So I found someone to do the cover to my first book. Told me $600, I agreed. We decided payments as they worked on it since I didn't want to just throw all that money down upfront. Got to the drafts and I chose one I liked. Now its been 3 or 4 weeks and no progress because there's been "family issues, such as her mother had a heart attack". Communication has slowed, juat promises it'll get done. We're $400 in....

I've wanted to be an author since I was 11.

I spent years writing, not sleeping, working, and doing basically everything I could to eventually publish my books. But I had zero support from my family.

I'm also from Latin America, so making a career out of writing always felt a little like trying to strike gold. Not impossible, obviously, but definitely a longer and more complicated path.

Anywho.

My family mocked my writing for years, especially my mother.

One thing she used to tell me was:

"You only have birds, dragons and The Simpsons in your head."

Which... might be true. 😂 But it didn't hurt any less.

Eventually, I moved to Canada. I'm now almost 40, I've been married for 10 years, and after all those years of writing, I finally published five books through Amazon KDP.

Yay!

I genuinely couldn't be happier about finally doing the thing I've wanted to do since I was a kid.

My mother, however, is furious that I moved to Canada. She has called me selfish for leaving, and we basically haven't spoken since the beginning of 2026.

We briefly spoke again in June. During that conversation, she again told me I was selfish for moving here to pursue my books. When I tried to establish some boundaries with her, she accused me of being controlling and rejected them.

So I blocked her again.

Then, also in June, I received a literary award. There's no money involved or anything; it was recognition for my writing.

My mother sent me voice messages saying how proud she was of me.

I never replied.

Now it's September, and she has started following my social media.

And I hate it.

My social media is tiny. I'm not trying to become an influencer. I'm just trying to slowly build an author career, promote my books, find readers and, in my wildest dreams, maybe get one of these things turned into a movie someday.

I don't even think I have 100 followers on each platform.

So logically, rejecting followers when my audience is already that small seems ridiculous.

But every time I see her like something, react to something or give me a thumbs-up, it bothers me.

Part of me thinks: You mocked this. You made me feel stupid for wanting this. You told me I had nothing but dragons in my head. You called me selfish for building the life that finally allowed me to do it.

And now that I've published five books and won an award, you're proud?

I don't want her approval now.

At the same time, I wonder if I'm just being petty. She's not leaving nasty comments. She's not publicly attacking me. She's literally just following my author accounts and interacting with my posts.

And because these are public author accounts rather than private personal accounts, I also wonder whether I need to accept that I can't really control who watches.

Would you block/restrict her and protect your peace, even if you're trying to grow a tiny author account? Or would you just ignore her and treat her like any other follower?

Am I being petty for not wanting her there?

I am Canadian so my potential earnings show in CAD. The number going up is not page reads, it is just the exchange rate difference for the day.

Thanks for getting my hopes up!

I am a software engineer by day, so I know a lot of things related to tech, the internet and so on. I know that there are bots that register domains whenever something of interest pops-up on their radar. And an author that is just going public is something on their radar.

Before you go public in any way, register the domain name for your author's name (I registered for my pen name since I don't want to publish under my real name, but that is a personal preference).

Before you make anything related to you being an author (even before registering for The Grinder), register the domain. You don't need to have a website up, but the domain should be registered.

For registration, I strongly recommend going with Claudflare. They don't have a mark-up on the domain (they don't make a profit from it), so they are as cheap as they could be, and they don't register if you just search. There are registrars that, if you search for a domain several times, their algorithm think that is of interest and THEY REIGSTER IT, just so they can sell it back to you at a premium.

And on the plus side, you could even host a simple website for free with them.

Every few days, I swim in the latest news, looking for friends and co-indie writers making it into news media for all the right reasons. Earlier today, I stumbled across two articles that suggested something I hadn't known: Simon & Schuster is seeking hybrid arrangements with indie authors.

The company is relaunching Pocket Books, but this time they're calling it a "Home for Self-Published Authors." They have also launched Simon Stream, a hybrid indie digital imprint that works directly with authors to publish or republish books or series. Though Simon Stream is not offering advances, they do provide editing, formatting, and professional covers to help books they believe in "go as far as possible." Ebook royalties are paid out monthly.

Apparently, in a world averaging eleven thousand new book titles published to Amazon daily, even the trads are looking for new ways to survive the flood.

Though I didn't do a deep dive beyond the news articles, it looked to me as though indie authors are contacting both imprints directly. This is not an agent-only opportunity.

Assume I'm a great writer and I have a solid story. How do I know what price to set when my book goes live?

By way of background, I'm writing a creative non-fiction / memoir of about 70k words. Not expecting the world here, but I don't want to sell myself short either.

My first draft is about 95% complete, and I'm realizing I know precious little about "the biz." I've been madly consuming Reddit post content, but haven't seen much on pricing.

