Talking Self-Publishing: Interview with self-published author Crystal Storm

Writing under the penname, DCS, Synarchy Book 1: The Awakening is her first novel. The creative muse sings the loudest right now in New Orleans, where she is hard at work on the second and third books in the Synarchy Series. A self taught student, her research has taken her into the realms of quantum physics, metaphysics, past life regression, the 2012 phenomena, government conspiracy theories and everything in between.

We interviewed Crystal to find out more about the self-publishing process in her experience.

Thank you for this interview, Crystal. You self-published your latest book, The Awakening. Would you please tell us why you chose the self-publishing route?

Crystal: It boiled down to a few things, but the biggest one is that I liked the freedom of doing it my way, and I wanted to retain complete control of my work. I’m lucky that while I’m very creative, I’ve also got a good business sense so I knew I could handle it.

Take us through the process. You have an idea, you write the book, then you decide self-publishing is the route you want to take. How did this happen for you?

Crystal: I got my hands on everything I possibly could to teach myself what needed to be done, not just about publishing, but marketing and promotion too. Dan Poynters’ Self Publishing guide was a huge help. I started my own publishing company so I could sell the title directly if I wanted too. I got my own ISBN number. I entered the Amazon Novel Breakthrough contest really just to get a CreatSpace account so my title was available on Amazon. I found an editor for the manuscript. I learned about typesetting, and even I found a program that lets you design the book cover yourself. And I made a few mistakes along the way but, it’s all a learning process and I have no regrets about taking this route.

Do you think that having your book self-published makes any difference to the media? How do you get over the "self-published" stigma?

Crystal: I think it does make a difference to traditional media outlets, but the great thing about being a writer now is that there are so many nontraditional outlets you can utilize to break that stigma. Sure, you’ve got to prove yourself, but I think that’s true whether Random House published your book or not. If the book isn’t good it doesn’t matter how you published it. So, the only way to really get over that hump is to write an awesome novel.

Authors who go the traditional route have an edge over self-published authors in regards to distribution. How did you handle that as a self-published author?

Crystal: I got on Amazon, which was a really simple process. I’ve got an application sitting on my desk to get on BN.com too, hopefully I’ll pop up there soon as well. I don’t have a traditional distributor just yet, but I’m not terribly concerned. I want to see my sales take a little boost before I start really hammering away at local book stores, and libraries, and once I’m ready to move into that phase, I’ll start looking. I don’t anticipate having too much trouble finding a distributor, as I said before the beauty about being a writer now is all the options you have.

Do you have any advice you’d like to share with other self-published authors?

Crystal: Take your time. I know after you’ve finished a novel it’s easy to be seduced by how quickly you can hold an actual finished book in your hands, but we’re kind of the underdogs so the pressure is really on to be taken as seriously as traditional publishers. It’s not an impossible hurdle to cross though. Write a great novel, do your research, and armed with that knowledge, go for it.

Thank you for this interview, Crystal. Can you tell us how we can find out more about you and your new self-published book, The Awakening?

Crystal: Thank you so much for giving me the chance to do this interview! You can get Synarchy Book 1: The Awakening on Amazon. I’m also running a special off my website for autographed copies from now until the summer solstice. You can learn more about that at www.synarchynovel.com. I blog and podcast too, you can find links to both on the books website as well.