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The Millennial Method Of Publishing? Do-It-Yourself!

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There are many stereotypes out there on millennials – they are the eternally unsatisfied generation that prides themselves on thinking outside of the box. They often want to change the world, but they also take a do-it-yourself perspective while doing so. Being a millennial herself, author Rohini Venkatraman found a way to achieve her dream of publishing her own novella – using Amazon’s self-publishing platform and a start-up influenced method.

Descending the Corporate Ladder” tells a familiar story of Sabena Rao, a millennial unsatisfied in a corporate environment, and despite the many factors that are pitted against her, who realizes that her dream is to write for a living. Though not fully autobiographical, Venkatraman admits that many of the details are pulled from her own life. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in psychology, she began her career in the tech industry and is currently a product manager.

Her process did not, in fact, start with writing the book, but with making a pledge to write the book. “I wrote a blog post when I made the decision to write a book and got a lot of positive feedback on it, which was my first indicator that I already had a small, but supportive, readership,” she said, “By writing a post about the fact that I planned to write a book, I knew I would be held accountable by others.”

Not only does the subject of Venkatraman’s book embody a millennial ideal, but the way she went about publishing serves as a primer for others looking to disrupt the traditional model of publishing. “I’m a techie at heart,” she says, “Amazon is disrupting the self-publishing space and as someone who is passionate about writing, I wanted to immerse myself in this world and see what all the excitement was about.”

Without the traditional agent and editor, Venkatraman found herself without a team to support her work. “I have to be the entrepreneur, the marketer, the PR person, the tech person, the everything,” she says of the process. “Even as an introspective writer, I’ll say that it’s nice to have a team sometimes.”

Venkatraman used a crowdsourced method of editing she picked up through her research on self-publishing. “I read a book by Guy Kawasaki called APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur - How to Publish a Book. The book introduced me to the notion of ‘book murderers’ who are people you can give a raw draft who will tear it apart and help you build it into something bigger and better.”

Her background in technology and product management has helped her along the publishing process. “Crowdsourced editors, Kawaski claims in his book, will be more invested in your book once they’ve provided you with editorial feedback. It’s like investors in a startup,” she says.

From there, Venkatraman felt she was ready to release a “beta” version of her book. “Before I was ready to share my draft with the beta readers, I created a website with a short excerpt and button to sign up to read my beta and give me feedback,” she describes. “I shared the site on my Facebook page, so to my 797 closest friends. I measured conversion of visitors to sign-ups to get my first gauge of interest in my book. I saw a 26.92% conversion which is phenomenal, even considering 7-10% were friends and family.”

She released the book as a Google Doc to allow the readers to see what edits had already been made. Finally, she took an extra step to ensure that her novella was properly edited by hiring a Stanford graduate student to carefully review the draft.

Though the novella was released as a paperback and ebook via Amazon on July 4, 2013, this is not the end of the editing process. “For me, this book was really about getting the story out there while I’m experiencing it,” Venkatraman admits. “The beauty of self-publishing is that I can upload changes to my content at any time, and it will update on the site. For people who have purchased the Kindle version of the book, the update will be pushed to their Kindle.”

Venkatraman is also running a campaign through Indiegogo to fund her next publishing step and to fulfill one of her greatest dreams – to help other aspiring writers in the San Francisco area. “I was at a point of realizing how lucky I am to have had a strong education and opportunities to hone my writing skills over the years. I found the SF Writers Corps that pairs published authors with underprivileged youth to help them with creative writing skills. I found this to be amazingly coincidental because in my novella, the protagonist is paired with a published author who mentors her in writing her novella. Call me a writer, but I fell in love with the parallelism there,” she says.

“My campaign is to raise $5000. I plan to use the first $2500 towards professional editing for the book and donate the next $2500 to organizations in SF that are dedicated to raising youth literacy. People may wonder why I have released my book if I think it needs another level of editing. Maybe it’s something about the millennial mindset, or maybe it’s being in the tech world, but in my mind, it’s all about that cycle of building and learning and improving.”

As far as her writing, this is only the beginning for Venkatraman given how convenient she found the self-publishing process. “This first novella was really just a way for me to push myself with my writing. It was a fun personal project and I didn’t want the ‘stuff’ outside of actual writing to consume the process. Amazon’s process is streamlined with a lot of help for authors.”

For other millennials or aspiring writers who are looking to get their work out there, Venkatraman says, “Think of yourself as a writer, always. You never know when you will be inspired, and most of the time, it won’t be during that block of time you have set aside to write. Carry around a notebook, a smart device with Evernote, a really good memory, or all three.”

Most of all, however, she says that tenacity is key. “In receiving feedback, I stuck to this amazing piece of advice that I heard in an interview between Neil Strauss and Tim Ferriss on writing: If even one person loves something, keep it.”