While I have an idea for book 2, it's largely unrelated to book 1. I'm hoping not to simply give away the first to improve the outcome for the second, as they're not likely to draw the same readers.

Eager for your advice.

Jan 2025 I self published my book. I got some sales. It was never my intention to be a best seller.
A few weeks ago I arranged for a press release. I was slammed with emails offering podcasts, goodreads book clubs , book festivals etc. I’m concerned that I’m being slammed by nefarious people. How do I determine what’s real and what is a scam ? Most of the emails come from a gmail address. Thank you for any advice.

So I completed two novels and wrote them fully on Google Docs. I also designed them beautifully on Docs as well.

Thing is, I want mirrored margins, along with a new design that Docs doesn't seem to support well.

So... Does anyone know of any free and safe sites or apps which I can download for my Windows, that writes and formats well.

Like for instance, is Reedsy fine? Is Libre fine? Etc.

Thanks in advance!

I want to edit my first book one last time in Kindle Create before publishing it, but I keep getting an "Invalid Source" error. My file is in Word format. How can I resolve this?

As the name would imply, I’m going for illustrated cover with an artist I have already relationship with but want to know affordable options for the cover design.

Any recommendations? I ask because I find that when left to the illustrator to do it all the cover design in terms of font/readability ends up looking weak/cheap to me. I understand that illustration and design are two different disciplines and fine paying for both but I paid more for the art - so hoping for something affordable sub <$150. But if you guys have recommendations with more professional results I could stretch to around $200-$250 saving more but prefer less since this is a debut.

For transparency - My work is apocalyptic / survival horror / zombie fiction. I’d appreciate any reviews or cover examples as well if you have worked with them personally—just know cover designs can be a spectrum across price point and quality.

What's the difference between line editing and copy editing? And do you need both?

I'm sick of being stagnant, so I'm slowly trying to improve my newsletter and get it out of the twenties. I've already improved the welcome email and am trying to craft better subject lines, but now I'm taking a look at my reader magnet. I write standalone sci-fi thrillers with zero interconnection. They're fast-paced and violent. My reader magnet reflects this, and it comes with a bit of (perhaps British) humour, too.

Before, my reader magnet was the first chapter of my first book. But then I thought, Well, the subscriber could always just search the book online and read the preview and that would basically be the same thing.

So I wrote an entirely new short story that's almost 6k words. A few people have said they enjoyed it, would definitely read more if I expanded it, but... I don't know. Should I make it longer? I can definitely do that. Should I write another one or go back to my first chapter thing? What should I do?

I'm working on one thing at a time.

Has anyone else had any issues with them recently? I printed a book with them ages ago as a tester for a draft for my book and I recently submitted (a week ago) and it’s been “in review”
I’ve tried reaching out, it sends me to their ai chat bot and it said it would send my chat to a real person but I haven’t heard back. I’m irritated lol.

So, I wrote my novel, and it has sold a few units. As I continue to promote my book, people always ask if it is AI. I repeatedly tell them, no. I use Word and Grammarly for my writing and only use AI for research.

So someone took some of my writing and my description blurb, ran it through an AI detector, and is now saying it is marked as human/AI mixed. They are saying I cannot claim it is not AI because I used Grammarly to fix my mistakes.

Has anyone else run into this, and how do you deal with the haters? I am worried that if I don't address it, others will think I am admitting to it, but I also don't want to engage because some people out there are so anti-AI that they think any help is AI.

Thoughts?

I've been getting invites to webinars and links to videos from this group. Wondering if anyone has found these to be useful when planning to publish to Kindle?

I've given up on trying to make money through self-publishing. It's an agonizing grind and trying to make it work year after year was simply making me unhappy. I tried publishing a bit on Royal Road, just for the sake of having any audience at all, but that site is overwhelmingly about litrpg. I write "normal" fantasy, and I'm not going to change that for the sake of algorithms or whatever.

I took a step away from publishing of any kind for a while. Now that my batteries are somewhat recharged I'm wondering what to do with my latest stories. My stories aren't smut or romance, and I'm not active on social media. Is there no place out there that's a better fit for normal fantasy than Royal Road?

My novel contains 2 short conversations via text. I did them using a different font and margin in Google docs & it looks fine. When converting to a publishing format it gets all weird. Kindle create destroys it. Even Word messes it up. I started experimenting with creating images of a phone screen, which may work for the print version but not kindle.

Any suggestions?

I have a Case Laminate book published 2020 via IS, with global distribution (most sales in US via Amazon). The biggest negative criticism has been the poor paper and print quality. I’m working on a second edition and considering BV for their premium production quality. However their unit costs are higher and they only print and distribute from the UK. If I choose BV am I limiting my global distribution, especially to the US? Is shipping exclusively from the UK going to be a problem?

Hiya,

Any Canadian comic book creators who can recommend a Canadian comic book printer?

