I have finally done
it.
What have I done?
I have published my
first story online.
Funny enough there was
a talk on our local radio station yesterday giving advice on E-publishing. I don’t want to brag or anything but I knew
everything that these guys knew. Note I
know very little myself, just saying I knew all the things that they knew.
- They talked about the troubles getting a tax number from the States, it took them 4 months. Apparently South Africa has the most advanced tax system in the world. We do all our taxes online. Wake up America! I have in the interim published my story choosing to let Amazon take 30 percent of my sales for taxes. I will some time mail that form to the IRS (they don’t accept emails CAN YOU BELIEVE IT, the SA version SARS prefers email correspondence.) My maths is good so I know that 30 percent of 0 = 0.
- They talked about how expensive it is to edit and boy oh boy the editors on offer on Amazon are very expensive. I used somebody previously to edit a story for me that I wrote for a client. I messaged her on the freelance site Odesk. I offered her $20 to edit my story. I know that is a disgusting amount to pay for the amount of work that she did for me but if ever she edits for me and a story sells, I will be giving her commission. If I ever make more money I will pay her more as well. I do not believe in exploiting people.
- They talked about creating the cover for your book. I chose to use Create Space (the Amazon publishing help part) to design my cover. I tweeked the design to be my own and I like it. Yes it was ALL FOR FREE.They talked about your book looking sloppy but Create Space does all the work for you and it looks very professional. I found it very user friendly.
- They spoke about marketing; none of the suggestions were new to me.
I have no illusions
that my long short story will sell. If
one person buys it I will be freakishly happy.
I know it is not great literature.
I am thrilled that I have started.
Perhaps I will never sell a novel but I have published. I have completed. Things that even a year ago I thought I would
never achieve. YEAH ME.
This is my first
published offering, available on kindle:
