by Chris Harris
We are now drawing towards the end of completing my book of short stories. I met Louise on Saturday, and two of the nine are now fully completed. Five are just having one last forensic examination from me, and all five are essentially ready, edited and proofread. There are two remaining stories which are nearly finished with Louise. So, in practical terms, we will definitely be finished by the end of the month. This cannot come quickly enough for me.
Working on the basis that I am not going to receive huge financial advances and become a full time writer, and also working on the basis that my books may well go nowhere, I feel very fortunate that I run an online vintage business. If I didn’t have that, I’m not sure what I would do, because my job, as I see it, is also a hobby. I love it so much. This year I’ve decided to expand the business, and I’ve set targets which are very achievable and, importantly, won’t necessarily take up too much extra time because I can get help with them. That means I can still continue to write part time, which is exactly what I want.
However, I can’t get away from the fact that I’ve been spending sometimes sixty to eighty hours a week running the business and writing, and that simply isn’t sustainable if I want to keep the standard high. The human brain and body can only do so much, for so long, before the quality drops. This year I’ve already been incredibly busy, and I’m away for a few days soon so I can sit down and finish off the five outstanding stories, leaving me with just a few hours of work the last two, so I am 98.5% there.
So we’ve now reached the interesting stage of the process where I know almost nothing about what comes next. In fairness, I knew nothing about writing a book six months ago either. The key, I think, is that the effort is in the process itself, through trial and error. After the first couple of months of asking endless questions, and rather impatiently learning about structure, pacing, and how to improve my own writing, all self taught, I now feel like I’ve learnt a huge amount.
The next stage is what happens once the book is finished. Louise already has the facility to produce audiobooks, and she will be recording the stories in audio format. I’ve only just started researching this, and I have no idea yet how important audiobooks can be, but that’s something we’ll come back to. What I do know is that because Louise already has the material and edits it so beautifully and knows it very well, the audiobook process should take up very little of my time.
I plan to take the second week of March to focus on the publishing and release side of things. When I say “take the second week of March”, I don’t mean I’ll be doing nothing else. I still have to dedicate at least twenty hours a week to my business, which is the minimum weekly commitment to keep everything running smoothly. I tend to do the business work in the afternoons, because I can do most of it with my eyes half closed, and I use the mornings, when I’m fresh, for the complicated work, which in this case will be sitting down and working out what I actually need to do next.
As I’ve found through running my own business, AI is absolutely brilliant when you’re trying to work out how to do things. One of the latest things I’ve been looking into is whether we should hire some sort of publicist to help get the book out there. I know nothing about this, or whether it is worth doing, but it is something I want to research properly.
I’ve also been looking into the question of self publishing versus traditional publishing. I previously believed that you shouldn’t self publish first because agents and publishers won’t want it afterwards for copyright reasons. It turns out that isn’t strictly true, and in fact some publishers prefer to see an already published book, especially if it has proven itself. In my case there are also other elements that could help, because Louise is a brilliant artist and we are going to include illustrations, and there will be a map at the front of the fictional village I’ve been writing about, showing where everything happens and giving the reader a point of reference.
I’m slightly disheartened going into this next stage, not because I lack belief in the book, but because it feels like a mountain to climb and I know it is going to involve learning a whole new set of skills. That said, I have one thing very clear in my mind. I am not bothered about rejection. I wrote this book because I wanted to, I have genuinely loved doing it, and I think it is bloody good. If it gets rejected, then so be it. I’ve already sent some of the stories to my nearest and dearest and I’ve had excellent feedback, which gives me hope, even if I’m trying to stay realistic.
So now the next phase is simply this. We have to find a way to get people to read it. At the moment that feels like standing at the bottom of a mountainside, but I am completely up for it. I’m actually looking forward to it, because it means learning a new skill, and if nothing else, I’ve already proved to myself over the last six months that I can do that.
#writing a book #content creation #writing blog #writing for dummies #first novel
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