Tracy Bloom's Self-Published Book Rockets to the Top of Amazon's Charts

With no UK publishing deal for her debut novel, Tracy Bloom decided to go it alone. A few weeks later, her book was sitting at the top of the Amazon Kindle chart.

In a nutshell, this is what she learned about self-publishing:

"It is hugely time-consuming. If you are going to do it properly you cannot rush it, and implementing an effective marketing plan just drains time away from the actual writing."

"I spent three months doing research and preparing my book before I published and I'm glad I did. I now understand the ins and outs of how it works and I have to say I have a much greater appreciation of what a publisher actually does."

 "I believe that self-publishing gives debut authors opportunities that are increasingly scarce within mainstream publishing. Without it my career in the UK may never have got off the ground. Having a route to get new work out there without relying on a small number of gatekeepers has to be a good thing for everyone, including the large publishers."

Tracy Bloom's latest book, The Wife Who Got a Life, was published by HarperCollins. 

Tracy Bloom: I learned a huge amount from self-publishing

Source: The Guardian, Tuesday 9 July 2013 09.03 EDT

Why did you decide to self-publish your book?

I wrote my novel, No-one Ever Has Sex on a Tuesday, while living in Connecticut, US having moved there temporarily with my husband's job. I left behind a dream career developing rides for theme parks and found myself in a foreign country with a new baby and a desire to make the most of my dramatic change in circumstances. I joined an evening class in creative writing and about a year later I had completed my first romantic comedy, written mostly during my son's afternoon naps. To my utter shock an agent and foreign-rights deals came quickly afterwards, but although I had some very positive comments no UK publisher stepped forward. Having watched the self-publishing industry evolve to become a valid gateway to reach an audience I decided that the time was right to go it alone.

Read the rest of the article here.