March 2, 2025 • 44 mins
Explore my evolution from traditionally published author to independent publisher, revealing the challenges, lessons learned, and the empowering decision to embrace self-publishing. Learn about the critical shifts in my narrative that shaped my vision for inclusive and accessible literature.
• Understanding the differences between traditional, indie, and hybrid publishing
• The pivotal moments and decisions in my journey as a writer
• Insights into building a small press and advocating for diversity
• The challenges faced when transitioning to indie authorship
• Essential tips and strategies for aspiring indie authors
• Encouragement to embrace and celebrate every writer's unique pathway
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Amra's Armchair Anecdotes.
I'm Amra Payelich, writer,teacher and storyteller.
Pull up a chair and let's diveinto stories about writing life
and lessons learned, sharingwisdom from my armchair to yours
.
So welcome back to Amra'sArmchair Anecdotes.
(00:24):
And today I'm going to betalking about my journey to
self-publishing, sharing why,how and providing some tips.
So I'm going to first take youback and talk about my journey
as an author.
So I'm originally atraditionally published author.
So I think I might need to justexplain three things before I
(00:50):
begin.
So a traditionally publishedauthor is one who gets a
publisher.
The publisher pays them fortheir rights and then the
publisher publishes their book,promotes their book, pays for
the editing, pays for the, andthe author receives 10% of the
royalties from that every booksold.
(01:13):
Usually, a publisher pays anadvance on royalties.
So you receive a payment, alump sum payment, and that
payment might be split up in afew different payments, where it
might be upon signing, uponsubmitting, you know one part of
the manuscript or the wholemanuscript, and then on
(01:34):
publication, and you have tosell enough books to earn back
to pay back that royalty.
So only once you have soldenough books to pay back that
initial royalty.
Will you get more royalties?
An independently publishedauthor is someone who has the
(01:54):
book, has their intellectualproperty, and they decide to
publish it themselves sort oflike a small business, thinking
of themselves as a smallbusiness.
And publishing goes through theprocess of sourcing people to
edit, so paying someone to edittheir book and then doing all of
(02:18):
the things to get it published,and promotion, paying for
promotion, and they earnwhatever profit they make from
the books they sold.
And there is one third model,which is called the hybrid model
.
So this is when a publisherpublishes your book and you pay
(02:40):
them for providing you with thisservice, for doing the editing,
the cover, the formatting andthe publishing.
However, the rights are stillyours.
You still own that intellectualproperty.
They do not earn anything onthose books sold because you
have paid them for that service.
(03:02):
You have paid them for thatservice.
So I just wanted to make clearthat if you are getting
published and a publisherexpects you to pay them, or if
they are a publishing servicethat supports writers with the
(03:28):
publication, then you own andretain those rights.
So now that I've explainedthose three publishing models,
I'm going to talk through mypublishing journey.
So I'm one of those people thatwas always wanted to be a writer
(03:48):
.
That's all I wanted to do as ayoung person.
I was always scribbling awaywriting, even when I couldn't
write, I was doing circles on apage.
When I finished high school, Idid not know what I wanted to do
.
I did not have any direction,but I knew what I wanted to do.
I did not have any direction,but I knew that I wanted to be a
writer.
About a year or two out of highschool, I found out about this
(04:12):
course that is called theDiploma of Arts in Professional
Writing and Editing.
The course is still around.
I did it at the Council ofAdult Education and Holmes Glen
TAFE.
It is also at RMIT and VictoriaUniversity that I know of, and
there might be some otheruniversities that offer it, and
(04:36):
so this was an opportunity tosort of learn about the
publishing industry.
There were different coursesoffered, you know, like learning
short stories, novel writing,and this was taught by industry
professionals, so by people whohad actually been published, had
(04:56):
the experience in industry andknew what they were talking
about, knew how to steer usthrough that process, and very
soon after I started that course, I started sort of following
the tips that I was given and Ihad three things published and I
got paid for the first time formy writing and I of course then
(05:22):
started, you know, working on anovel, finished the course,
working on a novel um, andworking towards seeking a
publishing contract, um, whichtook a little while.
I wrote a few different thingsuntil I found something that I
wanted to um to submit forpublication.
So my first romance novel atthe time, my first novel at that
(05:45):
time, was a romance novel whichI decided not to seek
publication for because I feltlike I wanted to do other things
.
And so the first novel I wrotewas titled the Good Daughter and
it was semi-autobiographical,about a girl like me who was of
(06:06):
Bosnian background, who had amother who suffered from bipolar
and who lived in a suburbcalled St Albans in the western
suburbs of Melbourne.
And so I had taken a long timeto write that book, as you do
when you're starting out.
But I had also developed aportfolio before I had that
(06:30):
published.
So I was published inanthologies, in the 2004 and
2005 Best Australian Storieswhich was published at that time
, and I had received some reviewmentions.
So that means that when thatbook was published and the
(06:52):
critics were reviewing thatanthology.
They were mentioning my storiesand gave me some beautiful
reviews, and so when I had mynovel ready for publication I
already had a publication trackrecord and I also had the
(07:13):
foundation about how to submit.
So when you are submitting forpublication you have two choices
.
You can try and get an agent, aliterary agent, so they
represent you and they submitthe books on your behalf and try
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and get a contract for you andnegotiate a contract for you.
They also take a percentage ofyour income for that service.
Or you can attempt to seek apublisher directly, so you
submit directly to the publisherand get a contract and do your
best to negotiate if you can orif you know how, or you just
(07:56):
sort of sign whatever contractthey present to you.
So I had decided that I wouldfirst attempt submitting to a
literary agent and I made a listat that time of the literary
agents in Australia and Istarted at the top with the
(08:18):
biggest literary agency I thinkit's still the biggest literary
agency, curtis Brown and Isubmitted a query letter that I
had, you know, really worked onand received feedback on and you
know, to see whether they wouldbe interested in reading my
(08:39):
book.
They were.
I had a request for the fullmanuscript.
Eventually the agent read themanuscript.
In the meantime I had submittedmy novel for a prize.
It was an unpublished prizeit's called the Victorian
Premier's Literary Awards for anunpublished manuscript and I
(09:04):
had gotten shortlisted.
So then I contacted the agentand said to them oh, I've been
shortlisted, and they sort ofmoved my manuscript up quicker
to the top of the pile and theystarted the process of
submitting.
At this point, because I hadbeen shortlisted for this prize,
I already had this unbelievableexperience of publishers giving
(09:28):
me their cards and asking me tosubmit it directly to them.
And this is the interestingthing, success begets success.
