The Start of a Journey

The journey, to be precise, is towards the promised land of being a published novelist. I already have made it into print as a journalist, writing features and personal columns in the UK regional press.

But like many hacks, I yearn to make it as an author. I want this blog to chart that journey from the very beginning. The first big step towards being a novelist is to write a novel and I have done that. I have written a full-length 45,000 word children's adventure story called Smugglers At Whistling Sands set in Abersoch, North Wales. The next enormous step is to get it published and so far I have sent the opening chapters to one publisher and been rejected, albeit politely.

My next move should have been to push it towards other publishers and agents but a few weeks ago I discovered Amazon's e-book self-publishing service Kindle Direct Publishing. And I thought: what a potentially amazing idea. And then I learned of the success of people like John Locke and Amanda Hocking who have sold more than a million copies each exclusively through Kindle.

Personally, I never thought e-books would take off but they clearly have and that opens up great possibilities for unknown, self published writers. And so I have for now made the decision to publish my book via Amazon's Kindle. That's not to say that I won't try to get it out there as paper and ink, but for now I am happy to try and promote it as an e-book.

The research I have done into self publishing via Kindle throws up a mixed bag of some authors enjoying regular sales and others not doing half so well. One thing we must all bear in mind is that you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. In other words, if our books are, frankly, not very good then ultimately, they will not meet with much success.

But what a service like Amazon's Kindle does, via the magic of the internet, is to give people the chance to read your book almost instantly if they should wish - and, one would have thought, cheaply if you are an unknown.

On that note, an unknown is very much what I am. The world does not know George Chedzoy, nor Smugglers At Whistling Sands. Nobody seems to know that it is now available on Amazon for the reasonable sum of £1.71. Not a single person has bought a copy of it since I uploaded it about 10 days ago. I am not aware of anyone in the Abersoch / Llyn peninsula area of North Wales where the book is set knowing a thing about it.

To date, my book has only been read by my wife, my mum, my dad, and my best friend. My goal is to get at least a few people out there, in the world beyond the fields which surround my house in North Wales to take an interest in it, purchase it and hopefully, to enjoy it. My other goal is to get on with the task of writing more books, the next one possibly aimed at the adult market.

So you join me right at the very start of a difficult journey. You may be in the same position yourself, hoping to launch your first-ever book. If you are like me, you won't care if you never make it, you'll only care that you never tried. Here's to having a go!