Self publishing - I've gone and done it!!!

[Stitchthis]

Spurred on by the heady examples of La Guillotine et al at the Blogfest I've pushed the button on my Christmas ebook!!!! I've done it via Blurb as I've used it to make hard copy books before. No idea how it will sell but would be grateful for any thoughts from you guys...I'm planning a Valentines/ Easter one next so any blips this time round can be addressed then.

You can find it here

Excellent! Good luck and HIGH FIVES. :)

Oooo how exciting, well done you, will go over and look now - wow :)

I don't know whether i'm not doing something right but when I clicked on the sample pages it came up blank? Do you want to check that??

Pebbles, I had the same issue. Click the button on preview that shows the thumbnails for all the pages and then it works.

Well done, I'm very impressed with anyone who gets their act together to publish a book. The pics look lovely, as do the crafts.

It's beautiful!

Oh stitchthis - i just love it, well done you

Yes, the preview is tricky. I'm going to email blurb. So pleased you like it. Is the price ok or too much? Also any thoughts on publicising ? I'm v excited tho!!!!

It looks fab and beutifully christmassy.
Price sounds fair. Really well done!

It's lovely. A complete beginner like me will struggle to get started with some of it though.

As it happens, I've just published a book specifically to help self-published authors sell their books! I know we're not meant to advertise stuff on here, but as you are asking for help and this IS a very helpful book, I hope this message won't get deleted if I tell you about it! It's called "Sell Your Books!" (gosh, how creative!!) and it's available from Amazon - search for the title and my name, Debbie Young, in Books, and you should find it. Available as paperback or e-book. Good luck - it's a very exciting time for you and well done for taking the plunge!

How awesome! It's an area I'm planning to get into in the new year.

Let us know how you get on, and best of luck!

Well done you!!

Yay. Well done, that is fab.

Brilliant, what a gorgeous book. Well done for taking the plunge

Well done you :)

Thanks everyone. Sadly nobody has bought it yet! But to be honest I'm not really bothered, I just wanted to get out there. But, I guess I need to think about publicising it

Hi Stitch,
I would imagine that pushing it locally first would be the way to go. If you can face it, that is. Promoting is hard, (but hopefully fun).
Could you hold a "stitch-off" launch party at a local crafts shop? Have you written a press release to local papers? You could give speeches on the work and the process at community groups and encourage them to buy it at the end.
The W.I might be good to approach too.

Twitter would be a good route for you too - should be relatively easy to build up a following of people interested in your crafts. Get involved in their conversation and banter, retweet other interesting relevant tweets, and drop in a few plugs for your book at the same time. Make them fun, intriguing and alluring to engage people - don't just keep tweeting ads as they'll get ignored (plenty of writers do that and it is very irritating!)

There are some really good blogs out there about book promotion and it's worth following some of those to keep your motivation and your spirits up. You might even like to follow my one which is www.otsbp.com/newsblog/ - not the blog that I do with Mumsnet, which is just my personal one about family life.

The more appropriate promotion you do, the better the book will sell - conversely, if you don't promote it.... but let's not go there!

Good luck! It's an exciting time for you!

Best wishes

Debbie

Wow, congratulations!

Good on you for taking the plunge.

Will take a look....x

Hi I also have an EBook and with the help of Ken Anderson who did all the tech savvy to get it up and running on Lulu and Amazon. I have joined mumsnet and I also blog (obsessively) on ramblingsfromamum.wordpress.com
I also list my Memoir on there. It's a thrilling experience for us unknown writers who don't have a literary agent to push our works. Some call it vanity, I call it 'just going for it'. Well done and congratulations on taking the plunge!