"Bringing it" Soul Journal Page by Shannan Sinclair

“What the hell is a Demesne?” you ask.

“Read the first 3 Chapters of Dream Walker,” she answers.

**hee..hee**

I will tell you that ‘demesne’ is the Anglo-French respelling of the word ‘domain’, meaning realm or territory, and is pronounced duh-main. But that’s all you get. How it relates to Dream Walker you’ll have to explore for yourself.

(It’s right here ~ for free.)

So how am I the master of my demesne?

If you are thinking about the best episode of Seinfeld ever, get your mind outta the gutter. That is a subject matter for another, more risque blog.

I am talking about the little novel writing realm I am trying to build.

I am becoming what is called an Indie Author. This means I am writing books and publishing them myself. No agent. No publishing house. No go-betweens. No middle men. It is just me, the writer, to you, the reader.

It means I am managing the production of my book; setting it up for the printing press, converting it for Kindle and Nook, and dealing with the distributors directly. 

It also means I am marketing and promoting the book myself. I created my own website. I am writing my own press releases. I am arranging my own book launch and blog tour and building my own author platform.

I am in charge of both quality control and the professionals that I hire to assist me making my product worthy of your perusal. Critics complain that self-publishing means poor editing and bad quality. That may be true in some cases. But I am striving to be cream of the crop, not crap, and have worked hard to achieve that. You are the one who gets to decide whether Dream Walker is cream or crap, not the middle man.

I am also the accountant who manages all the income and expenses of this venture. Right now I am only managing expenses, but hopefully soon, I will be managing income as well. (That’s your part, too, btw.. ;-) )

Oh yeah...and I am, first and foremost, a writer, working on the outline for book 2.

I do this full-time passion on top of my full-time job as a 911 dispatcher, and my other full-time job as a single mother with two kids, two dogs, two cats, and a geriatric goldfish. (He's 8. That's old.)

So why would I do this Indie thing? Who in their right mind would take all that on? Wouldn’t it be easier to attempt to go Traditional and have someone else do it? 

Well, it turns out that most of those tasks would end up on my to-do list anyway. Apparently, the agent gets you the publisher, the publisher prints your book and the rest is up to you. Especially if this is your first time to the rodeo, like me. The likes of Stephen King and James Patterson may get a little more than that. May. 

Second, I get to retain the rights to my book. If I got picked up by a traditional publisher they would want to retain the electronic and movie rights to Dream Walker. Sorry, but retaining those rights is important to me. I have a vision, damn it! It involves the Oscars and Tom Cruise.

And rather than the 17.5% royalty a traditional publisher would let me have for my e-book, I get 65-70% by going to the distributor directly. Being that I wrote 100% of the book, I think that is fair.

But maybe the biggest difference, and my ultimate reason, for going Indie, is the control I have over my vision and the speed with which I see results.

I assembled my paperback book in 4 hours, uploaded it to CreateSpace in 20 minutes, ordered a proof 12 hours later and had it on my doorstep 2 days after that.

BAM! Near instant gratification!

(So maybe it is a little like Seinfeld. Like being Kramer, rather than Jerry.) 

And as soon as I approve my proof, within 12 hours it will be available to YOU! 

Just. Like. That!

No waiting 2 to 3 years to hold my book in my hands or have people read it.

There is a visceral rush in that!

Shannan

We live in the fiction.