I Don’t Know What I’m Doing, But Everything’s Okay

Today marks the release of Dead Man on Campus, my fifth book in a little under three years. With all these titles under my belt, you’d think I’ve learned a thing or two about publishing books.

Luckily, like most indie writers, I thoroughly studied the manual for independent publishing, followed all of the carefully laid-out steps, and felt confident in my path to eventual riches and untold fame.

Yeah, right. I still have no idea what I’m doing. Which means I read a lot of blogs and follow a lot of other authors to try to see what they’re are doing well.

Indulge me in this retrospective as I review the steps to ultimate glory I’ve taken so far. Or, at least my baby-steps toward writing full-time, which is my ultimate goal.

More languages, more formats

This year, I branched out into Spanish and Large Print. I also now have the first two Josie Tucker books in audiobook format. Why?

There's no reason not to. Producing audiobooks and other languages doesn’t cost me anything if I choose to split the profits with the producers/translators, thanks to sites like ACX.com and Babelcube. Large print is just a simple font size adjustment that costs me nothing but a few minutes of my time.

Newsletters & blog posts

I started an ever-growing newsletter subscription list…okay, a somewhat-growing one. Nascent now, but a nice direct way to contact people who don’t get on Facebook or Twitter very often. Author Amy Vansant runs giveaways to pull in newsletter subscribers, which has been fruitful for me.

Additionally, my attempt at writing a weekly blog post has been reasonably successful, especially the post about the freaky Tweets I’ve received, which was an all-time high number for views for me. So, thank you, creepy people of Twitter!

Promos & free stuff

Amazon giveaways, Rafflecopters, and heck, just handing out free stuff on my Facebook page have been a nice way to interact with fans.

Turns out, if you give the milk away for free, people still do buy cows. Or at least, don’t mind the cows coming into their yards for a while.

I experimented with a Bride Wore Dead freebie giveaway and saw some of the highest KENP (pages read) ever. I don’t know what that means in terms of human psychology, but I’ll take it.

Street team

Early readers, early reviewers…I’m new to the street team arena. I’m grateful to the people who are willing to read and review my books early and help other people find them.

Incidentally, if you’re interested in being a Josie Tucker VIP (street team member), drop me an email.

More books

The bottom line, however, that I keep reading again and again, is to write more books. That's the number one way of attracting more readers.

So with that in mind, I give you...

Enjoy!