Once the draft was completed I started writing the book. Slowly over a period of about 18 months the book was written. At times progress was rapid with a chapter or two being added in a week. Other times the progress was very slow with no writing for a month or so. Then came the proof reading stage. I went over each chapter and made sure that everything was in correct order, spelling, punctuation and everything else.
Then the day after I was happy with my book I mentioned to some friends that I had finally finished writing it. One of them recommended that I publish it as an eBook as it is the way of the future, more environmentally friendly, and cheaper. So the next day I spent a bit of time on the internet looking up all about eBooks – how to format them, different ways to save them, how to sell them, and any other information that the internet offered. I also filled out simple survey about my book with the likelihood that a publisher might contact me in a few days.
Lunchtime the following day a self-publishing company contacted me suppling me with lots of information and saying they could publish the book in hardcover, softcover and eBook format! Wow! What a shock. Yes, it was going to cost me money but they had a 50% discount offer going at that time. After a lot of humming and haring, and a few quick prayers asking for guidance I decided that this was the way for me to go and agreed to a contract with Xlibris.
Being a self-publishing company means that it not only costs you money to publish your book, but there is a lot of work you need to do. Like design your cover, write what you want on the cover of your book and the web page that they create for you. You need to give instructions for advertisements, choosing which you think might be best for your book and hoping you don’t get it wrong. There was a constant stream of emails going between the publishers and myself and I had to be available for phone calls at any time. When I first started on this venture to write my book I thought that the writing of it was going to be the most taxing part. Boy oh boy was I wrong. That was the easy part. The publishing along with all that went with it, was far more challenging, time consuming and bewildering for me than I ever imagined it could be. I never knew how much went into the publication of a single book and I gained a greater appreciation of each and every book that I own, as well as what their authors might have gone through.
Everything started to quiet down for a bit then came the time to start promotion. Once again because it is a self-publishing company a lot of the promotion is up to me. This pushed me even further out of my comfort zone with having to create a Facebook page and visit it and upload something onto my feed every day. There were press releases to approve and book reviews requests that all had to be sorted out too.
I was only just starting to figure this out when I received an invitation for a radio interview. How exciting, but what would I say? Fortunately the interviewer sent me a list of questions that she wanted to ask me. Being a highly organised person I wrote down all my answers to make sure I just didn’t go blank and have nothing to say.
On the day I was so nervous my voice would just stop mid word and I was having a hard time. The interviewer knew exactly how to put me at ease and did so quickly without making it obvious. For the rest of the interview I was far more relaxed and spoke directly from my heart. When it was over I was very pleased with how it went and was extremely pleased when a copy of the interview was put up on YouTube.
Next came the uploading of the website that the publishers were doing on my behalf. This website included a blog. Although I’ve had numerous websites over the last fifteen odd years, blogs was something that I had never gotten into. So once again I was venturing into new territory outside of my comfort zone sharing more about writing my book, the book itself and domestic and family violence. Which you would know as you are reading this blog :-)
Do you have any comments or questions about writing my book, the book itself and domestic and family violence because I would love to hear them. Until next time – remember safety first!