As I’m working to publish my second book, I can see where I messed up the first time. Which is both a bummer (oh no, it’s not perfect!) and also a relief (phew, I’m growing!).
And for the anniversary of publishing IKYLAM, I had the wild idea to tell ya all about it. Sooo, what’d I do? Let’s dig in…
Error #1: I didn’t use a transparent background for illustrations
If you were to buy the ebook (affiliate link) and change your setting to dark mode or some other background color, I’m so sorry. You will have an off-center white background staring back at you for each illustration in the book. On the plus side, if you need to feel a sense of superiority, this book is for you, you’re welcome.
Thankfully I’ve since learned about making transparent backgrounds during my event planning.
Error #2: I mixed up the preorder and on-sale dates with my distributor
You see, in Ingram Spark when you upload, there’s two dates called “Publication date” and “On-sale date”. Which one is the preorder date and which is the go-live date? Don’t worry, there’s a whole article that explains, so I looked through it and put in these dates for my first book.
Problem being, I read it wrong. Re-reading it now, totally got it backwards and told the distributor it’s launching July 31 but no one can sell it til October 23. Talk about confusing!
Error #3: I tried out Facebook and Twitter ads with no plan, just “Hmm, let me try this button.”
Thankfully I was frugal about it and decided to give $25 to each “just to see how it went.” Surprise surprise, it totally bombed. I’ve since learned strategy around Amazon ads from experts, and would need to take time to apply the same sort of learning before diving into social media ads again. (I probably will, but one step at a time…)
But that’s not all…
I’m sure there are other things I missed that I’ll discover. Of course there are.
In fact, we can be certain I’m messing something else up this time, too (she says as she scrambles to add the LCCN to her file and reupload because she got the steps out of order this go-round.)
So what’s the point? The point is, get out there and do the thing. Make the mistakes so you can get better the next time.
I am soooo thankful I tried this all out with IKYLAM before trying it with Unfixed. Because I’m growing. Unfixed is better for it. And I’ll get to make new mistakes this time so I don’t make those next time. (I’ll find new mistakes to make then. You get the picture.)
