Hello friends,
So, I left you with my manuscript at the editors didn’t I, well let’s carry on then.
The months which I wasn’t writing I was researching. Learning about the self-published industry and expectations. I soon learned that I would need some help and signed up to an online self-help self-publishing course which in the early days helped me wade through what I needed.
This was invaluable at the time and if there are any budding writers out there looking to dip a toe into this then suggest looking into it. I will put the link of the course at the end of the blog.
Then, the fateful day came. My editor sent me the email with the amended document of my first draft. I was so excited, I remember opening it up and not being in the least bit deterred by the sea of red track changes and angry comments about my grammar. I didn’t care. There it was, my body of work roughly polished into a story.
I was beaming with pride. It was riddled with changes but I didn’t care. It was my creation and it was a step closer to my goal.
Then again, that sinking feeling started to creep back in, more work needed, more frustration and more homework to do. So, I got on with it. No rest for the wicked.
So with a couple more months of tinkering, I managed to successfully upload my manuscript on to the world. Now all I needed to do was put my feet up and let the money and gravitas roll in right? Err...no...not quite.
Confession time - Well, not many of you will know this but Dylan Mcfinn, initially started out as Dylan Murphy. Now Dylan Murphy, is already a series of YA book based in the US.
Now, this is a piece of free advice. If any of you are planning on writing a book then please RESEARCH THE NAME YOU WANT TO USE EVERYWHERE make sure to check every corner of the internet. I thought I had but then an email popped up on my newly built website.
“Your character is the same name as mine, you cannot use it”.
Now, the laws state that you cannot copyright a name, which is true however, we were both in the same genre and relatively close in terms of story, so a long story short, I had to take it all down and start again.
Man. That hit me hard. I was so close to tossing in the towel…
