Learning the Ropes
Updated: Jan 26, 2022
I've been diligently plugging away at figuring out what works, what doesn't, and what I can afford.
There are so many options out there for authors. The struggle is deciding which ones work for you. I've scoured the world wide web reading blogs and reviews for #Grammarly and #Prowritingaid. I've looked into newsletter programs like
#maillite and #mailchimp. And don't even get me started on cover art programs
.
What I learned:
I can only share what I did. I'm not saying it was right or wrong. Maybe we will find out down the road, but here it is.
I signed up for this lovely website Wix.com and started out with the free version. The bad thing about the free version is your webpage name is ridiculously hard to type and would be even harder to search down the line. Luckily, they sent a discounted deal email several days later. I'm glad I waited, as it was for 50% all their paid programs. This has been my most expensive expenditure so far.
I bought my domain name through @domains.google.com for 12$ a year.
I ended up creating a newsletter right from this website---they call them campaigns. Looks like you get a limit per month, but I think that would fine, because I don't want to bombard my readers.
Cover art is still a tricky subject. I haven't quite it figured out yet. I grabbed my first image for free off of shutterstock, my next cover I tried out on the free sections of #picmonkey, and I even found a cool tutorial online for doing cover art with microsoft word. So neat. Here's the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_6zDyBZ9Mw
What I've been up to:
I've finished up all the episodes for The Catalyst! Yeah me! All episodes will be live on January 31st. This is very exciting as I now can wait 30 days from that release date
and then turn the story into an eBook and paperback through #KDP- Kindle's self-publishing platform. This will be my first published book ever and I couldn't be more proud. I am having a few people help me fine tune the edits. A little Grammarly and a full cover and it will be raring to go! This has been a life-long dream of mine and to see it coming to fruition is very satisfying.
New Release:
My newest endeavor has been a new paranormal romance called Sway of the Sun. I am very excited for this one to come out. It mixes a hot werewolf Alpha with a Greek demigoddess. I based this in my home state of Wisconsin, the piece just really fell together. I mean who knew there would be a town in Wisconsin called Arcadia? I suppose the people that live there, but hey--Destiny!
This #kindlevella releases on February 1st, 2022. The first 3 episodes (or chapters) are always free on the platform. If you want to check them out just click the link below to find all my current stories available. Thanks for taking the time to read this and don't forget to subscribe to my site. I'll be sending out monthly newsletters-Billip's Banter- with all new and interesting things!
Thanks again,
LK Billips