An Author and His Novel

It’s been a spell since I’ve posted here at Unicorn Bell. (Hey, that rhymed!) I’ve been keeping myself busy with writing, revising, self-publishing a novel…you know, the typical writer stuff. Oh, so do you mean to tell me that the last one might not be so typical? Granted, it’s not every day a writer self-publishes a book, unless you happen to be a robot of some sort. Hey, with the way things are going technology-wise, you never know.

So how did I get my book self-pubbed? I like to believe it took three things, of which I’ll go into detail about now.

First off, I needed a kick-in-gear idea. For Spell of Entrapment, I wanted to tell an epic fantasy story with its own unique spin on things. I looked at some of the things I knew about (write what you know). In this case, the concept of solitude came to me. I played the what-if game that led from regular solitude to exile to having to interact with people after the character was disenfranchised for twenty years.

Once I had the idea, the next thing I needed was to get the story down on the page, leave it for a while, and come back to it in full-on revision form. It took me six revisions (Edition #G, from my alphabetic, 26-revision maximum limit rule of thumb for any story), to get the final product out there. I also went through three beta readers who helped me along the way.

Speaking of help, the final thing I needed was someone to cheer me on, to tell me I should just digitally self-publish and get my name out there. I fine-combed the final draft, no big deal. The one thing holding me back was cover art. Fortunately, the friend who cheered me into self-publishing came up with an awesome cover for me book. I’m happy to report that nearly 23 copies have sold and up to 11 sampler chapters have been downloaded from Smashwords. I’m definitely on my way with this writing thing.

So here’s something to mull over. What do you think you need on your writing journey? How might you go about getting it?