Dear Amazing People,

Have you ever thought of writing and publishing your own book?

Would you like to experience that unique moment when you see people around you reading your book and getting excited and inspired from it?

I know that at least some of you would reply to these questions with a definite “Yes!”, as there are people among you, who were inspired by the release of the book “The Monster: Blade of Darkness”. This fact makes me feel very happy, as I would love to read your literary works one day. And especially for such amazing people like you I decided to share some tips on how to write and publish a book in the modern digital age. Perhaps they will help you make your dream of publishing a book come true, as it has happened with me and my novel “The Monster: Blade of Darkness”.

Nowadays the process of writing and publishing a book is undoubtedly different than it was just some years ago. I cannot say whether it is more difficult or easy, as some stages of the process can be done easily due to modern internet technologies, while others are more challenging to execute. The challenges are related mostly to the fact that, from one side not many people read books nowadays, and from the other side the competition on the international book market is quite big with new titles appearing every month worldwide.

Well, to make things clear, I will not be able to give advice on solving all the challenges that you might face on your journey towards a released book. I will just share with you some lessons I had learnt while working on the book “The Monster: Blade of Darkness”. And I will do it step by step throughout a series of blog posts. So, here is the first one.

Lesson #1: Share Your Dream!

This is the lesson I had learnt only when I came to writing the final chapter of my novel. And I am certain that if I hadn’t learnt it and hadn’t acted accordingly, there would be no book “The Monster: Blade of Darkness” being sold in on-line bookstores worldwide. Because it was due to me talking about my dream and sharing the idea of releasing a book that I’d got connected to Wolfgang Stricker, the founder of serendii publishing, and who kindly agreed to publish and distribute the English version of the book “The Monster: Blade of Darkness”. Also revealing my desire and intention to write and release this book with my dear amazing friends allowed me to gather a community of supporters, who then helped me collect the necessary financial resources through a crowdfunding campaign. I will write about this campaign in the next blog post of the series “How to Publish a Book in the Digital Age”.

For now my piece of advice to you is:

Whether you are just thinking about a book, have started writing one, or already finishing its concluding chapter, do share about it with your friends and relatives. Spread the word about your dream. The digital age offers a multitude of tools to do it, like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, etc. Write about your vision of your own book on your personal blog. For example, in the blog post “Wish You MEGA Great Love!” I mentioned about my upcoming work “Simply Love”, although it is still far from being completed. Join special reading communities, like Goodreads, Book Blogs, etc. Let people know what you are doing and what you want to offer to them in the end. There will likely be a large number of people who will laugh at you and will try to discourage you from pursuing your dream. But there will definitely be some, who will appreciate your dream and will try to help you. Invite them to do it. And for their help you can (and should, I would say) mention them in a special gratitude message in the book and/or on its website, like I did in the case of “The Monster: Blade of Darkness”. Ultimately these amazing people will also become your most devoted readers and promoters.

This is it for now. I hope you have found something useful for you in this short article. In the next one I will share with you how to get initial funds and first readers for your book through a crowdfunding campaign.

Best wishes in moving forward with your dream!

With great respect and gratitude,

Alexander

Note: This is a repost of the article on serendii publishing website.