publishing

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in’t.

—William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act V, Scene I, ll. 203–205

Dare I quote Shakespeare while in the same sentence mention Indie Publishing, e-publishing, independent authors, self-published writers, Kindles, Nooks, I-pads, and more?

Darn right I dare.

Shakespeare was a daring writer, pushing convention, taunting enemies and hypocrites, creating love poems between lovers who should never ever be together.

Aldous Huxley used Shakespeare’s quote for his famous 1932 novel A Brave New World. Huxley was inspired by the novels of H.G. Wells (believe it or not, my favorite author when I was in middle school!) and Wells’ imaginings of the future, which tended to be positively gleeful of what was to come. Remember The Time Machine…? War of the Worlds…? The Invisible Man…? Fabulous books for a young girl with an immense imagination.

Okay, yes, somehow I’m connecting the dots between Shakespeare, H.G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, and Pamela Wight, self-publisher. See my rueful smile here?

But at this moment in time, we are living in a Brave New World. A century from now, readers and writers and publishers (if there still are any) will cite the beginning of the 21^st century as a landmark time of changes in the way we read. In the choices of how and who we read.

As of 3:03 the afternoon of Tuesday, January 8, I became a published writer.

I didn’t use an agent. Nor a publisher.

I created my own publishing company – Near. Perfect. Press.

The company is very NEAR, in my own computer;

The idea of creating and sharing with the world in my own time and my own space is PERFECT;

And when I PRESS the keyboard, I can create words and characters and worlds and then, press, send it out to you and to you and to you.

A Brave New World

That’s not to say it’s easy, self-publishing, pushing the boundaries of the way things always have been, always were ‘meant to be.’

I toiled for years on my just-published book, The Right Wrong Man. My main character Meredith developed over the page (with the scribbling of a pen and the tapping of computer keys) through verbs and nouns and metaphors; through research on the police station in St. Thomas and the biting habits of the tarantula; through reading endless newspaper and magazine articles about drug cartels and the illegal trafficking of meth. Oh, and through draft 2 and draft 22.

And now I’m ready to share my novel, my work of inspiration and imagination, my years-long affair with Meredith and Parker and Gregory, and the story of The Right Wrong Man.

Please join me in my

brave

new

world,

which has such wondrous and beauteous people in it.

Oh boy, is this hard. I’ll just share with you right now that I am not comfortable writing this post. Okay, here I go, here I go….

I’m almost ready to publish my book, The Right Wrong Man.

The genre? Romantic suspense. But who likes labels? The book is a fun page turner, spell-binding, sexy, with a main character who is flawed (after all, aren’t we all?) and funny at times, clueless at others, and interesting enough that you (the reader) will want to follow her down her own little rabbit hole and see the horrible mess she’s in.

Well, there, that wasn’t so difficult to publicize (also known as hype, tout, flaunt, plug, oh my gosh so many words under “to market”).

I’m a writer, not a promoter. (That’s sort of like saying “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”) I like the idea of taking the high road (you know, I just love the creative process, not the hard-as-nails side of advertising and marketing).

writing process, writing, publishing, marketing, all-terrain highway

The all-terrain highway of writing.

But writing now is an all-terrain highway. The ups, the downs, the writing, the selling.

So I’m proud to shout out I’VE WRITTEN A GOOD BOOK! I love Meredith, my main character. I’m fascinated by the right wrong men in her life, Gregory and Parker. (Or are they the wrong right men?)

Either way, I’ve written the book and edited it and drafted it 2 or 20 or 33 times. My novel has been read and edited and reviewed and critiqued by men and women who all exclaim, “WHAT A GREAT READ!”

The cover is complete, the formatting from Word to Kindle is just about there, and all I need to do now

Is.

Market It!

Ack, but that’s the HARD part.

Can you believe that? Writing a book is supposed to be the most difficult component of publishing.

Making up a character (but truly, that was easy, because Meredith just popped on the page for me);

Finding and following a plot (well, again, I had no idea where Meredith was going, but before I knew it, she flew away from her comfy home in Boston to visit a stranger in a yacht off of St. Thomas and before she knew it…oh, never mind, you have to read the book to find out);

Getting to ‘The End’ (but you know what? The pages just flew on the tip of my pen from page 1 to 286).

Easy peasy.

Just a gallon of sweat, a bucket of blood.

But now, to market, to market.

If you have any suggestions on how to promote The Right Wrong Man, please pass them on.

Just remember, I’m kind of low on blood right now…