And so because I had alreadybeen shortlisted for this prize
and sort of had a profilealready and then I was in this
opportunity to meet people inthe industry, so my agent
(09:49):
submitted my manuscript to fivepublishers.
I received my first offerwithin a few weeks.
Then I received a rejectionfrom publisher two, three and
four, and then I received asecond offer from publisher five
(10:09):
and we sort of talked aboutwhat to do and I decided to
which publisher to accept theoffer from, signed the contract
and I was on the way to becominga published author.
And that novel came out and Ihad a wonderful experience
(10:32):
beautiful reviews, a beautifulbook launch.
Speaking at events, um, it wasvery, very beautiful and amazing
.
And then I wrote the follow-upbook, um, which was a you know
(10:53):
sequel to this first book.
Because I love the characters,I wanted to keep writing about
them and, um, because my salesweren't that great.
The global financial crisis hadoccurred, which meant that
people weren't buying that manybooks and a lot of publishers
had experienced a downturn insales.
My publisher wasn't interestedin that second book and so then
(11:20):
I wasn't sure what to do.
I remembered I had that romancenovel.
I thought romance sells.
I was talking strategy with myagent.
She was not enthused aboutyoung adult literature at that
time, and so I pivoted intoromance and then sort of had a
(11:44):
bit of a tough time where Ieverything that I wanted to
write.
I sort of thought, oh, I don'tknow if this is going to go
anywhere.
And I wrote my memoir and endedup parting ways with my agent
and seeking publication for thatmyself, because she had
submitted it to a few places andum didn't receive any interest
(12:06):
and I continued submitting andhad it accepted for publication
and again got shortlisted for anational prize where I got a
nice chunk of money, um, andsort of realized, well, I can do
this myself, I can submit umbooks myself, um, but that point
(12:26):
something had shifted andsomething had changed.
I realized I had quite a fewbooks in my backlist, books that
were just sort of sitting therecollecting dust, in a sense, on
my hard hard drive, and I hadstarted investigating and
learning about this new world,about indie authors or
(12:50):
independently published authors,so authors who basically took
the bull in the horn.
What's the saying?
Um?
So I had heard about authorswho were taking control of their
publishing journey, and thatwas something I wanted to do,
(13:11):
and so I really started sort oflearning about that world.
And in the meantime I got myrights back to the romance
novels that I had had published,and so I thought, well, I'm
going to try and publish that.
And I also had quite a fewshort stories that had been
published in anthologies, andI'd always dreamed about
(13:35):
publishing a short storycollection.
But those are not reallydesigned much by publishers
unless the author has a proventrack record, and so I published
my short story collection.
I published all these differentthings, and so that's the
process of me transitioning froma traditionally published
(13:56):
author to an independentlypublished author.
I'm now going to talk throughthe reasons why I chose to be an
independently published author.
So one of the things that waswonderful about being
(14:19):
traditionally published wasgetting the support from
publishers, where they sort ofdo everything for you.
But the other side of that isthat you have no control.
You don't get to decide how topromote the book, where to
promote the book, what the coverlooks like, because they have
paid you for those rights and sothe publisher takes control of
(14:43):
that.
The only control you have ispitching them a book and either
they accept it or they don't.
And I was reaching a point inmy life where I wanted more
control.
I wanted to be able to makedecisions for myself.
Another reason that I decided tobe an indie author was I had
(15:07):
realized that my writing hadgrown and had become quite
polished.
So my memoir that I submittedto my publisher did not have
much editing to it.
It had proofreading and copyediting, but structurally didn't
(15:32):
need any work.
The blurbs that I had writtenfor the last few books, so the
descriptions on the back hadstarted being used in the books
that were published.
I was seeing them showing upslightly tweaked, but what I had
originally come up with, and soI was starting to see that I
(15:54):
had developed some skills thatwould serve me well in this
world.
The other thing is I had notbeen a very successful
traditionally published author.
I had received publishingcontracts and I have received
(16:17):
royalties and prize money fromwinning or being shortlisted for
prizes being shortlisted forprizes but it was not a
significant income to really,you know, be able to live from
my writing in any way, and so Ihad slowly started being a
(16:38):
little bit more entrepreneurialabout my writing and exploring
ways of making money and lookingat using my teaching background
in terms of deliveringworkshops and doing freelance
writing, and so I had startedseeing that I have got all these
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different skills that I coulduse to try and promote and to
try and generate income.
And the last reason was thepublishing industry, especially
in Australia, was always small.
It was always small and it wasalways very, very competitive,
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but it's now getting a littlebit harder.
Those of you who are followingthe industry and who are
following what's happening inthe publishing industry, you
will have noticed that a lot ofindependent author, independent
publishing companies are nowbeing acquired by large
publishing companies.
So the latest acquisition is, Ithink it's Simon Schuster and
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text, and so, as that happens,it sort of creates a little bit
less opportunities.
And I was also reaching thepoint in my life where there
were books and stories I wantedto tell and I wanted to be able
to just put them out and notsort of have to justify and try
(18:09):
and get a publisher to convincethem that this is something that
people would like to read.
And the more that I wasinvestigating and looking at
independent authors, I wasseeing quite a few of them
having success in terms of.
I was seeing quite a few ofthem having success in terms of
publishing books and running itlike a small business and, you
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know, being able to actuallytransition into being full-time
authors, which is almost unheardof in Australia as a
traditionally published author.
Most of us have other jobs.
There are just the very fewunicorns who are able to be
full-time authors and earn anincome, a living income, from
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that.
And so those were the reasons.
How did I become an independentauthor?
So I wanted to think of myselfas a small business, and that
was really hard to conceptualize, because there is something so
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personal about being a writerand then being a writer where
you have created this book thatis almost an extension of you,
but then you have to think of itas a product that you are
selling, and so that is veryhard as a writer, as a creator,
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and so I almost had to create apersona.
I had to create this persona ofmyself being a small press.
So I was not just an author whowas publishing my books, I was
a small press and I was creatinga space and addressing a need
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that has not been addressed inthe publishing industry.
And so I gave my small press aname it's called Pishukin Press
and I did some thinking about myvision.
What is it that I wanted toachieve with this small press?
So I represent anunderrepresented area of
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publishing.
I am an author from anon-English speaking background,
from a multicultural background, a Bosnian Muslim background,
and there is not enoughdiversity in the publishing
industry in terms ofrepresenting different types of
people and cultures, and so thatwas one area that I was
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addressing and one area that Iwas wanting to publish books in,
and then my teaching backgroundinformed the other part of my
vision.
So the second part of my visionwas accessibility.
