Elana M Johnson - Writing and Launching a Bestseller: Indie Inspiration for Self-Publishers, Book 4

H ello again, hello! I think most of you maybe know who I am by now. This isnt the first Indie Inspiration book Ive written, though it may be the first one youve read. Or are reading. Whatever. The first one youve picked up.

Im Elana Johnson, for those of you who dont know. The one with the weird hair in a woefully outdated profile picture. LOL. Its just such a great picture that I cant change it. I dont have anything even remotely close to that picture, as I retired to become a full-time writer soon after that pic, and I barely put on real clothes to work most days.

Most of my outfits consist of my workout leggings with an oversized T-shirt from one of the places Ive visited in the past five years, both paired with one of my two dozen visors. I adore visors with my whole soul, but that is information no one needs to know. And no one wants to see my above attirefresh with a sweaty face from the treadmillon an author photo, trust me!

I started writing in 2007, and I entered the marketplace in 2011 with a traditionally published young adult dystopian novel. I became disenfranchised from trad-pub pretty dang fast, and by 2014, I was self-publishing a lot of my trunk novels from my hard drive that my agents didnt want or couldnt sell.

By 2015, I had moved to a different genre and started a new pen name for that genre. She makes a large portion of my money now, as I did some things very right with her that I havent done right with other names or endeavors.

I want to pause right here and say there are plenty of ways to achieve success. There is not a single path to any income level, any destination, or any goal you want to achieve. I dont believe there are any must-dos in self-publishing, though there are a few select things I do with every name I start, because Ive consistently seen those things work in my favor to sell more books.

I also want to make it clear that the writing of a book and the publishing of that book are two separate things in my head. I believe there is one absolute in writingwrite a good book. A really good one if you can. A super-duper, the-best-book-ever one if you can manage it. Well talk more about this in a future chapter.

That book is the most important thing in your arsenal, so dont skip this step. Skip making a website or setting up a reader group on Facebook. Skip reading every piece of advice you can get your hands on. Skip the next episode of a marketing podcast. Skip that next bite of cheesecake!

But do not skip writing an amazing, unputdownable book.

Lastly, this book is going to contain a few metaphors, first and foremost, fishing. No, I dont particularly like fishing. I cant remember the last time I went. In fact, my dad told me when I was oh, probably ten or eleven that the next fish I caught, Id have to scale and gut it myself. So I never went fishing again.

This might be how you feel about writing your next book. Why bother? Its such a choreor its something that I dont enjoy or wont think Ill enjoy, so I just wont do it.

You might feel like that about advertising. Perhaps your ads in the past havent been as stellar of an experience as you would like. So you just wont do them anymore.

Maybe your last launch was akin to scaling and gutting yourself, and no one needs that in their life. So why bother? Just dont do it. Nothing matters anyway.

Right?

Does any of that sound familiar at all?

I have this irrational hour in my life every so often too. My mind takes over and runs through all of the things that have gone wrong in my writing careerfrom the seriously short books I wrote most of 2018 and 2019, thinking that more, more, more releases would level me up, to the less than stellar launches that seem to plague me no matter how good I feel about the series, how many amazing reviews I get, or whatever else that should tell me the opposite.

Sometimes, our human minds want to focus on the negative so badly, and when my brain does that, I call it my irrational hour, and I try to get myself out of it. I remind myself that some of my launches have gone really well. That every mistake Ive made so far is a learning stepa way for me to fail forwardand that I dont know what I dont know. So mistakes are only known in hindsight.

Thats all okay. If youve felt like this, youre not alone, and youre okay too. There is always right now to take another step, and perhaps itll be in the direction you want to move in. If it isnt, rest assured that all will not be lost. Im not sure theres anything you can do that you cant undo in Indie Publishing, and I think thats a beautiful thing. It allows us to fix things our Past Selves didnt know, and rely on our Future Selves to make wiser decisions than where we are now.

I hope to do that with this book toohelp you wherever you are right now to make wiser decisions today than you made yesterday, or than you made before reading this book.

So back to the fishingI want you to think about all the things you need to go fishing. Theres equipment you needa boat, a pole, fishing line, a hook, clothing (sometimes this one is really important. The type of fishing mattersice fishing? You dont just show up with one of those fly jackets with all the lures tied to it. You need outdoor gear for that), tackle box, worms or other bait, a fishing license for the area you want to fish in, and more (Im sure. Remember how I havent actually been fishing in a while?).

Besides just the stuff you need to get the job done, you need knowledge of the area where youll be tossing your line. Maybe youll hire an expert to get you into the lake and then back out of the wilderness safely. Maybe youll buy a guidebook that lists the type of fish that live in that river, pond, stream, lake, or ocean.

Suffice it to say, this fishing thing has gotten complicated really fast. Right? Becoming an Indie Author is kind of like that too. Theres the writing of the book, and that can require everything from waders to the right kind of snacks that keep you going when youre up against a deadline. Theres the packaging of the book, which is like knowing what kind of fish like which kind of bait and then arming yourself with precisely what they like. And theres the publishing and marketing of that book, which has multiple experts, as well as guidebooks and those willing to lead you to the lake and get you back out safely.

They cant, however, throw in the line for you. They cant fish for you. They cant do the writing, the packaging, the publishing, and the marketing for you. They dont go to the store and buy the fancy vest, the long johns to keep you warm, the waterproof boots, the ice saw, or the bait.

You need to know what you need to fish in the pond youre trying to fish in.

Thats what this book aims to provide for you.

Ive spent time and words in a couple of other books to help you with marketing strategies and systems (Writing and Releasing Rapidly, as well as Writing and Marketing Systems), as well as productivity increases and writing systems (again, Writing and Releasing Rapidly, as well as Writing and Marketing Systems), and one other volume to help you craft really amazing cover copy for your product.

Im not going to be covering those in great detail in this book.

This book is about 1. Writing a Bestseller, and then 2. Launching that Bestseller.

I will talk about what I think authors should stop and think about before they write, while theyre writing, how they package their products, and then how to launch those products into an ever-increasingly crowded marketplace.