The Accidental Poet - The Book!

Folks, I am absolutely delighted to inform you, all who care at least, that one of my two big ventures, have come to fruition.

The Accidental Poet by Paul Stewart is now available on Amazon.

Quick Update - The Kindle Edition is now Live too!

It kinda feels like a long time coming, but also, it's completely baffling to me that after a year of writing poetry with some degree of seriousness that the time has come to tell you about my book.

Yep, you read that right. A book by Paul Stewart, that Scottish-Italian guy that very recently was referred to as a "pain in the arse" in a poem by one Cathy Holmes, has a paperback book.

Okay, so I know it's not through traditional publishing, which would be the big sexy ultimate dream, but, I wanted to put something out there and know others have used Amazon, so here we are.

I have still to sort the Kindle edition, but that is something I will be working on over the next few days. I just couldn't wait to let you all know, as it will mean I stop saying "I'm still working on my bloody book" or something similar like that.

Anyway, to flesh out this post a little, I thought I'd dive into some of the things I discovered about doing it all myself...the cheap and nasty way.

It was fun looking back through my entire portfolio of work on Vocal and seeing some of the real gems that I am still proud of and the ones that were not so good. Everything I have done, good or bad, I've tried to learn from and improve with the next piece.

I have written a lot, duh! So, it was quite a job taking all the pieces that I wanted to have in the book. Because, Paul the Poet is not the smartest at times and didn't have copies of the finished poems as they were on Vocal on his hard drive. That would have made things easier.

It was interesting and a learning experience formatting and dealing with the sizing thing when creating the book. It was also the most annoying part of it. It was all new to me. But, for the next book that will hopefully be a little bit easier.

I am pleased with the cover design and all that - I just kept it nice and simple because it's not like a work of fiction and there is no specific theme -other than all the poems are written by me. So, simple seemed appropriate.

I am absolutely dreading there being some unexpected or unwanted and non-deliberate spelling mistake or something in there. But, I tried my level best to ensure that wouldn't happen.

So, yeah...I'm excited. It won't get me on the bestsellers list anytime soon and the earnings are not going to be superb - I am not complaining though! I am just going to let it sink in that I did it - a little something and that my work is out there for sale somewhere. To me...someone who has not had a lot of successes...often because of my own faults, it feels immense.

Oh, and I didn't forget my Vocal peoples - you all get a mention - not by name because how the hell would I find all the space for all of you. But, trust me, without your support, encouragement, egging on and non-judgemental approach to some of my deeper pieces, I probably would have given up this thing a long while ago.

Anyway, if you would like to treat yourself or someone you love to poetry by a complete rank amateur who just loves messing around with words and eliciting some kind of emotional response from his readers, the link is here:

Anyway, thank you for your continued support and for helping me get to this stage in both confidence and just having enough work I feel proud of to put out there.