A New Writer’s Learning Curve
So, I made the decision to publish after getting an idea during a cyclone. Where to from here?
I had no idea what tools were available. Most of my work was done in Microsoft Word or Paperless. I used Apple Notes for the odd draft of an idea while commuting.
At the time of writing, I’ve still never published anything. I’m not close to anyone that has published anything outside of technical documentation. How on earth do you publish a novel?
Being a millennial, I googled it. That’s how I found a local publishing company and learned about Kindle Direct Publishing. KDP sounded both awesome and terrifying. It’s free, but you’re on your own for formatting, editing, design, everything. Great for the budget. Stressful for the brain.
I still didn’t really know what tools were out there to help with the writing part. Eventually, I stumbled across Scrivener—and it’s been an absolute gift. Cheers to the team at Literature and Latte. It’s made my writing life so much easier.
Days later, I saw something in the news that scared the wits out of me. An author using the Kindle platform was arrested over the content of their book. I won’t go into it any further as it’s a matter for the courts, but one thing stood out: they admitted their editor hadn’t seen the entire book, and to not really telling anyone what the book contained.
That stuck with me. My novel’s content is nothing like the subject of that news article, but it made me realize how careful you have to be when putting your work out into the world. I might not get arrested over typos and bad punctuation, but I could still look pretty foolish. That was enough to scare me into taking editing seriously, no matter the cost.
At this point, I still have no clear idea how to publish and it is starting to scare me. So I’ve turned my focus back to the part that matters: the story, the characters, and the joy that comes from pulling it all together.
I know a lot more than I did when I decided to publish this novel. There’s still a long way to go, though.