As a teacher, as a secondaryschool teacher, as a secondary
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school English teacher, I workwith a lot of young people who
struggle to read, who don't comefrom families where parents
read to them every night andthey get them comfortable with
reading.
Their parents are from anon-English speaking background.
They are migrants.
They don't have that ability todo that, and so I saw the need
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for books that would supportreading, and so my vision is
publishing books in every formatthat I can to support
accessibility.
So I publish my books as ane-book, as a paperback, as a
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hardcover, in dyslexic font andin large print, and audiobooks.
So I am investing in havingaudiobooks by human narrators,
but for some books I do have AInarrators that have narrated the
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books.
And so by taking that visionapproach and thinking about this
as being something bigger thanme and thinking about it in
terms of creating a small press,a small business that is
addressing a need out there, Iwas then able to put on this
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business hat that you need toput on when you are thinking of
yourself as an indie author.
So I now had the buildingblocks, of being a small
business, of looking atpublishing.
Now I needed to learn how to doit.
So how did I learn to publishand to go through this process?
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So there are organizations thatcan help support writers.
There is the Alliance ofIndependent Authors that I am a
member of, and they havetutorials and podcasts and
articles and resources.
There is a Facebook group 20books to 50k and so that book
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was started many years ago withthe understanding that you would
need to write and publish 20books in order to sell a certain
amount of copies every day ofeach of those books in order to
earn a $50,000 income, which wasa living income at the time
when this group was created.
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There is the Creative PenPodcast, there is the
self-publishing formula, and so,as I started entering this
world and following up all theseresources and doing courses and
investing and paying in thesecourses, I learnt the process of
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how to publish a book, and soone of the things that I'm
focused on, obviously, isupskilling myself, learning as
many of these skills as I can.
So I already had the goodfoundation in terms of my
writing, in terms ofunderstanding the publishing
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process and what was requiredthere, and now I needed to learn
all the other skills.
So I needed to learn how todesign covers, how to format
covers for publication, how toformat a manuscript for
publication, how to createmetadata in order to publish the
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books.
So metadata is obviously thetitle, the author, the blurb,
but then there's also thecategories.
What categories does it fallinto?
Um, and so there's this productcalled publisher rocket.
That, uh, gives you theopportunity to search all of
this, to create the metadata,how to optimize the metadata.
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So, because I'm doing thedifferent formats, I had to look
at how is the metadata supposedto be organized to
differentiate the differentformats.
I also then had to createcovers that showed.
So I had to create logos foreach different edition so that,
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for example, when someone waslooking at the dyslexic font
edition, there was a logo on itthat would say it was dyslexic
font and the metadata would tellthe author this.
So there was a lot of thinking.
Obviously, with anything newthat you do, you do all the
research, all of the research,and then you go to actually do
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it, and it's a steep learningcurve, steep, steep learning
curve.
But you cannot get to thatpoint.
You have to go through thathard moment of actually doing it
, of actually releasing it outinto the world and just seeing
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what will happen.
So some successes that I havehad as an indie author is
obviously the joy see all of thebooks there, the joy of seeing
my books published, but alsogenerating income from my
backlist.
So I had three romance novels,two of them that had been
(27:14):
traditionally published, thatwere not very successful because
it was when the traditionalpublishing industry was trying
to emulate what independentauthors were doing and they
established these imprints thatwere called digital first
imprints.
So because publishingtraditional publishing models
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are based on selling paperbackversions, they actually sell
eBooks at a much higher pricepoint, and so they were noticing
that indie authors were sellingat a lower price point and were
using all these promotionalstrategies like a reader magnet,
which is a short story or aprequel or something to get
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people in and interested inorder to buy and read the books.
And so they were trying this.
So I had my books bought andpublished with these models and
I made a ridiculous amount ofmoney.
I made $10 per book and that'sbecause it was a pittance to
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begin with, and then you knowthe percentage of my royalty,
then the percentage that goes tomy agent, and you know it was
very small to begin with.
When I published these booksmyself, I made 10 times that,
and so just by going through theprocess of looking at my
backlist and looking at allthose practice books that I had
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written that either I didn'tsubmit because I thought, oh, I
don't know if there's anythinghere, or that I submitted and
were rejected, I was able to putthem to use.
The other thing that I was ableto do was to get the rights
back to my first debut novel,which had been published as the
Good Daughter, and conceive thatand reconceptualised that as a
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series that I dubbed the SassySaints series, and so I was able
to publish, or republish thefirst book under a new title,
sabiha's Dilemma.
The second book that I wrotethat was rejected by the
publisher as Alma's Loyalty, andthen finish the series by
writing a third book, jessie'sTriumph, and so finish that arc
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and, through that process, havethat satisfaction of completing
something, completing the series.
And you know that book is thebook of my heart, because it was
my first attempt at sharingstories about myself and leaning
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into this own voices model,which is writing about your
personal experience and writingabout what you know and what
your cultural background is orwhat your identity is, and
representing that.
So that was very satisfying tobe able to do that and go
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through the process of learninghow to promote, how to think
about teaching resources that Ican create.
Because, again, I've got thatother hat on as a teacher and I
have actually written teachingresources and teaching notes for
(30:35):
books in the traditionalpublishing industry.
So I wrote the teaching notesfor the anthology I co-edited
called Growing Up Muslim inAustralia.
I wrote teaching notes forother authors and so this is
something that I knew that Icould do and that I had the
experience in, and that I coulddo this for my own books and
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create those teaching resourcesand think about what is it in
terms of the themes that I wantto represent and that I want to
use these books for.
So what has been the hardestthing about being an indie
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author?
The first one is that there isthis stigma, especially in
Australia, associated with beingself-published.
There is this view that youonly take this path if you are
not being publishedtraditionally, if a publisher
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does not want your books.
I'm here to dispel that myth.
That is completely incorrect.
I have read books from manyindie authors who never had a
traditionally published contract, who just wrote and learned on
the job.
And, yes, they did have to insome instances go back and
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re-edit those books when theyhad written a few more books
under the belt and they haddeveloped their skills.
But that's not a bad thing.
That happens even now in thetraditional publishing industry,
where some books that mighthave been outdated for some
reason or have some references,authors have or publishers have
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gone back to re-edit them.
So that is a natural part ofthe process to give them new
covers, to give them a new leaseon life.
A new lease on life.
The other thing that has beenreally hard as an independent
author marketing and promotion.
When you are a traditionallypublished author, the publisher
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does all that for you.
They submit your books to getreviewed, they have the networks
for it and they pay for thoseservices.
