Category: Self-Publishing

What running taught me about writing

Posted May 9, 2016 by Jennifer Ellision in Self-Publishing, Writing / 0 Comments

I haven’t been running very long. In fact, if you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen that I ran my first 5K just over a week ago. I started training for it in January or February. But while I haven’t been doing this long, I started drawing a lot of parallels between running and writing. I thought I’d share some of those here. Sometimes it’s hard… Running: My calves burn. I can’t get enough air in my lungs. God, it’s hot out here. Sweat is stinging my eyes. My clothes are soaked. What the hell just bit me?! Writing: This sounds so stilted. What happens next? Just. Write. Something. Oh God, not that. Delete, delete, delete. Will anyone actually buy this? …And others, it’s easy Running: You want me to run 40 minutes, training app? I’m going for fifty. Writing: God, […]

#1 in my Amazon categories!

Posted February 26, 2016 by Jennifer Ellision in blog, Self-Publishing, Threats of Sky and Sea / 0 Comments

#1 in my Amazon categories! Just had to come by and humble-brag about this high point in my author career! Threats of Sky and Sea had a promotion last week and reached #1 in my Amazon categories! I was an Amazon bestseller, guys! I was even hanging out on a list with my childhood writing idol, Tamora Pierce. Best. Day. Ever.

New

Posted January 4, 2016 by Jennifer Ellision in blog, Self-Publishing, Wrap-ups / 0 Comments

Ah, here it is. That post you’ve read on a thousand different blogs as we catapult off of 2015 to launch into the brand-spankin’ new 2016. I’m no different from the rest. For me, a new year is always imbued with a sense of hope. And New Year’s Resolutions are always a little bit… well, dangerous. Because setting goals that are too high, or beyond my control, can lead to depression when I check in on them if I didn’t manage to achieve them. I think I’ve done better this year and chosen things that are within my control. I like what I’ve seen many people do and choose a word to guide them in the new year. A word that embodies what they want the year to be. For me, that word is: “New” I want 2016 to include… New […]

Choosing Done Lists Over To Do Lists

Posted December 7, 2015 by Jennifer Ellision in blog, Lists, Self-Publishing, Writing / 0 Comments

For most of my life, I’ve been a big proponent of To Do lists. If you’re like me, you know that there is very little in life that is quite as satisfying as highlighting or crossing out an item on a To Do list. Marking it as complete. Accomplished. Finito. But lately, I’ve chosen a different sort of list. Here’s the thing: my To Do lists lately include large tasks. Things like “Write your next book.” “Finish narrating an audiobook project.” Tasks that can’t be easily accomplished in a day. Sometimes, I think ahead. I break it down to “Write a chapter.” “Narrate a chapter.” But then an email will come in that needs my attention and I have to switch gears to work on that instead. Didn’t get to take something off my list there either. All of this occasionally […]

5 pieces of bad self-publishing advice

Posted November 23, 2015 by Jennifer Ellision in blog, Self-Publishing / 0 Comments

I’ve been self-publishing for a little over a year now. I don’t pretend to be an expert, but at this point in my career, I’m comfortable sharing what I think are a few pieces of bad self-publishing advice– though I think the fact that they’re bad self-publishing advice is common sense in some cases! 1. Publish your first draft. The faster you publish, the better you do in self-publishing, right? I’ve heard the same things, but realistically, your career is hardly going to take off if you publish a book before you’ve smoothed out the plot inconsistencies. Readers won’t want to pick up your next one. 2. Post your book on KDP and other platforms ~stealthily.~ Let the algorithms do the work for you! Not so much. At a certain point, with reviews posted, a backlist, also-boughts kicking in, and the right keywords, new […]

A Video Interview for a Marketing Your Writing Class

Posted April 27, 2015 by Jennifer Ellision in blog, Self-Publishing / 0 Comments

Okay, full disclosure, I haven’t watched this video since I made it about a year ago for a former college professor’s “Marketing Your Writing” course at UCF. I’ve learned a lot regarding marketing, etc. since then, so it’s likely outdated. But I thought that some of the information here might be helpful regardless.

My first school visit

Posted March 18, 2015 by Jennifer Ellision in Author business, blog, Books, IRL, Self-Publishing, Threats of Sky and Sea, Writing / 1 Comment

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending a high school book club, where the club read Threats of Sky and Sea this month. Equal parts nervous and elated, I left Day Job early and pulled up to a place that I don’t think I’ve been to since 2006– when I graduated from there. This was my first school visit and I tried to disregard the surrealism of the situation– along with the urge to cry out that “I DON’T EVEN GO HERE.” Not someone who is innately comfortable with attention, I was pretty dang nervous, but the informal setting quickly helped me relax. I’d estimate that about 20 students attended. We pulled together chairs in a loose circle around a table, and let the questions fly. The school visit was off, and moving fast. A lot of questions that […]

Turning a profit

Posted November 18, 2014 by Jennifer Ellision in Author business, blog, Books, Self-Publishing, Threats of Sky and Sea / 10 Comments

I have waited quite a few moons to be able to make this post– but this month has finally done it. Threats of Sky and Sea is finally earning a profit! (All you need for my emotions here are 0:20-026) Wait, what do you mean it’s earning a profit? You’ve sold books before now, right? Yes, thankfully I have! But between cover design, formatting, editing, and publicity, I tossed a good chunk of change into making Threats of Sky and Sea a success… roughly $2,000 worth. Though I released in May, it’s only now that I’m starting to actually profit, meaning I’ve earned back the money that I’ve invested. I expected that, and knew I was in this for the long haul, but man, it feels good to be officially earning from my writing. I’ve always found posts from fellow self-publishers regarding their […]

The self-publishing cover process: Creating a cover for Threats of Sky and Sea

Posted July 25, 2014 by Jennifer Ellision in blog, Self-Publishing, Threats of Sky and Sea / 3 Comments

Hello, friends! Long time, no talk. I’m at a new job these days and it’s much busier than the last, leaving less time for authorly things throughout the day. But enough about that! I’m gearing up to begin working next month with my amazing cover artist Nathalia Suellen for the cover of Book 2 in the Threats of Sky and Sea series: Riot of Storm and Smoke, and this made me realize that I never shared the self-publishing cover process for Threats of Sky and Sea. I found Nathalia Suellen through some of her other work, so I knew that she was extremely capable of a beautiful cover– especially one with a person on the cover. And she was a dream to work with. I had only a vague idea of what I wanted for the cover of Threats of Sky and […]

Looking back on release week

Posted May 26, 2014 by Jennifer Ellision in blog, Books, Self-Publishing, Threats of Sky and Sea / 1 Comment

Threats of Sky and Sea release week was kiiiind of the bomb. I was ecstatic to be releasing Threats of Sky and Sea in general and release day would have been great regardless. But a few things made it stand-out fantastic. Like all of the tweets and Facebook posts supporting me and linking to buy Threats of Sky and Sea. Like an awesome release day Twitter chat, with fun questions from great participants. Like the paperback breaking the top 5K of books on Amazon. Like ranking in THREE categories on Amazon. Like breaking the top 7K of all Kindle books. We also threw a book launch celebration! There was cake, I signed a few books, and we set up a table with swag to grab. There were friends, family, food and drink. MOST excellent. Basically, I couldn’t have asked for much more […]