What I’ve Learned from Writing My Novel, The Spellbound Abbey

So recently I was fortunate enough to have the ability to self-publish my first novel, called The Spellbound Abbey. I have written many stories before writing this one, but I believe during the process with The Spellbound Abbey I learned a great deal during the writing, publishing, and marketing processes which I would like to share with any other aspiring authors out there.

About The Spellbound Abbey

In short, it is a fantasy fiction story focused on Audrey Hughes as she receives an inheritance and title giving her a position of power within her community during a time of possible war with the neighboring country of the dragonkin. If you’re interested in learning more about the story itself, click this link: https://writingmasonmonteith.ck.page/landingpage.

Picture by Mason Monteith

Writing

The Spellbound Abbey is a project I started at the beginning of this last year. At first, it started out as a practice piece in an idea I enjoyed, but didn’t think would do well on the market. Out of all of the stories I have written, this was the first story I enjoyed working on throughout the whole process.

It is important to remember to write something that you will enjoy, not worrying about what others will think because there will always be others like you who have similar interests and who wanted to read a book like yours. So here are a few things I learned in working on the writing aspects of this project…

Jump Around

When I wrote the story, I didn’t have much of an idea besides the main few scenes of the story. I often got stuck in trying to figure out the filler or connecting scenes that drove the characters through to the main plot beats.

So instead of struggling to fight through and write the story chapter by chapter, I skipped about and wrote the scenes I had the motivation to write. By doing this first, I was able to figure out better ways to connect the scenes.

Beta Readers

This is a term I never heard of until this year, and I am so glad I learned about beta readers! Instead of struggling through myself and self-publishing and praying my book was good, I was able to get much-needed feedback and improve my story based on my reader’s feedback.

I used both Upwork and Fiverr to find beta readers for hire, and I can say confidently without the throughout feedback I got from my beta readers, I would have missed a lot of confusing points and never corrected them. Always get a second or third set of eyes on your writing! As the writer, you’ve read it a thousand times, and finding issues can be difficult, but having others come at it never having read it before you can get interesting new perspectives!

Formatting

Formatting was honestly the biggest pain out of everything. This is only because I wanted specific fonts and images, there are easy ways to format, but I decided to format in Canva (because it is free). There is one thing to know when formatting in Canva… Double-check all of your formattings before doing the whole book. I accidentally made each page of text with the font two sizes too large, and in editing it smaller I had to copy and paste text between pages to refill each page. Not to mention renumbering the pages! Now that I know how to format through Canva better, it should be easier next time, but always double-check your work early on!

Picture by Mason Monteith

Self-Publishing

In figuring out many aspects of self-publishing, I tried to plan ahead and do as much research as possible, but a lot of plans ended up changing as the publishing date arrived, and honestly, there is not a whole lot of information about self-publishing available out there. So here is a bit of what I learned about self-publishing The Spellbound Abbey.

ISBNs, Barcodes, and Covers

I went ahead and bought an ISBN and Barcode through Bowker for $150. Here are a few things I learned from this…

Don’t set the barcode price until you know the printing cost. I originally planned to sell my book for $10.55, but once I found out the print cost I realized the book was way longer than I originally thought, making the book extremely thick and a little more costly to print. Once you set the barcode price along with your ISBN, you can’t change it without purchasing another one. That being said, I recently found out you can generate a barcode with the ISBN you purchased! So before you buy the bundle check out this free barcode generator: https://www.creativindiecovers.com/free-online-isbn-barcode-generator/

Buying an ISBN allows you to publish on multiple platforms, and get your copies in the store. Using just the free Amazon KDP ISBN means your book is only in their system, which makes it more difficult to get your book in stores or elsewhere. With an ISBN you can publish on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Google Books, and more.

The cover of your book is everything. For self-published books, it is harder to get a reader's attention to buy your book, which is why an eye-catching cover is important. I did a lot of research on premade covers and thought I found one that was perfect, only to find it being used and sold elsewhere! It is better to hire an illustrator or do it yourself to cover yourself from copyright issues down the road. Fiverr and Upwork are good places to look at hiring a cover artist, Canva works too if you have creative skills in graphic design!

Amazon

I actually published before on Amazon when I was younger, but deleted the book shortly after, so I understood the basics of publishing through amazon, but here are a few things I learned with how the system works now…

You can order advanced formatting copies! But this also means if you want advance copies for giveaways and such you will have to publish your physical book and order copies so they don’t have a gray ribbon marking it as formatting check only.

It can take a bit of time to update aspects of your book. While Amazon’s system of reviewing usually gets done within 12–24 hours of updates, when you want to change pricing, descriptions, and other information be prepared for that waiting period.

A+ Content. I never heard of this until recently, but A+ content is important! A+ Content is images around your book description that make your book listing really stand out, you can add them under the marketing page of the Amazon KDP menus and choose to add a few image modules to your book listing.

Barnes and Noble

The main thing I learned by publishing through Barnes and Noble, is to create your vendor account as early as possible! I almost wasn’t able to publish with Barnes because my vendor account (tax information and such) took so long in the under-review process and marked it as an error and I had to contact the company multiple times to fix it. This could have just been me, but I would try to get that up and running early if possible.

Picture by Mason Monteith

Marketing

In self-publishing, a lot of marketing was particularly difficult to figure out. Most of the marketing came from my social accounts, most notably Instagram. Here are a few ways I worked at marketing my book.

ARCs

ARC or advanced readers copy is a giveaway of sorts, giving the book out in exchange for honest reviews. I used Goodreads forums, and Library Thing, and just reached out to book lovers on various social media to offer arcs in exchange for feedback. I started this a bit later than expected, but if you’re stressing over getting reviews, I would recommend looking into doing an Arc at least one to two months in advance from the publication date.

Book Tour

Book touring! There are book bloggers on social media who offer book tours, which means multiple accounts will post about your book and hype it up a little for publication day. From the day my book came out and for the next three days, four accounts posted about my book for The Spellbound Abbey Book Tour, and it helped get my book a good amount of attention! Contact big booktok or bookstagram account to see if they offer such an offer or if they advertise on their own for a certain fee. It is a great way to get some attention around your new book.

Picture by Mason Monteith

In Conclusion

There are many things I would have done differently in this project, but overall, I am very happy with how things turned out. Most of all for the great deal of things I learned from the process. Never expect a plan to go exactly as expected, and don’t expect your first project to be perfect!

I am eager to begin working on my next project armed with all of the knowledge I gained from The Spellbound Abbey’s work, and I hope you also found some useful bits of information from my ramblings about my work!