Interview with Self-Publisher Melanie Hooyenga
1. What can you tell me about your experience as a writer?
I’ve been writing novels for fourteen years and have been published for ten. My first two books were intended for adult audiences but featured teenage protagonists, and after the second book, a few friends suggested I try writing young adult. I went all in and tried first-person, present tense for the first time, and absolutely loved it.
I’ve published nine novels (three trilogies), have two short stories in anthologies, and am starting my thirteenth novel right now!
2. What made you decide to write a book?
I’ve always loved telling stories. When I was young, I wrote a lot of poems, songs, and short stories, and I was always intrigued with the idea of writing a longer manuscript. I’d tried outlining a book a couple times in my twenties, but it wasn’t until I moved to Mexico and wasn’t working — and therefore had a lot of free time on my hands — that I threw myself into learning everything I could about the publishing industry. My first attempt was a memoir about my first year in Mexico, then I switched to novels and haven’t looked back.
3. What circumstances brought you to the decision to self-publish your book?
When I first started writing, I swore I would only publish traditionally. This was in the late ‘00s, when self-publishing was just getting its legs beneath it. By the time I’d been querying my third book, Flicker, for 2+ years, that stigma had started to change and I decided I’d rather put the book out into the world than leave it languishing in my laptop.
At the time, I was partnered with another author designing book covers for authors who were self-publishing, so I swapped services with her to format my book. After that, I did the formatting and covers myself, and the rest is history.
4. What has your experience as a self-publisher been like?
I’m not going to lie, it’s challenging. When I first started, I had no idea what I was doing, but I learned more with each book. I also built up my network of indie authors and learned from them. By the time I was ready to release the first book in my second series, I had an arsenal of marketing strategies — blog tours, contest entries, and advanced readers with reviews, to name a few — and it remains my most successful launch to date.
The self-publishing community is wonderful. A lot of successful authors are generous about sharing the techniques that have worked for them, and I’m in countless Facebook groups dedicated to all aspects of indie publishing.
Because of my background in graphic design and marketing, I’m able to do pretty much all the work myself, including cover design, interior formatting, and all marketing materials. (I do use an editor.) But I also have a day job, and it’s tough to find time to do all the things I know I should be doing.
5. How do you respond to the negative stigma attached to self-publishing and self-published books?
Fortunately a lot of that stigma has changed. There are still books that have poor quality covers and need an editor, but the majority of them are just as professional as anything come out of traditional publishers.
There will always be people who look down on self-publishing, but that just pushes me to make my books the best they can be. Recently I discovered that a couple traditionally-published author friends won the same award that I’ve won for several books, and I admit, that made me feel really good because I felt like we were on the same level.
Most importantly, many readers don’t seem to care if the cover isn’t as professional or the formatting is a little wonky. They want a good story, and self-publishing has allowed more stories to reach readers.
6. What is one very important lesson you have learned as a self-publisher?
Networking is crucial. I’ve learned so much from other authors, and having other people on your side makes writing feel a little less isolated. I’m in online groups where I can ask questions about marketing, pricing strategies, problems (and resolutions) with vendors, and we help each other spread the word about our books.
7. What do you know now about self-publishing that you wish you knew at the beginning?
In the past few years, rapid release has become a strategy with which many authors have found success. Basically, you don’t publish the first book in a series until the entire series is finished and ready to go. Then you publish them anywhere from a week to a month apart.
For new authors, this can be beneficial because readers are more willing to take a chance on a new author if they’ve published more than one book. And more established authors love it because it keeps their fans clamoring for more.
If you’ve never published, time is on your side. You can finish a series and release them close together for a bigger impact than you’d get releasing them one per year (which is my publishing schedule.) Personally, I don’t write quickly enough to do this, and I try to be content with my one-book-per-year schedule.
8. A lot of authors of self-published books have reservations about promoting and marketing their book. Some even feel that it is a form of vanity or self-importance. What is your opinion about this?
People choose to self-publish for two reasons: they want a physical book they can share with friends and loved ones, or they want to make writing their business. It’s important to be realistic about your goals. If you want the first option — great! It’s exciting to hold physical proof of your hard work. But if you want to make writing your business, you have to run it as such.
If you create a product that you want others to buy, you have to tell them about it. That said, there’s an art to selling without being obnoxious, and there are ways to promote your work without sharing your personal life with the world.
As for if self-publishing being a form of vanity or self-importance, I mean, yeah, choosing to share your creative work with the world IS a bit self-important, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. If you’re not comfortable with that aspect of it, this path may not be for you.
9. How do you promote your books and what form of book promotion has worked the best for you?
I’ve got all the basics — website, newsletter, social media — plus I sell my books on all retailer sites. A lot of authors choose to sell exclusively with Amazon in Kindle Unlimited, and while I’ve enrolled books in that program at different points in my career, I prefer having my books accessible to as many readers as possible.
I do events throughout the year and have developed my booth with ideas borrowed from other writers. I have a branded table cloth, banner, bookmarks, and business cards, and recently added wooden crates that I painted purple (my brand color) to help display my growing inventory.
10. What are some other important things you have learned as a self-publisher?
There will always be people who question your decisions. It’s important to listen to advice from those who have more experience than you, but you also have to listen to your gut.
Another thing is to find your cheerleaders. They don’t have to be family members or people you know in your daily life, but they’re out there and they’ll keep you going when you start to question yourself.
Finally, market yourself, not your book. Yes, you want to promote each book as they’re published, but your website, etc, should be created around you, the author.
11. Do you feel that self-publishing is a viable choice for other authors?
Yes — if you’re willing to put in the work. When you self-publish, every decision is up to you, and every success is up to you. If my books get press coverage, or win an award, or get stellar reviews, I know that’s because of the work I’ve put in.
If your goal is to make enough money to quit your day job, you might want to reexamine your goals. Yes, there are success stories that make self-publishing seem like an easy way to get rich and famous, but those instances are few and far between.
12. How do you feel that self-publishing their books has helped many unknown authors finally get the recognition their books deserve?
Self-publishing has definitely made it easier for more authors to get their books to readers. While it’s still more difficult to get into brick and mortar stores, ebooks and online retailers have made that access more equitable. That said, it usually still takes money for advertising, but the fact that people anywhere in the world can search an author’s name and find their books definitely means more authors are finding success.
ABOUT MELANIE:
Multi-award winning young adult author Melanie Hooyenga writes books about strong girls who learn to navigate life despite its challenges. She first started writing as a teenager and finds she still relates best to that age group.
Her award-winning YA sports romance series, The Rules Series, is about girls from Colorado falling in love and learning to stand up on their own. Her YA time travel trilogy, The Flicker Effect, is about a teen who uses sunlight to travel back to yesterday. The first book, Flicker, won first place for Middle Grade/Young Adult in the Writer’s Digest 2015 Self-Published eBook awards, and The Rules Series has won ten awards, including Finalist for MG/YA in the 2019 BookLife Prize. The first book in her current series, Chasing the Sun, won gold for young adult general fiction in the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards and was named one of the Best Indie eBooks of 2020 by Barnes & Noble Press.
When not writing books, you can find her wrangling her Miniature Schnauzer Gus and playing every sport imaginable with her husband Jeremy.
Purchase link:
https://books2read.com/Chasing-the-Moon
Website and Social Media Links:
https://www.facebook.com/MelanieHooyenga
https://twitter.com/MelanieHoo
https://instagram.com/melaniehoo/
https://www.tiktok.com/@melaniehooyenga