Being an Indie Author: Writing & Publishing My Book through Amazon, Dealing with Critiques and Regrets

Publishing my debut poetry book Words from a Wanderer has been one of my greatest achievements thus far, but being an indie author has its challenges. In this episode, I talk about the "making of" my poetry collection, regretting publishing on Amazon, and dealing with critiques from readers.

Transcript

Raya: 0:01

Welcome back to the Sheer Creativity Podcast, the podcast about creatives for creatives. And today we're gonna be talking about being an indie author, which I am. So I'm gonna be running you through writing and publishing my book through Amazon, dealing with critiques on my book, and also some regrets that I'll change in the future when it comes to publishing my next poetry collection. But first, before we get into all the nitty gritty of it all, let's talk a little bit of housekeeping things, some things that I want you guys to be looking out. So April is National Poetry Month, which I'm really excited about because I'll be sharing daily poems from my newsletter every morning. So you can subscribe to the Behind Sheer Creativity newsletter. And I'm not, I'm not sure if I'm feeling that name just yet, but nothing else has really clicked. Just gimme a moment. The name is subject to change, but subscribe to the Behind Sheer Creativity Newsletter by clicking the link in either my bio on Instagram or at Sheer Creativity's bio, and you can subscribe to get daily poems written by me from either my book, from words from a wanderer, or some new content that I've been playing around with recently. And let me know what you guys think, like, comment, and do the things, always share. So far on my newsletter, I got nine subscribers, which seems small, but I'm gonna celebrate the wins that I'm given and I would love for you guys to support my writing as well as this podcast. And whew. When it comes to starting new things, I just, it's been a week, it's been a day. So before I start, maybe you need a moment to breathe as well. So let's just breathe together, just for a moment. Be able to center in and focus on the task at hand. I think sometimes in the grind to start new things, we can allow ourselves to get really burnt out because as my mother says, you'll be ripping and running trying to get something off the ground, and it's amazing. It's amazing the work that you put in in order to have this beautifully finished product, but don't neglect yourself in the process. I've been working full-time and feeling exhausted and then having to do creative things on top of that, recording these podcast episodes, working on social media things, and it can be exhausting. It's currently 11 o'clock at night and I'm running on fumes, trying to keep up. I wanna be consistent and I wanna keep giving you guys great content and I wanna continue to get better at what I'm doing. So I'm showing up, I'm showing up, I'm breathing, Woosa, and I wanna talk to you guys about something I love, which is being an author and doing it all on my own, which is what indie means, independent. Let's talk about the making of words from a wanderer and how this idea took root and how it blossomed into the poetry collection that I have today. I started off on Instagram making posts of my poetry. And my poetry page really originated from me and my best friend writing poems together. And then we were like, well, let's share them on Instagram. And I think that was, that was freshman year of college. And we both went to different colleges. And the, the adjustment period into college life was a pretty difficult transition for me. I was a very sheltered kid and that was my first time being away from home, so I ended up pouring myself into sharing more poetry, and that was kind of how I was getting myself through that time. And my best friend was like, girl, I ain't been posting, you go ahead and just take it over. And so for the rest of my college years, I had been writing and sharing my poems with these very nature esque photos that I took of myself just randomly outside, just in my yard. Um, especially during the pandemic. But over time I realized that I had, I had a pretty solid collection of work that I could share with other people, and I didn't really think of publishing a book until I took a publishing and marketing course, which happened my junior year of college. I'm a professional writing major. So these are the types of classes that they make you take. We talked about different avenues of publishing, and before that, I, I thought that like Penguin Random House would have to call you up on the phone to be like, we wanna publish your book. It's difficult to get out and traditionally publish so those different avenues of publishing were definitely more intriguing because number one, it's up to me. I have complete artistic license to do whatever I want to do because traditional publishing houses don't give you a lot of freedom if it doesn't align with what they think will sell. So there's a lot of freedom in being able to sell what you want and having the artistic license to write what it is that is important to you. But also the great thing about publishing houses is that you don't have to do a lot of marketing. They handle that for you. When you are an indie author, all of that lies on you. If people aren't buying your book, it's because you are not marketing it. I'd be forgetting that I wrote a book sometimes. So I haven't really done a lot of marketing of words from a wanderer, but hopefully in the future that will change and I'll have more time to pour into people reading this collection. Um, so when we talked about these different avenues of publishing, it was said that self-publishing or being an indie author, people kind of frown down upon it a little bit because it seems like it's not as prestigious as