I’m (self) published

I have something fun to share.  I’ve uploaded my “book” Finally Florida to Amazon Kindle.  If you do a search in Amazon you should pick the Kindle category so you can find it or you can try this link: Finally Florida.  If you read it on the Kindle App I believe it’s free.  If you buy it, it’s $3.99.  I can’t decide why anyone would buy it if you can get it for free.  I don’t really understand how it works.  But it’s out there. There is no paperback edition…yet.

As a reminder (for anyone new) I started blogging when I moved to Florida in 2014. And then I wrote almost every day sharing the ups and downs (mainly ups) of my transition/move to Florida.  In 2016 I started turning it into a book. With some encouragement, and with Stephanie’s editing, I believed it might be possible. But I never perfected it.

I started sending out to agents and had said that I would send to 200 agents before I give up.  I sent to approximately 60 agents over the years and since you only send a query letter and maybe up to 50 pages no one ever asked to read to the end so I never bothered to finish it (as in clean it up.) I had one agency respond that they liked it but I filled out the wrong form.  I didn’t follow up, I don’t remember why.  Most of these places want you to have a million followers on a blog site before they’ll even look at you. I have 65 followers.  BUT I refuse to believe that makes me a bad writer.

Stephanie made the first read through, then Melissa in Deland. Peggy Lambert who was in my book group in Port Orange read most of it and gave me a lot of editing advice. Another obstacle has been that it’s too long. So when I had absolutely nothing to do I would go through and make the edits Peggy suggested and then I started slicing away and cutting it. I had hoped an editor would say what to cut. When I would ask Diane about cutting certain things she would say “but that was a good one” – I am not a good judge of what people want to read. 

Editing is a lot of work and it’s really hard to edit your own work. I don’t know where quotation marks should be among other punctuation marks. Plus the “charm” of the blog was the grammar and the voice. I don’t want to over edit it and change the voice. And sooo, I have decided that readers can help me proof and edit and let me know if they want to hear what happens at Sunset Beach (cause I left those three months out) or if it’s good as is. Melissa (and Stephanie) say it drags in the middle but then they kept up with it and Melissa said she missed reading it when she was done. That was a great comment and compliment. Depending on comments, if any, I may add the Sunset Beach portion to a paperback cause you can do that so easily on Amazon too.  I mean it’s something. Just push a button and they spit out a paperback.

Last month I was on a call with a woman, Patricia Churchill, who lives in England and is an author.  When I told her that I was trying to publish through an agent she said “Why? No one does that anymore. Just put it out there yourself and get all the royalties instead of having to share with an agent.” I had no idea where to start with that but she told me the website and off I went.  It is soo easy.  Well, sort of easy.  You upload it and then they format it.

It’s easy unless you cut and paste from a blog and it has all these formatting codes in there and it gets rejected from their format, and then you drive yourself crazy because you have to change and/or delete all the codes so the thing will even upload.  And you also have to read it, and re-read it because you realize it’s been just bits and pieces of reviewing over the years and have you even read it cover to cover recently? And then you are so sick of reading it you question why anyone in the world would be interested in this drivel. On the plus side, it may be long but it only took me three days to read it, twice.  

I have changed the main characters names in the book, no one’s last name is listed, or a pretend name is listed. I had asked a couple of the characters what they wanted their names to be. Zoë picked hers (as did Nina).  I’m pretty sure they picked Jasen and Monica’s names too. I asked them back in 2016 when my vision was that it would be published before the end of the year. My entire life is God laughing at my plans. I laugh now too. I just need to quit putting timelines on my plans. I still did it, 6 years later.

Anyway, it’s been enough years now that when I read it, I re-live it with a soft heart and an appreciation for that time. I’m glad I have all the good memories to re-live because as humans we tend to focus on the negatives, especially after a relationship crashes and burns.  I am reminded why I did what I did and reminded how much fun and love there was, at least for some of the time.

Also, I wanted to put this to bed, so to speak, get it out there, so I can start on a new project.  When I moved to my mom’s in 2016 I started another book and after moving to DeLand I let that go too.  Sally Maloney has given me an idea for a next book (to add to what I’ve already started). If I would have had Finally Florida hanging out there undone, I would not be able to move on to this next idea.  Sally has been instrumental in my life in many many ways.  So if this idea works I’ll have more to be thankful to her for.  If not, I’ll still be thankful for the encouragement.  I need to write a book about friends.  I have so many good and important ones.

So Pat, when you are looking for a blog and I don’t have anything recent to post, you can go to Finally Florida and read a day or two and get your blog fix.   

I mean how fun is this?

xoxoxox