They organize the interviewsand the marketing and they do
all of that for you.
And so coming into this side ofit and having to do that myself
was really, really hard.
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Honestly, it was like you knowthose dreams you have where you
are naked and you are out on thestreet and everyone's staring
at you and laughing that's whatit was like.
I could not do it.
I really struggled with it, andso I had to create strategies
of doing that.
So the first thing I had to dowas figure out how to promote on
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social media, and so I setmyself a goal I had to post
every day.
I had to post something aboutmy books, something that would
promote them, and so I startedteaching myself how to create
graphics, how to create reels,how to look at my books and
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think about what are the tropes,what are the themes, what are
the things that I can create tomarket it.
And the only way to do this isto get into it and do it, but
also to emulate other people.
So now you see a lot ofgraphics with the tropes, and so
you know, showing what thetropes are.
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Then you also see a lot ofgraphics where it's like
excerpts of the book and quotesfrom the book, and so I had to
teach myself how to do this, andI'm going to tell you honestly,
my first efforts were terrible.
They were really amateurish andreally rusty.
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But because I set myself thatgoal of having to post every day
, I kept practicing, I kept, Ikept practicing.
I kept using Canva to learn howto create different types of
graphics, to learn how to postthem successfully in terms of
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the formats, and then, as Idescended further into this
world, I learned about differenttools to do this.
So I learned that there weresocial media schedulers, and so
I bought software for that,which is called Postly, that I
use to be able to post the onething across five different
platforms at the same time.
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I use it to schedule my posts,so I don't have to do it every
day.
I can just actually set them upand they just keep rotating.
So that was the very much thehard, hard part of it.
And I talk now to my friends whoare traditionally published,
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and one of them has a bookcoming out soon and she's so shy
and so finds it so hard topromote it on social media and
to sort of talk about it.
And I tried talking to her andtelling her think about it,
because this is what I had to do.
I had to think about it, as I'mjust having fun and I'm just
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telling you about what I'm doing.
I'm just sharing with you newsof my book.
I'm just having fun and I'mjust telling you about what I'm
doing.
I'm just sharing with you newsof my book.
I'm just having fun creatingthis cool graphic and this cool
reel and I'm posting it and thisis just giving me joy.
But that's something that youknow she's really struggling
with and I understand I was inthat perspective really
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struggling with and I understandI was in that perspective.
The other thing that has beenreally hard is the sales aspect.
It's somehow much easier toadvocate for other people than
it is for myself, for yourself.
So I published my husband'sshort story collection.
He is an incredibly talentedshort story writer who had 50
(37:04):
short stories published in allof the big literary journals
across.
You know USA, england, all ofthe big journals in Australia
you know in the engine, inOverland, so these are the big
Australian literary journals andthen in American journals I
(37:28):
know one of them was MinnesotaReview.
There was a lot of them, and sowhen I published his short
story collection, I was able tosend review requests, send media
releases, promote it andadvocate for it, and so I
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learned that I had to do thatfor myself, and so the way that
I trick myself into doing thatis, I think, about the big
picture of my book.
So I think about what are thethemes and what is the thing
that I'm trying to connectreaders with, and that is what I
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focus on, because then it's notjust about my book, it's not
about my writing.
It is about this theme, thistopic that I think people need
to know about.
It is about me advocating, andso that has made it easier.
(38:34):
Made it easier.
One of my top tips aboutentering this world as an indie
author is whatever you do,practice it.
The first time I published, soI published my short story
(38:55):
collection.
That was the first book.
I actually remember having apanic attack when I was trying
to publish it.
I'd sent myself a deadline andthen I had to get everything
ready by that deadline, and Idid not realize at that time
that I could have changed thatdeadline.
All I had to do was go into thepublishing platforms and change
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the date of publication andgive myself more time, and so I
had not figured out timelines interms of how much time it would
take to edit, to proofread, toactually create the cover, to
submit it to the platform, toget the proof copy and check
(39:36):
that everything was correct andright, because sometimes when
you create the cover, um it andyou get the proof copy.
It might be a touch to the leftor to the right where the spine
is not sitting correctly andthat you do these things, the
more it becomes automatic.
(40:05):
I have now set up a publishing awriting and a publishing
checklist, and so I have astrategy to track my writing and
track my writing goals for mybook and then for the process of
actually publishing the book.
So the first thing is obviouslyto write the book, then it is
(40:29):
to proofread it as much as I can, and so I use software to do
that.
I use ProWritingAid and Pseudo.
Right now I've started using,which is software that has some
AI embedded in it to be able tocorrect your work, so correct
(40:50):
the grammar, and then also togive you some suggestions to
polish and to sort of you know,correct it as much as you can
yourself.
I have a proofreader in placewho I send the book to to
proofread and to pick up thingsthat I cannot get myself.
I then create the metadata, socreate all of the information
(41:14):
that I need for the publication.
I generate the ISBNs, so Iactually purchase my own ISBNs
from Thorpe Bowker and those arewhat you need for the metadata
for the book identification, andso I purchased my own so that,
(41:35):
as I published them acrossvarious platforms, that metadata
is all linked and that book isrecognised everywhere.
Then you know the formatting ofthe book, the creation of the
cover and then the actualpublication process uploading it
(41:56):
to the different platforms andhaving it published.
So I hope this episode has beenhelpful.
For those of you who arethinking about your publishing
journey and which way you wishto proceed in your publishing
(42:19):
journey, I will be providing ahandout that has all of the
information about places you cango to to learn about being an
indie author, and then also allthe services that I use for the
various things.
So if you go to amrapayalichcomforward slash podcast and then
(42:43):
you go to the show notes fortoday's episode, you will find
out that handout.
I would love it if youconnected with me, either via
social media, signing up to mynewsletter via my website or
(43:04):
writing a comment.
So on my website, where I haveall the show notes, you're able
to leave a comment and askquestions, and I'd be more than
happy to respond to those, andI'd be more than happy to
respond to those.
So thank you for joining me fortoday's episode and I hope this
(43:25):
has been helpful for you inyour publishing journey.
So join me for my next episode,where I'm going to talk about
the art of the pitch and givesome tips about how to pitch for
freelance articles andpublishing, but also how to
pitch more generally in terms ofworkshops and the different
(43:46):
pitching that you need to do asyou enter this world as an
author.
Thank you for tuning in toAmra's Armchair Anecdotes.
If you enjoyed today's episode,don't forget to subscribe and
follow for more insights,stories and inspiration from my
armchair to yours.
Remember, every story beginswith a single word.
Welcome to Amra's Armchair Anecdotes.
