I believe I am nearing the end of the self publishing marathon. I finished (I thought) writing the book in March. It has been less than three months, but feels like a year. I have been anxious, frustrated, excited, and worried—occasionally all in the same day (or hour).

This entire thing has been, in a word, stressful. Why, you  might ask? I’ll say that writing the actual book was not stressful, although it was draining. It took thought, energy, time, and a lot of patience to get to the point where I believed it could be read by someone else. Then some reviewers gave me their thoughts and I rewrote, revised, and modified. Then I really thought I was done and I sent the whole thing to be edited.

Then I rewrote, revised, and modified (again), because editors just see things differently then the author (thanks again, firstediting.com) and then I really knew I was done. But I wasn’t. Because what I learned about publishing is that the proofs are not just a cut-and-paste from my Word document into a different type of document that is a doppelganger of what I wrote. It’s not that simple. For some reason (that I don’t understand, but which is no doubt completely justifiable), things get changed that I wouldn’t have guessed would be. Like a word in the middle of a sentence is mysteriously not italicized any more, but it was before. Or vice versa. Or the number “1” is suddenly an apostrophe instead of a 1. That didn’t happen a bunch, but enough that I noticed stuff like that once or twice.

One thing I learned about myself is that I am not a great proofreader. This is kind of a key skill to have if you are going to self-publish because, as they say, “the buck stops here.” I miss a lot of things when I read my own work looking for things that someone else changed by mistake. It took six versions to get the print version proof to look just about like my original (..almost). And I could probably go for a seventh if given the opportunity (enough is enough, though). Usually, the second I submitted a proof for rework, I found just one more thing that needed a tweak. Most of the things I found were issues with the development of the product, however some were things that I missed during the writing and editing phases that had somehow made it all the way to production.

And then came the ebook proofs…a completely different adventure in itself. Once again, seemingly random things change without me knowing why. But, the end is nearing, although I’m not sure when it will be. I just submitted the second set of ebook revisions and I’m feeling pretty good about where we are with it. I am extremely nervous about this though because if I approve the ebook proofs that come next, if they are good and ready, then that means it is time. I don’t know if I am truly ready for it to “be time.” Launching this book is something I have thought about and dreamed of for a long time…but that’s like looking out the window of a rocket when you hear the countdown hit 3…2…1…

I don’t really know if anyone will ever want to read this, or why they would, honestly. But I will write about what I am doing and give background and so on because if it turns out that anyone really ever does read what I write, they might be interested in this as well.

The Dragon Sword

As I mention in one of my first blog posts, I started a novel at eight years old. It was called The Quest for the Crystal Sword back then. I have revamped it considerably, changed a lot of it, and even renamed it. It is now called The Dragon Sword. The most basic of the plot elements, searching for a sword, is unchanged from the first version. The main character, Prince Aris, is also unchanged (in name, at least). As for the rest, it is quite different.

It has been interesting to read and revise what I wrote as a fourth grader as compared to now, 30 years later. I will say this, and I’ve noticed this with other things I’ve written as well, what I wrote as an eight year old I could never in good conscious try to publish now. But as an eight year old, it would have been an incredible feat and what I had written would have been perfect for then.

The Progress of Experience

I have taken other things that I wrote in the past and updated them. At times, I wonder if it would have been different had I published them way back then, instead of trying to do it now. I could not have put them into their current forms back then, I didn’t have the experience or ability or perspective to do it. In 10 years, I may look at what I write now and think how my vision must have been so clouded back then and how could I have thought such-and-such a thing.

In thinking about this, I have decided that this doesn’t mean I (or you) should wait to publish something until we get the experience and perspective to make it perfect. Write what you know and feel now, and let that be enough. Then keep writing, and when the personal growth comes, write that. I don’t think I’ll ever be short of ideas of things to write about.

These posts are somewhat rambling. I want to return to The Dragon Sword, which I have about 71,000 words completed in the first draft. It is slow going, and finding time to write is one of the biggest challenges (the second is motivation…I can write blog posts instead, and that is SOOOO much easier). I have this feeling that all the things I want to do with this story will turn it into a set of two books, which I don’t want. Mainly because I prefer stand-alone, single books that tell the story and don’t need another book to help you get there. Series seem to be so in vogue, that I might sound like a caveman saying that, but it’s what I think.

World Creation

The Dragon Sword is a fantasy novel (that was probably apparent from the title), but I really hope it can give a sense of realism. When I say that, I mean I hope that when you read it, you feel like the situations, the characters, and the plot feels genuine, not contrived. That is the most important thing to me: making sure the reader believes what they are reading. Or stated another way, allowing the reader to immerse themselves in the story and escape into imagination for a while.

Doing that takes a little work I think; it takes creation of a world, whether the reader knows everything about it or not, it all has to be there in the background. The writer has to know all of it, and make everything fit into that world. I think that is key especially for fantasy or sci-fi. I will eventually offer the first chapter of Dragon Sword here as an incentive for subscribing to my blog (or offered for free to any current subscribers). When that happens, I would love feedback on it, and a sense of your interest in reading more.

That should occur if all goes as I plan, soon after Thread and Other Stories is published in a few weeks.

My heart skipped a beat when I opened the PDF. That has never happened before—it’s only a PDF after all. It was a 14 MB file and it took a fair amount of time to load—I was opening it for viewing on my self-publisher’s website (bookbaby.com). The lengthy loading bar only added to the suspense. I was nervous.

I wanted it to look good. I wanted it to be like I had imagined (that is usually a bad expectation to hold on to). More than anything, I wanted this PDF that I was about to see to boost my confidence that I had made the right decision with self-publishing. Was this book going to look professional? Was it going to look like I had made it in MS Paint? I didn’t know. I had sent some concepts (not in MS Paint, but might as well have been) to give the designers a direction. I had no idea how they would approach my horrible art offering.

They were brilliant with it.

The PDF opened and I experienced a sudden rush, sort of like what you feel when you see a “100%” at the top of an exam paper. The image itself was not exactly what I had pictured in my mind, but it conveyed the feeling and idea that I had been hoping for. It was my book displayed in a picture (worth 1,000 words, for sure—you’ll have to read the other 78,000 though to get the real sense of it).

I’m happy.

I started proof reading the interior (you know, the words…the part that makes it a book). There are some issues with formatting and so on, as there probably are with any book. The difference between producing a self-published book and a traditionally published book is that the author wouldn’t have to proof the books in a traditional format (I assume). So I do not view these issues negatively—this is the part of the process I have elected to take on so that I can publish myself.

If all goes well, by June 6, my book, Thread and Other Stories, will be available for purchase. It looks amazing (unbiased statement! I promise), and I think that anyone who reads it will find something new and significant to consider and ponder in their life. That’s what I hope for, anyway.

Here’s what I saw: