Finally Published! (Shameless plug)

Well, folks, I finally did it. I published my first novel, Beginning at the End at Smashwords. And yes, I am shamelessly using this blog to promote it. But where else can a person get free marketing? Anyway, take a look if you feel inclined to do so, or not, whatever works for you.

The whole purpose of this post (aside from the aforementioned reason) is to show you that it can be done. Publishing a novel is not as hard as it sounds... most of the time. Writing it is the hardest part I know of because the publishing part was so easy. More on that later, though.

I'll give you a short run down of the process I went through to get to this point below, and each will probably be covered in more in-depth blogs to come. I will warn you, I did many of these steps out of order and over the course of three months.

Step 1: Get idea. (Simple, right?)
Step 2: Write down your idea.
Step 3: Begin writing.
Step 4: Procrastinate.
Step 5: Writer's Block
Step 6: Begin writing. (Again)
Step 7: Realize you went off in the wrong direction and repeat of steps 1-3.
Step 8: Repeat steps 4-6.
Step 9: Finish the damn thing!
Step 10: Edit like you have never edited before.
Step 11: Buy an awesome cover for your book.
Step 12: Find a publisher. (Traditional or self-publishing?)
Step 13: Get the word out.
Step 14: Start writing sequel. (Because series do better in the long run)

Also, this blog post will be updated as the above steps are expanded upon.