About 4 years ago I embarked on a journey that has been fraught with potholes, ignorance on my part, defiantly naiveté and certainly mounting debts. I started a self-publishing journey with the release of a group of short stories. Right from the beginning there were editing issues and relationship problems with an initial publisher. I learned, got burned and moved on to me next book. That one is now in its third revision and many thousands of dollars later, it is finally nearing a standard, which I am happy to say, is right up there with the books I peruse in bookstores. It has been extensively edited, proofread, re-designed, digitally managed, proofread again and then ‘future proofed,’ and finally going to print, in eBook format and hard-copy. Yes, ROSKILL is about to hit the shelves, of some bookshops, on Amazon, on Kindle and probably at other to be announced venues.
I have learned much on this journey and anyone contemplating going down the road of self-publishing, could well gain from having a bit of a chat. There are so many pitfalls you can avoid. I have learned to be more patient. Getting a book ‘out there,’ in a rush is NOT the way to go. That approach only leads to frustration, further expense and embarrassment as you see the errors, which you did not see when you ‘carefully’ went over the script for the ‘last time.’ NEVER assume that you can do it yourself. Your eyes will not see what those of others do.
I have met some wonderful people on this journey and now I feel I have a ‘team,’ who I can TRUST. Yes, it costs a lot of money, but I have reached the point that if I stopped now, I would be throwing away all that money. It feels like I need to dip into my pocket for one last time and hope that all the work begins to pay off. I have learned of new resources as per job descriptions that I didn’t know existed, like ‘digital designer,’ just to name one. The editing processes are far more complicated than I thought and the addition of good proof-reading (everyone thinks they can do it!) along with publicists are an essential part of getting a book out there.
Now, I wait for the first hard-copies of the new enhanced and much improved ROSKILL to arrive, most of which will go out to distributors and bookshops. The eBook version will be uploaded any day now and hopefully you will download it from my website. Please keep a look out for it and share the link with your friends. It is time for me to try to get back some of the many thousands of dollars that this project has whipped out of my bank-account.
What to do if Roskill gets any traction?—Why---do the same with TALK TO ME and SONS OF ORPHEUS of course. That will be a mission! My website? www.authorneilcoleman.com Check it out and let me know once you have downloaded successfully or purchased online. I would love some feedback. Share, share and share again.
Yes, this really does feel like an addiction, but I am sure there are far worse ones!
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