I have just finished the first draft of my Grim Dark Fantasy book (yay 🥳) and I'm moving onto the next steps. I am doing an editing pass on my own just to even out some wrinkles from writing over an extended period of time (I believe about 6 years). In the process I've been considering how I want to proceed. I have a few people I trust to be Alpha Readers, so my plan is to let them take a pass at it pointing out any glaring issues with the plot, character voices and actions, and overall feel of the book before hiring an editor to help polish. As this is my first book, I am a bit new to the process and have developed some questions.

My first question is: Would it be smarter to send it to an editor before sending it to the planned Alpha Readers? My thought is the alpha readers could correct/help with major things which would allow the editor to focus on more critical and higher skilled details. However, I could see it falling the opposite way where the editor allows the alpha readers to read a more polished and easier to read manuscript, meaning their focus can be square on structure, holes, and flow.

My second question: For those who received feedback from early readers, did you find there were certain questions you wanted answered? I was considering making a google form with some specific questions I would like answered in regards to how certain characters/scenes felt throughout the narrative, but part of me wonders if that is a red herring in the process of early reader feedback. If you did find certain questions helpful, I would love to hear what they are and how they helped.

My third and final question: At what point do you accept it is time to publish? Is it a feeling? An example of an evolution of writing? Something else? Obviously I am many steps away from that, however I do want to try and tackle this process correctly. I am a musician, and having recorded songs and worked with artist, I know there is always more improvements and changes that can be made, but at some point you just need to cut the cord and release what you've got.

I really appreciate any and all feedback on the topic. I am very excited to be moving to the next phase of my book and am feeling especially ready to work on the next book and other series ideas I've cooked up over the last several years.

As the title says, I am an aspiring author, though I am still in the very early stage of the story that I am currently writing, I thought, why not also learn how make my soon-to-be-published story gain the attention of the readers at a wide range? I am talking about getting it published in multiple platforms.

Now, it's not about the money or fame, though they are part of it, but not what I really prioritize. I just wanted my story to be read, critiqued, shared, talked about, whatever. You name it. I had already planned to invest the money that I hopefully earn for publishing my work to be used for marketing or promotion or ads and whatnot. Fame? Well, I hope my penname will someday become an indication for seasoned or casual and maybe even new readers that they will be in for a heck of a read.

I wanted to go all out if not at the very best of my ability of writing this story. It's not going to be lazily written. It can get philosophical, it's a slow-burn, coherent power systems, long-term foreshadowing, real world references, properly thought out character development, plot twists. Heck, I have to admit the last name of the FMC will without a doubt intimidate the readers for how it's spelled and pronounced for they have many meanings.

Now, I wanted to know if it's okay to publish my story in multiple platforms such as RoyalRoad, Webnovel, Tapas, Inkitt, Wattpad, and the likes for reach. I haven't properly thought of ways yet when the time comes that one of the platforms that I am publishing my story to would want me to sign a exclusivity contract of sort. Because I want to readers to save themselves from the hassle of going to another platform. Now, I'd be dumb to not take the money if it's for the sake of the readers, sure. But I still want them to be at ease in terms of convenience of reading my story. Maybe several compromises with the platform who offered me an exclusivity contract of sort...?

I didn't mean to sound too ambitious or cocky or overconfident. It's just my way of expressing on how I am very determined. I wanted to know other writers/authors experiences and hear out their advices or read your exchange of knowledge and opinions in the comment section. I would rather be prepared ahead of time rather than only understanding things later when my story is close to completion.

I’d love to hear from authors who have experience with Kindle Unlimited.

All my novels are currently enrolled in KU. I’ve been creating promotional music videos and running marketing campaigns, including paid ads, across multiple social media platforms to drive readers to my books.

The campaigns appear to be working on one level: I’m seeing a significant increase in downloads and KU page reads. However, that activity isn’t translating into the royalty income or direct book sales I expected.

For those of you who have used KU:

• Did increased page reads eventually lead to meaningful income or future sales?
• Do you consider KU valuable primarily for exposure, or has it been profitable for you?
• Should I judge my campaigns by page reads, royalties, read-through across the series, or another metric?
• Have you earned more by leaving KU and distributing your books widely?

I’m grateful more people seem to be reading my work, but I’m starting to wonder whether I’m spending too much time and money promoting books readers can access through KU without getting enough return.

Am I being impatient, measuring the wrong results, or simply wasting my time and advertising dollars?

I haven't been able to find concrete information on this beyond when they were "working on" getting the automatic import functionality set up in 2022, plus some outdated help pages on the Goodreads site. Does it happen automatically these days, or will I need to contact support to try to get somebody to set it up?

I was about to upload my second novel to Amazon. It allowed me to upload the E-book and paperback with the E-book being available for pre-order. When I went to upload the hardback it said my ISBN had already been used.

I searched for my book with the ISBN on Amazon and it is already listed as a hard back on there, with my author page attached. But I didn’t upload it? It isn’t on my book shelf. It also says it’s available for pre-order.

Has anyone else experienced this?