I’m a learn-by-doing person, which is a polite way of saying that I like learning things the hard way. Other complementary personality traits include faking-it-till-I-make-it and too-impatient-to-research-things-first.

That’s not to say that I went into this endeavor without any knowledge. I just picked it up in bits and pieces and sometimes I had to experience these things first to really get it. 

Here are 19  things I learned during my first year as a self published romance author

I should always get all versions of the book cover done at the same time because I’ll want to use them much sooner than I think I will.

Amazon only pays out 35 percent royalties for ebooks under $2.99 so running sales needs to be really intentional. 

Getting your books into library catalogues has the potential to be pretty lucrative while making your books accessible to more people, but it’s really hard to do that as an indie author without readers making the requests.

(That wasn’t a hint, but if you wanna, Radio Romance and Let it Rain are both available on Libby and Hoopla)

A lot of the most voracious readers in my social circle don’t read ebooks or own ereaders. This isn’t a bad thing, just something I was surprised to learn.

Formatting fucking sucks. It requires a level of attention to detail that my ADHD brain isn’t wired for. 

A story bible is really important. A style guide is equally important. Write down every. Single. Decision.

Book marketing sucks, but sales and distribution sucks so much more.

Buying ISBNs from Bowker is an absolute scam, but I’d rather own them than get them from publishing platforms like Amazon and IngramSparks and I can’t even you a logical reason why.

If you own your ISBN and put your paperback book in Amazon’s expanded distribution for 24 hours before removing it, IngramSparks won’t let you print that book because the ISBN is already considered in-use. And it could take a month for Amazon to transfer the ISBN to Ingram. 

Financially, selling your ebooks through your website will yield the best ROI. It’s also stressful as fuck. 

Amazon will print and ship customer books within a few days. And they’ll qualify for Prime shipping. But if an author orders their own copies to sell directly, it’ll take three to four weeks and Prime shipping isn’t an option. 

And when you finally get your author copies, there’s a decent chance half of them will have production defects making them unsellable. 

Speaking of shipping, Amazon has given everyone, including me, unrealistic expectations of shipping costs. Shipping can eat up a profit margin real quick. 

Pull your favorite books from your shelves and measure them for a physical example of how your own book might look at that size. Then get a proof made because when you get it, you may decide it looks stupid and you want something different. 

Line editing in that same proof copy made it easier and faster for me to get through. 

Financial discussions in the indie author space often focus on the cost of producing the book (cover art, editing, formatting) and less time on the routine costs of running a small business (website hosting, software subscriptions, etc.) All these costs vary, but it’s impossible to paint a full picture without including them. 

Book events are great, but exhausting. Small events are much more my speed.

I’m way better at talking to people about my friends’ books than my own. I’ll have an entire conversation with someone about someone else’s book and never mention I’m also an author.

Planning for things a year in advance is necessary and absolutely not ADHD friendly. 

Amazon and IngramSparks are the absolute worst for different reasons and it’s impossible to be an indie author without working with one or the other. 

Anything you were surprised to learn? Anything you want to learn more about? Comment below and I’ll make a Part 2.