The 15th of August marked the first birthday of thehiddenworld.co.uk. What an incredible year it has been. I am not sure wether it’s the business or the author who’s grown the most during that time.
How are we doing?
Looking back I think that it couldn’t have been a better year than what it turned out to be. The first big step happened in November, with the kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. What a success. That really got things moving, allowing the book to go to print and getting us to the second biggest success of the year: the e-shop opening on the 18th of February. Since then, the book has sold about 100 copies from the kickstarter campaign rewards, 20 copies from the e-shop, about 40 copies in person, 6 copies at the school book event, and more than 40 copies at the protistology conference I attended at the end of July (www.ecop2019.org). It seems that in average a book sells about 250-300 copies the first year, even when traditionally published (ref) so if that’s a rule to go by, I’d say that 200 copies for the first semester is quite a success.
Reaching for the world
For all the beautiful reviews I have received, I find myself stuck in the limbo between the inner circle of my connections and the outside circle of the general public. Once all friends and family members, work colleagues, diatoms-lovers, and some social media followers have a copy of the book, how to reach the rest of the world? Social media for sure allow to reach people (and bots) all over the world, and pave the path to a much larger audience. But in terms of sales, school book events and scientific conferences seem to be the best way to go, for now. I would love to attend a book fair or book festival, but it is hard to get into those without a publisher, or at least an agent. I am looking into getting an agent, eventually. Only problem is, one needs money to get an agent, to advertise, and go to conferences, which in turn are supposed to actually earn the money you need to pay for them Catch 22, sounds familiar?
What’s next?
Since thehiddenworld.co.uk came to life one year ago, I have started to see myself as a writer. It is a bit ironic therefore, that since then I have spent my time working on a website, creating instafriendly pictures, and learning how to tweet (although that’s a language I still have to master). On the side, I read all I could about crowdfunding, printing, postage methods, and self-publishing. I had been warned, not to surf on the wave of excitement created by the publishing of your first book, and launching directly on writing the sequel, else the risk is great that the first baby gets left in a corner. Indeed as I already mentioned, marketing your own book is a full-time job (at least at the mental level).
But be reassured, I have found time to start working on my second book. It’s a work in progress, at the moment on hold, while I concentrate on a proposal I am writing to get a grant to fund illustrations and printing. I will tell you more about it when the time comes.
For now, let me just tell you, it has been the most professional-life changing year for me. My comfort zone has been shaken and expanded many a time. My fear levels have been on a terrifying and exhilarating roller-coaster. And I am definitely going to do my best to keep following this path.
