Self-Publication; An Adventure Story

A Dream

When I was in middle school I was often very disappointed in the limitations that my age placed on my freedom to do things. I was also not very pleased with the juvenile behavior of the kids all around me.  I felt alone a lot of the time and I was melancholy on a daily basis about the condition of humans in general.  I escaped into books and video games, providing myself an alternate reality to exist in which I preferred to the boring reality of public school, teen melodrama and being not quite old enough to do the things that I wanted to do.

I am not sure how the idea to write a book came to me, but I do know that I began to write a novel about my favorite era of history.  I populated this book with people I wished I had met and based some of the characters on the good friends that I was lucky enough to have made.  The story became my favorite escape from the things that frustrated me about my real life hours.  The characters became my family. I poured all the love and passion I could not express in my real daily life into the world I had created.

I Want to be an Author!

I tried numerous times in my late teens to get this manuscript published.  I was young and probably did not provide the proper conventional proposal to these publishers. I did get a request to submit the manuscript in full to a small publishing company but they went out of business before the story was actually picked up.  I felt my dream of being a full time author slipping away and sadly put the manuscript away and out of my mind.

I had other passions and I poured myself into riding horses. I made horses my new outlet for a possible career.  I forgot about writing for the most part other than keeping a journal. Some years later, I closed my horse training business and floundered through a few years trying to learn to love my cubicle life and daily corporate grunt reality.  I felt the same misery creeping back into my life that had made me wish for an escape to a different reality when I was in middle school.

I thought of the novel I had written and my other half was generous enough to spend the time necessary to convert it from a very old version of Word into a newer version so that I could work with it again.  I was surprised to discover that the book which I had not looked at in nearly ten years was actually quite good.  I looked into the self-publishing process and thought that maybe, just maybe I could finally get this novel out in print.

The Grind

I did a lot of online research about proper formatting for e-books and looked into my options to produce on demand paper copies of this new book.  I searched for some weeks for cover art. I asked online writer’s groups I belong to for advice.  I was horrified to discover the going rate for an editor to review the manuscript and promptly decided to forgo that portion of the process.  I would have to be my own editor.

I read the manuscript four or five times.  I tried my best to proof read and catch errors in the formatting.  Despite all this prep, I did make some mistakes for which I have already needed to do an e-book update.  Despite these errors, generous people have purchased the book and have already given me feedback which is invaluable to my future efforts.  I am sure that there will be other issues as I am a newbie at this process, but I think that it could not have gone more smoothly for a first time publication.

The Take Away

I have to say that I am most pleased to discover that I am finally mature enough to be willing to put my work out into the world knowing that there will be criticism with the praise.  I decided to be brave enough to take a big leap, which is not always in character for me. Having this book published and on the market checks off a major bucket list item for me and the relief of following through on a dream that has been about 15 years in the making is hard to convey completely.  I have discovered that the self-publishing reality was much more inviting than I had expected and that other authors are very generous with their time and energy.  Hearing the excitement of family and friends when I tell them that the book is finally out and will soon be in print is absolutely wonderful.  I think the most fulfilling part of this whole experience has been the reviews of readers who have stated that they enjoyed the characters and the story just as much as I did when I created them.  The world I created to be a sanctuary during a hard time in my life has been able to provide a wonderful escape for new readers.  I believe that stories are meant to teach lessons and to sometimes elevate us from the daily grind.  If I have reached even one person in a positive way with my story craft, I have been rewarded for making the effort to share my creation with the world.