Self Published Authors

As a self-published author with an MA in English and two decades of book writing experience and knowledge of the self-publishing and promoting ‘game,’ I want to meet others like me; others with whom I might form mutually-beneficial relationships built around creating, polishing and promoting our work. Personally, I write across genres, have self-published over a dozen books using both Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and Barnes & Noble’s Ingram Spark platforms, create graphics using Adobe products for book covers, t-shirt creation and promotional content, created and maintain a website using Word Press and Blue Host, and have extensive experience with the overwhelmingly myriad means with which self-published authors seek readers (including via social media), though I’ve yet to have the ‘breakthrough book’ I seek (mostly because of not possessing a very limited marketing budget, and because I write books of conviction that don’t neatly fit niche ‘target audience’ markets).

Regardless of where you are in your own writing journey, I seek other creatives like you (hopefully some friendships and collaborations naturally arise!), and can be of assistance in helping you find your footing, especially if you’re early in the process. If you’re a relative veteran like me, perhaps you’d be willing to show me what you’ve learned? This is such a broad, multi-faceted arena that everyone with any experience of it certainly has some insight to offer that others in the group can’t. And I’ve recently read that success as a self-published author is FAR more likely when we work together! We can help one another, explore creative and marketing options, edit one another’s work and provide constructive feedback (if desired), read the work of others for insights, demonstrate the use of various creative software programs etc. Perhaps some of us can eventually pool our resources and purchase a booth to offer our creations to the public at one of the local events, or even travel to self-published author fairs.

I’m not entirely certain where we’ll host our meetups, and am definitely open to suggestions. In the past I’ve hosted a meetup discussion group in which we typically met inside or just outside of coffee shops, like The Commons in downtown Bend. Such venues work well for discussions, but we may eventually find that we want somewhere more private, with more secure access to our computers (I’m very protective of my laptop, and don’t typically take it outside), if someone(s) in the group is willing to offer their homes for meetups – my apartment wouldn’t be ideal, but I suppose it’s serviceable!

Please see infiniteofone.com for more about me and my work. Also, I recently created a “Help You Self-Publish” post on Craigslist in which I seek to apply my experience in the assistance of others, and hopefully generate some revenue which I can apply to my own literary promotions. Maybe some of us can eventually form a small ‘help you self-publish company?’ An excerpt from that post:

"I can help you turn your idea or already-under-development manuscript into print and, if desired, to take the next steps. (If you're in the idea phase, I recommend starting with an outline - the bones to be filled with the guts of your book!) I’m also open to ‘ghost writing’ your book; to turning your idea into a project myself, even as I never lack for book ideas of my own. Wherever you are in your own creative process, let’s turn your book idea, or your Word manuscript, into a physical book! The feeling of holding your own professionally produced book in your hands is itself worth the effort. And while I possess considerable knowledge in the marketing arena, and can advise you related to my own hard-won wisdom in that overwhelming realm, I cannot guarantee that your book will be read by others.

Alas, even if you and your family are the only ones to read your work, writing is invaluable, as a creative outlet, as a tool for intellectual development and self-education, as a means to explore and develop your ideas and convictions, as a vehicle for sharing yourself, your ideas and beliefs with the world (even if, again, it’s just friends and family), and as a particularly invaluable form of therapeutic release. I call writing my ‘pressure release valve.’ So it is that, for all of these reasons and more, the finished product isn’t the ‘whole story;’ it’s but the material result of a profound process that will enrich and develop you as a human being in ways that are impossible to accurately qualify, and that I recommend to everyone."

Please feel perfectly free to reach out with questions or suggestions!