Why is it time to
publish? Well, because I’m a writer,
that’s why. What would be the use of
writing, but not putting your writing out for other people to read? Now of course I’m certain to get a few
reviews saying the writing is bad, and unrealistic, and things would never
happen that way, but you have to put
your stuff out there. You have to suffer
the jealous, negative people sometimes.
And maybe they’ll be good reviews, too!
I thought the story was pretty good.
So obviously I
spent the weekend getting something ready to be published. I’ll be publishing it as an “Indie”, or independent
author. That means I’ll publish it all
by myself without the help of some publisher.
And doing that is much easier than you might think!
There is a web site
called createspace.com. They will
publish and distribute your book for free.
That’s right, I said for free!
They have a cover creator feature to help you make your own covers. You can even upload your own photos for the
cover. It’s quite a simple program, but
I think it actually works damned well! Here's the link to the web site:
Before going to
createspace I wanted to copyright my work.
Now if you do a search for copyright you’ll come across all these
companies that want to help you file for a copyright. That’s bullshit! Don’t use them! You don’t need to pay $119 or more to file
for a copyright! Go right to the
government web site itself. The real
link is right here:
It’s a bit
complicated to navigate through, but once you get everything uploaded, it will
only cost you a $35 filing fee. It’s not
necessary to pay some shady company over $100 to do it for you!
Now if you’re from
the United Kingdom, or somewhere in Europe you may be asking what the hell a
copyright is. It’s just an American
thing that protects our work. You don’t
have to get one of these to publish a book, but it always makes me feel more
comfortable when I get one.
Moving on, I went
to the createspace web site. Now maybe
it is hard to go through these motions for your book after all because
designing a cover yourself can be quite challenging! What will the front of the cover look
like? What will the blurb on the back
say? Do you want an author photo on the
back? An author bio? You have to make all these decisions! They offer professional help for a fee, but
where’s the fun in that? Sometimes it’s
more fun to design things all by yourself.
After several tries, my final cover looks like this:
I’ve got my blurb
on the back (Which is of course very difficult to write! How do you describe your story in a couple
short paragraphs? And the photo on the
front is one I took myself so I’m not using someone else’s work.
It’s been quite a
weekend for me. It took me around 18
months to write, edit, and work this story out.
That’s a year and a half! So now I
get to send my work out into the world and see how it does. Hopefully it will do well!
So why is it time
to publish? Because my story is finished
and that’s what you do when you’re a writer.
Until next week, keep asking why, and publish your own stuff! Don’t be afraid to do this! Get your stuff out there!
