Hi, I’m Judith Ashley, author
of The Sacred Women’s Circle series, soul nourishing romantic women’s fiction
that honors pagan spiritual practices. My stories show you what life could be
like if you had a place like The Circle where you are unconditionally accepted,
supported and loved. And where, with this support, you do overcome obstacles and
find your happily-ever-after.
In my experience, some scary
things can also be exciting. For example, walking along that narrow path on the
side of a mountain with a sheer drop on one side would have both elements.
Another example I’ve actually experienced is a narrow path along a rocky
outcropping on a beach headland. If I’d slipped, I’d have fallen onto the rocks
and then been beaten to a pulp by the pounding surf.
However, neither of those
narrow path stories are related to writing. Or not directly.
Putting words on a page,
telling a story is for me the easiest part of the writing process. It’s also my
favorite. However, what to do with the finished product is the most stressful
and yet the most exciting.
 |
| Sarah Raplee |
We had a mentor in MaggieLynch, one of the founders of Windtree Press. Through Maggie we had a basic
understanding of self or indie publishing.
The Blog Queens (Sarah and
me) also wanted to provide the Genre-istas (RTG’s bloggers) another creative
outlet so we started Free Reads From The Genre-istas and those of us who signed
up, wrote free short stories for our readers.
 |
| Diana McCollum |
Diana took the lead in
seeing the cover move from our ideas to something we all loved.
Sarah, being the most
tech-savvy of us and I worked on putting the short stories into Jutoh, adding
the cover, proofing the results, figuring out meta data and all those pieces
that go into the actual publishing of a book.
Diana, Sarah and I also set
up accounts on Kobo, Apple, Amazon, Gumroad and Barnes and Noble.
There comes a time when an
author has done everything s/he can do and it is time to click on “Submit” or
“Publish.” To add to the tension, the three of us had made a commitment to have
Love & Magick published for
Valentine’s Day 2014.
At the time we set our deadline,
it seemed reasonable but…
In the wonderful world of
self-publishing and back in the day, with three people who were wending their
way through the process for the first time, it was daunting!
I remember clearly that it
was approaching midnight on February 14th and Sarah and I were
working on the last of the issues.
At 11:58 p.m. Pacific time,
we hit Publish to Gumroad. And we were officially published!
Excited? Definitely!!!
Stressed? Oh my yes!
We walked that narrow path
with a sheer drop on one side and a rising cliff on the other. We made it
safely to the end of the path. We looked toward the self-publishing horizon and
had officially joined the world of published authors!
Since then, while we no
longer write for Free Reads because we shut that site down, we have pursued our
publishing careers as best we can with the other responsibilities we have in
our personal lives.
We have stories to tell and
because of that there will always be that narrow path with a sheer drop on one
side and a rising cliff on the other. No matter how many times I’ve traveled
that path, I always breathe a sigh of relief when I reach the end and look out
across the vast library of published works where my books reside.
You can
find all of my books at your favorite e-book vendor. Be sure to ask your local
library if you’d prefer to read my books through that resource.
© 2020 Judith Ashley
8 comments:
Great post, Judith. It takes courage to put your words out there!
Thanks Lynn. That does take courage and added to it the lack of techie skills made it daunting, especially at the time. I've learned a lot - and remain my own worst enemy when it comes to having confidence in my techie skills.
We've all learned a lot, Judith! It is stressful and exciting to publish-and a LOT of work. I'm sure glad it was the three of us the first time!
Sarah, without you and Diana heading down this path with me or my heading down the path you the two of you, who knows when I'd ever get anything indie published. At the time it was so stressful for me but in hindsight, it was exciting.
It is critical for indie publishers to support each other. No one knows everything AND processes and opportunities continuously change. Fortunately, most of the changes actually make publishing easier--better software, better aggregators, tools for marketing that doesn't require you to be a graphic artist.
If it weren't for a large network of people in the trenches, I would miss so much that is critical to me publishing books and selling them. I hope that sense of helping each other never stops.
I agree Maggie. While I've let my memberships in most writing organizations lapse, I have three strong smaller communities of support, encouragement and information. As we grow as writers, as our lives shift and change, it's important to pay attention to what serves us best. The publishing industry is not static and neither should we be.
What a wonderful adventure, Judith (and Sarah and Diana.) Indie-pubbing is indeed scary. Any publishing is scary. Putting yourself out there doesn't get easier with time, but hopefully the confidence does... a tad :-) And having a great network is so important. And despite how scary writing and publishing is...you wouldn't catch me near the edge of anything up high and overlooking rocks and water :-) To me, that is true social distancing - stay away from the edge of anything, especially something dangerous. Kudos to you and the pioneers of RTG. We owe you!
Thanks for stopping by, Deb. I've had a fear of heights for a very long time. Panic if in a high building with those floor to ceiling windows people love. I'm better now when it comes to those buildings but walking along a cliff edge? I'd rather not imagine what would need to be happening for me to take that path. You and I can sit on a rocky point and ooh and aah as wave after wave crashes on the rocks.
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