If you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to self-publish for the first time, this is for you…
Today is publication day. My first publication day. My debut book, A Night Of Strange Dreams, is now available from Amazon:
But this post isn’t a sales pitch, rather I want to capture what it took to get here. First a little background, let’s set the scene…
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always written. Ideas, short stories, novel outlines, character descriptions (I have an old green notebook from my pre-teen years that is full of hundreds of charater names. Nothing else, just a set of random names. I still pull inspiration from it today!). And so many failed novel attempts.
Then, back in September 2022, I started writing short stories for competitions. I’d never done that before, and it was a thrill to create something to order, following a strict set of prompts… and a deadline.
Globe Soup was my contest of choice, and I couldn’t have been happier. Such a friendly, dedicated, and helpful group. They hold regular contests, and I still continue to contribute as often as I can.
Not Quite Write is another one that I’ve dipped my toe into.
I’ve managed to find some success in this contests, I’ve been a finalist several times for Globe Soup, and got a named mention on the Not Quite Write podcast (that was amazing!). But I treated each one as its own unique experiment.
Then, in early 2025, the idea came to collate these stories into a book. I felt I had enough material to create something good. I had no idea how wrong I was!
I had 28 stories ready to go, or so I thought. I just needed to hand pick which ones to include, which to keep back for a future book, and set them all out in a logical order. Boom, book done.
Of course that’s not how this story ends.
I spent most of the year polishing the stories, working out how best to order them, discovering that there was actually something to them… a kind of architecture that underpinned my writing. I had no idea! These stories weren’t written to be put together, and yet when I started doing just that it began to fall into place.
What a wonderful feeling!
Then reality struck. There were problems. Some stories just wouldn’t fit the narrative, no matter what I tried to do to them. So they were all removed. In other places there were gaps… stories that needed to be written, to help solidify the architecture that had started to appear.
I ended up with 11 pre-written stories slotting into place, and 7 new stories filling out the gaps. After months of editing, polishing, editing, and finally locking into place the book became real. I no longer had a set of 18 stories, I had a singular manuscript.
Of course more editing was required. When viewed as a whole there were some clear points of repetition, or turns of phrase that I didn’t know I relied upon quite so much. That took some time to iron out.
Then there was the fun and games of getting the manuscript into a smart, production ready format. That brings its own challenges – I will talk about that in detail at a later date.
Finally there was the cover. Again, one for another time.
Before I get too carried away, let’s bring it back to today. My book is for sale, it’s real, it’s a living breathing thing – and I cannot quite believe it. Despite all of the effort involve in the above, it feels like a dream. It is a dream, come true.
Now I need to figure out how to handle whatever happens next!
SFR
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