I know, I know, I am supposed to be keeping blogland up to speed on the progress of publishing my novel: Pardon my Camino. The story of how Bob and Brigit took off for Spain to be pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela with the grand plan to smooth over some recent cracks and crevasses in their marriage. Sorry, my dear heroes, spoiler alert, great idea but way more of a challenge in so many ways!
I am getting on with the publishing path, not as fast as I should but it is complicated! I have already lamented about the rejections from an agent and publisher and not wanting to waste more time I am going the self-publishing route. There is an uphill learning curve and education for me and all those other first-timers out there to get this self-publishing gig sorted out. But it is rather interesting, a bit daunting, but most of it doable.
My first step was to contact Arthur Slade, a successful author of fantasy novels, a chatty friendly fellow from Saskatchewan and a proponent of self-publishing. He recommended that I go to David Gaughran’s website which is a treasure trove for the newbie aspiring selfie of the author brand. David is an author of fiction and non-fiction. He generously makes many of his books on self-publishing free to download and he keeps the information up to date.
Now I understand, that if I want to go beyond family and friends, I will need a Publishing HQ in the form of a website, which may mean that this blog will become part of a website and I am a bit sad about this prospect as I love my easy to reach no-frills blog. (OK Julia, let the blog grow up and you along with it!)
I must take a decision on the GENRE of my book.
Apparently, this is of vital importance so that readers of your genre can find your book sans-hassle. The problem here is I can’t really slot my book neatly into a genre despite all the classifications and subcategories on Amazon, Kobo and all those other sales points. What am I?
I need to write some important bits and bobs to promote the book, about me and why people should be so enchanted by my novel. Which of course means I need a catchy appropriate cover to suit my genre (see moaning above). I will be getting professional help with the cover, despite the cutesy doodly artwork I inflict on you dear readers. So, I need a design-book-cover-artist – know of one? Let me know, please.
And also, some e-book formatting needs to go on. You saw the word e-book. David G’s advice is to start with an e-version and you can do a paper one a couple of weeks later. Apparently, the vast majority of the sales will come from e-sales. Well, I like the vast bit. We shall see… we are going for quantity here and that’s where price comes in, which is another subject of advice.
I am looking at Amazon which is Kindle books and Kobo which is good for the Canadian market. I have to find out how these companies function and what their relationship and arrangements are with authors and payment and taxes and etc.
At the moment, with all this swirling around it feels like two steps forward and a couple back.
Soldier on Julia!