My book Destination Daintree is at the publisher and it is an interesting, exciting and frustrating experience. For economic reasons I chose to self publish through Vivid Publishing. My first book “The Restless Danish Immigrants: The Johnson Family was non fiction and the publishing process was relatively easy although sending the copy in just before Christmas was not a clever idea.

This time my book is fiction and I have chosen to have 100 books (minimum allowed) printed and an ebook. This sounds like a great way to get your book out into the book world but be assured there is no substitute for patience and hard work.

After writing the book I had to do all the editing and then place the chapters making sure the first chapter began on an odd numbered page. With the help of my wonderful partner Deb this took us many weeks. Even then we were never sure when we would be “ready”. Eventually you just moved into the next phase which is to make contact with the publisher through email and then allow them to begin guiding you through the process.

Not too much guiding but a lot of filling in forms which leave you debating into the small hours. The important parts of the novel must be analysed as the words become imperative to the internet search. Was Daintree and Destination good words to use? Are they too common? Do they “belong” to another author? If you search for the words do you get nothing or a million hits? And the questions go on.

Will tell you the next part as it occurs.

Keep smiling it is a terrific feeling when you get your book published and even greater when you actually sell a book or get a positive comment from a reader.