My Self-Publishing Journey — I’m Creating My First E-Book
Since 2017 I’ve been working on a flash fiction collection, which I intend to self-publish. This book will be available as an e-book and as a printed book.
The purpose of the book is to help me build a fan base before I try to get my novel published. I also wanted to experience self-publishing for myself — there are many ways a writer can get their stories out to readers, so it’s a good idea to try them all.
So, that was the plan, but then I realised people won’t necessarily want to buy a self-published book from an unknown author. This led me to research deeper into building a fan base.
So, I started working towards building a fan base, using the tips I found. Then I noticed writers were giving away free e-book short story collections to readers. One of those writers (I should say author) is called Nicole Luttrell (I know, another Nic). She has an e-book of horror flash fictions titled Spook, which you can download for free. It’s a good read.
After reading this e-book, I wondered if I should do the same. So, I decided to do a free e-book preview of my flash fiction collection. However, in December 2018, I noticed the number of unpublished drabbles (100-word stories) I had, and a new idea popped into my head — I should make an e-book of my drabbles. It was a crazy idea. I already have so much work to do, but once I had the idea, I couldn’t resist it.
So, I gathered the drabbles I had and wrote some more to give me an even number of stories — I aimed to have twenty drabbles. My drabbles are a mix of genres. I have horror, crime, fantasy stories and some are mixed genres. Some of the stories are humorous, and others are sad. Many of them have a twist in the tale — I love writing twists. My drabble e-book is simply Nicole J. Simms the writer.
I will be using Smashwords to publish my e-book. It allows you to sell your e-books for free, and they also distribute your e-book to other sellers. To format the e-book properly, they recommend you read their Smashwords Style Guide. It’s not a quick read. The e-book has 117 pages, but the page number is mostly due to the number of images included, and the information in the guide is important. (2025 Update: Smashwords is now part of Draft2Digital)
It’s a lot to take in, and formatting your e-book will take time and patience, lots of patience. But hey, no pain, no gain. And, I’m sure it’ll be worth it in the end, even if I lose a bit of my sanity during the process.
So, what stage am I on now? Well, my fabulous beta readers have read my e-book and given me some great feedback. I have to do some little tweaks, but nothing major, and most importantly, they didn’t think it was crap. So, that’s a good start.
I also have my cover to design, and then it’s time to format the thing. I wish I could say I will be calm during the process, but I would be lying. Don’t be surprised if you start seeing ‘Damn you, e-book’ tweets and Facebook posts, ha-ha.
At the moment, I still think this is a good idea, and I can’t wait for people to read it, but I’ll let you know if I still feel that way in a couple of weeks’ time when I try publishing it.
I am aiming to publish the e-book at the end of March. I will let you all know when it’s out for the world to see. I hope you like it because I do. You know, I think I might pat myself on the back for what I’ve done so far. I don’t do that enough.
Have you tried self-publishing your books? Feel free to comment below. I’d love to hear if you still have your sanity.
Stay spooky, folks!
If you enjoy Christmas horror, you can download my Christmas horror flash fiction collection titled Merry Dreadmas for FREE!
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