Edging Closer To A New Beginning: 012

A New Beginning

Finished Alice On The Air

Sitting here writing this I must admit I’m feeling a little bit emotional. I finished the final draft of my new novella Alice On The Air and have received it back from the Editor. I’ve gone through everything, formatted the book, and have just uploaded it to Amazon while ordering a proof copy so I can make sure everything is perfect. This will be the first book I’ve properly published in two and a half years, and it’s got me feeling very reflective.

Life has been extremely difficult these last six years. Between big health issues, deaths, and painful life stuff, there’s been a lot of downs. But there’s also been the ups of my creative work both in Writing and Photography. I’ve had some incredible moments and have enjoyed most of my time writing books. I’m proud of my past work but my focus is now on Spilt Latte Press and what I want to achieve with it over the next decades.

I’ve published a few Short Stories which have received some kind feedback but Alice On The Air is where it really starts. I think that’s where this emotion is coming from. The idea of a new beginning. Of somewhat putting myself out there again (something which doesn’t come easily to me) Of trying to rebuild my career and seeing where it takes me. Of regularly creating work I’m proud of once more.

When I publish Alice On The Air, Spilt Latte Press has truly began.

Expectations For Alice On The Air

I’m very proud of the novella. The cover looks strong (in my opinion) and is different from my previous work in order to help identify the new start and approach to genre. I really enjoyed formatting the book and feel that’s an area I’ve massively improved upon over the years. And it felt great adding Alice On The Air to my Amazon Bookshelf and getting it prepared. All that stuff makes me feel excited and happy.

But I know the anxiety of wondering whether anyone will give the book a chance is on the way. Will anyone even notice it exists? That’s the part keeping me up at night. That keeps playing on my mind. It comes with every book, but it feels even worse where this one is the start of a new Press.

I’m realistic and know it will be a slow start. There’s a lot of fantastic work out there and it’s difficult getting noticed. I’ve been through this before so I know things take time, but I’m also aware you can build a good following with consistently good work. That a career can happen. And maybe that’s what I’m most anxious about: Knowing it can be done, versus it actually happening. A lot of things have to go right, and a fair bit of that could be out of my hands.

I want a career in Self Publishing (it’s all I’ve wanted for a while now) I want to make an adequate amount of money from my Press while I work incredibly hard producing new books and stories. I want to treat my business professionally and slowly grow it without compromise. I’m ambitious, without being remotely greedy. I don’t need excess, just some loyal readers who believe in me and my work.

That’s what I’m aiming for, and my hope rather than expectation is Alice On The Air can be the first step towards having the career I want and am more than willing to work hard to get. So I guess what I ultimately want from this book is for it to really feel like a new beginning. A fresh start.

Trials Of Self Publishing

Self Publishing isn’t easy. So much goes into essentially running your own Press. Quality aside, the discipline of doing the actual writing is on me. However, while I do enjoy a lot of the business side of Self Publishing (branding, website building, synopsis, covers, blogging etc) I’m acutely aware of how much more of it is somewhat out of my control (marketing, word of mouth, the sea of books already out there waiting to be discovered or are lost in the void forever)

Whether people enjoy my writing or not is somewhat irrelevant, from a purely creative standpoint, if it’s to the standard I expect. If I’ve put everything into the book and am proud of the story I’ve told, and the way I’ve told it, then I know I’ve done my job. Readers will either enjoy it or they won’t, but they’ll know I gave it my all.

But the business side, most notably getting people to read the book in the first place, runs on an entirely different set of rules. There’s things you can do to improve your chances ranging from a social media presence (which I don’t have) to advertisement (which I can’t afford) to getting good reviews and word of mouth (fingers crossed) But ultimately the business is on an entirely different metric to the actual writing.

You can write a beautiful book absolutely no-one reads, and equally so you can write a shit book which you market fantastically well and it becomes a cult phenomenon and goes viral. Quality should matter, but anyone Self Publishing knows a lot of other things contribute too.

The Unknown Of Starting Over

I’m confident I’ve written a decent book, but I find myself staring into the unknown once again as I begin Spilt Latte Press. I have no clue whatsoever how this book will be received, or if anyone will even read Alice On The Air.

It’s a different genre to what I’ve written before, and it’s been two and a half years since I last published anything in this manner. The few readers I may still have are probably expecting something akin to my previous work, but Spilt Latte represents a shift in approach and genre. I want to write in all kinds of genres and subgenres, and that may not be conducive to growing a consistent readership.

I have no social media presence anymore outside of Substack, and I haven’t got the energy for YouTube, Podcasts, and all that stuff. My health simply isn’t good enough to commit to anything longterm like that at the moment as my energy levels tends to fluctuate too much. Plus, I don’t currently have any interesting in them anyway. YouTube is not what it used to be.

I’m not sure what exactly my marketing plan is at the moment outside of knowing I want to publish this book so that I have something new out there. Something I can start to build on. I want work I can show people again, and hopefully get them excited about what’s to come. I want this to be the start of Spilt Latte Press, so it is.