1. What can you tell me about your experience as a writer?

It grows your patience very quickly and you need to do it for the love of storytelling, cause you ain’t seeing a good royalty check anytime soon. But there’s no greater feeling than when someone tells you how much they loved one of your books and how it left an impact on them.

2. What made you decide to write a book?

I felt I had stories to tell, and they were far too long not to make into a book.

3. What circumstances brought you to the decision to self-publish your book?

I had done traditional publishing for my first four books and wasn’t digging the way they were being marketed. I also wanted to have more of a say in decisions, so I said, “Hey! I can get all that with self-publishing.”

4. What has your experience as a self-publisher been like?

It can be very time-consuming as well as frustrating trying to get more eyes on your books, but the amount of control is truly unmatched.

5. How do you respond to the negative stigma attached to self-publishing and self-published books?

I always say the same thing, “A self-published book is a real book and it is as impressive as having a traditionally published book and deserves the same amount of respect.”

6. What is one very important lesson you have learned as a self-publisher so far?

Minimize costs where you can. They add up so dang fast, and before you know it, you’ll be using your car as collateral to get a cool cover made.

7. What do you know now about self-publishing that you wish you knew at the beginning?

ARC and review readers are key to making sure people find out about your books. Build up a network of those. If you do that, you’ll be golden!

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?

I struggle with it on a daily basis. I’ve got so many social media apps to promote my books, and I almost never post about them. The cruel irony. But honestly, there’s certainly a balance between getting word of your book out there and spamming people to death with it. Most of the time people will support you and want to see your book get more eyes on it (just don’t make every single post be about it).

9. How do you promote your books and what form of book promotion has worked the best for you?

I hit basically any of the major social media sites. Of those, TikTok has worked wonders since BookTok is the best place to find reviewers and for them to boost you with their own videos.

10. What are some other important things you have learned as a self-publisher?

Having a network of friends and people you can trust who help with various parts of the process makes things a thousand times easier. A book is not created by one person alone, it takes a village.

11. Do you feel that self-publishing is a viable choice for other authors?

Absolutely! But it also depends on the author and what they write. For some, traditional publishing is by far the best route. But for those who don’t feel that way, self-publishing could be the key method to making a breakthrough to get their stories seen and heard.

12. How do you feel that self-publishing their books has helped many unknown authors finally get the recognition their books deserve?

For those who have books that traditional publishers won’t take a chance on, that’s where self-publishing has helped out tremendously. You see people like Aron Beauregard and Eric LaRocca who took books that weren’t your typical commercially viable stuff and end up creating smash hits out of them.

ABOUT RADAR:

Radar DeBoard is just a simple horror writer, living in the bleak state of Kansas. Recently, he has grown weary of the limitations of his craft when it comes to scares. Sure, he has terrified many thanks to having four published books to his name as well as being featured in dozens of horror anthologies, but the fear from those stories wears off. He wishes to create something so horrific that it lingers in the reader’s mind for years to come. Creating something of such unfathomable terror would cement him in the brains of those who purchase his books. Plus, it would be like he left a piece of himself in each copy of his work. A small bit of himself that can grow and watch, waiting for the right time to deliver a final fright.