The Trials and Tribulations of an Indie Author

In the beginning was The Book, 

And The Book was The Masterpiece
~~~

How to publish? 

Where to publish?
~~~

When I started writing my first book, Future Confronted, publishing it had not entered my head. All I knew was that I wanted to, no..., that I needed to write the story of my son Rob who died from a brain tumour when he was just 20 years old.

When I had eventually progressed to about three quarters of the way through, I was reading a post on Facebook where a friend was talking on a thread about KDP. I had never heard of this before, so I put in a comment to ask her what it was exactly. That is when I found out about the wonders of self publishing through amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing. Oh my word! This was going to be the way forward for me. I looked into the whys and wherefores, the hows and how nots, and continued reading as much as I could about it. Fired with a new enthusiasm, I carried on to finish my book.

Another Facebook friend, who was going through the publishing process for the first time, was helping me with all sorts of hints and tips. He is a very successful author now, I might add. Unfortunately I wasn't sufficiently confident to do it on my own. I chickened out, in fact. I went with a publisher that helps the likes of me, timorous and lacking confidence, to get their book up on all platforms. All went well for a wee while. Unfortunately after some months we had a parting of the ways, and this is when I had to bite the infamous self-publishing bullet! And what a hard bullet it is! But going it alone has been liberating. Now I really feel like an Indie Author! Well, I'm as independent as I'll ever be.

I decided to walk through the process like the proverbial tortoise, slow and steady... this way I gradually ticked off each instruction from the list. Do you know what? The further I progressed, the more confident I became. I uploaded my book, which now comes with added content, to the CreateSpace website for the paperback version. Mission accomplished, or so I thought, because then I had to do the cover. Piece of cake.... NOT! I had no idea about the re-sizing, as my first edition was 5" x 7" and some 173 pages, and my new edition is 6" x 9" with 130 pages, so, not only larger, but with a narrower spine to the book. A big difference in the scheme of things. My cover designer, my dear friend Dave Slaney, re-sized it for me, and placed my B.R.A.G. Medallion on the cover too. I then uploaded it with great success. Huzzah!!!

Then I had to do the Kindle version, which I thought was going to be a diabolical faff, but was easy, so easy in fact that I couldn't believe it. This is because, when you have uploaded with CreateSpace, they send your file through to KDP for you and all you have to do is go through several steps, et voilà! Last night, (19.09.2014) at approximately 19:30, I finally uploaded the Kindle version, and within twelve hours it was there waiting for someone to purchase it.

The B.R.A.G. Medallion

I'm very proud to say that my book received The B.R.A.G. Medallion from indieBrag.com this month (September), and indieBrag have supplied everything that is needed for updating the book cover, etc., and also help to promote the book on their website. Receiving The B.R.A.G. Medallion has been a humbling experience, considering the channels that a book has to go through in order to be awarded this honour. If you go to their website, you will be able to read the thorough and exacting process through which a book has to go before it is successful.

There it is then, my foray into the Indie Publishing realms. It's been such a journey, one I thought I wouldn't be able to achieve, and now I will go forward with my Work in Progress, with the confidence that I will also be able to publish that one on my own through the delights of CreateSpace and KDP.

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My Writing Process - Blog Tour

MY WRITING PROCESS - BLOG TOUR

Simon A. Stirling has tagged me in the Blog Hop talking about our writing process. I only know Simon through Facebook, and enjoy his posts very much. I am also a great admirer of his books, 'Who Killed William Shakespeare' and 'The King Arthur Conspiracy' - very interesting books indeed. Simon posted about his writing process on his own blog last week, and you can read it here.

So, now it is my turn to answer the questions that we have all been invited to answer as part of this fascinating blog tour.

1. What am I working on?

At the moment I am doing research for my next book together with the story-line and character development. I love to make lists, so this is how I start with my research. One list for names, one for architects of the time that I will be writing in, and a list for the 'everydayness' of that period. For example, how people would be living. What were their homes like? How were they furnished? What would they be eating? How would they cook it? What were their clothes made from?

