Looking Back on Five Years of Indie Publishing Prep

Where to Begin?

At the end! Sort of.

By 'end', I mean what I had originally wanted to achieve and what I thought this moment would feel like. Because what's been incredibly helpful for to keep in mind when making choice after choice without much guidance is to visualize the end goal and work backwards.

I've mentioned frequently that I was nine years old when I decided I wanted to be 'a writer'; I grew up around plenty of books and was never refused one, and both of my parents had a foot in the writing profession of some kind while juggling me and their day jobs, so it could be seen as no surprise. I wrote recreationally from then on, but didn't fully conceive of myself as becoming a published author until my early teenage years. From then on it informed my educational choices, became my refuge in the darkest of times, and formed a core part of my identity. When nearly everything else was in doubt, becoming a published author was a constant. I'll happily admit that considering it an inevitability was my one vanity, even if it took my BA to shed light on the realities of that path.

Like many until maybe the last ten years, traditional publishing was my assumed route. I had something of an upset in my plans when I had to exchange the UK market with which I was becoming familiar to the US market, but the route remained the same. Also like many, my dream author life included idyllic visions of writing tucked away in a studio in blissful solitude, earning enough to support myself without worry, with just enough fame to flatter and vindicate without suffocating or impeding. My BA did well to temper those dreams and ensure I knew how to support myself while pursuing them, and moreover in a way that wasn't soul-crushing.

I understood early that achieving publication, never mind the ultimate dream, wasn't going to happen overnight. The route was going to be long and likely grueling, and I was going to be poor unless I supported myself with something else in the meantime. In other words, it was going to be a difficult choice that I would have to choose over and over, like any passion. 

What I didn't understand until I was in the thick of it was that it was possible to be passionate – to still want something so deeply that it hurt – while also being in absolute despair over how to pursue and achieve it. To avoid getting into the gritty details, I will say that depression is a bitch, and one's passions tend to become buried under its heavy, wet blankets, especially when compounded by other misfortunes. Suffice to say my writing suffered. Then, in the depths, I finally decided "f*ck it, I'll finish something and try to publish it; the worst that can happen is that it's rejected, and that's no worse than sitting here doing nothing"; I picked something new and mostly indulgent, just to prove to myself that I could finish something. 

I rehash the above because at the same time as I made that decision and began (what was then called) "Bitter Fruit" in 2021, I also decided that my former vision of the traditional publishing route no longer matched what I wanted. In tandem I began my self-publishing research, and insodoing re-conceptualized what kind of published author I wanted to be.

What Do You Want?

The beauty of self-publishing is rooted in the amazing amount of freedom and control it offers the layperson. Moreover, it's less shackled nowadays by the old image of the vanity press -published writer with boxes on boxes of books gathering mildew in the garage. Self-published writers across all genres are doing well for themselves! Tools to support their success have come a long way, as have reader perceptions of their validity in a marketplace rippling wildly in the flux of advancing technology and shifting taste.

However, those boons are also self-publishing's curse: you are largely alone, for one; additionally, the market is saturated, rendered suspect by the same advancing technology, and bowing under the weight of conflicting sources or outright misinformation. As welcoming and supportive as indie author communities are, those communities can occasionally turn vitriolic and, as with all social media platforms, run the risk at minimum of engendering comparison and jealousy.

It's a wonderful, chaotic frontier. It's not for everyone. But, now that I've gone through the first gauntlet, I can confidently say that for right now at least, it's for me. Because when thinking about what kind of published author I now wanted to be, that vision crystallized, and included things that self-publishing could offer:

• Autonomy and greater control, both in creative and business decisions
• Moving according to my own schedule
• Forming connections with peers, collaborators and – most importantly – readers my way, on my terms
• Greater share of the profit and retention of my rights

The Fever and the Dream

Stone and Flesh was meant to be ready to go and published far sooner than March 2026. I was in a rush because I had committed to this being my (basically) full-time work and had been broke for a long time – I was going for even-more-broke! Despite still knowing hardly anything could be further from a get-rich-quick scheme, that did not negate the fact that I needed to get things rolling sooner rather than later so that even paltry dividends could start to accumulate. In my mind, now that I'd committed to this at age thirty-three, my younger self considered me behind schedule.

It's not romantic to frame it in terms of wanting money, but I must emphasize that fears over money have been a strong cord in my psyche ever since I was young. You could call it a trauma. Thus, even though I'm very fortunate to be supported gladly in my ventures by my better half, checks and balances – and the timelines that either optimized or undermined them – have always been at the forefront of my plans.

I won't say this created a sense of desperation, exactly, but it did create a constant undercurrent of anxiety and doubt. Much of my delays rose from decisions made because of my (lack of) budget, such as relying on free beta-reading from busy friends. This isn't an unusual story in the indie author world; we're doing everything ourselves, after all. When there were delays, disappointments, or outright failures or persistent unknowns, that anxiety was compounded with frustration, resentment, and sometimes despair. Your solitary pursuit of the end goal becomes heightened – loneliness, even for someone like me who has never been troubled by the feeling, can rear its forlorn head.

