In the beginning, there was me and my novel; a jaunty adventure in the Amazon. I had dreams of being published and dreams of acquiring an agent. I knew the storyline had merit – in fact, I practiced my “pitch” on someone in a hotel lobby during a writer’s conference so that I could get a stranger’s point of view.

 Her response,“Wow, I love that story idea. Is it YA? If it is, I’ll take it today. I’m a YA publisher.”

I was floored and excited! Unfortunately, it wasn’t a YA, so I took my pitch to the agents at the thriller conference. What I got back was that “Oh, I don’t want an adventure with a main female character.” And “Sorry, I don’t take adventure with a supernaturalelement.”

Completely disheartened, I went back home disillusioned about finding an agent (and this wasn’t my first try – I had been looking for an agent for a year). I went home and shelved my novel.

It was a few months later that I was contacted by Publishizer. From there I did a crowdfunding campaign and sold the book in presales.

But up to this point, no one but my writing review group had read the novel. And I honestly needed validation. I needed someone to tell me that my book was worthy of reading. That’s where my publisher came in. Creativia requires that you submit your complete book and then they let you know whether they accept you or not.

So the day they accepted me I felt so elated. Someone liked the book! And then came all the unknowns. They never gave me a publishing date. I assumed it might be a while, so I had taken the day off from the internet for my birthday on Dec 5, 2017 and went online on Dec 6 to find my book had been published. Suddenly I was in a rush to advertise – a little notice would have been nice.

Along the way I was told the book was in their special marketing funnel, however, 95% of the books that were selling were to people who had met me and my publisher would never say how they were marketing. I knew the team consisted of a husband and wife, and I could see that with each new author they were getting more behind on things like requests and orders.

During this time, I had been teaching writers how to publish their short stories to Amazon through the Short Storyathon™, which is actually quite easy. And, that’s the only place my publisher puts the books; Yet, Amazon isn’t the only selling platform. I’m also comfortable with marketing and social media and I’d love to be able to directly see how my marketing efforts are affecting book sales – which I can’t see with the publisher as my middle man.

You can start to see how I might be thinking of self-publishing.

Also, I’ve had a 5-star review from an independent review company, as well as a lot from the public, so I’m comfortable with my book and my writing future.

 I figured it was time to take control, to see what I can do with the knowledge I have and publish on my own. 

In the meantime, I’m thinking about the validation that I needed. I’m sure there are plenty of other writers who feel they need validation and I’m figuring out how to help them through my company Plot Duckies. More thoughts on that coming soon. 

And, if you want to see my short stories (humor and adventure), you can find them on Amazon.