Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to write. That was my dream. I looked up to women like Maya Angelou and Alice Walker. I wanted to be like them–strong, dynamic, creative. I wanted to write. When I closed my eyes and pictured my future that’s all I could see myself doing. Then life got in the way. When I graduated from college I had to start working and there was less and less time to write.
I wrote stories on and off for awhile, but never did much with them. Then in my late twenties I decided to write a novel. I wrote it and left it on my computer for a long time untouched. A few years later I started editing it. Then I started sending it out to agents. You know the drill. I was constantly writing and rewriting my query letter and trying to figure out how to get my book published. I received piles of rejections. (Okay, I have to admit that piles in this case only means five. I didn’t send the manuscript out to very many people.) Then I decided that book wasn’t good enough anyway and I started writing another.
My second book was a breeze to write. Once it was finished I edited it and started passing it around to family members and friends to get their opinions. One day I heard about the Amazon’s DTP site where you could upload your novel to be read on the Kindle. I uploaded my novel and didn’t give much thought to it at all. Months later I checked the site and found out that I had been selling copies. I hadn’t even tried to promote it. I didn’t understand how people were finding it and buying it. So I uploaded the book to Smashwords and used CreateSpace to get a print on demand paperback copies made.
You may be wondering why this page is called Making Mistakes Learning and Continuing On. Well, I made a few mistakes along the way. First, I uploaded a book that hadn’t been properly edited onto Amazon, and I have to admit that the formatting was a bit messed up too. That’s not really something you should do if you’re trying to make a career out of writing. That’s one of the major reasons people complain about indie authors. I had to take my book down and fix it.
The second mistake I made was that I had no real plan. I’m a writer. I love to write, but I have to bite the bullet and make a business plan too. With no plan there is no writing career. This is true for all authors, but I think it’s especially true if you’re an indie. You need to know about writing, but you also need to know about promotion.
I’m not sure if uploading my first draft onto the blog was a mistake or not. I’m leaving it up for now to see what happens. I may take it down though in the future.
I’ve started my indie writing career with a big pile of mistakes. That’s not the best way to get started, but it’s better than not getting started at all. I recognized the mistakes I’ve made and have been able to correct them. Now I need to move forward from here to get things on track.
Sometimes a bad start is better than not starting at all.