Aegelis's Blog - Posts Tagged "waiting"
Why Did I Publish When I Did?
What was it about December 2022 that had me publish? Why not before or later?
There were a lot of factors, and I tend to expound, so I'll try to be brief and surely welcome comments for more details.
1.) My father said, "Did you know you can publish on Amazon for free?" after I mentioned I had written books just sitting on my shelf. Although I heard 'free' before, the deeper I looked into publishers, the more I saw such terms as contracts and/or requirements such as buying 30 of my own books. Amazon was print-on-demand and free to publish. You can get a book on the marketplace after Amazon publishes for free, but marketing is up to you, or you can pay for the service.
2.) I was waiting for an editor. Having next-to-no confidence in my ability to edit, lacking education in advanced English and general practice beyond school or work, I was hoping to hand over the stack and ask for professional editing when I could afford it. This changed when I went through 14 revisions for a scientific data summary that required months of meetings with other business and science associates before submitting. After that, I had enough confidence to self-edit. I use Microsoft Word 2016 in the initial review, then Grammarly for correctness, sometimes wording if unclear, but not for tone. Changes to tone seem to alter what I truly want to say or my signature style.
3.) I mostly forgot about the book X (Captain Ruik's Adventure) until my wife dressed as a pirate for Halloween, which reignited my enthusiasm for the story.
4.) Fear . What if someone reads it and hates it? What if many people read it and think it's garbage? I had to reach a point in my life where I could handle a failure as long as I had a story that I liked to read. I was VERY happy to hear someone else liked the story, that was gasoline for the fire. Sure, some people may not like it, but as long as I provide a fair expectation, I'm okay with this as we all have our likes and dislikes.
Many of us will say things like, "I wish I had done this sooner!" and sure, a part of me makes a similar claim but the tools were not ready before and I, myself, didn't have the eyes for quality and practice in communication, so this likely all happened at precisely the right time. Let us not wait for perfection to come to us, and know when good is good enough to move ahead.
There were a lot of factors, and I tend to expound, so I'll try to be brief and surely welcome comments for more details.
1.) My father said, "Did you know you can publish on Amazon for free?" after I mentioned I had written books just sitting on my shelf. Although I heard 'free' before, the deeper I looked into publishers, the more I saw such terms as contracts and/or requirements such as buying 30 of my own books. Amazon was print-on-demand and free to publish. You can get a book on the marketplace after Amazon publishes for free, but marketing is up to you, or you can pay for the service.
2.) I was waiting for an editor. Having next-to-no confidence in my ability to edit, lacking education in advanced English and general practice beyond school or work, I was hoping to hand over the stack and ask for professional editing when I could afford it. This changed when I went through 14 revisions for a scientific data summary that required months of meetings with other business and science associates before submitting. After that, I had enough confidence to self-edit. I use Microsoft Word 2016 in the initial review, then Grammarly for correctness, sometimes wording if unclear, but not for tone. Changes to tone seem to alter what I truly want to say or my signature style.
3.) I mostly forgot about the book X (Captain Ruik's Adventure) until my wife dressed as a pirate for Halloween, which reignited my enthusiasm for the story.
4.) Fear . What if someone reads it and hates it? What if many people read it and think it's garbage? I had to reach a point in my life where I could handle a failure as long as I had a story that I liked to read. I was VERY happy to hear someone else liked the story, that was gasoline for the fire. Sure, some people may not like it, but as long as I provide a fair expectation, I'm okay with this as we all have our likes and dislikes.
Many of us will say things like, "I wish I had done this sooner!" and sure, a part of me makes a similar claim but the tools were not ready before and I, myself, didn't have the eyes for quality and practice in communication, so this likely all happened at precisely the right time. Let us not wait for perfection to come to us, and know when good is good enough to move ahead.
