My Path to Indie Publication Series is a companion series to Marshall Ryan Maresca’s Path to Publication. I have been avidly reading Marshall’s posts since I discovered his blog. Read Part I: Path to Indie Publication. Part II. Part III.

Synchronicity *

I had a book. I had a title. I couldn’t stand the ending. Rewrote it. Waited. Fiddled. Hated it. Cut it. Waited. Rewrote it. Close.

I discovered the Speculative Fiction writers group at Village Books and was chosen for the Bellingham Herald’s annual serial story, Speculative Fiction this year, six writers, 800 words each, released on consecutive Mondays.

I attended the Children’s Literature Conference at WWU and stalked author Michael Grant for a couple days. He didn’t seem to mind. He gave me advice on blurbs and marketing and asked me what I thought of his choice to use “swore” instead of including the profanity as part of the dialogue. As a school teacher I assured him, that for his audience it was the perfect choice. He declined my request to read All Is Silence. I also managed to reconnect with Tamar Clark, one of two Teen Services Coordinators at the Whatcom County Library System. She and her partner in crime [fiction], Aubri Kelerman, have been great helping me understand the public library systems.

With great guidance by Dean Kahn, the Serial Story: Memories of Light, came together quickly and cleanly, leaving me with the issue of wrapping up the ending. I had volunteered, thinking that since I wasn’t great at endings, forcing myself to come up with one and not let my fellow writer’s down was a good challenge. Amanda Hagarty was the writer before me and she left me in a place where I didn’t know I could write myself out of in 800 words. My first draft that got to the ending was 1200! But with the help of Amanda and the other serialists, I cut it down.

Cory Skerry, local writer and slush-pile reader at Tor.com stalked me enough to decide I would be open to him contacting me by e-mail. He invited me to join the Bellingham Writer’s Group that included fellow serialist, Amanda. She became my Story Editor for All Is Silence and her fixes and suggestions made it from a 103,000 word mess into a too trim 88,000 words with some suggestions on adding some muscle to that taut frame.

The Chuckanut Writer’s Conference at Whatcom Community College added value and excitement. I met Alice Acheson, connected more with Kiffer Brown of Chanticleer Reviews and joined IBPA, The Independent Book Publishers Association.

Post-NANOWRIMO, I did the Book Doctors Webinar, a deal at $70 for NANOWRIMO. Arielle and David were most helpful. Then I entered their online Pitchapalooza, which since I had already purchased The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published for some ridiculous sale price of $2.99 or something, got me a 20 minute telephone conference with David. Killer advice on the pitch on going traditional or indie and how to get good cover art. In order to be truly professional when the novel came out I needed to pay for a cover and editing.

One of his suggestions was 99Designs. I set up a contest on 99Designs, and after a scary first few days, started to get really exciting designs. I ended up with 146 designs from 30 designers.

As I began to think of ways to develop buzz for my novel and learn the process of self-publishing, I decided creating an e-book of my published fiction would help both goals. Along the way I decided that it made sense to include some new fiction set in the Deserted Lands Universe. I contacted the runner up in the novel cover contest, Portugal—Alexandre Rito, for the cover design of the Outward Bound eBook.

This post is chocablock full of links because I put myself out there where I could run into people who could help me. And run into people I did. I accepted offers and invitations and I asked people what I could do to help. My meager assistance for many of these folks has been returned sevenfold and continues to ripple through my universe.

Coming next week: Part V–Reality and instability of Time, or learning to use Scotty’s Law of Estimation.

* Adapted and expanded from the Foreword to Outward Bound: Science Fiction & Poetry, a collection of some of my published and unpublished works. Top