I am (hopefully) a week away from self-publishing my fourth full-length book, The Anonymity of Waiting. Self-publishing is always a process. When you are author, editor, cover-designer, and everything else, there’s a lot to consider, keep an eye on, and many decisions to make. And work!
Then there are the unexpected things, like: when I received the first paperback proof I remembered I had submitted three of the poems in the book to a journal. Most journals won’t publish anything that’s been published before, so those three poems had to be swapped with three that were going to be in another book.
Poetry can also be tricky because those longer lines that fit fine on the page when you were writing don’t fit on the book-sized printed page. So it’s back to the publishing software, change the font size for that poem, and resubmit the whole thing.
Of course, releasing an electronic version of your book is like self-publishing a second book at the same time because, while most of the text works in printed and e-formats, other things are not the same and have to be treated separately.
But enough bellyaching. Once I’m done, I’ll hopefully have something that looks good and is worth reading. Below is a haiku that will be in The Anonymity of Waiting.
Trees Beg as the Wind
Trees beg as the wind
passes, leaving only its
wake in their gnarled hands.
A Wandering Minstrel 