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I wrote a book and I am so incredibly excited to finally tell you about it—I never thought I would actually get to say those words. It was more like a dreamy idea I had whenever I got bookstore emails about author events or heard a song or saw a painting and had this idea for a scene in a book.
The only credibility I had to write a romance novel was my completed GoodReads challenges (two years in a row) and my expertise in rom-coms. I’m not even an English major. But I knew I wanted to write something of my own that others could read.
But there was no way I was going to be able to make the time for that or have the confidence for it.
What I needed was an excuse to write something; that way I would be forced to make time for it and wouldn’t feel bad if it turned out sounding like a fanfic. So I found an excuse: my Creative Writing Gen-Ed course. I got the opportunity in December 2021 to write a fictional argument for my final, and you can probably tell where I’m going with this… I made it my excuse to write an idea for a chapter I had, so I ran with it. I took my chance to write a seven-page paper about two love interests in an argument that when read by itself, the purpose of the argument is a mystery. This ultimately became Chapter 48 of my book, and I started plotting from there.
This is the part of the blog post where I’m going to ramble about the inspiration for the book and the process of writing, so please feel free to skip it if you only want to hear about how to self-publish.
The original idea for the argument I had written back in December came from Taylor Swift’s Enchanted. Once I had written that story, I became attached to how the character got to that point and what their lives would look like after. From there, I workshopped different plot ideas, thoughts for chapters, and the personalities of the characters, then creating an overall outline—and a Pinterest board too, of course.
At the beginning of January, I wrote the first chapter, and I cannot even explain to you how horrendously it went. You don’t truly realize how much goes into developing a story or a character until you have to keep track of the setting, their movements, their tics, their thoughts, their words, and the purpose of the chapter in the first place. From there, it became trial and error and practice, along with figuring out a writing style.
As the spring semester started I wrote on the treadmill, in between classes, sometimes in class (apologies to all my professors and laptop battery), and late nights after work and homework. I swear my Spotify Wrapped at the end of this year will solely be Taylor Swift’s Evermore and Folkore because that was all I listened to while writing. Apologies to my boyfriend whose Spotify Premium I use.
By the end of the spring semester in May, I finished writing. And then hell began. I reread chapters and words I had written so many times that I considered just scrapping the entire book at one point. Hiring an editor and typesetter would have saved me 97% of my sanity and hundreds of hours. But a month and a half later, it became worth it when the book was ready to publish.
More About the Book
An abridged version of the summary: a career-driven student who doesn’t believe in love moves across the world to finish college in London until she meets a guy who ropes her into his gossip and into the spotlight. It’s a fun romance about friendship, love, self-confidence, dating troubles, the excitement of traveling, and the excuse to dress up.
Where to buy: Amazon
Oh! I almost forgot, feel free to follow me on Instagram to come with me on my first trip to London in the Fall.
Why Self-Publishing
I hadn’t realized that self-publishing was an option until seeing Olivie Blake and Elena Armas self-publish their books. Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is the easiest and cheapest way to self-publish, and when I say cheapest, I mean free. I spent a total of $20.03 throughout this entire process, and that was just to send myself proofs of the book before it went live. It’s really common to pay for the formatting (typesetting), editing, and the cover for your book. But it’s also possible to do these things yourself; you may be smarter in this area than I was.
Self-publishing also allows you to actually publish the book without anyone else’s help! I didn’t consider traditional publishing because I wanted the ability to publish without the process of finding an agent and trying to reach out to publishers for one to hopefully buy the rights to your manuscript.
How to Self-Publish
Use Word
The first thing you’re going to do is make sure that you’re writing in Microsoft Word. I recommend formatting before you start writing; this includes the size of your book pages, the margins, and the headers and footers.
Make a KDP Account
When you’ve completed your final draft in Word, download the document as a PDF. Now you can create a KDP account; this is where you’ll upload the draft, book cover, and summary, as well as allow you to create an author page that will be visible to consumers on Amazon. You can also make your book available for Kindle through Kindle Preview on KDP.
Book Cover
I have zero illustrator or graphic design skills, so as you can probably tell, this was harder than writing the book. I also didn’t know what I wanted the cover to look like either, which didn’t make this process any easier. You can either reach out to an illustrator who is experienced in cover design or use Canva, an online design tool, and design one yourself. Regardless of your choice, make *clap* a *clap* Pinterest *clap* board.
Marketing!
The most important part of self-publishing is marketing; the right people need to know your book exists in order to actually buy and read it. You can market the book yourself on social media and through friends and family. But you can also pay for a few social media ads or reach out to bloggers to post about it. KDP also offers marketing solutions to promote your book on Amazon.
Please, if you have any questions about anything, leave them below. I found myself constantly looking for answers to the millions of questions I had (so many questions about margins) so I would love to help!
My socials:
Instagram: @lianacincotti
Pinterest: @withliana
TikTok: @lianacincotti
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Living life, and writing about it as I go.
Thank you
How do I order the book?
You can get it here on Amazon! https://amzn.to/3ytDreM
Hi, My 14 year old daughter really wants to read your book. Would you say it’s appropriate for that age group? Thanks!
I’ve had a lot of readers of the book reach out to those interested saying that they believed it was appropriate for 14 and up! (I hope that’s helpful <3 )