Shane Cowden's Blog

It's been one week since the launch of ORION, and I'm proud to say we have had over 130 copies sold and counting! That includes paperback, hardcover and ebook! ORION has also recently been registered with Kindle Unlimited (Netflix for books essentially), So if you're registered with that, you can read ORION at no extra cost!

A cool thing about Kindle Unlimited as an author is it tracks 'pages read' for your book. Currently, ORION has had over 900 pages read by multiple readers! I hope you're enjoying it!

Near the back of my book, I wrote that reviews and word of mouth are independent authors' lifelines. So I'm encouraging you to ,write a review about ORION on Amazon! Did you like it? Hate it? Love it? Be honest! One star? Five stars? But when you're done with the novel, feel free to share your thoughts!

Thank you to everyone who has passed the word along about this novel. Advertising by yourself has turned out to be quite the venture, complete with hurdles, fake promotional businesses trying to sell you the world, and an increasing cost to get the word out there.

So thank you to everyone who has shared this book with their family and friends! That is the #1 way a book gets noticed, through the eyes of the reader and their honest reviews and recommendations.

I know some of you have finished it already, which is fantastic! I genuinely hope you're all enjoying the read and that in over 75,000 words and 210 pages, I've provided you with a story you can think back to often with enjoyment and reflection.

• Shane Cowden

Thank you all SO MUCH for helping make the launch of ORION a massive success! For a first-time author to achieve the rankings and sales that ORION made was something I did not expect, and that is all thanks to you!

Here are some metrics to share with you only three days after launch:

1) ORION was ranked ,#1 Best Seller in War Fiction, for two days! This was something entirely unexpected for me, and now I can always say that ORION was a best seller in a specific category!

2) ORION broke the top 100 in Amazon, reaching #44 at its highest peak! That's a ranking throughout the whole of Canada! Unreal!

3) ORION was #2 in fairy tales (Mythology) and #8 in Coming-of-Age Books!

4) ORION Was placed on Amazon's "Movers and Shakers" list along with "Hot New Releases!" This featured my book alongside books such as "Spare" By Prince Harry and "Only the Dead" by Jack Carr. You better believe I'm going to be keeping a picture of that!

I have been absolutely overwhelmed by the tsunami of support I received from all of you. Seeing you all share, promote and get excited about this book was so flattering. I loved seeing all of you taking a picture while holding my book! So far, ORION has sold almost ,100 copies! Some independent authors wait a WHOLE YEAR to reach that many! Some never do!

I really hope you enjoy the read. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but if my writing affects just one person in a positive way, then it was all worth it. Please continue to share with your friends and family or anyone who loves books! And when you're finished reading, I would love to have you write an HONEST review on Amazon. Good, bad, it doesn't matter, be honest!

Reviews and ratings are the best way to substantiate a book for other readers, and a self-published author's success is only achievable by word of mouth. So please consider writing a review of ORION on Amazon.ca!

Again, thank you so much for all your support. I'll be sharing more updates shortly.

I am excited to announce that my book ORION has hit #1 in Best Sellers for War Fiction!!!

Click here for an exciting update on ORION.

This question has been asked of me ever since launching this project, and the answer is more convoluted than you might think. Anyone can write a book or a novel, but it all depends on how much effort you put into it.

This post will review the basic procedural aspect of self-publishing a book. These are not universal rules but essential guidelines if you want your book to be the best it can be.

The first step? Write something. Anything. Literally anything at all. Everyone has a story to tell, but it's another thing to put on paper. Don't get discouraged if you don't have all the ideas for your novel immediately. When I started writing ORION, I began with a prologue and had no intention of making it a story about a veteran and his struggles. It morphed into it, and after a while, once I had a clear idea of the plot structure, I ran with it.

Don't concern yourself with if you wrote the perfect words or sentences. Don't worry if your grammar is perfect either; these are all things you will go through during your many rounds of self-editing. (Mine was 5 in total before I sent it to a professional editor for review.).

The important part is to get your story down because the first draft is just you telling yourself the story.

Once you've written a rough (and I mean REALLY rough) draft of your story, then you should focus on the developmental editing. Look for plot holes, confusing character arcs, structure, etc. and fix those by adding, subtracting or editing chapters.

Then, once that is done, go to the beginning of your book and admire how shitty your writing is (and it will be shitty). That's ok because you're doing this to improve it! This is the time when you do your first round of self-editing. Read through the entire book and polish up the grammar, spelling, overused words, synonyms, etc. It helps if you read it aloud, as it will let you feel how natural it sounds.

Then do it again.

And again

And again

And again... Do this until you think you have done the best you possibly can with the skillsets you have.

The next step (in my process, at least) is to send it out to BetaReaders. This is someone who will read the novel and essentially write a book report about it. This will give you an honest opinion of the readers' reaction. They should tell you about things they liked about the book, something they didn't, things they wanted to know more about and all other viewpoints a reader would have.

You can then use this to make some changes to your manuscript. After sending it to my BetaReader, I added two more chapters and some paragraphs in others to solve the questions that the reader (and others) may have. It was beneficial. Luckily for me, It was more positive than negative, and I didn't have much to change.

That's another thing. Don't use family or friends. As easy as it is to ask, you will not get an honest opinion about it because clearly, they are biased with their love for you and want you to succeed (hopefully.).

So find a BetaReader that has done it before and is brutally honest about their reviews. GoodReads.com is an excellent place to find them.

Then, find a professional editor. Get quotes and timelines, and negotiate the price and details. Ensure you're getting the correct type of editor because there are many different kinds. (Copy editor, Line editor, Developmental editor, etc.) This is a whole other blog post in itself.

This is the stage that my book is at right now. Once you have dealt with the editing process and your book is formatted correctly, you can use one of many self-publishing services. I'll be using Amazon. Create your book cover (I made my own, but you can hire for that too.). Upload your manuscript and roll through the details of publishing through their website.

That is my process of what I went through (and currently am) to write and publish a book. There was a lot of trial and error and a lot of research to figure out how the fuck I get from point A to point B, but patience and commitment helped push me through it.

Hopefully, this answers some questions and gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse into my personal experience with the basic procedures of self-publishing.

Testing, testing. I'll be keeping future readers updated with current and future Sierra Charlie projects on this page. Stay tuned!