I'm Amra Payelich, writer,teacher and storyteller.
Pull up a chair and let's diveinto stories about writing life
and lessons learned, sharingwisdom from my armchair to yours
.
So welcome back to Amra'sArmchair Anecdotes.
(00:24):
And today I'm going to betalking about my journey to
self-publishing, sharing why,how and providing some tips.
So I'm going to first take youback and talk about my journey
as an author.
So I'm originally atraditionally published author.
So I think I might need to justexplain three things before I
(00:50):
begin.
So a traditionally publishedauthor is one who gets a
publisher.
The publisher pays them fortheir rights and then the
publisher publishes their book,promotes their book, pays for
the editing, pays for the, andthe author receives 10% of the
royalties from that every booksold.
(01:13):
Usually, a publisher pays anadvance on royalties.
So you receive a payment, alump sum payment, and that
payment might be split up in afew different payments, where it
might be upon signing, uponsubmitting, you know one part of
the manuscript or the wholemanuscript, and then on
(01:34):
publication, and you have tosell enough books to earn back
to pay back that royalty.
So only once you have soldenough books to pay back that
initial royalty.
Will you get more royalties?
An independently publishedauthor is someone who has the
(01:54):
book, has their intellectualproperty, and they decide to
publish it themselves sort oflike a small business, thinking
of themselves as a smallbusiness.
And publishing goes through theprocess of sourcing people to
edit, so paying someone to edittheir book and then doing all of
(02:18):
the things to get it published,and promotion, paying for
promotion, and they earnwhatever profit they make from
the books they sold.
And there is one third model,which is called the hybrid model
.
So this is when a publisherpublishes your book and you pay
(02:40):
them for providing you with thisservice, for doing the editing,
the cover, the formatting andthe publishing.
However, the rights are stillyours.
You still own that intellectualproperty.
They do not earn anything onthose books sold because you
have paid them for that service.
(03:02):
You have paid them for thatservice.
So I just wanted to make clearthat if you are getting
published and a publisherexpects you to pay them, or if
they are a publishing servicethat supports writers with the
(03:28):
publication, then you own andretain those rights.
So now that I've explainedthose three publishing models,
I'm going to talk through mypublishing journey.
So I'm one of those people thatwas always wanted to be a writer
(03:48):
.
That's all I wanted to do as ayoung person.
I was always scribbling awaywriting, even when I couldn't
write, I was doing circles on apage.
When I finished high school, Idid not know what I wanted to do
.
I did not have any direction,but I knew what I wanted to do.
I did not have any direction,but I knew that I wanted to be a
writer.
About a year or two out of highschool, I found out about this
(04:12):
course that is called theDiploma of Arts in Professional
Writing and Editing.
The course is still around.
I did it at the Council ofAdult Education and Holmes Glen
TAFE.
It is also at RMIT and VictoriaUniversity that I know of, and
there might be some otheruniversities that offer it, and
(04:36):
so this was an opportunity tosort of learn about the
publishing industry.
There were different coursesoffered, you know, like learning
short stories, novel writing,and this was taught by industry
professionals, so by people whohad actually been published, had
(04:56):
the experience in industry andknew what they were talking
about, knew how to steer usthrough that process, and very
soon after I started that course, I started sort of following
the tips that I was given and Ihad three things published and I
got paid for the first time formy writing and I of course then
(05:22):
started, you know, working on anovel, finished the course,
working on a novel um, andworking towards seeking a
publishing contract, um, whichtook a little while.
I wrote a few different thingsuntil I found something that I
wanted to um to submit forpublication.
So my first romance novel atthe time, my first novel at that
(05:45):
time, was a romance novel whichI decided not to seek
publication for because I feltlike I wanted to do other things
.
And so the first novel I wrotewas titled the Good Daughter and
it was semi-autobiographical,about a girl like me who was of
(06:06):
Bosnian background, who had amother who suffered from bipolar
and who lived in a suburbcalled St Albans in the western
suburbs of Melbourne.
And so I had taken a long timeto write that book, as you do
when you're starting out.
But I had also developed aportfolio before I had that
(06:30):
published.
So I was published inanthologies, in the 2004 and
2005 Best Australian Storieswhich was published at that time
, and I had received some reviewmentions.
So that means that when thatbook was published and the
(06:52):
critics were reviewing thatanthology.
They were mentioning my storiesand gave me some beautiful
reviews, and so when I had mynovel ready for publication I
already had a publication trackrecord and I also had the
(07:13):
foundation about how to submit.
So when you are submitting forpublication you have two choices
.
You can try and get an agent, aliterary agent, so they
represent you and they submitthe books on your behalf and try
(07:34):
and get a contract for you andnegotiate a contract for you.
They also take a percentage ofyour income for that service.
Or you can attempt to seek apublisher directly, so you
submit directly to the publisherand get a contract and do your
best to negotiate if you can orif you know how, or you just
(07:56):
sort of sign whatever contractthey present to you.
So I had decided that I wouldfirst attempt submitting to a
literary agent and I made a listat that time of the literary
agents in Australia and Istarted at the top with the
(08:18):
biggest literary agency I thinkit's still the biggest literary
agency, curtis Brown and Isubmitted a query letter that I
had, you know, really worked onand received feedback on and you
know, to see whether they wouldbe interested in reading my
(08:39):
book.
They were.
I had a request for the fullmanuscript.
Eventually the agent read themanuscript.
In the meantime I had submittedmy novel for a prize.
It was an unpublished prizeit's called the Victorian
Premier's Literary Awards for anunpublished manuscript and I
(09:04):
had gotten shortlisted.
So then I contacted the agentand said to them oh, I've been
shortlisted, and they sort ofmoved my manuscript up quicker
to the top of the pile and theystarted the process of
submitting.
At this point, because I hadbeen shortlisted for this prize,
I already had this unbelievableexperience of publishers giving
(09:28):
me their cards and asking me tosubmit it directly to them.
And this is the interestingthing, success begets success.
And so because I had alreadybeen shortlisted for this prize
and sort of had a profilealready and then I was in this
opportunity to meet people inthe industry, so my agent
(09:49):
submitted my manuscript to fivepublishers.
I received my first offerwithin a few weeks.
Then I received a rejectionfrom publisher two, three and
four, and then I received asecond offer from publisher five
(10:09):
and we sort of talked aboutwhat to do and I decided to
which publisher to accept theoffer from, signed the contract
and I was on the way to becominga published author.
And that novel came out and Ihad a wonderful experience
(10:32):
beautiful reviews, a beautifulbook launch.
