I’m not sure how to start this blog post. On the one hand, I’m feeling a bit guilty for not posting in over three weeks. On the other hand, it is just a blog, not like my paycheck depends on it. Of course, that’s not entirely true.

I am an independent author. Among other things, that means that I need to create a following and maintain it on my own. I have no big publishing house to help promote me, no fancy advertising displays in the local bookstore to make people aware of my books. There’s just me. That means that I need to reach out, way past my comfort zone, and get people’s attention, tell them all about myself and hope they find me and my books interesting enough that when the time comes to publish, they may take a chance and buy my book. The main way I do this is through my blog. No blog posts= no following= no book sales… sort of.

Which brings us to my problem: I get overwhelmed easily. Any time I’m faced with a huge list of things to get done, whether that’s house chores or publishing a book, I go into a kind of petrified panic. I try to think of doing things one step at a time, but that just makes it worse because I feel I’ll never get done. The last few weeks I’ve been having migraines nearly every day and am in the middle of a major kitchen and living room remodel. Every time I thought of blogging, I couldn’t think of what to blog about and put it off. Every day that went by I felt more pressure to get it done. Vicious cycle.

So today I had a stern talk with myself. I reminded me that if I really want to publish my book, then blogging regularly is an important part of that. I also told myself that the post doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be honest. That led to what you’re reading now. A heartfelt apology and explanation of why I’ve been MIA these last three weeks. Let me also promise I will try to post more often. 

So what have I been doing lately? Well, top on my mind is the fact that I still haven’t heard if my DBA license is approved… it’s been 58 days! o.O Why is this a big deal, and what is a DBA license?

DBA stands for Doing Business As. A DBA License is also referred to as an imprint name. What it means is that I can choose a name (other than my own) and publish my books under that name. It’s helpful for a few reasons. The main one is that bookstores don’t like to accept self-published author’s books, or so I’ve read. By publishing under a company name it makes them more likely to do business with me, again, so I’ve read.

Once I have that, I can open a business bank account, and get an EIN. These help keep my personal and author money and taxes separate. I can also get an ISBN with my imprint name listed as the publisher instead of my name.

Also on my mind is the fact that I need to do a major edit on my book. I have feedback from several betas now, and need to rework some big sections. It’s about what I expected though, so while I’m not upset with having to do it, I’m a little nervous about the time it will take to get it all done.

In an attempt to help keep everything straight and streamline the process, I’m putting everything into Scrivener. It’s a program I tried using a few years ago but didn’t have much success. I’ve heard so many people rave about how great it is that I’ve decided to give it another try. This time I’m going through the tutorial so I have a firm grasp on it’s features. So far it seems promising that it will actually be a big help, once I get the hang of using it.

So that’s it for now. How often would you like to see me post? once a week, twice a week, some other “reasonable” timeframe? What would you like me to post about? Let me know in the comments below. I read every one 

Happy writing/reading