Why Publishing My Imperfect Debut Was the Best Mistake Ever

Hi, I'm Anca Antoci, a fantasy writer. Many years ago, when I toyed with the idea of an original story, I did not plan to become an author. I dodn't even think it was possible.

I had no inkling that my initial writing endeavor would evolve into a trilogy. I was a stay-at-home mom with a story that had to be told. Well, to be honest, all I had was a scene, and that was based on an episode of Criminal Minds. Why I’m telling you all that? Because I need you to understand that when I started, I knew nothing about creative writing. I had no plan, no process, not even a rough story. I see so many aspiring writers in Facebook groups say they want to give up. Some of them are halfway through their first draft, others have finished it but feel it isn’t good enough. Yes, impostor syndrome is every beginner writer’s nemesis.

I did not become an overnight bestseller. In fact, my debut novel had only two pre-orders, one of which was my brother-in-law. But this isn’t a story about failure. I promise. I published my seventh book and working on the eighth. It gets better.

The Accidental Novel

Here’s how it all started. While my daughter was in day care, I dabbled in fanfiction. The reviews were good. So, powered by positive reinforcement, I decided to write my first original story.

If you’ve never written fanfiction before, here’s why it’s so much easier: you take already formed characters with back stories, personality and all you do is put them in new situations. Typically, if you’re writing fanfiction for a story (book, film or tv-show), you’re already obsessed with it. This means you know the characters in and out — the way they talk, how they behave, any quirks, strengths, and weaknesses.

So, given a new circumstance, you know exactly how they would react, what they would say or keep to themselves. You know what makes them tick, but you didn’t have to make all that up. The original author did the heavy lifting. Pay attention because this can be a learning moment if you’re an aspiring writer. Knowing everything there is to know about your character makes the character consistent throughout the story. It makes them believable. You can’t possibly remember everything you made up as your character’s backstory. That’s why it could come in handy to create character sheets.

I wish I knew that when I started writing. Like I said, when I started, all I had was a scene inspired by an episode of a tv-show. The gist was two brothers kidnapping and hunting people in the woods with crossbows. And I thought, what if I have a character being hunted by vampires through the woods at night for sports? (Twilight was popular back then) That’s it. That’s all I had.

The original title was “The Hunt.” It could have been a short story. Now, if you have a better idea for a story, you already have a better start than me. I won’t bore you with details, but I wrote the scene and kept making things up as I went. In a few months, I had ten chapters. I still didn’t know I was writing a book. Living in Romania and speaking English as a second language made publishing an English book unattainable for me.

At the ten chapter mark, I got stuck. I don’t remember why, but with a toddler in tow, I had other priorities, so the Word file got abandoned. A couple of years later, my husband found the file and asked me what it was. He wanted to read it so gave I him the green light. What you need to know about him is that he is an optimizer. He lives to make things better, faster. He makes things happen.

So when he was done reading, he came with a plan. He thought it was a good story and would be a book worth reading. That tickled my ego. He said I should finish the story and self publish on Amazon. At that time, I didn’t even know that was an option. Anyway, he encouraged me, supported me (and sometimes annoyed me) to finish the story. Then he read it and critiqued it. He has a very analytical mind, and he pointed out plot holes, out-of-character reactions (I told you I didn’t make character sheets and just made stuff up), inconsistencies and so on. While fixing those, we began researching self-publishing.

The Self-Publishing Gamble

Why self publish? Here’s the thing. Getting an agent and a publishing deal with traditional publishers is hard. There’s no shortage of writers looking for representation. When you’re not a native speaker, your chances decrease even more. At that point, I had been active on social media for quite some time and read many disappointing stories. Also, a few of my favorite authors at that time left their publishing house in favor of self-publishing. The struggle to get their rights to their series back to them was a lengthy one, which made me consider the risks. What if I was lucky enough to get picked up by a traditional publisher (extremely low chance, but let’s imagine it) and I wasn’t happy with the contract and had to fight my way out of it? I’m a lover, not a fighter!

The way I saw it, self-publishing gave me more control over what I write. But don’t get too excited. The market is flooded with self-published books. I knew that, so I didn’t expect to become an overnight sensation. It’s good, because I didn’t. Because I didn’t raise my expectations too high, I wasn’t too disappointed when my debut novel flopped. By the way, it took me six years from the day I started writing until I hit publish.

When I finished the first book and the story took shape, I realized it would take a trilogy to find closure. So instead of whining that only a handful of people bought my book, I kept writing.

But this time, I had a rough idea of what I was doing. I created an outline and plotted the story. This was the beginning of my writing process. With a clear road map for my book, my writing journey was much smoother. The more I fine tuned my process, the easier it got. I read books on the craft and listened to podcasts. Of course, I learned a lot. I joined several Facebook groups where authors share their success, failures, strategies and ask for advice. The most valuable group I can recommend is 20BooksTo50K. I learned a lot from other authors there. So I finished the trilogy, then I wrote a prequel to use as a reader magnet and build an email list.

