#indipublishing

It is that time again; that time where I share with you all another piece of The Curious Tale of Gabrielle (scheduled to release this year) In this scene, Gabrielle is revisiting the antique shop, where she met Alexandra, and  is realizing that something is very wrong.

Suddenly, Gabrielle was made aware of how cold the room actually felt. The chills she felt were not only from inside her, but outside as well. Without any thought to where the breeze had come from, but with slow, cautioned steps, Gabrielle began to walk down the new pathway to the rear of the shop. As she ventured closer to the stairwell, the next thing that caused Gabrielle to to take a deep breath was the fact that she could see the stairwell, but there were no lights in it. Perhaps Alexandra put out these lights at night and had not yet awoken to put them back on. Regardless, Gabrielle was nervous because these steps had felt treacherous yesterday when they were lit, so how was she supposed to navigate them in the dark?

As Gabrielle reached the base of the stairwell, she was both relieved and stricken by what she saw next. Staring up the stairs, she could see that the door at the top was left slightly ajar and light was washing down the stairs from the doorway. Why was the door open? Gabrielle put one foot on the lowest stair and then placed both of her hands on either wall—fortunately for her, the staircase was fairly narrow—and she began her slow and steady ascension of the stairs.

Now that I have completed my first novel, I find myself wondering about publishing. After several rounds of arguments with myself, I have landed on self publishing, primarily because I don’t want to compromise my style or the content of my work in order to appease a publishing company. I know that this may come off as snobbish or rub some of you the wrong way, but I find that staying true to my original ideas would make me much happier than being told I need more or less of something that I didn’t intend on having. After all, this work I have created is mine, its my version of self expression and if I change it, then it is no longer mine. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against traditional publishing, I just believe that going about that rout, for me, would prove fruitless, and as someone who is a type A personality, the idea of giving the rights of my work to someone else bothers me. After doing some extensive research on self publishing, and talking to a few of my friends who have independently published their work, I found that this is likely the rout that would make me the most happy.

I have begun the editing process of my work and found someone to create a beautiful cover for me. As the idea of publishing becomes more and more real to me I am beginning to get anxious…will people actually like what I have to say? Will people hate my unique style? In the end, I have decided that I am writing for myself. If people don’t like my style or what I have to say, so what. I still accomplished one of the things that I have wanted to do for my entire life.