I have been banging on about how much of a challenge it is to get my head around promoting my short story myself. What I discovered last night though is a set of elves in the form of friends and family coming in to help me. It makes this whole journey less lonely when you know the ones, you love, are not only rooting for you but are telling their friends about you. Some of these people have not read it yet so don’t know whether they are recommending utter drivel. Their faith in me is the most beautiful part of the process…aside from the writing…oh and the sales figures of course! No, but seriously as with all things you realise how wonderful the people around you are when you are in need of support.

When I make my first million I will remember you…may not talk to you, but I will remember you  😉

The First day of the new week, back to work, my current reality. Busy day at work but that didn’t stop me checking the progress of my sales chart on Amazon KDP and silently urging readers to bite…okay not so silent…I tweeted…and tweeted…re-tweeted and a bit more tweeting. No movement! I got home and logged on and was exceptionally pleased with the one person who bought a copy today. Fantastic…great and all that but my pretty line chart was showing an upward incline until today… the red line is drooping sadly near the baseline now.
So I guess my next challenge is how to change this state of affairs, how to re-erect a drooping line! So whilst working a 40 hour week, cooking, cleaning (okay not so much), writing, editing, writing this blog, ensuring I get to the gym, so my body doesn’t go into rapid decay….I now need to apply myself to learning a new skill. Argh! What have I done? I had better keep this short and sweet…will be back tomorrow as long as sanity allows. 🙂

Yesterday morning I made a lifelong dream come true. I don’t have a contract from a publishing house with a big fat or even small cheque, but I am now officially a published author.

I think I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon and last night checking sales… this has to stop! Once the excitement has dulled slightly I, may look once a day…yeah okay maybe twice! Seven sales yesterday and two today. I have a ranking on Amazon! I am as far removed from the top 100 as man was from the moon 100 years ago. I can’t claim to make any giant leaps for mankind, but I am exceptionally proud of my little steps.

By self-publishing, the onus is on me to promote my book to make it available to a wider audience that my Facebook and Twitter friends. This whole experience is a real learning curve, scary but thrilling at the same time.

I’ve just read my first review on Amazon…it’s quite surreal realising that my work is out there in the public domain being read, devoured, judged. I am pleased to say the reviewer, gave me five stars.

I am intrigued to know what the next step in this journey will be…

Matty Taylor: a beautiful young woman is starting out in her new life with her husband. Plagued by visions that seem all too real she seeks advice from the Gypsy at the local fair.
Donald Taylor: cannot believe his luck when Matty agrees to marry him. A methodical, down to earth, man who requires irrefutable evidence to believe in the existence of anything.
Thomas Trevelyan: Enigmatic and exciting but with an agenda of his own.
Matty is pulled from her life in the 21st Century into a frightening dream world where Thomas Trevelyan rescues her from a crowd of angry peasants and spirits her off to his secluded house in the woods.
Frightened when he cannot wake Matty from her sleep Donald has to start challenging the way he thinks in order to get her back.
If Thomas can win her heart, he will be a step closer to obtaining the ultimate prize but he has to contend with the echoes of her real life endeavouring to lure her back.
Two men lay claim to her affections but who will be the victor?

Today I took that step into the unknown and uploaded the final draft of a short story that I have been working on to Amazon Kindle for self-publishing.

Writing the story was the easy bit, it flows from you without the need for conscious thought. Then comes the hard bit. You have to read through it objectively not once but a number of times and the more you do this the harder it is. You have to study all angles: does it read well? Is it interesting? Have I used repetition? Will the reader understand what I am trying to say?

So over the last few months on this 13,000-word story I have poured both heart, mind and soul into this creation. A week ago I started the process of signing up for an Amazon Kindle self-publishing account (KDP). Again time to use the conscious part of the brain, oh dear! What to write on the blurb? How to make it stand out? Choosing a picture and the font style for the cover.

It all came together, and I finally hit the upload button. Of course, it isn’t over at this point. In the ideal world, it would sell itself. I could go back to step one with a new story and channel my creativity or maybe editorial step 2 with the other stories in various stages of completion on my flash drive.
Now comes the nail biting part. Will anyone buy, read, like it…or will it slip into the nether world of stories lost on the ether never to be read? So how do I ensure that my labour of love over the last few months doesn’t end that way?

 If you would like to read it: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00S2MRJEI?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o00_