So I recently took a leap and published my first vampire novel on Smashwords, and let me tell you, all I've been doing since then is formatting, formatting, formatting. I've been following the designated Smashwords guide for publishing an ebook with them, I've done all the steps repeatedly, starting over every couple of hours and I just can't seem to get this "font size error" I have with their software to go away so I can be suggested for Premium where my book is sent to all the major bookstores (not including Amazon).
Incredibly mind-boggling, and also extraordinarily frustrating, I can sympathize with why people would desire to go the trad route, but there's one thing I have to say about self publishing ones book - there's a definite sense of freedom and creativity. It's what you make it.
If it turns out to be riddled with errors and massively pigeoned holed, its YOUR travesty of a book that's out there for people to read. Hiring editors and revising, revising, is your best bet if you're really serious about your work.
You hear it all the time but it never becomes real to you until you're trying it yourself, "You must do for you."
I queried three agents at a time some months ago and received almost immediate responses from two (both were resoundingly positive though they couldn't take it on at the time) and I've never heard back from another.
So I've taken things into my own hands.
I've immensely creative friends who have been begging to do the cover or any illustrations I'd need for any of my books since I started writing the first Vampire one in 2004/5, and now, I'm glad to say I get to use their creative enthusiasm to put a good cover on my book.
While that's working itself out, I've gone back to X, the provocative, yet somehow still able to be YA novel I finished last year, and am re-reading it to see where I can pigeon hole it. So far it reads simply enough to be YA, the main character is a teenage girl, but the subject matter is...well...testy, so I'm not sure if I can even go ahead with it as it is now - I may have to change a lot of things.
And finally, I've started writing this lawyer-supernatural-romance-drama I've been talking about writing for weeks. My older brother is in law school and hearing about the cases he's witnessed and what he does at his internship at a D.A.'s office in the Bronx has really, really, motivated me to add that world to a book. So far I have the main character (male lawyer) and what I believe to be the other main character.
I have no name for her yet, and I'm not sure if she should be a Vampire or some other, otherwordly character, for, as I've said quite a few times, I can't just write a book to write a book.
It has to motivate me to want to keep writing.
And demons, vampires, witches, wizards, secret magical organizations...these things tickle my fancy.
So this woman has to be something of the sort.
And also the question of why she's at a lawyer's office if she's any of these magical things.
Hmmmm.
My creative juices are flowing. (In case you couldn't tell.) And I'd love to get started on Judgment more, but for now Smashwords is taking up all my time (as the book is published there yet it's still not viable to be placed in all the online bookstores Smashwords offers). And as such, I'm stuck in somewhat of a rut.
I'm thinking to just go ahead with CreateSpace or Lulu and get it over with.
I should've done this from the beginning, now that I think about it. I have a drive for owning my own business in any sense, and I love leading new enterprising projects, and spreading my art through them.
Hmmmm.
We'll see what happens as I keep my eyes toward the stars, but my heart in the books.
I've missed you all. How have all of you been doing?
-Sheron Parris
No comments:
Post a Comment