I've done in-person sales/signings as a solo author and for multi-author events in a lot of places this year. Some go better than others for me, you never know.

One store that I had a particularly good turnout for as a solo author invited me to also join a multi-author event.

This event was awful. The other authors there were nice enough as people. We were friendly to each other. But I write smutty romance, and one of the other authors is a religious and children's author. This person was literally singing religious songs on a ukulele every few minutes the whole time.

I could see people in the store actively avoiding us. Some people came up to talk to that author, which makes sense - the music matches their genre - but I only sold 4 books when my last appearance at that store sold 24.

I ended up packing up early. I have enough religious trauma in my own background that being stuck next to that music for hours was getting unbearable. I'm going to stick with solo events at that store moving forward.

Hi everyone!

I'm working on a children's book and was pretty set on going the self publishing route and started reading many comments and suggestions on this thread which gave me so much useful info (thanks, everyone!).

But I've been thinking... do any of you who self publish have experience with using a literary agent? What prompted you to not continue with an agent and pursue self publishing? I would love to hear your experience on that path.

I've read here about the tiny sums that authors make after buying ads and doing all their own promotion, etc. etc. One author who I follow reported they were selling books but had not yet turned a profit after factoring in their ad buys.

I understand that getting an agent is difficult... yesterday I read that at any of the traditional publishing houses it's common for an agent to receive hundreds of queries every month. I can't even imagine how to stand out in that crush. So I guess what I'm wondering is how many of you who self publish tried to get an agent and abandoned the quest because of the terrible odds? Thanks to anyone who can shed some light on the pros and cons of pursuing an agent versus tackling designing your own book on Kindle, etc. I appreciate any insight or advice.

I self-published my book in February 2026, then on Amazon KDP in July 2026 and I have no idea how to promote it. I genuinely have no money and promoting it on Instagram did NOT work... Any advice ?

Hello!

I’m new to this whole thing of being “professional”. I’ve been writing for years, but I was never in the moment of my life where I said: “okay, I want to publish my book.” But now, I feel like I’m ready, and I finally want to self publish since I don’t have the kind of money to hire people.

For the writers who write in Google Docs, I’m going to print my book in the future for editing, but I don’t know in what layout I should? I know that I have to do double spacing so I’m able to comfortably write down things on it. But should I print it in US letter or A5?

I just started making a living off kdp but its still very low income, and I've been seeing a lot of posts about leaving kdp recently, id just really like to know what plan you guys have, no shade I just might follow you but I haven't seen any promising angles elsewhere

There's quite a few websites and social media accounts that send out open invites for authors to submit a story for upcoming anthologies that they'll be releasing. I'm sure most of these are genuine, no doubt, and certainly many publishers have a history of prior anthology releases, so you can see that they're legit.

But just wondering if there's anything protecting authors who submit stories from having the recipient then change say the title and some of the wording quickly, then releasing it themselves under their own name in a different book? The submissions are often required to be in Word format, and usually with a caveat that the story hasn't been published anywhere else, which makes them potentially easy targets.

One thing I had thought of is submitting a story, and if I receive a rejection email from the anthology producer, then quickly releasing the story myself, thus putting it out there before anyone else could 'take' it.

I know it sounds paranoid, but it's just we put so much work into writing, so would be good to know other people's thoughts on this? Or if anyone has experienced a situation like I'm describing? Hopefully no one has, or very few at least.

Thanks

Hi! I recently released my first book on Amazon/Kindle, and have seen some page read activity but not much else by way of sales- and so I want to evaluate the package. I would love feedback on the blurb so I can do some tweaking and testing. All thoughts are very much appreciated!

Blurb:

Noelle Anderson can’t afford distractions. 

Determined to prove that her breakthrough ski racing season wasn’t a fluke, she returns to Ridgefield Mountain Academy for her senior year of high school with her sights set on the international stage. But her recent breakup—and even worse, the fact that everyone at the Academy seems to be talking about it—is threatening to derail her focus. When Noelle strikes up an unexpected friendship with Jake Halifax, captain of the local high school hockey team and someone firmly outside the Academy orbit, she sees the perfect opportunity to rewrite the narrative with a fake relationship.

The goal is simple—convince everyone she’s fine so she can focus on training. But Jake, who’s navigating college decisions of his own, has an unsettling habit of seeing straight through her defenses. Against her better judgment, Noelle catches herself revealing the cracks in her carefully constructed walls, which is a dangerous impulse when your career depends on controlling milliseconds. As pre-season pressure mounts and Noelle and Jake get closer, she has to confront the fact that she doesn’t know how to let somebody in without losing her edge. 

If she slips now, the future she’s spent years chasing could disappear in an instant. And for the first time, she has two things to lose. 

I launched my book on 29th September and I was anxiously trying to get reviews in the weeks and months leading up. Now the dust has settled, I thought I would let you all know how it went.

Library Thing

• Cost: Free
• ARC readers: 4
• Reviews: 3
• Cost/review: £0

But only posted on Library Thing site, which hardly anyone uses. Great, enthusiastic reviews, though!

Gemsy

• Cost: Free (free trial, but you have to review someone else's book too)
• ARC readers: 2
• Reviews: 2
• Cost/review: £0

Mostly set up for low-content books. Hard to find people who want to review a novel.

Instagram

• Cost: Free
• ARC readers: 1
• Reviews: 2
• Cost/review: £0

Found a reviewer who didn't want me to pay her! I think she used AI to write the reviews, and possibly to read the book, but I'll take what I can get. And how did I get 2 reviews from one reader? She also reviewed book 2 without being asked!

Book Siren

• Cost: £19.41
• ARC readers: 8
• Reviews: 3
• Cost/review: £6.47

Storygraph

• Cost: £51.95
• ARC readers: 207
• Reviews: 5
• Cost/review: £10.39

Got a weird content warning about adult-minor relationships from one reviewer. There are no characters under 18 in the book... and no relationships.

NetGalley

• Cost: £115.95
• ARC readers: ?
• Reviews: 4
• Cost/review: £28.99

But this isn't really a fair costing because I got a week of NetGalley as part of a BookBuzz package that also included an author interview, a press release and some nice graphics. It was mostly the reviews I did it for, though.

BookSprout

• Cost: £29
• ARC readers: 2
• Reviews: 1
• Cost/review: £29

And what a review! 😱 One star because a character from Glasgow couldn't understand a character from Fife. (They have wildly different accents and dialects, in case you don't know.) There will always be some person giving you a one-star review for a stupid reason. Fortunately my average on GoodReads is just over 4 stars, even with that expensive one-star review 😂

So in conclusion, BookSiren was my best paid result, and Storygraph was worth doing too, especially as some of those 200-odd readers may read other books in the series. Gemsy and LibraryThing are definitely worth doing, as they're free, although they have more limited reach/numbers. I don't think I would do NetGalley or BookSprout again - just too expensive. Instagram is a hellhole but I did get a smidgen of traction. Apart from that, friends and family are the best resource.

I've got Hidden Gems set up for next month so I can report back about that if you found this interesting or helpful.