An authors guide to writing

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An authors guide to writing By Phoebe M.C.

An author's guide to writing is my book on all the things I wish I knew before starting to write my first book from how to world build, the pros and cons of self-publishing and so much more.

I started to write this book back in 2020 when I published my first four books and have been slowly writing it ever since. This book is literally everything I have learned about writing, self publishing, editing  and marketing over the past three years

How to get book ideas

 

Getting book ideas can be hard work especially if you have written all your ideas already but it’s not impossible to get more. 

- look at book covers: I find looking at sites that sell book covers can give me a few book ideas.

- Pinterest: I find scrolling through Pinterest images gives me inspiration to write a new book  

- writing prompts: writing prompts is a good way to start writing a book; you might not know where the book is heading but it’s a good way to start writing which leads to more ideas in my experience.

- look at what works: looking at what is helped me in the past with writing so another words looking at what box of mine sells the best helps me come up with more ideas like that which guarantees more sales. 

Self publishing pros and cons

 

Self publishing is an easy way for you get your book on the market but does that mean it’s the best option? I’ll be going over the pros and cons today so you can make the best decision for you when your book. 

Pros:

-Better Royalties: Traditionally, publishing houses pay authors royalties on the books they sell. For example, you might receive 10 percent to 15 percent of the list price of each book sold

-Faster Exposure: One of the benefits of self-publishing is that your book gets to market faster than it would via traditional methods.

-Longer “Shelf Life”: One of the biggest benefits of self-publishing over traditional publishing is that it gives your book a longer period in which to find its audience. 

-Every decision is yours: instead of having the publisher down your throat wanting to control the price of your book, the cover and everything else every decision is yours to make.

-Anyone can do it: anyone can self publish while it’s insanely hard to break into the traditional publishing world. 

Cons:

-Less Editorial Support: Of course, self-publishing is not without its downsides. One of the main drawbacks of publishing on your own is not having the benefit of an editorial team at your back. 

-Less Marketing Support: Just as self-published writers are on their own when it comes to editing, they have to take the reins for marketing and distributing their products. 

- Fewer sales: a lot of people aren’t willing to give self published new authors a chance. 

Interview with a book character

 

I thought I would give you a character interview with my newest book character Taylor. 

1. 1. Where were they born? 
2. I was born in Crystal Lake in Illinois
3. 
   
4. 2. Who are their parents? 
5. My mother is Janet Davis and my father is John Davis 
6. 
   
7. 3. Where do they live? 
8. my mum lives in Naples Florida and I don’t know where my father is 
9. 
   
10. 4. What is their greatest achievement?
11. My greatest achievement is getting out of Lockwood asylum as well as moving out of Florida 
12.  
13. 5. What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to you?

The most embarrassing thing that has happened to me is when I pissed myself when I was arrested

1. 6. Who do they consider their closest friend or best friend? 
2. My best friend is George he is the only person who has ever stuck by me. 

1. 7. Do they have a romantic partner? 
2. I guess Mason counts as a romantic partner. 
3. 
   
4. 8. Which family members are they close with?
5. I’m not close with any family members 

becoming the female stephen king

Growing up, I was obsessed with Stephen King. When I started writing to be published, I soon began studying everything he has ever done because, unlike most people, I had an unhealthy obsession with becoming the female version of him.

i was always trying to get my writing up there with him and i got close at times while he doesn't say how many words per minute he can write by working out that he writes 2,000 words a day and spends roughly three to four hours writing a day. i worked out that his word per minute is around 11.1 words. this shocked me because i had always thought that it was way more than that especially since i was already writing 60 words per minute.

Stephen King published his first book when he was 26 years old, he had tried with many other books and never gotten there but Carrie would change that.

i published my first book by a self publishing website at 14 but later took it off the market due to thinking i could edit and sell my own book all by myself which i couldn't and actually left a large chunk of my book unedited (amateur move Phoebe amateur move)

My next book i published was actually though self-publishing at the age of 17 and that was the real start of my writing career in my opinion.

After I published my first I quickly wrote and published 9 more books meaning I was well on my way to becoming famous even if only one book took off. 

While I don’t know if I will ever become the female version of Stephen king it gives me something to work towards and to never stop fighting to get my books out there into the world. 

How to advertise a self published book

 

Writing and Publishing a book is hard work and an amazing achievement but it doesn’t end there you still have to advertise the book if you want to make book sales. 

Here are all my tips I personally use to get book sales. 

Free kindle book promotion: before I published the final books in my book series I ran a free kindle book promotion which gained me a lot of new readers and even led to a few books sales on my newer books. 

Use social media: I run a Twitter, Instagram, Facebook pages and tiktok for my writing and I post teasers and the book covers regularly with top trending sounds and hashtags. 

And finally run ads: running Facebook, google and Amazon ads can generate a lot of sales. 

How do you advertise your books?

How I edit my books

 

Because I don’t have a lot of money at the moment to reinvest into my writing I thought I would share with you how I self-edit my books. 

I start by reading my manuscript through and highlighting bits I want to rewrite for clarity, I also fix my spelling mistakes once all of that is done I run the book through Grammarly and fix all the suggestions they make that make sense for my book.

I leave my book for a few weeks before doing that all over again and fixing any other mistakes I find along the way and I will continue to this until I feel my book is finished. I then send it to my beta readers and I fix any edits they find. 

If you are on a tight budget do you do the same as me or do you do it differently? Let me know in the comment section below because I would love to improve myself.