The journey of publishing my first novel has been a long and arduous trail.\u00c2\u00a0 I finished writing The Dark Line in 2007.\u00c2\u00a0 I sat on it for a long time before I had the courage to look at what I had written.\u00c2\u00a0 I got the courage to write the novel from NANOWRIMO.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t write it during November, but I followed two of the main tenets of the contest.\u00c2\u00a0 I wrote every day and didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t look back at what I had written.\u00c2\u00a0 When I finished, I was elated and crestfallen.\u00c2\u00a0 I had no idea what to do with the finished project and something that I had been doing for months was now over.<\/p>\n
The story started out simply.\u00c2\u00a0 I was working at a client\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office and I saw a picture on someone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s desk.\u00c2\u00a0 That picture conjured the first chapter instantly.\u00c2\u00a0 The picture was of a couple sitting on an old couch.\u00c2\u00a0 The man looked like he was trying to get up and the woman looked like she was having one of the best days of her life.\u00c2\u00a0 From that image I was able to write the first chapter.\u00c2\u00a0 After that I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t write anything more for four or five months.\u00c2\u00a0 Then I heard of NANOWRIMO, and took those tenets and went for it.\u00c2\u00a0 It took me a few months, but I finished the novel.\u00c2\u00a0 I was proud, but I was also sad.\u00c2\u00a0 I knew if I had any shot of getting this published it would take at least two more years.<\/p>\n
I knew I had to polish the manuscript.\u00c2\u00a0 Then I could try to find an agent, and hope that they could sell the book.\u00c2\u00a0 If all of that happened it would take another year, at least, before it was out on the shelves.\u00c2\u00a0 Then I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see a nickel of the proceeds for another six months.\u00c2\u00a0 And this was all the best case scenario.\u00c2\u00a0 I was under no illusions that it would happen this quickly.<\/p>\n
Time went by and I edited the novel.\u00c2\u00a0 I asked a few friends to read it.\u00c2\u00a0 Some got back to me with helpful suggestions and praise.\u00c2\u00a0 Others never said another word about it to me again.\u00c2\u00a0 It made me sad, but hey this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t for everyone.<\/p>\n
During this time I was listening to podcast after podcast from authors about self-publishing.\u00c2\u00a0 I was reading blog after blog, by now famous authors touting the path of self-publishing.\u00c2\u00a0 I was just too scared to jump into the water.\u00c2\u00a0 I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really prepared to do all the work.<\/p>\n
Finally I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stand it any longer.\u00c2\u00a0 I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t doing anything.\u00c2\u00a0 I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t writing, and I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t publishing.\u00c2\u00a0 I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t moving forward.\u00c2\u00a0 I dug in and started on the process.\u00c2\u00a0 I edited the novel for the fourth time.\u00c2\u00a0 I figured out about webhosting and website design.\u00c2\u00a0 I designed my cover art.\u00c2\u00a0 I built my website, and converted my books to upload onto Amazon and B&N.\u00c2\u00a0 This whole last process took a long time and now I understand what so many authors are talking about when they speak of the extra stuff that has to get done along with the writing and how time consuming it is.<\/p>\n
Now the book is out there and I have to figure out what to do next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The journey of publishing my first novel has been a long and arduous trail.\u00c2\u00a0 I finished writing The Dark Line in 2007.\u00c2\u00a0 I sat on it for a long time before I had the courage to look at what I had written.\u00c2\u00a0 I got the courage to write the novel from NANOWRIMO.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t write […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.benswindler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.benswindler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.benswindler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.benswindler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.benswindler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.benswindler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.benswindler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.benswindler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.benswindler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}