“No book can ever be finished. While working on it we learn just enough to find it immature the moment we turn away from it”
Karl Popper, British philosopher
All of us writers desire to have our work appear in public, but we want it to be spectacular, almost perfect. Which is why, I think, it tends to take us more time to get our product out into the open. We are almost afraid of risk. We fear someone will attack our “baby”—our book, our poetry—essentially tearing away our figurative emotional blanket. Because they will. It happens. And we discover how weak we are to let those negatives overtake us because we have spent hours, even years, shaping our words.
For the last couple years, as I have continued to write, including drafts of a poetry book, novel, and other material, I have studied self-publishing, traditional publishing, and online sales. I have taken webinars and workshops, read an exorbitant number of books on the subject, and researched until my eyes glazed over like I have not slept in weeks. If I was going to self-publish, I needed to do it right.
There is only so much research you can do. You simply must go for it, expecting mistakes and learning opportunities, but trying it just the same.
Saying yes to self-publishing
So I did it. I published my first nonfiction e-book under my business name with the goal of learning. It has made moderate sales thus far, but it was purposefully a test for me. I have a doing business as (DBA) license (you need one in North Carolina), opened a bank account with no fees, and am set to order my ISBNs for my books. Yes, multiple books.
My current book I will keep as an e-book, but add a physical book option to sell via Amazon, IngramSpark, Barnes and Noble and other retailers by spring. I will add it to the national database so libraries and schools can have access. And I will, of course, market it. I am pushing my second nonfiction book under my business name to publish it by spring. It is written solely as a marketing tool for my business, not necessarily to become a best seller.
My heart is not in these particular books, but for business purposes publishing them is important. I am learning as I go the process of self-publishing. It is yet another skill I can add to my list. And admittedly, having your work published and in the open is a satisfying feeling.
By late spring to early summer, though, I will publish my poetry collection under Emma, my author name. And that is what I am awaiting. That is where my heart is. Once my poetry collection is out and I am marketing it, then I can refocus my attention to my novel that has been patiently waiting for my edits.
As you can see, I have a very busy start to 2025.
The grueling deadlines I have placed on myself have also been effective in helping me reach word-count goals that will serve me better. In one week, I wrote 20 thousand words for my current book. This is a wake-up call that my short story, my long poem, and essays that have begged me to finish them, will be finished. I can do it. I have no more excuses.
If you have drafts and unfinished copies of your work, my encouragement to you is (1) set reasonable deadline goals to finish them, (2) edit and wrap-up to completion, (3) go for it—pitch and/or publish. Get it out there. If you wait for perfection, it will just sit there, and no one will ever know if the next great novel is on your computer. You will make mistakes. But your biggest mistake is giving up before you try.
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