Speaking at events, um, it wasvery, very beautiful and amazing
.
And then I wrote the follow-upbook, um, which was a you know
(10:53):
sequel to this first book.
Because I love the characters,I wanted to keep writing about
them and, um, because my salesweren't that great.
The global financial crisis hadoccurred, which meant that
people weren't buying that manybooks and a lot of publishers
had experienced a downturn insales.
My publisher wasn't interestedin that second book and so then
(11:20):
I wasn't sure what to do.
I remembered I had that romancenovel.
I thought romance sells.
I was talking strategy with myagent.
She was not enthused aboutyoung adult literature at that
time, and so I pivoted intoromance and then sort of had a
(11:44):
bit of a tough time where Ieverything that I wanted to
write.
I sort of thought, oh, I don'tknow if this is going to go
anywhere.
And I wrote my memoir and endedup parting ways with my agent
and seeking publication for thatmyself, because she had
submitted it to a few places andum didn't receive any interest
(12:06):
and I continued submitting andhad it accepted for publication
and again got shortlisted for anational prize where I got a
nice chunk of money, um, andsort of realized, well, I can do
this myself, I can submit umbooks myself, um, but that point
(12:26):
something had shifted andsomething had changed.
I realized I had quite a fewbooks in my backlist, books that
were just sort of sitting therecollecting dust, in a sense, on
my hard hard drive, and I hadstarted investigating and
learning about this new world,about indie authors or
(12:50):
independently published authors,so authors who basically took
the bull in the horn.
What's the saying?
Um?
So I had heard about authorswho were taking control of their
publishing journey, and thatwas something I wanted to do,
(13:11):
and so I really started sort oflearning about that world.
And in the meantime I got myrights back to the romance
novels that I had had published,and so I thought, well, I'm
going to try and publish that.
And I also had quite a fewshort stories that had been
published in anthologies, andI'd always dreamed about
(13:35):
publishing a short storycollection.
But those are not reallydesigned much by publishers
unless the author has a proventrack record, and so I published
my short story collection.
I published all these differentthings, and so that's the
process of me transitioning froma traditionally published
(13:56):
author to an independentlypublished author.
I'm now going to talk throughthe reasons why I chose to be an
independently published author.
So one of the things that waswonderful about being
(14:19):
traditionally published wasgetting the support from
publishers, where they sort ofdo everything for you.
But the other side of that isthat you have no control.
You don't get to decide how topromote the book, where to
promote the book, what the coverlooks like, because they have
paid you for those rights and sothe publisher takes control of
(14:43):
that.
The only control you have ispitching them a book and either
they accept it or they don't.
And I was reaching a point inmy life where I wanted more
control.
I wanted to be able to makedecisions for myself.
Another reason that I decided tobe an indie author was I had
(15:07):
realized that my writing hadgrown and had become quite
polished.
So my memoir that I submittedto my publisher did not have
much editing to it.
It had proofreading and copyediting, but structurally didn't
(15:32):
need any work.
The blurbs that I had writtenfor the last few books, so the
descriptions on the back hadstarted being used in the books
that were published.
I was seeing them showing upslightly tweaked, but what I had
originally come up with, and soI was starting to see that I
(15:54):
had developed some skills thatwould serve me well in this
world.
The other thing is I had notbeen a very successful
traditionally published author.
I had received publishingcontracts and I have received
(16:17):
royalties and prize money fromwinning or being shortlisted for
prizes being shortlisted forprizes but it was not a
significant income to really,you know, be able to live from
my writing in any way, and so Ihad slowly started being a
(16:38):
little bit more entrepreneurialabout my writing and exploring
ways of making money and lookingat using my teaching background
in terms of deliveringworkshops and doing freelance
writing, and so I had startedseeing that I have got all these
(16:59):
different skills that I coulduse to try and promote and to
try and generate income.
And the last reason was thepublishing industry, especially
in Australia, was always small.
It was always small and it wasalways very, very competitive,
(17:25):
but it's now getting a littlebit harder.
Those of you who are followingthe industry and who are
following what's happening inthe publishing industry, you
will have noticed that a lot ofindependent author, independent
publishing companies are nowbeing acquired by large
publishing companies.
So the latest acquisition is, Ithink it's Simon Schuster and
(17:49):
text, and so, as that happens,it sort of creates a little bit
less opportunities.
And I was also reaching thepoint in my life where there
were books and stories I wantedto tell and I wanted to be able
to just put them out and notsort of have to justify and try
(18:09):
and get a publisher to convincethem that this is something that
people would like to read.
And the more that I wasinvestigating and looking at
independent authors, I wasseeing quite a few of them
having success in terms of.
I was seeing quite a few ofthem having success in terms of
publishing books and running itlike a small business and, you
(18:34):
know, being able to actuallytransition into being full-time
authors, which is almost unheardof in Australia as a
traditionally published author.
Most of us have other jobs.
There are just the very fewunicorns who are able to be
full-time authors and earn anincome, a living income, from
(18:58):
that.
And so those were the reasons.
How did I become an independentauthor?
So I wanted to think of myselfas a small business, and that
was really hard to conceptualize, because there is something so
(19:21):
personal about being a writerand then being a writer where
you have created this book thatis almost an extension of you,
but then you have to think of itas a product that you are
selling, and so that is veryhard as a writer, as a creator,
(19:42):
and so I almost had to create apersona.
I had to create this persona ofmyself being a small press.
So I was not just an author whowas publishing my books, I was
a small press and I was creatinga space and addressing a need
(20:11):
that has not been addressed inthe publishing industry.
And so I gave my small press aname it's called Pishukin Press
and I did some thinking about myvision.
What is it that I wanted toachieve with this small press?
So I represent anunderrepresented area of
(20:36):
publishing.
I am an author from anon-English speaking background,
from a multicultural background, a Bosnian Muslim background,
and there is not enoughdiversity in the publishing
industry in terms ofrepresenting different types of
people and cultures, and so thatwas one area that I was
(21:01):
addressing and one area that Iwas wanting to publish books in,
and then my teaching backgroundinformed the other part of my
vision.
So the second part of my visionwas accessibility.
As a teacher, as a secondaryschool teacher, as a secondary
(21:24):
school English teacher, I workwith a lot of young people who
struggle to read, who don't comefrom families where parents
read to them every night andthey get them comfortable with
reading.
Their parents are from anon-English speaking background.
They are migrants.
They don't have that ability todo that, and so I saw the need
(21:51):
for books that would supportreading, and so my vision is
publishing books in every formatthat I can to support
accessibility.
