Kayleigh is a disabled writer from the North-West of England. Growing up in the area, she learnt a lot about the Pendle Witches and launched her debut novel around their life story. Her main writing genres are fantasy and romance, but she loves stories in all formats and genres. Kayleigh hopes to one day be able to share the many ideas dancing around in her head with the world.
Her latest book is the historical fantasy, One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches.
You can visit her on Facebook, Instagram, Goodreads and Tiktok.
You self-published your latest book, One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches. Would you please take us through the process? You had an idea for your book, you wrote it, then you decided to find a publisher. What were your experiences with that? Or did you decide to self-publish right off the bat?
This was the second book in the series and the fifth I’ve published via my own publishing company, Oriana Neoma. For the first book, I did try the whole tradpub route, but soon found it wasn’t for me. My book is rather niche, so I can see why they weren’t interested. From what I’ve heard, I’d have largely been responsible for the marketing anyway, so self-publishing just makes more sense. I didn’t approach anyone about this book, simply because I’m enjoying the path and would love to continue as a self-published author for the foreseeable.
I wouldn’t be averse to going the hybrid route one day and seeing how they differ, but for now, I like the control and freedom self-publishing gives me.
What different online stores carry your book?
I’ll be putting it on Amazon and enrolling in Kindle Unlimited. Draft to Digital will have it for their retail distributors, but I also believe we can now allow digital distributions to be included in libraries through them. So, I plan to expand all my books in this way.
On the other hand, self-published authors have the edge over traditional books in the regards that the author has all the control. I’d like to begin with your cover. Did you make it or did you have someone else design it? If you had someone else, can you tell us who it is?
I used GetCovers. However, there was a lot of back and forth where I had to create my own mockup, so I’d argue it was collaborative for this book.
I wanted something blue but for to fit with the first book, which was green. I also really wanted the eerie nature of the story to filter through, and the ghost story aspect to be captured. Both books now have a colour theme and the same main image of a female outline, but with different decorations around them, to fit that story.
A theme I plan to take into the upcoming books in the series.
So where do you see self-published authors making the biggest mistakes overall?
Personally, it was not realising that marketing is key. I naively thought that if I kept putting books out, eventually people would find them. This left me with a good catalogue size, but with few reviews and little interest, they were left dead on Amazon. I’ve been trying to correct this, but I’d also rather move forward with other projects and promote these. So for myself, it’s learning about marketing, what works, and how to invest in and budget for each book.
What was the hardest challenge for you to self-publish your book?
Editing. I hate editing. I know it’s necessary and helps me become a better writer, but I don’t enjoy it. In my ideal world, I’d just pay someone to do it for me, but sadly, I’m on a budget. Naturally, I do the necessary 8(thousand) rounds myself before sending it to an external editor. However, I’ve had multiple issues there. I’ve hired a handful of editors in the past and still don’t fully understand what the different types are supposed to do. What’s worse, I’ve had manuscripts returned to me where I’ve then found errors they’ve missed, so this has been a repeating problem.
Did you get someone to format your book for you or did you do that?
I use Atticus. It isn’t perfect, as I can’t do image chapter headings as I’d like. You need to allow extra space in the border for printing, and you only get set options for the manuscript sizes or if there is a way, I haven’t figured it out. However, overall, it’s a lot simpler than having to do every page myself. I’d definitely recommend it for formatting.
What steps are you taking to promote it?
I’ve never done a book tour before, so I decided to sign up to 3 and see what happens. If this results in sales, then I’ll definitely do this again. Otherwise, it will just be the standard Amazon and Facebook ads.
Do you have any advice you’d like to share with other self-published authors?
I don’t think I’m an authority on this, as I’m still learning and experimenting. I've learned that marketing and reviews are crucial for a book's success, so focus on promoting it and getting reviews.
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