My 1st Time in Self-Publishing (PART 1)

The big question that people would ask me all the time is: "When are you going to publish your book?" A lot of these times, I wouldn't know how to answer this question. It's not that I didn't want to publish, the problem was how I was going to publish.

All my life, I grew up knowing that in order for a manuscript to turn into a book (and perhaps be on the bestseller's list someday), you would have to go through the traditional route of finding a publisher. So, down that road, I had bought a copy of the Writer's Market (the 2016 edition), and I would go through the list of publishers that were printed in there. I was also told by a few professors along the way to check out my favorite books and see what company published them. Eventually, I had a pretty good idea of what publishers I was interested in: Scholastic (a brand that I grew up with and love) and Disney Hyperion (one of my all-time favorite publishers).

But then there was a road block: Some of these publishers like Scholastic or Disney Hyperion required that you have a literary agent, so that was yet another thing that I had to do research on. And that was the problem: You had to know which publisher requires a literary agent, and which of them don't. And even if you find a publisher and send out your manuscript, you would be forced to wait for months to get a response from them (whether they send you a rejection letter or a letter of acceptance--most of the time, you'll get a rejection. Like, you won't believe the number of times that my short stories would get rejected).

I remember expressing this problem to some of my colleagues, and someone asked, "Have you tried self-publishing?" And that was something new to me--self-publishing. But there was that pesky excuse: "Well, I don't know where to start..." And plus, I was fully aware of scams on the Internet. The last thing that I wanted was sending out a manuscript, and being asked to throw in some money to "make my dream a reality." Rule of thumb: do NOT trust a "publisher" that'll ask you to pay up-front (and keep paying) in order for them to publish your book.

But then, this past summer (2018), I was browsing through the Barnes and Noble website, and I scroll down to see a tab that said "Barnes and Noble Press. Publish your book with B&N." And this came as a surprise to me, because I was very familiar with Barnes and Noble, but I never knew that they had their own self-publishing press. And plus, it has always been a dream of mine to see my book featured at Barnes and Noble. So, I checked it out, and...

More to come on my story about self-publishing for the first time!

TO BUY MY BOOK: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dolphin-princess-veronica-gonzalez/1129202183?ean=9781538091609

Veronica Gonzalez