So I publish my books as ane-book, as a paperback, as a
(22:11):
hardcover, in dyslexic font andin large print, and audiobooks.
So I am investing in havingaudiobooks by human narrators,
but for some books I do have AInarrators that have narrated the
(22:34):
books.
And so by taking that visionapproach and thinking about this
as being something bigger thanme and thinking about it in
terms of creating a small press,a small business that is
addressing a need out there, Iwas then able to put on this
(22:58):
business hat that you need toput on when you are thinking of
yourself as an indie author.
So I now had the buildingblocks, of being a small
business, of looking atpublishing.
Now I needed to learn how to doit.
So how did I learn to publishand to go through this process?
(23:27):
So there are organizations thatcan help support writers.
There is the Alliance ofIndependent Authors that I am a
member of, and they havetutorials and podcasts and
articles and resources.
There is a Facebook group 20books to 50k and so that book
(23:52):
was started many years ago withthe understanding that you would
need to write and publish 20books in order to sell a certain
amount of copies every day ofeach of those books in order to
earn a $50,000 income, which wasa living income at the time
when this group was created.
(24:14):
There is the Creative PenPodcast, there is the
self-publishing formula, and so,as I started entering this
world and following up all theseresources and doing courses and
investing and paying in thesecourses, I learnt the process of
(24:35):
how to publish a book, and soone of the things that I'm
focused on, obviously, isupskilling myself, learning as
many of these skills as I can.
So I already had the goodfoundation in terms of my
writing, in terms ofunderstanding the publishing
(24:57):
process and what was requiredthere, and now I needed to learn
all the other skills.
So I needed to learn how todesign covers, how to format
covers for publication, how toformat a manuscript for
publication, how to createmetadata in order to publish the
(25:18):
books.
So metadata is obviously thetitle, the author, the blurb,
but then there's also thecategories.
What categories does it fallinto?
Um, and so there's this productcalled publisher rocket.
That, uh, gives you theopportunity to search all of
this, to create the metadata,how to optimize the metadata.
(25:41):
So, because I'm doing thedifferent formats, I had to look
at how is the metadata supposedto be organized to
differentiate the differentformats.
I also then had to createcovers that showed.
So I had to create logos foreach different edition so that,
(26:01):
for example, when someone waslooking at the dyslexic font
edition, there was a logo on itthat would say it was dyslexic
font and the metadata would tellthe author this.
So there was a lot of thinking.
Obviously, with anything newthat you do, you do all the
research, all of the research,and then you go to actually do
(26:27):
it, and it's a steep learningcurve, steep, steep learning
curve.
But you cannot get to thatpoint.
You have to go through thathard moment of actually doing it
, of actually releasing it outinto the world and just seeing
(26:49):
what will happen.
So some successes that I havehad as an indie author is
obviously the joy see all of thebooks there, the joy of seeing
my books published, but alsogenerating income from my
backlist.
So I had three romance novels,two of them that had been
(27:14):
traditionally published, thatwere not very successful because
it was when the traditionalpublishing industry was trying
to emulate what independentauthors were doing and they
established these imprints thatwere called digital first
imprints.
So because publishingtraditional publishing models
(27:37):
are based on selling paperbackversions, they actually sell
eBooks at a much higher pricepoint, and so they were noticing
that indie authors were sellingat a lower price point and were
using all these promotionalstrategies like a reader magnet,
which is a short story or aprequel or something to get
(27:59):
people in and interested inorder to buy and read the books.
And so they were trying this.
So I had my books bought andpublished with these models and
I made a ridiculous amount ofmoney.
I made $10 per book and that'sbecause it was a pittance to
(28:23):
begin with, and then you knowthe percentage of my royalty,
then the percentage that goes tomy agent, and you know it was
very small to begin with.
When I published these booksmyself, I made 10 times that,
and so just by going through theprocess of looking at my
backlist and looking at allthose practice books that I had
(28:45):
written that either I didn'tsubmit because I thought, oh, I
don't know if there's anythinghere, or that I submitted and
were rejected, I was able to putthem to use.
The other thing that I was ableto do was to get the rights
back to my first debut novel,which had been published as the
Good Daughter, and conceive thatand reconceptualised that as a
(29:07):
series that I dubbed the SassySaints series, and so I was able
to publish, or republish thefirst book under a new title,
sabiha's Dilemma.
The second book that I wrotethat was rejected by the
publisher as Alma's Loyalty, andthen finish the series by
writing a third book, jessie'sTriumph, and so finish that arc
(29:31):
and, through that process, havethat satisfaction of completing
something, completing the series.
And you know that book is thebook of my heart, because it was
my first attempt at sharingstories about myself and leaning
(29:51):
into this own voices model,which is writing about your
personal experience and writingabout what you know and what
your cultural background is orwhat your identity is, and
representing that.
So that was very satisfying tobe able to do that and go
(30:13):
through the process of learninghow to promote, how to think
about teaching resources that Ican create.
Because, again, I've got thatother hat on as a teacher and I
have actually written teachingresources and teaching notes for
(30:35):
books in the traditionalpublishing industry.
So I wrote the teaching notesfor the anthology I co-edited
called Growing Up Muslim inAustralia.
I wrote teaching notes forother authors and so this is
something that I knew that Icould do and that I had the
experience in, and that I coulddo this for my own books and
(30:57):
create those teaching resourcesand think about what is it in
terms of the themes that I wantto represent and that I want to
use these books for.
So what has been the hardestthing about being an indie
(31:18):
author?
The first one is that there isthis stigma, especially in
Australia, associated with beingself-published.
There is this view that youonly take this path if you are
not being publishedtraditionally, if a publisher
(31:40):
does not want your books.
I'm here to dispel that myth.
That is completely incorrect.
I have read books from manyindie authors who never had a
traditionally published contract, who just wrote and learned on
the job.
And, yes, they did have to insome instances go back and
(32:02):
re-edit those books when theyhad written a few more books
under the belt and they haddeveloped their skills.
But that's not a bad thing.
That happens even now in thetraditional publishing industry,
where some books that mighthave been outdated for some
reason or have some references,authors have or publishers have
(32:26):
gone back to re-edit them.
So that is a natural part ofthe process to give them new
covers, to give them a new leaseon life.
A new lease on life.
The other thing that has beenreally hard as an independent
author marketing and promotion.
When you are a traditionallypublished author, the publisher
(33:00):
does all that for you.
They submit your books to getreviewed, they have the networks
for it and they pay for thoseservices.
They organize the interviewsand the marketing and they do
all of that for you.
And so coming into this side ofit and having to do that myself
was really, really hard.
