Becoming an author (Part 3)

The book written (tick) and the cover designed (tick). Now it was just a case of getting the book out into the world for readers to find.

Print publish, vanity publish, self-published author, indie author? Another very steep learning curve was on the cards for me. I had to understand and make more crucial (and uninformed!) decisions based on the avalanche of information about the different paths to choose.

For ‘Barn Find’ I envisaged it as a £7.99 paperback like most others. If I opted to get a printing company to do a run of a few thousand the net cost per book was going to be somewhere near double that. Clearly not a viable option. I was also realistic enough to understand it was a debut novel by an unknown author. Not to mention one who was unable to be involved in any promotion. Successful companies do not take risks where the odds are stacked against.

As much as I would still dearly love to see it as a physical book in shops I accepted ‘Barn Find’ would initially have to start life as a digital eBook. I had some previous experience on a couple of non-fiction project so I was aware of Draft2Digital. I was familiar with the software and I liked them.

It meant working through the stages their platform guides. I read the entire book one more time to check the formatting looked right within the D2D software.

The cover worked, the document upload worked smoothly and in no time at all the book was good to go!

The creation of ‘Barn Find’ had begun as ideas flitting around my mind. Disturbed sleeps and early morning writing sessions kept forming more ideas and expanding the story. Scribbled random notes, brainstorming talks with my better half, sometimes napkins in a café or straight on the back of my hand, other times a note app on my phone and more than once a cheeky email home from work if I had a flash of inspiration. All eventually fused into a story that felt authentic. From beginning to end, it took just over a year to go from the writing down the first idea to becoming a self-published (but still published!) author.

My route was all my own doing, I had no influence from anyone so I cannot tell you if it was the best way, the worst way all I know is I enjoyed it and am full of pride that I got there. I’m not a youngster anymore but I taught myself a lot along the way and it stood me in good stead because I have released two more in the very same way and am currently working on the early stages of what I hope will end up as my forth book some time.

I hope you enjoyed learning from my journey of what it took to go from a writer of 500 word blogs to published author of a full-length book.

I am proud!