Hi,

Bear with me! Dipping my toe in the water of self-publishing has been a far greater challenge than I anticipated. Being a novelist turns out to be the easy bit. I love writing, have plenty of ideas, and craft a good commercial product, but I'm not an editor. Creating and crafting a book cover is the domain of professional graphic artists. Formatting e-books that work the way they’re supposed to work is a challenge. Writing back cover and advertising blurb is something of a minefield. Yet the Indie author has to become proficient in all these things. I'm sure I've learned a few processes, but suspect I've ended up as a Jack-of-all trades and master of none. However, between frustration and the occasional eureka moment, I'm sure I'm making headway. After all, I know I write a good book, and that's got to count for something.

Getting the books up onto Amazon was the easy bit. But they sank, undiscovered, into Amazon’s primordial slime, never to see the light of day. The only way to claw my work up towards daylight was to self-promote. The absolute horror of that discovery! Many novelists, by the very nature of the task, are introverted, and shy away from putting themselves forward. I'm no exception. To get out there and shout, Hey, I’m a good novelist, read my books! goes against the grain, yet I have to grit my teeth and do it. I have been writing for years, had many genre novels mainstream published, yet never had to interface directly with my readers until now.

It was such a strangely disconnected learning curve, I decided to note my discoveries in a Word Document. It grew and grew until one day it became a book... I passed it to another writer, who found it fascinating. He said, other writers, readers and reviewers would benefit from it. I’m going to share this journey of discovery with you in future emails, so stick with me.

But first, in these times of lockdown and gloomy predictions for the future, I had a little adventure, delivering some bonhams (piglets) to a small island off the south coast of Ireland. I've detailed it in a storyboard of images. Click on the image.... I hope you find it as fascinating as I did.

And here's your selection of free books (click on the image):

If you do enjoy a free book (not just mine) how about paying the author the courtesy of a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or the platform of your choice?

Bear in mind that rating and criticism should reflect the writer's skills as an author rather than a personal disconnect with genre or trope. If you wish to point out formatting problems or typos, connect with the author directly, give them a chance to fix the problem. [ Excerpt from Waymarks For Authors ].

If you wish to unsubscribe, please do so via the link at the foot. But I hope you won't. I'm setting up a raffle over the next couple of months to celebrate reaching a milestone in my writing career. Hang around with me if you want the chance to win a brand new Kindle Fire (which is already sitting here, waiting to be sent out).

All the best

Chris Lewando