(33:20):
Honestly, it was like you knowthose dreams you have where you
are naked and you are out on thestreet and everyone's staring
at you and laughing that's whatit was like.
I could not do it.
I really struggled with it, andso I had to create strategies
of doing that.
So the first thing I had to dowas figure out how to promote on
(33:46):
social media, and so I setmyself a goal I had to post
every day.
I had to post something aboutmy books, something that would
promote them, and so I startedteaching myself how to create
graphics, how to create reels,how to look at my books and
(34:06):
think about what are the tropes,what are the themes, what are
the things that I can create tomarket it.
And the only way to do this isto get into it and do it, but
also to emulate other people.
So now you see a lot ofgraphics with the tropes, and so
you know, showing what thetropes are.
(34:28):
Then you also see a lot ofgraphics where it's like
excerpts of the book and quotesfrom the book, and so I had to
teach myself how to do this, andI'm going to tell you honestly,
my first efforts were terrible.
They were really amateurish andreally rusty.
(34:48):
But because I set myself thatgoal of having to post every day
, I kept practicing, I kept, Ikept practicing.
I kept using Canva to learn howto create different types of
graphics, to learn how to postthem successfully in terms of
(35:09):
the formats, and then, as Idescended further into this
world, I learned about differenttools to do this.
So I learned that there weresocial media schedulers, and so
I bought software for that,which is called Postly, that I
use to be able to post the onething across five different
platforms at the same time.
(35:30):
I use it to schedule my posts,so I don't have to do it every
day.
I can just actually set them upand they just keep rotating.
So that was the very much thehard, hard part of it.
And I talk now to my friends whoare traditionally published,
(35:52):
and one of them has a bookcoming out soon and she's so shy
and so finds it so hard topromote it on social media and
to sort of talk about it.
And I tried talking to her andtelling her think about it,
because this is what I had to do.
I had to think about it, as I'mjust having fun and I'm just
(36:15):
telling you about what I'm doing.
I'm just sharing with you newsof my book.
I'm just having fun and I'mjust telling you about what I'm
doing.
I'm just sharing with you newsof my book.
I'm just having fun creatingthis cool graphic and this cool
reel and I'm posting it and thisis just giving me joy.
But that's something that youknow she's really struggling
with and I understand I was inthat perspective really
(36:42):
struggling with and I understandI was in that perspective.
The other thing that has beenreally hard is the sales aspect.
It's somehow much easier toadvocate for other people than
it is for myself, for yourself.
So I published my husband'sshort story collection.
He is an incredibly talentedshort story writer who had 50
(37:04):
short stories published in allof the big literary journals
across.
You know USA, england, all ofthe big journals in Australia
you know in the engine, inOverland, so these are the big
Australian literary journals andthen in American journals I
(37:28):
know one of them was MinnesotaReview.
There was a lot of them, and sowhen I published his short
story collection, I was able tosend review requests, send media
releases, promote it andadvocate for it, and so I
(37:49):
learned that I had to do thatfor myself, and so the way that
I trick myself into doing thatis, I think, about the big
picture of my book.
So I think about what are thethemes and what is the thing
that I'm trying to connectreaders with, and that is what I
(38:13):
focus on, because then it's notjust about my book, it's not
about my writing.
It is about this theme, thistopic that I think people need
to know about.
It is about me advocating, andso that has made it easier.
(38:34):
Made it easier.
One of my top tips aboutentering this world as an indie
author is whatever you do,practice it.
The first time I published, soI published my short story
(38:55):
collection.
That was the first book.
I actually remember having apanic attack when I was trying
to publish it.
I'd sent myself a deadline andthen I had to get everything
ready by that deadline, and Idid not realize at that time
that I could have changed thatdeadline.
All I had to do was go into thepublishing platforms and change
(39:16):
the date of publication andgive myself more time, and so I
had not figured out timelines interms of how much time it would
take to edit, to proofread, toactually create the cover, to
submit it to the platform, toget the proof copy and check
(39:36):
that everything was correct andright, because sometimes when
you create the cover, um it andyou get the proof copy.
It might be a touch to the leftor to the right where the spine
is not sitting correctly andthat you do these things, the
more it becomes automatic.
(40:05):
I have now set up a publishing awriting and a publishing
checklist, and so I have astrategy to track my writing and
track my writing goals for mybook and then for the process of
actually publishing the book.
So the first thing is obviouslyto write the book, then it is
(40:29):
to proofread it as much as I can, and so I use software to do
that.
I use ProWritingAid and Pseudo.
Right now I've started using,which is software that has some
AI embedded in it to be able tocorrect your work, so correct
(40:50):
the grammar, and then also togive you some suggestions to
polish and to sort of you know,correct it as much as you can
yourself.
I have a proofreader in placewho I send the book to to
proofread and to pick up thingsthat I cannot get myself.
I then create the metadata, socreate all of the information
(41:14):
that I need for the publication.
I generate the ISBNs, so Iactually purchase my own ISBNs
from Thorpe Bowker and those arewhat you need for the metadata
for the book identification, andso I purchased my own so that,
(41:35):
as I published them acrossvarious platforms, that metadata
is all linked and that book isrecognised everywhere.
Then you know the formatting ofthe book, the creation of the
cover and then the actualpublication process uploading it
(41:56):
to the different platforms andhaving it published.
So I hope this episode has beenhelpful.
For those of you who arethinking about your publishing
journey and which way you wishto proceed in your publishing
(42:19):
journey, I will be providing ahandout that has all of the
information about places you cango to to learn about being an
indie author, and then also allthe services that I use for the
various things.
So if you go to amrapayalichcomforward slash podcast and then
(42:43):
you go to the show notes fortoday's episode, you will find
out that handout.
I would love it if youconnected with me, either via
social media, signing up to mynewsletter via my website or
(43:04):
writing a comment.
So on my website, where I haveall the show notes, you're able
to leave a comment and askquestions, and I'd be more than
happy to respond to those, andI'd be more than happy to
respond to those.
So thank you for joining me fortoday's episode and I hope this
(43:25):
has been helpful for you inyour publishing journey.
So join me for my next episode,where I'm going to talk about
the art of the pitch and givesome tips about how to pitch for
freelance articles andpublishing, but also how to
pitch more generally in terms ofworkshops and the different
(43:46):
pitching that you need to do asyou enter this world as an
author.
Thank you for tuning in toAmra's Armchair Anecdotes.
If you enjoyed today's episode,don't forget to subscribe and
follow for more insights,stories and inspiration from my
armchair to yours.
Remember, every story beginswith a single word.
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