Although this didn’t put me on any bestseller list, I saw an increase in sales. One thing I want you to take away from my story is this: never give up on writing, even when it’s hard. Results won’t be instantaneous. You need to understand that for most of us, this is a long game. Also, don’t quit your day job! Sure, you could strike gold and get discovered by a TikToker with a huge following and become the most anticipated author to release this year. Booktok can work wonders, but you can’t base your strategy on wonders.

My Self-Publishing Journey Today

I just released my seventh book and started outlining the next one. There’s still a lot I need to learn and plenty of room to improve, but I got better with each book I wrote. Publishing my debut was hard because I was overwhelmed and suffered from a terrible impostor syndrome. No matter how much I tweaked it, I didn’t think it was up to par.

Then my husband said something smart (he always does). He said it doesn’t need to be perfect, just good enough. And that got me thinking back to when I was reading fanfiction. Some of those stories were poorly written, yet the plot was so compelling that I pushed through typos, dangling modifiers and switching tenses. Of course, if it was riddled with mistakes and hard to read, I’d give up. I’m not a masochist. What I mean is, if the story is engaging enough, I’ll ignore a few typos. Check out all the drama surrounding those books that critics hate but have a massive fan following. You can critique the writing all you want. If enough people like the story, it will become popular.

So I published my debut, now titled Forget Me Not, and dreaded the first reviews. Surprisingly enough, the reviews were not that bad. A couple of reviewers picked up on the fact I wasn’t a native speaker, but no one said it was terrible. You can’t imagine the relief I felt. You know that your first book is going to be the worst one. No one is good at doing something for the first time, right?

I could have hired a professional editor for better quality. Many recommend you do that. I checked and it would have cost me around $1000 for copy editing alone. I write fantasy fiction so my books are a bit lengthy. The question I had to ask myself was am I going to sell enough books to make this money back? Based on the experience shared by many authors in my network, it was highly unlikely. So I chose to self-edit my book to the best of my ability. I will have tips for that at the end of this story. Despite English being my second language, I aced the Cambridge Proficiency test. So I’m confident in my language skills. I also used Grammarly Premium to help me catch the majority of my mistakes.

Many argue that if you can’t afford professional editing, you should wait until you do. Had I waited, I would have never published, and probably stopped writing altogether. Self-publishing through KDP allows you to fix mistakes and upload the updated file whenever necessary. Which I did often when readers would let me know they found a mistake.

Out of the seven books I published so far, only one was professionally edited. Neither sales nor reviews showed any change. I’m not trying to convince you that you don’t need an editor. I’m only saying I got away without one and, depending on your skills, you might too. After a couple of books, no one can tell English isn’t my first language anymore.

My tips on self-publishing for aspiring authors

• Get a critique-partner. It can be a friend or a family member that reads a lot. Keep in mind that a technical person might be better at spotting inconsistencies in your story. Use their advice to improve your book.
• Use a proofreading tool like Grammarly or ProWritingAid; they are the best tools for catching spelling and grammar mistakes and they also have free versions.
• Send your work to beta readers. You can look for beta readers on Goodreads, or dedicated Facebook groups. For best results, search for beta readers who specialize in your genre.
• Improve your book using their feedback (only if you agree with it).
• Start early. Don’t wait until you publish to talk about your book. You should start this in the early stages of writing your book. Build your platform (consider getting your own website, create a mailing list, try out social media. Join Facebook groups about writing/for authors, join conversations, see what other people are doing, find your “authentic” voice on that platform. Find book reviewers in your specific genre and engage with them regularly. It’s time-consuming, but it’s important, especially if you know you won’t have a budget to advertise your book. Be supportive and when your book comes out, they’ll support you back.
• Send ARCs (Advance Reader Copy) — aim at around 50. Once your book is ready to be published (that means edited, formatted, and with a professional-looking cover), approach the book reviewers you engaged with and supported in step one and ask if they would like to receive an ARC. That will get you your first reviews.
• Keep talking about your book, share teasers, behind the scenes, talk about your writing process, dealing with writer’s block, and so on.
• Once it’s published, start working on your next book. You should still talk about it and encourage people to read it and leave reviews (the more you work on step one — building your platform, the greater your audience will be). If your book is as good as you say it is, word of mouth (and reviews) will bring you new readers. But nothing sells your first book like your second book. So, manage your expectations and keep writing books.
• This is a long game. You won’t reach success overnight. If you produce quality work, at some point they’ll start selling themselves. Consistency is the key. Keep writing!
• Publish. Hit the publish button and start working on your next book.

Conclusion

Writing seems easy when you think about the story, but as soon as you open a blank page, the words hide. I can’t teach how to write your story. Over the years, I found each writer has their own process. You need to find what works for you, and that means trial and error for a while. But you need to understand that it won’t be easy and success won’t come overnight. If you’ve never published before, you need to do some research. Joining Facebook groups where other authors share their struggle and their wins can be helpful to understand the self-publishing world better.

If you can’t afford a professional editor, don’t worry. You may work around it, but manage your expectation. Aim for a good enough book, not a perfect one. You can perfect it over time. And keep writing and working on yourself to improve your craft. The more you write, the better you get at writing.