s it! Hope this post brought you some value and insight into the writing journey! Good luck everyone!

Another great video from Jerry Jenkins! I watched this multiple times to win that marathon!

🌊 Ready to dive into the adventure of a lifetime? Ancient legends awaken, enemies rise, and the fate of the world rests on one choice: Fight or die. Join Noah and his allies on a pulse-pounding quest in The Last Guardians of Atlantis—a story of friendship, courage, and destiny! 💥