Last month I blogged about how I was inspired to write the short story ‘A wife for the Orange Farmer’, this month, I’m sharing the difficult the road I had to walk for it to come into being.
I became the coordinator of the Melbourne Romance Writers
Guild the year they celebrated their 25th anniversary. It was a
milestone that we wanted to celebrate. I had the idea that with the online self-publishing options, perhaps we’d like to put out an anthology of stories from our members. It proved to be a popular idea, so I started down the path of learning
how to self publish a book.
Fortunately, we had some amazing authors who were already
experienced in this area, who took on the role of coordinating the project. It
was fabulous, learning all about what is involved but also a bit daunting at how
many different skills had to be acquired. Writing the short story was a
challenge to begin with, but as a coordinator, I had to get my head around the
legalities of how a not for profit group publication should be set up and what
happens to the funds that we make.
Once I’d completed all the tasks that went along with
creating an Australian Business number for our organization I then had to
embark on creating an account on several online publisher platforms, Kindle
Direct Publishing, Smashwords, and All Romance Books. I then had to fill out
the USA tax forms. It was a very steep learning curve and I panicked at times
but persevered.
The groups' contributors were now all under the gun to
produce a short story of no more than 5000 words. It was under significant
pressure that I wrote, ‘A Wife for the Orange Farmer’. The coordinator of our subcommittee set
publishing schedule for us to follow, so those of us newbies to self-publishing
were walked through the timeline and the elements that go into it.
The work had to be completed months ahead of the release
date so that we had time to get our work edited, make the edits and then
proofread. We also needed to have time for the anthology to be formatted. We
had to decide on a title and get a cover designed. I was wondering what I’d started at this
point, but with such talented members, it was all taken care of.
The subcommittee had
regular Skype meetings and our brilliant coordinator kept us on track. We ended
up putting out our anthology and with all of our members publicizing it during
the pre-order stage, we got a good sales bump on day one.
The benefits to those of us that hadn’t known how to self
publish were fantastic. I doubt I would have ever put my own work out there this
way had I not had the benefit of this experience. It was difficult for me to
even write a short story, I’d only written category length before. But’ A Wife
for the Orange Farmer’ is the very first piece of work I put out in the public
arena. After the exclusivity period of time had passed and we all started to
self publish our short stories individually, I created my own Kindle Direct
Publishing account and made a cover for my story on Canva. I would never have done it I hadn’t been a coordinator for a writing group.
I recently noticed that it got a 5-star review on Amazon. I
was so touched that someone had enjoyed my book. Without the steep uphill climb
to self-publishing, I wouldn’t have received this and the person who enjoyed my
book would never have been able to read it. You never know once you put your
work out into the big wide world who it’s going to be a pleasure to. You just
do it on faith and I guess it really is a leap of faith to submit your work to
a publisher or direct to the readers.
Writing is hard at times and I’ve learned that there’s a lot
that comes after the story is finished that’s still to be done but, I have to
say, I think it’s all worth it.
Here’s the review I received on the Australian Amazon
Website
I really enjoyed this short
story and felt very connected to the characters. It's the kind of romance story
I like to read. Short and sweet and not full of drama and angst. Looking
forward to many more stories by this author.
Dora
Bramden writes heart-melting, passionate contemporary romance.
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6 comments:
Dora, I truly do understand the steep learning curve that comes with Indie Publishing as I wrote about my experience(s) in my post tomorrow - lol. And with all the changes in publishing and indie publishing, there is always more to learn...because once our books are out there, the learning has just begun. (Think promoting, marketing, etc. to get books into hands/ears of readers). I will agree with you that going the indie route with others is the best way to jump into the water.
What a positive review! Your anthology sounds like a great project, and I'm glad the story is out in the world.
Dora - somehow my comment didn't come through earlier this morning. What a lovely review of your story and how inspiring for you. I too sent my first novella out into the world via an anthology that I helped manage. Such a huge learning curve, but like you, the experience gave me courage to indie-publish. In fact, my April RTG blog is on this subject too :-)
What a good post. I am an Indie and it is so hard, harder still when you don't have the means for any professional input. I wish I was a member of this group, rather than just following. You are all so inspiring.
You truly took a leap of failth, Dora. Taking the plunge into Indie publishing is definitely not for the faint-hearted. And it's much easier and more fun doing it with others in an anthology.
Congratulations for sticking to your pace and successfully publishing your short story. I do believe that anthologies are a great way for people to get started. It's much easier to commit to 5,000 words for an anthology and be part of something with other writers, than it is to commit to 50K or 100K for a novel alone.
The beauty and the challenge of writing is that growth makes you better and that the process and business changes regularly. Keep up the good work.
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