My WIP which has the working title The Touching of Stones, is about a family in the 15th Century whose men folk are stonemasons carried on from generation to generation. My novel will be featuring The Rosslyn Chapel in Roslin glen, Scotland, St. Giles' Kirk, in Edinburgh, Scotland, Chichester Cathedral in Chichester, West Sussex, England, Canterbury Cathedral, Kent, England, and the Basilica Santa Maria del Fiori in Florence, Italy. Beautiful buildings, each one unique, with stone work so magnificently tooled, and stained glass windows which demonstrate the ultimate art of storytelling.

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

My first book Future Confronted was a biography, so this will be my first venture into writing historical fiction, so I am going to endeavour to be original. It is a story that I have had roaming around in my head for some time, and the main premise, as I said earlier, is about a family whose men folk are stonemasons working on churches and cathedrals. I love the history of stone-masonry, and the people whose ideas have come to life that we now see in the cathedrals around us, one of the most extraordinary examples of the intricacies of their art being in Scotland, and it is The Rosslyn Chapel.

The Apprentices Pillar, Rosslyn Chapel

So from that point of view, I think my novel will travel a different road from others. I envision it being at least a three book series, maybe more, running from the 15th century through to the 17th century, following the generations of one particular family.

3. Why do I write what I do?

The love of history, the love of history, and the love of history, it's as simple as that. I have always been fascinated by history, and the people of different times. I have my favourite periods, which are wide ranging, going from the ancient Roman period through to 12th and 13th century  England, and 12th to 15th century Mongolia, having studied Genghis Khan and his descendants. I also love the period that I am writing about at the moment. I love the architecture of this time, as always, architecture is an exemplar of the era, a bookmark if you like, of how the world was during that time.

Churches and cathedrals have their own special styles, their own special...fingerprints if you will. There is so much to consider when building a church or cathedral. Apart from the time it takes to build, some taking longer than 100 years! There is the hewing of the stone from the quarries, the transporting of that stone, the gathering of people, the craftsmen for the different aspects, the stained glass windows, the dressing of the stones, the flooring, and the arches. It leaves much for the author to play with. All the lives involved, all the different paths the story could take. It's almost a carte blanche situation, as long as the history isn't tampered with.

4. How does my writing process work?

Well, I get an idea, I write it down in my 'Ideas Book' which I keep by my bed. I am very often awake for a few hours in the night, so I am either reading or writing down ideas. I then transfer the idea to my WIP book. Here I do spider-grams of all my ideas. For example, I would have my main idea in the centre circle ( and I am not talking Google+ here!), and from that I draw spider's legs with more circles. These circles will have the 'cast of characters'. From there I would take each character and have him/her in the centre circle with the spider's legs radiating out each with their own circle, and so on. When I am happy with that, I give each character a life. This is something that I learned to do at university when I was studying creative writing. We were taught that if you give your characters a three-dimensional life before you write about them it makes them feel like real people. So I give them traits, for example how they would speak, what they like and dislike, give them their little idiosyncrasies, you get the idea. I'm sure this is common practice for many writers.

I like to have pictures of the places that my story will visit. I have them pasted in my Ideas Book, together with maps of the towns that my story will visit. Going to the places that I am writing about also helps. It helps with the research, as does taking many photos. It gives more of an atmosphere to the writing process. The visits evoke the senses, and the imagination.

I like to write straight on to the laptop, and just keep going. I try not to take notice of mistakes as my priority is to get the basic idea down without double checking myself, there will be plenty of time for the editing process later. Sometimes I am totally surprised where my story is taking me. Who knew? So then I have to carry on writing, just to see what happens! I like to make sure the history part is correct, I can't change history, but I can change my story to fit.

For me, the research is most enjoyable. I love it, just love it. Sometimes I go off on a tangent just through the reading, and wonder if I can perhaps fit that piece of history in as well...So, that is me. That is my writing process.

Following me on The Writing Process Blog Hop Tour is Rob Bayliss whose blog can be found here. I know Rob from the Facebook group The Review Blog page where I am on the Admin team, and where we both review books. Please meet Rob Bayliss!

My name is Rob Bayliss. In all honesty I've always been a bit of a history geek, and a sci-fi and fantasy nerd. I've recently discovered the joys of writing and I'm currently working on a clockpunk fantasy series. I also review books for the Review Blog, which is a great way of expanding my reading experience.