Learning the ropes
Hi, I'm nicah.
I'm new that to all this, so you'll have to suffer with me as I try to learn. Fortunately, I have a friend, nic, to help me with the technical details. If you've seen this before, I published this earlier (6/12/19), and I've learned a few things since that prompted me to republish it and make it look a little prettier.
Let me introduce myself. I'm nicah, nicah la Cortes. That's not my real name, it's my pen name, and I'm a writer. nicah is a diminutive, and it's always spelt with a lowercase 'n'. You wouldn't believe the trouble that caused. Most software insists on capitalizing the title. No matter what we did. It ended-up with nic writing a custom banner for me. It's not perfect, but I should be happy that it good enough for now! Apparently!😬
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nicah is a diminutive, and it's always spelt with a lowercase 'n'.
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For those of you who care about these things, I was educated in England, hence the use of the word 'spelt' instead of 'spelled'. After living and/or working in the USA for American corporations for years I've developed a split personality in my writing. As if that wasn't enough, I discovered my spell checker was using both the English and American dictionary depending an how it was invoked. Not the sharpest, I admit. I finally tumbled to it and editing has become so much easier.
So, I finally finished the first draft of my book. Actually, it is my umpteenth draft and somehow I've got up the nerve to show it to a few readers. Cringe. I'm actually writing this blog to document the journey. Grief, I can't believe I used the 'J' word, sorry; I hate the 'J' word, but it so perfectly encapsulates the process of writing a novel. So, I put my pen down (actually its a battered old Windows laptop), I stopped, fiddling, faffing and editing stuff and I released my baby into the world.
You're right, if only it was that easy. I read a mountain of books and articles about publishing and decided that self-publishing was the way to go. I reasoned that even by some mischance my manuscript was a work of pure genius, the chance of a conventional publishing house even opening it, leave alone reading it, and recognizing it as the great masterpiece that it is, would be minimal.
So, self-publishing it is, and to hell with the cost. The cost, hmm, that is another thing, the money. I don't have any. Not a pound, nor a penny, nor a piece of lint in my purse, nada, (actually, I lied, its seventy-three pence and lint)😕. What I do have, is the trusty old laptop I wrote my first book on (Oh, did I tell you there are four books in the Talisman series. The first is called 'Searching' then there's 'Faith, Hope, and Love') and the support of a couple of friends. So that's what I'm going with.
There have been numerous technical glitches but as you see we are slowly getting there. The plan is to build a website for downloading the books and social media for publicity and interaction with my audience of two, so far. Thanks, you guys😊. To that end, we've got email sorted, and addresses for Facebook, Twitter and now a blog. I'm told a writer can't manage without these essentials. How did I manage this far? Nic is currently building the website, to be ready next week (we hope), and all at the cost of nada, so far!
I'm getting bored, and my reader must have nodded off by now, wake-up mum! So what am I writing about next time? I want to tell you about the books first and the rest of the series. Then I'll tell you about the free resources I've used so far.
That leads me to an important point. Attributions and thanks.
to: Nic for technical support.
Sergey Zolkin for photos,
and Oli Dale for the banner photo,
. all photos from unsplash.com(CC0)
bye and best wishes,
nicah
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