saying, you know, Harper Collins wants to publish my book. Like there's not as much prestige. It's not as much, somebody who is, um, particularly famous in this area, has seen my work and said, you know, this is it. Or there's a stigma that self-published books are not as edited or not as high quality. And I don't believe that to be true. It's just that it's hard to break through the walls of traditional publishers because number one, they're probably already invested in one type of thing that they know will sell. And if they don't see that there is a, a monetary value to what you write, then it's not gonna happen for you. So indie publishing is really a way to take ownership of what I have and what I've written, and to get it out there in a way that is on my own terms. There's nothing low quality about that. There is nothing bad about that. Like, Be proud of yourself. If you are an indie author, you should feel proud of the body of work that you have put out there in the world. My friend Sydney, who I interviewed for the podcast about her indie author journey, um, she really helped me understand the process more and I ended up being in Sydney's anthology Delicate Chaos. She had published that book through Amazon. And so I was asking her a lot of questions about how this process worked, and Amazon is such a simple process to publish your work. Your book will be available in like 72 hours. They don't play around. Once I realized that Amazon was a simple process to publish my work, I went into putting my work together into a collection, which meant figuring out what fits into my theme and what doesn't. Having beta readers to read the work and revise it before it's public consumption. I went through the whole process of doing that because I really wanted this book to come out. Now a little bit more about words from a wanderer. Words from a wanderer, the title, comes from a song from Jhene Aiko. This song is probably one of my favorite songs ever recorded, which I know is a really, a really lofty statement to say. But in terms of what this song means to me, I'm gonna be real. Like that's up there with one of my favorite songs that's just out here in the world. Her song's Spotless Mind, which comes from the sold Out album, which came out in 2014, which is very hard for me to believe. It really gave the word wanderer to me to describe myself, cuz I had always felt very rootless. Growing up, like I've always been searching for this sense of belonging ever since I was a child. And that song really summed up the way that I felt. And I felt like I changed my mind all the time. I changed my mood all the time. And if you watch the music video, she demonstrates that perfectly. In the music video, it's from the standpoint of her and her child's father trying to make this relationship work, and he is struggling to keep up with her. They're doing all these activities throughout this one day and every couple hours she's changing. She's quiet, then she's adventurous, then she's very irritated, then she's very fun and she's, she's everything everywhere, all at once before the movie. And I resonated with that concept heavily, and I felt like that title really encompassed this idea of being a nomad or shifting and growing. And during that time, my poetry collection really covered how I felt as a teen, then trying to grow into an adult during my college experience. It was growing pains, losing friendships, figuring out what makes me unique, and then what makes me human. So words from the wanderer will always have a special place in my heart as my debut poetry collection as like my, my adolescence to adult story. It really did a great job of encompassing how I felt at the time. Now as a novice to writing a book, it may seem simpler to use Amazon as your book publisher because it makes the process very convenient. You can connect to Kindle for people to pay to read your book digitally. And programs like Kindle Select where you have the opportunity to reach more readers and gain more royalties is a good idea. Um, it's a quick publishing process that's very intuitive. Like you submit your work through a PDF, um, then you submit your artwork, the, the front and back of the book, which you can do on websites like Fiver, where you can hire freelance artists to make your book covers for you. Um, then they'll print it for you and when you start getting payments, it goes into your account monthly, on the same day. So if you get your first payment on the 29th, every 29th, your monthly royalty payments will come. So it's super simple. Here's why I don't recommend. While it is a simple process and it's made publishing a book very convenient. Listen to me and listen to me good. You work too hard and you spend too many hours writing and editing and shifting and rethinking, and rewriting. You spend too many hours doing that to give Jeff Bezos 60% of your royalities. That is an astronomical number that Amazon takes from you on every sale you make. Every time someone buys a book, they're taking 60% of your royalties. When I sold over 50 copies of words from a wanderer like my family and friends, they supported heavily and got their friends to support heavily but when I reached the milestone of 50, I really didn't have much to show for it and at that time, it had taken me years to even see myself as someone that people would buy work from. Bezos got enough y'all. Don't give him no more. And it might be a cheaper alternative to find a local printer that will manufacture your book and then set up your own website so you get every penny that you're worth. Now you'll have to be more strategic about your pricing though, because if the pricing is too low on your website, then you'll still have to pay shipping fees, which will cut into your royalties, but you're worth setting your prices higher. We sell ourselves too