Thank you for inviting me to guest blog and for the opportunity to share my self-publishing experience.

My writing has always carried bits and pieces of my personal life. I have read and written romance for many years and in 2001, I was published by SSE.

When I began journaling about two and a half years after my husband’s death, I wasn’t thinking of writing a book. Always a writer, I needed to put my thoughts down, but for a long time grief had stolen that ability, so my first efforts were disjointed bits and pieces.

When I felt like the writing was done, the realization kept coming to me that it was something other women needed to read. Because of the personal nature of my writing, I initially resisted this idea, but the notion persisted.

Eventually I began to query agents and publishers. I collected a year’s worth of rejections. “We’re looking for memoirs written by celebrities. . . we’ve just signed on another widow’s memoir,” or the most common response, “it’s too narrow a market.”

In light of the 700,000 new widows every year, (2000 US Census Bureau) I knew the other alternative was self publishing. I had been interested in self-publishing since I first reading books by Dan Poynter, John Kremer and Tom and Marilyn Ross in 1998.

In November 2007 I began an intensive amount of research on the subject of self-publishing. At the time I knew zilch about social networking, blogs, Myspace or Facebook. As my marketing and media plan began to take shape, I knew I had to develop name recognition in the grief, loss and bereavement niche. Based on my research, I decided article writing, combined with key social networks, was the best route for me to take.

I devoted the winter months of 2008 to creating and implementing my social marketing plan. I discovered that book videos were a great way to give someone a visual of your book, and using Windows Moviemaker I created my first book video. A website came next. I wanted to make it simple to navigate and filled with helpful information. I bought several domains; Elaine Williams, OnWings Press and the name of my book, AJourneyWellTaken. On my main site, www.ajourneywelltaken.com were links to excerpts, grief articles and websites, my radio interviews, bio, press releases, media kits, reviews, book video, my blog, and of course how to purchase the book.

After gathering information from experts such as Poynter, Kremer and Aaron Shepherd, to name a few, I also talked with other small presses and self publishers.

I knew the biggest challenge would be the marketing aspect. I checked out book publishing sites such as lulu, but ultimately, I decided to be totally independent, purchase my own ISBN’s in a lot of 10, and have the entire operation under my imprint, OnWings Press. I hired a copyeditor to go through my manuscript after I’d done my edits. I decided on Ron Pramschufer’s company Books Just Books. Ron has a team of experts to handle every aspect of publishing. As a small publisher, I knew I needed every advantage so I wanted a professionally designed cover and book.

I contacted bereavement authors, grief counselors and grief websites to see if they would be interested in doing a pre-publication review of my book. Ultimately, I went to press with 27 book reviews. I also sought out reviewers who are self-publisher friendly, such as Midwest Book Review, who gave me a 5 Star review.

A financial editor of US News and World Report contacted me for an interview after seeing my articles on the internet. The interview on the financial aspects of being a widow appeared just before my book came out.

I began to enter some of the larger book contests, and finaled in the USA Book News Best Book of 2008 in the Health: Death and Dying category. I proactively sought out and accepted radio and video interviews.

Bereaved parents, spouses and grief organizations started contacting me about using my articles in their online and traditional publications. The articles I’d placed on free sites like ezinearticles.com and ideamarketers.com were syndicated and soon to be found on a multitude of mom, baby boomer, dating and senior living and funeral sites and magazines.

I hired a marketing person to help me with press releases and also to round out my marketing and media plan. I posted to many grief related blogs and websites on topics related to my interests and niche.

I used Books Just Books' Thor Distribution program and my book was made available through Amazon and other online book sellers. I also read Sell Your Book on Amazon by Brent Sampson, which is a step-by-step guide to setting up a seller account and profile with Amazon.

To track my articles, interviews and blogging, I set up Google alerts based on keywords. I began blogging regularly on several social networks, and after about four months, I discovered that my blog posts were being Googled within 6 hours.

Self publishing is time intensive. Sales have been slow but steady. I wrote approximately 50 articles this year based on my niche topic and articles are a major component of my marketing plan. This endeavor occupied my time for many months when perhaps I could have been writing a new story. But for someone who could not write anything for almost three years, writing and producing this book has been a wonderful learning experience which has opened a whole new world to me. Self publishing has been uniquely satisfying for me, but I also know it is not for everyone. I look forward to talking with you about it today.

I'm also offering a free book giveaway of A Journey Well Taken: Life After Loss, a widow's journey through loss, grief and renewal. Please be registered with Love is an Exploding Cigar to win. Elaine