Well its literally been years
since I wrote and don’t know why I am bothering as no one will read it and I
won’t even be posting the link on twitter or facebook anymore.
So much has happened that I
won’t go into. I’m in a different relationship, I’m not moving to
Bulgaria and I’ve not long recovered from a mini breakdown.
The big news is (which is why
I started the blog in the first place) is my book has finally been
published. I self-published through Amazon and hey fuck it I am putting
the link here anyways. Savanahs Hut
I probably mentioned in
previous posts, I began writing my book whilst travelling to work on the
train. I’ve only had two people read my book before it was
published. I had to edit it myself which I think was the worst
part. The weird thing was as I had written it so long ago when I read it
back (as my memory is shocking) it was like someone else had written it and I
actually enjoyed reading it and wanted to read on. This is a great sign I
thought, as I’ve read some crappy books in my time and a lot of them I have
just had to stop altogether. This gave me great hope that I’d written a
half decent book. But the second and third time I read it I was just
bored of reading it again lol. Perhaps next time I’ll pay someone.
So tbh I only read it back three times but decided I was going with it – it’s
now or never. Not the conscientious precious writer with much
pride, nah it is what it is !
So when the editing was
complete it was just the book cover to do. That probably took me around a
year. I spent some time looking for someone and settled on a local guy
who was only charging me £120 for 2 covers. Now I know this guy was a
novel and he had a regular day job, but I didn’t want anything fancy, just a
nice picture with the words put on it. Hell, I even had my own picture
for Christ sake. It had to be the easiest design job ever. But 8
weeks into it and we were still batting back and forth as he has to be the
worst graphic designer in the world. His attempts at design were in comparison
with that of a blind 5 year old. Now I am a very very patient lovely
person and I continued giving him the benefit of the doubt. I even
designed it myself and sent it him and said do this. But he still
couldn’t grasp simple instructions, like change the text colour please.
In the end I found a fabulous site. https://www.canva.com
and did it myself. Not too shabby is it for a first go at a book
cover. I am quite impressed.
Meanwhile I was doing a short
writing course for free from the OU website. Perhaps should have done
this before I wrote a book. It was quite helpful and I realised my book
was a whole load of waffly shizzle. Well I wasn’t gonna read that book
again no-siree. One particular critic said as much and most the text I
had written in one paragraph was superfluous. Oh I love that word, and
well I had to admit she was right. I will remember for next time.
So my wild notions of becoming
an overnight millionaire are ongoing. My interviews with Phil and Holly
are still a pipe dream and Oh I may as well go on celebrity juice as well
hadn’t I.
Only my friends have bought my
book (don’t have many) and I have made a grand total of £2 whole English
pounds. I can’t even get a cheese toasty for that. I came to
realise that if someone types in romance books mines gonna be at about page 300
on Amazon. One of my biggest fears was getting reviews that said this
person is the worst writer ever! The grammar and spelling is atrocious and if
it was paperback I’d have burned it.
The thing is no one can read
it to bloody well say that anyway. I need to figure out how
Amazon prioritise these things.
My next book could be better
as it’s a travel guide so there’s a purpose here and I would hope there are
less travel guides for sale than childish romance novels.
Also I may have just written a
pile of steamy guff that bores even the dullest of folk.
I’m gonna leave it at that for
now.
**** gripe of the day – why on
earth do people think they can leave the self-service check out and go get
themselves something else in the middle of self-scanning.
FMP
