17 October 2014

Published!

Well, it's been a very very long time coming, but I am absolutely thrilled to announce that I am finally published! My début novel, The Vagabond Vicar, is now up for sale on Amazon. 

This book was in my brain for a while before I began it - the hero just wouldn't leave me alone even while I was working on other projects. The writing began in earnest for NaNaWriMo 2011. I can't believe that was nearly 3 years ago! To say my life has been turned upside down in that time is a huge understatement, but I'm now in a great place and ready to take on new challenges.

Now the huge job of marketing it begins, along with working on publishing it other stores and in print. And waiting for people to (hopefully) buy it, read it, and to get my first reviews... gulp! I just hope that someone likes it! Meanwhile, I need to get focussed on writing the next book(s). Never a dull moment!

I was very fortunate to have great beta readers/critique partners, who all highlighted different things for me to work on. I did the cover design and formatting myself, and I'm happy with the results.

If you are scared by the formatting process, don't be - it's not that complicated, it just takes time and a bit of care. Here are the resources I used:
  • Amazon's formatting guide
  • This website explains how to start with a new, clean document
  • This one gives a nice explanation of then how to format, with screenshots. I found this a little easier to digest than Amazon's document although they essentially say the same thing. Amazon's instructions have one extra thing around setting the TOC as a location.
For the blurb, the links to purchase and now an excerpt, head over to my books page.

Thanks to everyone who has supported me along the way. This can be a lonely road, and the community of writers is a unique and lovely blessing to ease the journey.

4 comments:

  1. Wishing you lots of sales for your debut book, Charlotte. Beautiful cover, too. :-)

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  2. Congratulations on publishing your book! And thanks for the links. I have a few friends who are interested in self-publishing, and I can pass the links along to them.

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