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How I Feel After Publishing My 10th Book

Life of an indie author

By Chloe GilholyPublished 4 years ago 3 min read
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Hardcover and paperback of my 10th book and third novel, Game of Mass Destruction

I’ve been a writer for as long as I remember. Whether it was a couple of poems or the plethora of fanfics, articles and reviews and books that I’ve written over the years or messages to friends and family, I’ve always had that creator’s but. At the moment content is king and I’ve learned to go with the times. I’m not sure if i’m a planner or a pantser. I think I’m a little bit of both.

The ten books I’ve published so far include 3 novels, two short story collections and the rest are poetry collections. On top of that I’ve also had works published in five anthologies and an e-zine. I’m not sure weather I should count the vanity publishing houses that target schools so I’m not counting that in them even though I remember having poems published in them when I was in primary school. I’ll never forget the first poem I wrote about shells and because my handwriting wasn’t very good at the time it came out different to what I planned to write.

I still get the excitement and exhaustion I get when I get my books out. I’ve haven’t had any success getting them out to a traditional publishing house, whilst they say they enjoy my work it’s not commercially viable enough or not what they’re looking for. So I’m still on my own for now.

I’m using as many free resources on the internet as I can. I’ve used commercial free stock picture likes like Pexel and Splash. I’ve designed some covers on Canva and for marketing and gathering a reading audience I use the fan base and writing community that I’ve already built up and contributed to over the years through writing circles and social media.

I look back on my old work and cringe. I start to hate it as t goes out on the open. I spot typos here and there that Grammarly and word missed out and even with my more recent work I find it hard to look back and appreciate. Maybe in time I will look back in pride that I wrote something that changed somebody’s life.

Sadly I am not rolling in money, but through royalties and book sales here and there I have earned enough to help me travel to many places around the world, meet new people and gain new experiences. Even through this pandemic has caused me to cancel a lot of my plans, I will not let it cancel my spirit. I will think like this even if I publish my 100th book. Maybe it’s a challenge that I should try. I’ve spent so much energy and time on Game of Mass Destruction I wonder what my next main project will be.

Maybe I will finish Inbu’s Heart or write the travel memoir I wanted to write or maybe some short books about my favourite bands like Depeche Mode, Nightwish, Within Temptation and BABYMETAL. Maybe dive into non-fiction a little bit.

I’m starting to discover that there are more routes to selfpublushing then just e-books on Amazon. I can share my drafts on Wattpad for useful feedback. I can get hardcovers on Lulu and there’s a few places that will do audiobooks as well.

I just need to keep writing and keep working on my design, editing and formatting skills and then I may one day produce a beautiful bestseller that will one day become my magnum opus. It’s hard to say what my magnum opus is to be honest, I want to say it’s Game of Mass Destruction but I’ve got a lot of nice feedback on my poetry and fanfics too. I think I will leave that up to the readers.

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About the Creator

Chloe Gilholy

Former healthcare worker and lab worker from Oxfordshire. Author of ten books including Drinking Poetry and Game of Mass Destruction. Travelled to over 20 countries.

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