I have a lot of free time. Actually, the majority of my time is free. That's a nice thing. One learns, though, that when they have nothing but time, they need to fill it. I'm not a TV watcher. Besides, TV is passive. It hypnotizes you into thinking you're having a good time, but later you realize that you have simply wasted your hours.
I wrote even when I was still working (like most writers do), but my writing hours were extremely limited, and thus, my novels took forever to finish. I think each of my first two novels took about a year to write (with nothing to show for all that time). The third novel was interrupted by Covid, when I had to bring a work computer home and stash the computer that housed my manuscript in a corner.
I never intended to get into self-publishing. It just happened. I found no agent interested in any of my novels, but I thought the third one was pretty good (I still do), so why leave it tucked away on my PC? What could it hurt to just publish it myself? And then I still had the other two, so what the heck? I had no intention of selling any copies, but if I somehow did, how exciting would that be? I did no advertising (What's advertising? I had no clue that was something an indie author could do.) The writing forum I frequented was all about getting trade published. At that time anyone posting about self-publishing was looked at as a freak.
It wasn't until long after I stopped working that I even began to delve into advertising and promotion. It may have begun once I discovered my one review. I asked myself, how can I get more? That's when I started looking into book promo sites and trying out the most popular ones. Later I learned about ARCs. Once an author goes down that rabbit hole, it can consume a lot of their time. But I had nothing but time anyway.
My problem was, I took it all too seriously. I'd been a failure as an author forever and it never hurt my life or even my self-esteem. It was a hobby, after all.
And really, that's all it is ~ for me. Every single self-published author's post I read anywhere consists of them whining about their lack of sales, when they've sold hundreds, if not thousands more books than I have. I sometimes wonder if their whining is actually a humble brag. Or are they truly upset about only selling thousands of copies? For all of my books combined, I've maybe sold fifty. Perhaps those other authors spent most of their royalties on advertising ~ I don't know.
I do know that there are reasons other self-publishers are successful and I'm not:
- They write in one of the most popular genres.
- They write full novels; I write novellas.
- They spend a ton on advertising.
I guess that's it.
One might throw in professionally designed covers, but my self-designs are fine. Maybe these people have a big social media following, but an unknown author can't magically draw followers. I guess they have a lot of friends who also have a lot of friends. Or something.
So, I'm a hobbyist. Self-publishing is a mostly fun hobby. And it beats watching TV.
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