Emma Lombard

Well, I moved to Australia where the weather is just as hot and sunny, so luckily I don’t lament that. But I do miss the African wildlife. It was so easy to go to a game reserve or national park and see the big game up close. Don’t get me wrong, kangaroos, koalas, and kookaburras are lovely, quirky creatures (and I still get a thrill seeing and hearing them in the wild), but there’s nothing quite as majestic as seeing a lion, rhino or elephant up close (from inside the car, of course—safety first).

As a pre-teen, I cut my teeth on Catherine Cookson books like Our John Willie, and Go Tell it to Mrs Golightly. They are lovely little historical fiction novels set in England. It was from there that I realised I must have been living in the wrong era, because no matter how many books I read, I was always drawn back to historical fiction. So, it only made sense for me to start my writing career in this genre.

Each publishing path has its pros and cons. I queried my first novel for a solid couple of years and got quite a bit of interest and a few nibbles from interested agents, but ultimately, I never landed the big fish. Thankfully, self-publishing is a brilliant and accessible option these days. And unlike in the past when self-publishing copped a bad rap, there are now so many excellent quality self-published books by amazing indie authors.

If there’s a downside to self-publishing, it’s how many choices you have as an author to publish your books (so, not such a bad thing). The tricky bit is figuring out a plan about how you want to move forward. I recently wrote an article for Jane Friedman’s award-winning blog to share my experience with this, How to Develop a Marketing and Promoting Plan as an Indie Author.

I decided to start writing my first manuscript back in 2016. My decision to publish came in 2018 after I had written the draft manuscripts of four books in my series. I ventured down the traditional querying path for a couple of years, but eventually decided to self-publish in 2020. My first novel in The White Sails Series, DISCERING GRACE, launched in February 2021. My second novel in the series, GRACE ON THE HORIZON, is coming in August 2021. As for how the journey has been. Slow and steady. Wildly exciting. Long months of waiting for agent replies. Frantic bursts of media frenzy. So in other words, a crazy rollercoaster ride. I’m in this for the long haul, so I’m running a marathon and not a sprint. Just when you think things are going quiet, a social media post or advert or author interview suddenly shoots you to the front again, and it’s all action stations again for a while. It is thrilling and nerve-wracking, but also life affirming. You just have to hang on tightly!

Structured and predictable. Editing an instruction manual, scientific report, or doctorate thesis has little wriggle room for creativity. It requires a strong knowledge of the language you’re editing in, as well as the ability to apply corporate standards and styles to the document. I enjoyed the sense of order it brought to my life, but now I’m a fiction author, I’ve let my hair down and my creative juices flow. It’s a whole different world but a truly enjoyable one. It was time for a change and I’m glad I took it.

Standing on the precipice of this hugely vast world and deciding which path to take. There are so, so many paths a self-published author can choose to go down. It was nerve-wracking trying to decide which was the best way for me to proceed (and not be bitten by the predators out there). There was so much to learn, and for a hot second or two, I was completely overwhelmed. But then I took a deep breath and started to investigate my options. If a platform or strategy looked too complicated or I still didn’t understand it after pouring over it several times, I put it aside and moved on to other suggestions.

The wonderful thing about self-publishing is the wealth of information out there by other indie authors who are so open and willing to share what they do. I haven’t had to re-invent the wheel, just choose which mags I’d like on my ride. And as I’m coming to grips with the bigger picture, I’ve realised I can always circle back to those more complicated strategies later once I’ve got a grip on the basics.

My grandmother told me a tale about my three-times great grandmother who apparently eloped to sea with an English sea captain. Gasp! The scandal! I took this little gem of a premise and then created a completely fictional novel about a completely fictional set of characters.

Since I get disastrously sea-sick, it took me a long time to believe that most of my characters could still fully function on a moving ship. I suppose I gave them a strength I don’t have, which is to enjoy the freedom of the open ocean and appreciate the workings of a tall ship. Though I couldn’t resist, and I cursed one of my villains with this plague of the sea! He can’t go anywhere on the ship without his trusty bucket. Gulp! The thought of it just makes me queasy.

This is the beauty of being an indie author. There is so much more to do in your authoring business that is not just writing the stories (though that’s still the most important, obviously). There’s social media to manage, newsletters to write, interviewing other authors, writing guest blog posts, being interviewed yourself, a website to update. So on the days when the creative writing juices just aren’t flowing, I dive into the business side of my career because it’s just important to create an electronic footprint for yourself so that you have a wide platform from which to share your books.

I’ve learned not to beat myself up if I don’t get any words written that day, especially if I’ve ticked off a satisfying number of other jobs on my list. It’s all to do with productivity and keeping moving forward.

I’m a bit of a pantser, in that I just write where the story takes me (based on juicy bits of research and events of the time). I’m more structured when it comes to revising and incorporating beta reader or developmental editor feedback. I’m an absolute feedback junkie! Seriously, my favourite part of the whole writing process is hearing what others think of my early plot and characters, and challenging me to step up my game. Just when I think my book has fallen flat, this feedback breathes new life into me and that’s when I really get to work honing my manuscript. So yeah, I guess I’m weird like that.

In the week my audiobook for DISCERING GRACE launched, my first listener emailed me to say she was only up to Chapter 9 but that it was ‘bloody brilliant’. I’ll also never forget the first time a reader sent me a selfie holding my new paperback. We authors, despite writing strong plucky characters, actually have a fragile ego. It does wonders for our creative soul when readers reach out like this to give us a proverbial pat on the back. Something else that helps immensely with this is reviews. It helps other readers find our books, and there’s no author alive who doesn’t love new readers!

BAGHDADDY by Bill Riley. Holy smokes, this powerful memoir is about Bill's life from the time he was a young child to his adulthood as an intelligence analyst in the US Air Force. Best book I have read in YEARS! Not for the feint-hearted or sensitive.

I’m powering on with my third and final book in The White Sails Series trilogy, GRACE ARISING. It’s a rough first draft at the mo, and I’ve got a lot of work ahead to bring my rambling pantser manuscript into shape. But I’m ready for the challenge.

I joined in April 2021 so that I could enter my book cover for DISCERNING GRACE into the Cover of the Month competition, which was a lot of fun! I plan to showcase my second book cover for GRACE ON THE HORIZON soon.

But beyond the book cover competition, my absolute favourite All Author feature is the Review GIF Maker tool. It’s so easy to use that even I could make professional looking GIFs! They are excellent for promoting my reviews on social media.

All Author is also great at posting about my book on social media—all exposure helps!