What I've Learned The Second Time Around

What I Learned The Second Time Around

At the beginning of February, I released my second poetry book Love Me, Love Me Not and there are a few things I did quite differently from when my first released book Without Purpose, I Have No Peace. From practicing more patience with myself to redesigning how the second book came out, there were several changes I’ve made this time around. I’m still learning as I go and trying to make the changes when necessary, so here are a few things that I’ve learned:

Patience:

When I released my first poetry book Without Purpose, I Have No Peace, it was done so in such a rush because I had something to prove to myself. I wanted to know that I could very well publish a collection of poems that I wrote by myself. It took about a month and a half but by the end, I had fifty poems ready to go. I knew the moment I second-guessed myself that I would put off the project for another month or even a year, so I had to keep going.

I had already planned to release my second book, Love Me, Love Me Not in February, so by the time Without Purpose, I Have No Peace was out, I knew that I had about seven months until then to go over the poems I wanted in the book. I didn’t need to put this out as fast as possible like last time because I already knew that I could very well publish a book. Since I knew that, I also knew I could publish a second one, so I took my time with it. Even when I felt like I was losing my momentum, I didn’t want to rush it for the sake of just having it out earlier than expected and it paid off well in the end. I felt like I’d had enough time to really look over what I really wanted to be included in the book.

Redesigning:

When working on Love Me, Love Me Not, I wanted it to look better than my first book Without Purpose, I Have No Peace. In the first book, you may notice that there are no page numbers. That’s because I didn’t know how to keep my page numbers on it when I was struggling to format it in Kindle Direct Publishing. Also, the cover that I’d used for the first book was not the intended cover by far. In reality, I found that image through KDP and once I accidentally clicked it, I couldn’t figure out how to change it back. With the second book though, when I was working on its cover art, I searched carefully for an image to use and once I uploaded it through KDP, I was able to figure out how to undo the image if I didn’t want it anymore. Finding the cover I wanted and actually using it made me feel as if my vision with the second book had become a lot clearer. I’ve also made sure that my fonts remained consistent on the second book, unlike the first book where I have two different fonts in it, making it look inconsistent. Now, with these changes, I feel the book looks more polished and professional, which makes me feel as though I’m better presenting myself as a writer.

Expanding Across Platforms:

My final point is kind of an in-betweener that I was learning both before and after the release of Love Me, Love Me Not AND after releasing Without Purpose, I Have No Peace. I didn’t know what social media websites to use when trying to expand my brand on different platforms. Now I see that by using things like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, I’m able to bring a little more attention to my writing. I was able to join Facebook author groups and while I was uncomfortable with them at first, I think I’m slowly starting to get the hang of it. With a little more time, I believe I’ll garner even more attention to my writing. I’ve had authors buy my book while I buy theirs. Sharing each other's promotions from time to time. Also in those same groups, we’ll often have an unspoken agreement of a follow for a follow. I’ve learned if you engage with other people’s content they will most likely be engaged with yours, so sometimes aside from just promoting each other’s content, I would leave a comment under their posts. Expanding across platforms has benefited me in terms of people having greater access to me and my works.

Conclusion:

These are some of the things that I have learned and am still learning. There are still some things that I’m sure I will need to know. Soon, I won’t be so much in my “rookie” stage. I’m just learning to take it one step at a time because I don’t want to mess this up trying to rush it. I’m sure I’ll be exactly where I need to be, exactly where I want to be.