S. McPherson's Blog: On my way to being a writer - Posts Tagged "self-publish"

I was on strike! Burn the pages! Smudge the ink! Forget writing! I like to teach and I'm good at it, so there! The End... The end? Not likely. As you may have guessed, my childish outburst was short-lived. Though I tried to ignore it, the heart wants what the heart wants and mine was filling my mind with flashes of dragons, elves and talking frogs.

My classroom book selection was growing old so one day after we'd read Julia Donaldson's 'The Gruffalo' more times than I can count, I decided to launch into my own made-up tale.

My story, teaching the importance of perseverance, told of a little girl who was being kept awake by her partying pet fish. Random? Yes. But since children's minds are as nonsensical as mine, it was very well received. Their positive reaction inspired me to dabble in the field of self-publishing. Now, queue 'Jaws' two syllable soundtrack.

1 dash of innocence
2 cups of hopeful
1 tablespoon of insanity
1 KG of creativity
1 bucket-load of drawings

This was my recipe for self-publishing my first children's story. I started with the bucket-load; the longest but possibly most fun process after writing. First I drew them. Then I photocopied them. Then I coloured them. Then I scanned them. Then I decided I didn't like the colours I'd chosen (because why not make life more difficult?) so I did it again and again and again.

Finally I realised that the look I wanted, I didn't quite know how to get, so I went on a mission to find someone to digitally edit my images. Let's call this someone, The Tool; the thing I used to get the job done. The Tool digitally remade my images, slapped on a hefty fee and voila, they were ready to go; or so I thought. Hindsight is always 20/20.

I came...I saw...I deluded myself. With illustrations so pixel-ated it was like trying to see through shattered glass and with alluring curvy text that was actually impractical for reading, I set about promoting my book to anyone who would listen.

My blind belief paid off (temporarily) leading to book signings, readings and appearances in magazines. It seemed like the pieces of this self-publishing puzzle were finally slotting into place and working in a nursery was the last little bit. It granted me access to a vast audience to sell to and word naturally spread from there.

It was great!

And I lived happily ever after...

on my own island...

in Tahiti!!

My first self-published book was about perseverance and after it's mini success, persevere I did. I accepted that it wasn't as good as it could be; no, should be, and I began working on the next books in the series; 'Thomas Clay wanted to Play' and 'Emma Creet wanted a sweet'. For Thomas, I hired an illustrator and for Emma, I decided to draw them myself.

Meanwhile I was also getting my own illustrations for the first book revamped so I could remove the work of "The Tool" once and for all. I didn't know my plan for these books or if I'd follow the same routes I previously had, but I knew I wasn't going to stop.

So to quote my favourite animated fish since Little Mermaid, I just kept swimming, further and further out into uncharted waters.