There’s a symbolic mountain of work ahead of me. I’ve decided to take the plunge into self-publishing.
The first book will be Tale of Two Cities - my current serial on Substack. You get it for free, but I want to see what happens when it’s spruced up to its Sunday best with an editor and a cover artist. With any luck, someone will read it on a Sunday evening too, with coffee in hand and the happy knowledge that their life is more organised than Jem’s. At least they don’t have an ancestor who screwed up time and space and a war brewing between two cities because she exploded a door.
The next book is Tell No Lies, written two years ago, revised repeatedly and about to be edited again. This one has elves, trolls, sages, magic and modern technology. At 90,000 words it will take longer than Two Cities to trim the story into shape, but the universe is fully formed.
Why am I doing this?
Well, that’s thanks to you.
I’ve shown up weekly - warts, spelling errors and all - you’ve continued to read me, despite a lack of polish, experience or a copy editor to catch my bloody mistakes. I want to see what happens when I commit to the next stage. This time last year I would have laughed at producing a weekly serial. Or a podcast series. Or an author collaboration (more about that soon).
It’s fun. It’s frenetic. Sometimes it’s even frantic. Mostly, it’s about staring down that little voice in my head which says ‘What if you screw up? What if you are not ready? What if - gasp - they notice you? You know it’s all luck and scrappiness right now and people skimming those emails, right? You’ve fooled them until now, but they will find out you are a fraud.”
Well, little voice; it’s all true. I do screw up. I’ve made mistakes in every post I’ve written and I don’t always spot them before I press ‘publish.’ It’s OK if people skim-read, dislike, unfollow or unsubscribe from me. They don’t owe me anything. I hope they find a better fit elsewhere. Time is precious, after all.
I also get comments, likes and replies! I get people who go back and read the whole series after signing up halfway through the story. That’s when I know I’ve done my job and given a reader some enjoyment. That’s not fraudulent.
Writing on Substack this past year has been a learning curve. Self-publishing will be an even bigger learning curve - more like a steep wall than an incline. Walking up Snowden or Ben Nevis here in the UK would be much less daunting - I could do it in a day. (Heck, Snowden even has a train station). I hope, if I treat it as a curious experiment instead of a business venture, that the pressure will stay off.
I will keep you updated on here, along with the stories, interviews and Wednesday sarcasm.
Thank you.
Good luck 🤞🏻
I've only started reading the Tale of Two Cities in the last few days and I am hooked. I am really enjoying it, looking forward to reading the rest as well as your new story, once it's finished.
Go for it 👍🏻