Today I am welcoming Misha Gerrick to my blog to share her experiences of publishing her two books, The Vanished Knight and The Heir's Choice. Take it away, Misha...
Five Less Than Nice Things About Self
Publishing
Over
the past few weeks, more than a few people have been interested in why I chose
to self-publish, and why I think it’s a good idea.
However,
there are a few things about the process that’s not as nice. Especially when
you’re like me and doing everything yourself. So I thought I’d share them to
give a more balanced view of self-publishing…
1) There’s no one to tell you that
it’s time to let go.
This
is the worst thing for me. When I published through a publisher, I had an
editor who told me “Congrats! You’re done. Now the book’s going into
formatting.”
Without
the publisher, there’s no one to tell me everything’s okay to publish. I have
to decide for myself. And even though the books are out there now, I’m still
cringing, waiting for people to tell me I didn’t work hard enough on getting
the book ready. This brings me to my next point.
2) Impostor syndrome.
You
know how sometimes, people live in perpetual fear that they’ll be called out
for not being “the real thing?” This could be anything, from being a smart
person to being a “real writer.”
I’m
trying really hard not to feel this way. I put ten times as much effort into
getting my books up to publishing standard. And I know my standards are higher than an average publisher’s. But I
just can’t help thinking that some people will point out that something is
somehow… not standard and that my self-publishing efforts failed.
3) Conflicting feelings
At
the same time, I’m actually much prouder of my accomplishments self-publishing
my books than I was selling them the first time.
Which
makes my head a really interesting place to live in at the moment.
4) Time
I
haven’t written anything fictional in three months, because I was too busy with
all the publishing related things for my books. Writing this is actually the
last purposeful thing related to publishing that I’ll do for these books.
Except
that in order to hit my goals aimed at making a living at this gig, I need to
publish another book very soon. So I might have about two weeks before this
roller coaster starts again.
5) I’m my own nightmare boss.
Oh,
you thought things are cool, calm and collected when I’m doing everything
myself? Not like I have any deadlines or anything like that…
If
you thought so, you’re dead wrong.
I
measure everything I do against: Would I
have paid someone if they delivered me this service at the quality I did it
myself?
Which
means that I am relentless in driving
myself to get tasks done, while being absolutely focused on doing it to the
best of my ability. There’s no such thing as “I can’t do this, so I’ll pick
something easier” in my process.
There’s only “I better learn how to do this and how to do this well in two days
or less.”
So although I love
self-publishing, there’s a definite cost to doing it. Good thing the process is worth
the effort.
What
about you? Do you self-publish? What’s your least favorite aspect to doing so?
The Vanished Knight
The entity living inside Callan’s soul orphaned her at age eleven. By the time she’s sixteen, it’s ensured her being shunted from one foster family to another.
Her thirteenth foster assignment should be routine. Except... it's not. A psycho in medieval armor kidnaps her and she ends up in a magical world. There, she accidentally discovers a secret her parents had kept until the day they died.
Both actually came from this magical world, but left before Callan was born. To cover their tracks, they’d lied about everything. Even who they really were.
Driven to find out where she comes from, Callan’s trapped in a race for life and death. Walking away isn’t an option, but if she stays too long, the entity will find its next victim.
In this world where secrets are sacrosanct and grudges are remembered, finding the truth will be near impossible. Especially when Callan has her own homicidal little secret to deal with.
One with a taste for destroying her life.
The Heir’s Choice
After discovering her parents had kept a whole world secret, Callan races to discover her past. Not easy to do with an increasingly agitated entity living in her soul.
Going to her long-lost elvish roots should answer all her questions. Instead, she ends up in the middle of a nightmare.
The elves are on the verge of an apocalyptic war. Their enemy, King Aurek of Icaimerith, will only be appeased if Callan marries his heir. It’s either her life getting messed up, or an entire country’s lives lost. Simple enough, right?
Wrong.
Because when the entity wants the elves blotted out of existence, saving them gets taken to a whole new level of complicated.
Bio
Misha
Gerrick has been creating stories long before she could write and is currently
going after her dream of making a living as a writer.
If you’d
like to see how that’s going, you can visit her on her blog, where
she also discusses all things related to writing and publishing.
Or, if
you’d just like to know what she’s reading and get updates on what she’ll be
publishing next (Sorry, no newsletter just yet.):
