I love countdowns to the books by my favourite authors.
And now I am starting my very own countdown!
While starting into space they start with 10, so I will also start with ten. Self-publishing my very first novel is for me not less than starting a space shuttle or a rocket into space. If anything, it feels like much more.
Since this is a weekly post and we start as bespoke with 10, my first novel “The Truth about Family” will be available for purchase as an e-book and in print in ten weeks or less. My goal is to publish it this spring and I give myself ten weeks to do so.
Please excuse me if I forget and sneak a blog post outside of the countdown series. I am sure you will enjoy those too. Apart from that there will be some shortcuts in the countdown as well, like one post for 6 and 5 for example. Or maybe it will be 3 and 2? I have no idea when this will be. We will discover this together.
The countdown will be about the process of self-publishing. I find it so exciting, that I simply have to share it. And I will share some quotes from the book, with each of these posts. Further I will share photographs of my father, which are mentioned in the book, and/or which inspired various scenes in the book.
So, here it goes…
The process:
I am working with a wonderful editor on my book and enjoy seeing the transformation of the text in the book. It is the same text, the same story, but better. Difficult to describe. Yes, as many writers I was scared to open the edited files, but when I started going through them change by change, I started to enjoy what I saw. Very inspiring experience.
The cover is also almost ready. My family were the main advisers in brainstorming the cover. My editor, who is also the cover designer, has brought the whole cover to a very rounded concept.
More details on the whole team of helpers and supporters of the book will be of course in the acknowledgments section.
I will learn formatting the inside of the book soon. The text-books and resources found are in place. I am quite excited to see how the book’s text will take shapes of an e-book and a book for print. It is scary, but very exciting. If you are interested what I will use for it, here is the information. I will use the widely used writer’s software Scrivener (http://www.literatureandlatte.com/). I must admit I became its addict. It is fun to use and write in it. This blog post is also written using Scrivener.
Quote:
Today I will share not a quote directly, but the back cover blurb of the book. I think it worth sharing in order to introduce the book to the new readers and remind the supporters of this page what it is about. At some point this description will replace the one on the homepage. But right now, you are the first to read the almost ready draft.
Misha lost his family.
He can’t rest until he has found them,
if only to find himself.
Inspired by true events in the life of the author’s father, Mihail Ikizli, this remarkable novel tells the story of an orphanage graduate, who set out from a village in Soviet Moldova, to the University of Odessa, Ukraine, in the hopes of finding the family he had lost as a toddler during World War II.
His quest will not be in vain. But will what he discovers bring him a much longed-for peace, or will it only bring him misery? Little does Misha know what he will find out – not only of his own past, but also about the orphanage; a place he believed he had left behind for ever.
Picture:
Working at the orphanage’s workshop. My father is the first from the right.
