After 11 long years of crunching behind the scenes I can finally say my book is published and I am now a fiction author. This has been a lot longer coming than 11 years though.
I started writing stories in grade school. My parent gave me a typewriter in 6th grade. A year later they gave me my first digital word processor. Then a few years more I would get my first desktop computer. All those devices were used to write short stories and rough drafts of novels I never finished.
The book itself is called Goldfish on the Mountain. The idea for the story came to me while binge watching a bunch of the crime thriller TV series Bones. It was also partially inspired by the hit horror/thriller Fargo. I sat down and immediately did something I had never done before. I wrote an outline to use as a road map. This was something I learned how to do in my college writing courses. Then I sat down one day at a time typing away in my spare time adding to the story little by little. I finished the rough draft in 2020. At this time I was working for a local newspaper as a writer which is what drove me to finish in the first place.
I spent the next 2 years polishing and re-writing the book fixing grammar mistakes and spelling errors as well as cleaning up the plot as I went along. I finally got to a point I was comfortable calling the story completed last summer. I published the chapters one at a time right here on this blog. Then I sat out to get on the path of self publishing. The biggest road block was designing a cover. I spent six months looking for a graphic artist willing to do it on my budget. Since that budget kept shrinking along with my patience I decided to put my graphic design training from college to good use and designed the cover myself. Then I went through the process of getting it published via Amazon Kindle Publishing.
Right now the book is submitted for final approval. I am just waiting on feedback either thumbs up good to go, or notes on what I need to fix in order to get it on the platform. I published it in two formats. First the ebook for modern readers and ease of access. Then I reformatted it for the paperback print on demand version. Amazon says it could take up to 5 days for it to get final approval so now I just wait. But it is a load off my back getting to this point. In can finally say I am now a published author and I can’t tell you how damn good that makes me feel. I put a lot of work into this project and to see it finally realized is a dream come true.
Stephanie Bri 