I hope you and yours had a merry Christmas.
Now that the big event is over, the end of the year is approaching fast. That means making promises to keep in the new year for a lot of us, and a look back at the outcomes of our promises made for the past year.
I didn’t promise to do a lot in 2024. My last post of 2023 mentioned a plan to retool my writing process and find a slower pace that works well for me. That’s because some of my medicine gives me “brain fog,” which hinders both my writing and making art. At the start of 2024, I struggled not to push myself beyond my abilities.
As the year progressed, working at a slower pace gave me a better path through the fog. With a clearer head, I created a new (and better, if I may be so bold) cover for my book of short stories. It also allowed me to rework my second book into a 40,000-word (and more) novella through summer and autumn before I took a break in November. The book is almost done, as is the cover art.
Self-publishing my books takes a lot of time and work. People ask me why I do it, why I don’t send my manuscripts to publishers and hope one of them makes it through the slush piles. I think the best answer is I’ve always self-published my books, as far back as when I was a high school student. Self-publishing anything is an honor. It’s a “Look at what I did myself” accomplishment. But at the same time, anyone who does it knows it’s a daunting procedure. You get falsely labeled by your peers as a hack writer, an unprofessional writer, a wannabe real author … the list is long and cruel.
I do all the work myself, from writing my books to publishing them on online platforms. And even that is frowned upon. I have been told by other writers in the self-publishing market to pay others to edit my work, create my covers, and promote my books. But I don’t.
I edit my own books, period, though a few beta readers help me with things like making sure I don’t mix up the names or eyes and hair colors of my characters. Their assistance doesn’t cost me anything but a free copy of my book to them when it’s published. In addition to their help, I arm myself with two books to assist me: (1) The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, 4th edition (1999) by Longman Publishers: ISBN 9780205309023 (hardcover) and ISBN 9780205309023 (paperback), and (2) Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King, 2nd edition (2004) by Harper Collins: ISBN 9780060545697 (paperback).
For cover work, I studied to become a graphic designer from 1986 to 1990 at university. Although that seems like a million years ago, I have kept abreast of the advances in the field. With that knowledge and my experience as a professional artist, I’m comfortable creating my own book covers. If you don’t have that sort of background but would like to make your own book covers, you can find a plethora of books and resources online.
My favorite tools for making my book covers are my scanner to scan my art to my computer, my ancient Adobe PhotoDeluxe Home Edition 4.0 program to manipulate my art, and Microsoft Word to add text to my art. A decade or so ago, an artist friend recommended I use Inkscape to make my covers. I chose not to, but I recommend it to anyone wanting to give it a go. It’s free and open-source software licensed under the GPL (General Public License), and you can find it at inkscape.org/. It has a large learning curve, but YouTube has videos on learning the basics and how to create and manipulate text.
What’s more, fantasy and science fiction author David V. Stewart has videos on his usage of Inkscape at his YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UCdFhB7qkV2TRACML_kYV-Pg. To find his videos related to book covers, click Playlists, then Book Covers. He’s very resourceful and has a ton of other videos about writing and self-publishing. If you’d like to learn more about him and his books, check out his website at davidvstewart.com/.
As for promoting my books, I do that here and at Facebook, though the latter is a bloated platform full of nonsense and is a total waste of time (IMHO). But too many of my family and friends are there, so I still post news about my art and books for their sake. There are other internet avenues besides Facebook to promote my books, but I don’t want a zillion social media accounts to promote myself. And I don’t want to fork out cash to buy ads that most people ignore and/or block. Besides, it all seems like it’s too much running on the hamster wheel for small but expensive notices in the huge shark-filled ocean of today’s money hungry world wide web. So, I promote within my budget here and at my Amazon author page and Facebook and then promote my author page and website/blog on business cards and bookmarks. Beyond that, I have a Twitter/X account, but I haven’t used it in years. Maybe I’ll dust off the cobwebs there in 2025 … big maybe. We’ll see.
Meanwhile, another idea I have for 2025 is to bring back free downloads of my stories and old books here. If I do, they’ll be in PDF like before.
So, come 2025, I plan to keep this website/blog going for another year, for what it’s worth. And I’ll try to keep changes rare. My blog has changed so much since I began at WordPress in 2011, but three things have remained constant: it’s a place to show my art, a place to talk about and show my writing, and a place to write about both. Thank you for sticking with me.
Until my next post, peace and love to all of you.
Steve, 12/27/2024
This post “Looking Back and Ahead” copyright © 2024 Steven Leo Campbell at stevecampbellcreations.com – All rights reserved.
Steve Campbell Creations 