Why did I choose to self-publish?

It’s been three years (on the 28th of March) since I self-published my first novel Endurance.  I remember working on it whilst at university, and I most of all remember having doubts about self-publishing Endurance – mostly because there was a niggling fear of what people would say or think about me for doing it.

I personally love the freedom of self-publishing, even though it does require some more work – who am I kidding, some? A LOT more work.

I believe new writers should try their luck with self-publishing; mainly to engage with readers, create a following and allow people to review your work and help adapt you as a writer. From my experience, encouraging people to read your stories is the key part to self-publishing; even if you give them the book for free

Covering: What are the benefits of self-publishing? & Self-Publishing on Createspace

Source: Why did I choose to self-publish?

How time flies – why did I choose to self-publish?

How time flies – why did I choose to self-publish?
Time. It’s a funny thing. We have so much of it, but we still don’t always take advantage of it.
This blog post is just a quick post about why I chose to self-publish and how it’s changed me.

It’s been three years (on the 28th of March) since I self-published my first novel Endurance

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I remember working on it whilst at university, and I most of all remember having doubts about self-publishing Endurance – mostly because there was a niggling fear of what people would say or think about me for doing it. Once I adapted a hardness and carelessness for what people would say about me, my decision was made. The decision though even after that wasn’t simple, because then I needed to consider whether to self-publish Endurance after an edit, or to finish Endurance and then just see if I could get the story published.

However, when I thought about it, I knew that would be a challenge for anyone, let alone a nineteen year old university student. In the end, I thought ‘you know what? fuck it, I’m going to give it a go’ and decided to start my self-publishing career as T. J. Blake.
‘Why?’ I here you ask; because firstly, I could, but secondly, I wanted to see what people thought of my writing. I had a slight idea of what people thought of my work, because of my Creative Writing and English Language studies, but I wanted to know what more people thought; more than my family or my peers. This is exactly what self-publishing has done for me, it’s given me a great amount of experience, a huge boost in confidence and now I’m ready to self-publish more.

So here I am, nearly three years later with three books self-published, and a fourth & fifth in the works, I’m very happy with my writing progress.

Having self-published two out of three books from The Endurance Series (Endurance Endurance: Apocalypse) and standalone novel The Author, I can proudly say that I am looking forward to self-publishing my fourth novel DECEPTION, the finale of The Endurance Series (Endurance 3) and the many more books and book series to follow.

If you want to find out more about my books, then feel free to continue to ‘Books by T. J. Blake‘ or continue to my Amazon author page or even my Goodreads author page.

Endurance: Apocalypse - Out Now!                                          the-author-front-cover2

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Update: Coming Soon!

We’re coming to the New Year now, so I thought I’d update you all on my projects.

As you may know, I haven’t self-published any books during this year – simply because I was too busy with my final year of University and I unexpectedly landed myself a Copywriting role at a Digital Marketing Company. However, I was planning to completely reduce the amount of writing I did during the year of 2015, but that didn’t really happen.

I have been writing – not as regularly as normal, but more than I anticipated. If you’ve been keeping up to date with this blog or my Twitter (@TJBlake93) or Facebook pages, then you’ll know that I have been working on my new thriller Deception, which I am hoping to self-publish some time next year. I have also done some work to Endurance 3, which could also be out next year, more likely 2017 though – but I will push for it to be out 2016, just for you!

Anyhow, thought I’d let you know that I am still alive (because I haven’t posted in a while) and working hard to get Deception written and self-published (or published!?) for you to all enjoy.
I have a good feeling about this, unlike Obi-Wan… That’s right, I’m VERY excited to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens!

COMING SOON

Deception (2016) (Thriller)

Endurance 3 (2016/17) (Mystery, Horror, Suspense, Dystopia, Science Fiction)

My Article About Self-Published Authors

Please feel free to have a read of my article which I wrote and published onto Blirt.

 

” Should Self-Published authors be frowned upon?
This is my view on self-publishing – coming from a self-published author of Endurance and The Author.

http://www.blirt-magazine.com/display/newsarticle.php?id=1010#sthash.tyQPy1pW.dpuf

The Author and myself on Gingernut books

The Author (Coming January 1st) and myself are on Gingernut Books’ website. Gingernut are an established independent publishing company in the UK.

It is great to be on the site so thank you to them!

If you are a writer then why not check them out, they offer great services.

http://www.gingernutbooks.co.uk/

http://www.gingernutbooks.co.uk/tj-blake.html

T. J. Blake and The Author on Gingernut Books
T. J. Blake and The Author on Gingernut Books