Gemini Rising

Self Publishing Mini Series #1

Just recently the small press publisher that held my titles, Journey of the Heart, Night of Magic, and Mr. Christmas Elf downsized and I received my “Revision of Rights.” I was bummed to have this happen, as they were great stories which were well received. Journey of the Heart had been my best seller over the years and had over 59 reviews.

That said, I’d thought I’d do a mini blog series on Self-publishing. Honestly, it’s not something I saw myself doing. I’m confident in my writing skills and I wanted to get my stories out. Back in the day I still had some growing to do. In the aughts I queried a lot of traditional publishers and didn’t hear anything back. So, I went back to the table to grow and really fine tune my writing. I joined Writing.com, got a subscription to Writer’s Digest, bought a couple of books on self-editing and the writing process in general, and fine-tuned my stories. Mind you, I could probably talk about this process, growing as a writer, which maybe I will in the future, but today, I just want to give you some background as to what led me to self-publish.

In 2010, my first novel came out “The Hungarian” with a small press. I thought I’d go the way of small press after honing my craft because they responded to my queries. Kindle on Amazon was just getting big about that time. Small press in the teens was a big rage. Also around this time, a lot of independent writers were exploring the self-publishing market.

I’d say the self-publishing market has a had a “bad rap,” but with advances and more care, you can find a lot of good stories and great products these days. Mind you, you can still get a self-publishing book or story that looks very amateurish, so it’s important to follow the process, take your time, and make sure every step is polished.

Well, my small presses went out of business in 2018. Another small press picked up 3 of my Amazon kindle titles, but then told me they weren’t going to pick up any more and recommended I self-publish.

So, there I was. In 2019 I found myself looking at self-publishing. I knew my stories were solid. I had pretty good reviews for my stories, and several had been recognized by Reader’s Favorites and other small press magazines that had recognized small press writers. 2 of my short mainstream fiction stories had placed 8th in the Writer’s Digest Annual competion.

The big question was – where to start?

I think the first thing was knowing my limitations and understanding I needed patience. My limitations included being committed to the boys, their schooling, and scouts. Time would be limited. I decided to respect that.

I also decided I would focus on the short stories that I had published with Victory Tales Press first. They were mostly between 10,000-20,000 words and would need a light edit. I had coordinated to buy most of the covers when they went out of business, so that was one worry that I didn’t have. Mind you, I had a bunch of titles. They were:

Christmas in Bayeux
A Polish Heart
Journey Through the Heart
Feast of Candles
Night of Magic
Gifts
Young Witchcraft
Mr. Christmas Elf
Arrow Through the Heart

I’d work on my Desert Breeze titles after that. At least that was the plan. Journey of the Heart, Night of Magic, and Mr. Christmas Elf were published with my “new” small press Prairie Rose Publishing.

First up, I decided to tackle Christmas in Bayeux. It was a short story, about 12,000 words, but when I re-read it, I wanted to expand it and make it longer. That would take time and patience.

Next: The Process