The reality of self publishing: I want to cry when promoting my book feels impossible in every way
Some days I want to give up in the incredibly oversaturated self-publishing market.
I am a lot of things- a strong writer, educated, and for the most part, confident. But this process is and always has been so very frustrating. It’s even harder now because the self publishing industry is so oversaturdated and when you need to reach out to customer service, whether it be KDP (which are literally amazing) or Good Reads, it takes even longer and can be more frustrating to fix an issue. In 2011-18 it was a lot easier to get in touch with people. Don’t get me wrong, the advancements made in technology that makes every step of this easier have been great, but I just miss the simplicity of it all.
(In the time that I’ve written that paragraph Good Reads got back to me and literally misinterpreted my question of asking to change my LEGAL NAME as me asking them to delete a book- which I never even asked for in the email).
Update: They refuse to change my name at all and now my author dashboard is 100% inaccurate :) So that’s nice.
I have never been so frustrated that there is a group of people telling me how to “author” when I’m sure those with agents and representation have everything handled quickly, and correctly for them (end rant).
I have tried promoting on TikTok where I have had viral success before, but this time it’s a lot harder
Everyone always said it was “easy” to go viral on TikTok, and that was true. But it depends on what type of sellout content you’re willing to produce. When I went viral it was because I had no job and was a full time student and nobody to answer to. I could quite literally post whatever personal details I wanted without fear of pushback from an employer or something, and ended up landing a pretty great employer that didn’t care about things like that. Unfortunately for me, the viral content was all about my toxic marriage to someone on a federally sponsored vacation, and it was a trainwreck that people wanted to look away from but just couldn’t. I was also newly sober, still partaking in my toxic tendencies.
Today I’m sober and live the most mundane life possible, which was the best possible outcome for me. I’m in a happy and loving relationship with all the stability I could have in every possible way, and it isn’t a trainwreck. It isn’t interesting. It’s sort of boring, and I can’t use it to push my book no matter how hard I try.
There’s nothing special about my writing in comparison to anyone else’s, and if anything there’s millions of others doing the same exact thing as me. All I can do is try and try and try again. Try to hop on all the TikTok trends, try to push it on my Instagram, and try and try again.
I’m honestly the most pissed off because I want to do a give away to get my book out there once it goes live and is available for purchase on Amazon, but I can’t do that through Good Reads if my stuff is all messed up.
Any info or help from others who have done this would be greatly appreciated!
I’ll leave you with this: