The manuscript for my novel, The Field, sat in a file on my computer for years before I decided to make the move to get it published. Sure, it was ready to go, but I would occasionally open the Word doc and tweak little things every once in a while. However, I knew it was done when the ideas I had late at night for lines of dialogue or sequences to include were already in the book. I knew then that it was time to take the next step into publishing the novel.
But I was afraid. I’ll admit it. I was terrified of having to deal with trolls on social media after releasing The Field to the public. I had already left Facebook and Instagram back in 2016 during the election cycle, so I was overly cautious about jumping back into the social media fray as an author.
And so, I waited…and waited…and made excuses…and waited.
And then one day, as I was getting my haircut, the woman who cuts my hair asked me for the 100th time how my novel was coming along and why I hadn’t published it yet. I finally told her why: I was afraid of what the response would be on social media. She looked at me in the mirror and said, “F**k those trolls! Publish your damn book!” Since she had clippers next to my head I agreed that it was time.
And she was 100% right. It was time to publish the book.
That weekend, I went home and started to do research on how to self-publish. Previous to this, I had sent out query letters the traditional way years prior to no avail. I knew that eBooks were popular – I certainly have a Kindle full of them – so I decided to publish my novel initially as an eBook.
And so the process began, and tomorrow I will tell you what steps I took to take The Field from computer file to published novel.
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