ON MY MIND
Lambe-Rohi Bethel-Gold@bethelgoldayodele308287
22 days ago
Hi guys, It's been a while since I did anything here.
Happy New Month to all of us!
I pray this month becomes the best we ever experience.
How did your day go?
I think I missed writing those letters to you all, and I will get back to it soon.
I did something yesterday. Something I've been contemplating doing for a while.
A little backstory here:
In February 2022, I wrote a short Valentine story. It took me about a week to finish it up, but it was good.
Now that I read through it, I can realize so many mistakes I made, some typo errors, etc.
Back to 2022.
I was excited that I finished a novella in a week because that year made it one year I finished two of my works in progress [190k+ and 200k+ words]. So, it was a big deal for me.
I don't know if I shared this with you guys, but while growing up, I loved reading and always wanted to write a book that would be published one day, and finishing that book gave me the opportunity to have my first book published in paperback format.
I was still a baby in writing, trying to find my ways and what worked well for me as a writer. I did a bit of research, asked questions, and joined online groups to see other authors thoughts on publishing. Then I got to know the difference between an ebook and a physical copy.
Just basic knowledge about publishing.
Then a fellow author recommended the publishing house I published my book, 'Love Me Now (A Short Valentine Story),' to me.
Frankly, I would have done thorough research about them and not just looked at the bright side about them.
When the book was published, I was excited about it and told a few people about the book and even sold some of the physical copies I bought from the publisher.
I didn't get any positive response from it, which I thought was because I was new. Even when I posted it on my Instagram and tagged them as they told me to do through the mail. They didn't even acknowledge it or repost or do any form of promotion for a new book they just published.
Anyways, after much contemplation, I decided to do some research about terminating my contract with them, read through my contract again, and saw that the period was for 3 years, thankfully.
I sent them an email, and the termination was confirmed.
Here are some things I learned, which I hope will help you guys not make the same mistake I did when publishing my book.
1. Don't get too excited: There's this rush of adrenaline that pushes through our veins when we attain milestones in our career paths, and it's a good kind of feeling, but you shouldn't let the excitement cloud your judgment and thought process, especially when you are making decisions that could make or break you in whatever career path you are taking.
2. Thorough Research: Our books are our most valued possession as a writer, and we need to ensure that whatever steps or decisions we take or make should not in any anyway devalue our book.
3. Check your Publisher: Check the good and bad side of any publisher you plan to publish with. Yes, we like the good side of things but we know there’s the good and bad side of everything. So, ensure your publisher’s positive side surpasses the negative and the negative isn’t something incriminating to your works too. The image of your publisher is as important as publishing with them.
I think those are a few things I’ll let out for now for the sake of this post being too long, lol.
Also, ensure the publisher is one that’s intentional about your book’s success. I know publishers just don’t accept good books, but books that would make great sales, so they are always intentional about the quality, look, and how well represented the books are.
I noticed this publisher I published with didn’t even bother looking through the book content for any typo errors, or invest as much time to creating a book cover that suits the book or represent the characters. I doubt they even looked through the content before accepting it because when they sent it back for me to review the formatting of the book, I was the one noticing the errors and all that, so yeah.
Sorry for the long post but I just wanted to let this out and I hope you got something out of this post.
For now, I am focused on self-publishing, writing short stories, learning poetry, writing screenplay and scripts and just doing my thing. But, in the future I might consider traditional publishing again.
Once again, I apologize for the long post. Happy new month again and I’ll catch you in my next post.
Ciao. 🙂
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