low as creatives because it's just now becoming commonplace that people who are creative are viewed as valuable. Like when I first started saying that I wanted to be a writer, the automatic response was, you're gonna be broke. But now that's not necessarily the case. You have so many avenues that you can utilize as a writer. You have so many avenues that you can utilize as an artist. You have so many avenues that you can utilize as a musician. So bring your price up. Because if you have a unique voice that people wanna hear, they will pay you for it. So in the words of Rihanna, pay me what you owe me. Don't sell yourself short, and that'll help you mitigate costs and it'll help you enjoy the proceeds of this creative project that you've worked so hard to get out there. And another thing that you should know, When it comes to publishing a book on Amazon is that it is connected to Goodreads, which I did not know before this. Um, I have to reiterate that Beta readers are a great idea. They're so beneficial because they get to read your product before it becomes public consumption. And I'm thankful for my friends who read the book before because they gave it really good feedback, and I wouldn't say that I am bad at receiving feedback. I'm, I'm getting a little bit more used to it, but I do have a strong inner critic that I have to put in check consistently. In order to carry on in my creativity and be positive, I have to silence my inner critic. So if you publish through Amazon, people can leave reviews through Goodreads, which is a platform that people can look up your book, leave reviews, and basically create their own reading list. And because I am terrible at marketing my book and I'm gonna try to do better in the future. But I looked at my book a couple months ago on Amazon and I saw that my book had a three star review. And I was like, Hmm, where did that come from? Because the reviews that I have on Amazon, they're five stars. So I was like, so where did this three star originate from? So eventually I went down the rabbit hole and found myself on Goodreads, and I saw where this review. And I read it, and this person had left this review on words from a wanderer that said, I felt like many of these poems were written for me. However, the talk of God threw me off though. Now, full transparency, I do love Jesus. Hmm. But because I haven't had many moments where my work has been challenged, mainly because I hadn't allowed many people to read it, um, until wanderer was published. Or even if they didn't like it on Instagram, they could scroll by it. Like nobody has ever left a comment saying, wow, this is terrible. Take this down. I hate this. So this comment, although it's not a terrible comment, like it's not terrible feedback. This comment was kind but also left a little bit of a bad aftertaste in my mouth, so it still made me go back to what I had written. And start reading these poems over again and start questioning whether I was making myself accessible enough as a writer to where everyone could receive something from my work or if it was super niche to where people who maybe don't think like me or wouldn't get what I was trying to say, um, wouldn't get any type of enjoyment out of it. And, Because the internet is such a weird place, there's not a lot of chances for healthy, good dialogue. So I couldn't tell that person, you know, this is how I think, you know, me personally. However, I do think that if I'm writing a book about self discovery, a lot of self-discovery is also what you believe beyond yourself as a person. So I couldn't really tell this person that I feel like when you're writing about self discovery, that you also have to discover what you think and what you believe and what you value. The internet doesn't make it a, a beneficial place to do that. Um, a lot of the conversations we have over the internet are very, if they're not just openly rude, then they're kind of passive aggressive or we're just not understanding what the other person is trying to say. So, I didn't respond to the comment, but here's what I've learned about being an indie author and marketing a book while dealing with critique: Care less about a comment or about an algorithm, and care more about community. What sells a book are the people you connect with. And if you think as a creative that you connect with everyone, you're playing a dangerous game. If you think that virality, is the goal, you're playing a dangerous game. When it comes to the masses accepting you, you are then either consciously or subconsciously diluting yourself because not everyone will like you. However, you're trying very hard to make sure that they do, which often means that you're creating things that you don't resonate with. You are creating for other people and not yourself, or you're losing what's important to you, authentically. Find your community because they'll love you without making you feel like you are not right for this moment, and you are right for this moment. So if you ever get critique or if somebody is ever just like, I blatantly don't like this. You can take a step back to realize and tell this person inwardly or outwardly if it's that type of interaction, you were never my target audience anyway. This was never supposed to be for you and whoever it's supposed to be for, will know it's for them, and that's okay. Not everybody is gonna understand you. Not everybody is going to support, but your community will ride for you in a way that makes you feel like everybody is on your side. So I hope you learned more about my book and the book writing process through this episode. Make sure you're following Sheer Creativity on instagram, which is Sheer Creativity and subscribe to my newsletter for daily poems for National Poetry Month. The link is in the bio on Instagram, and I'll see you guys next week.