I bring this up to explain, I hope, why one of the biggest feelings I experienced when things started to go right was vindication, rather than outright joy. I felt triumph and satisfaction first, but in a detached sort of way while I was absorbed in the creation of a good product and the platform on which it'd sit. In other words, the dreaming Tamara was in the back seat while the pragmatic Tamara took the wheel.

There were good emotions too, though! My natural curiosity and love of research really came in handy as I created oodles of lists, spreadsheets, and documents in the course of my note-taking and narrowing-down of my choices. Originally I'd wanted help with this research portion but it quickly became clear that it was easier for me to digest it all directly rather than second-hand. As the path ahead became clearer, so too did the feeling of feasibility and optimism. 

There was stress, of course. It's hard to truly explain to someone who hasn't dipped their toes in the water just how many learning curves there are (not just big), even for someone like me who considers themselves pretty writing/publishing-, marketing-, and tech-savvy. For one, information changes rapidly. What was true for self-publishers even five years ago may not be true today. Also, each writer is different, and each book is different: there's several routes to the end goal, each with their own particulars. Over the course of wading through all and cross-referencing the information out there, I'm positive I acquired a few more gray hairs (aging is a privilege denied to many, so I'm not complaining!).

At the same time, the book itself was getting polished and receiving its first feedback. Again, I thank my BA for giving me the tools I needed to handle both with efficiency and grace, which meant that the editing and feedback process felt like its own series of mini-victories rather than something to be dreaded. That this was the first project I completed without hanging onto my usual perfectionism added a little extra satisfaction!

(These are GoogleDocs stats; I hadn't yet migrated to Ellipsus.)

The Final Push

I consider the final push to be the stretch from 'going public' – for me, this was my website, newsletter, and initial social platforms going live – to the public launch. While there was always this vague sense of excitement and accomplishment, the prevailing emotion was stress and anxiety, but in a good sort of way. Each time something got checked off the list, or I reconnected with an old colleague or friend, or gained a new follower, it felt like one tiny step further to the end goal (while also knowing it wouldn't really be the 'end', just a waystation).

Ultimately, the time from my website going live and launch day was about six months, with holiday slow-downs included. As previously mentioned, this was more of a crunch than I'd originally intended, but I think it only felt that way because everything was basically brand new; had this been a second release where there weren't so many learning curves, I think it would have felt comfy even with the holidays. (Side note: I definitely ended up feeling grateful, like I thought I would, that I didn't also have to juggle a Kickstarter at the same time.)

When is it Real?

I have no exact answer to the above. The final month was such a whirlwind of dotting Is and crossing Ts that it was difficult to step back and appreciate the larger picture. There were brief windows, however, such as the detachment I felt when doing my final read-through with a bound proof. There were pinpricks of thrills when I uploaded the final files to D2D and Amazon, repeated more strongly when I finished the upload process. It felt great to tell my subscribers that things were ready, and to see ARC reviews trickle in. There was a certain subdued giddiness when I got my author copies in, and when I stayed up late to ensure my webstore was live and, at last, hit 'publish'.

But when is it real? I don't think there's a hard line, much in the way there's a penumbra between the darkness and light of an eclipse. At least not for me. Things like the first sale, or signing that #1 on Mark's copy, or launch announcement email, or sending the first shipments off contributed, certainly, as have getting the first few pictures of friends unboxing their copies and adding it to their TBRs. I don't know if it'll feel totally real were I to hit the fifty review mark, or hundred or even thousand copies sold mark. Would it feel real the first time I do an author event? Will it feel real if I make it into SPFBO next year? Will it feel real if I enter into the top X of certain genre categories, or get a blurb from a well-known author? 

In a way, it's kinda nice not to have a hard line, and it feels apt. The journey is just beginning, after all, and not having a binary "yep, that's done!" means it can continue to surprise and delight as I enter the next stages, which are bound to have their own challenges. The gift that keeps on giving, truly.

What Now?

This blog entry is just one of the things I'm doing to collect my thoughts and consolidate lessons learnt. Other things include boring but essential admin tasks like file organization, photo labeling, and updating of spreadsheets. I also have a self-publishing journal where I've been logging the important bits, not only so I have something to look back on and reference when it comes time for Book 2, but to draw on when I create my self-publishing guide for others! (Watch this space.) There's fun things too, like watching the first copies fly the nest and making brand new marketing material.

I'm trying to make sure I take the time to slow down and enjoy it where I can. It's hard to remember, sometimes, how much work this was – because stress aside, this was a joy and a fulfillment of what I've always believed I was put on this earth to do. Thank you for being here with me.