IT’S OFFICIAL: I’m an author!

It’s taken me literally years to get this far, and yet I feel like I’m right at the beginning of something.

The minute you click that yellow publish button on the Amazon website, a door swings open and you’re confronted with a whole new labyrinth to negotiate.

But not without a map.

Luckily for me, it’s 2021 not 2011, and there are a whole bunch of pioneers who learned it all the hard way and – rather than keeping their edge-giving experience to themselves – SHARE it freely with other authors. Without them, I’d have just thrown my book into the 8-million-book Amazon pond and prayed for it to float while watching it sink rapidly all the way to the bottom.

As it is, I’ve set up my author platform and have a long-term strategy which should eventually enable me to earn a living from writing. (To my translating customers: I have no plans to stop translating! I enjoy it too much and the texts I translate often inspire my writing. And my writing improves my translations. The two jobs coexist happily, so please don’t stop sending me work ??)

If you’re on your own self-publishing journey – or you know someone who is – here are my worth-their-weight-in-actual-gold information treasure troves:

Jericho Writers

Reedsy

Dave Chesson at https://kindlepreneur.com

David Gaughran at https://davidgaughran.com

Caro at www.gocreate.me for my author website, which I built all by myself using her video tutorials. Believe me, this is nearly as big an achievement for me personally as writing a book in the first place.

And https://www.selfpublisherbibel.de for Germany-specific stuff. We have laws here for stuff you’ve never even heard of. For example, today when I uploaded my book to the German National Library, I found out what “Monografisch erscheinende Ver?ffentlichungen” are. (Things that are just published once. Like, um, books. Not like magazines, that come out every week/month.)

I owe these people a huge debt of gratitude. Them and the many other indie authors putting useful information out there, usually for free. They’ve helped me get this far, and I’m confident now that whatever I need to know, I’ll be able to find out – or I’ll know who to ask.

It’s a wonderful global community, and I’m proud to be part of it.

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What? You want a link so you can go and get my book?

Oh, sorry, I almost forgot ;o)

getbook.at/cleanercat

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