As you know, I’ve been running a web serial on Wednesdays. I figured that once the serial had run through its 29 chapters, I would leave The World That Forgot How to Dance up as a permanent feature on my blog. Then I thought: hey, what if I also had it available as a pretty PDF so people could read it on their e-readers? And then I thought: well, if I’m already kinda sorta halfway self-publishing this thing, why not go all the way?
So, friends, I am officially working through the magical jungles of self-publishing. I’ll be honest, this wasn’t a route high school Olivia was planning on taking, and college Olivia was pretty skeptical as well, but now that I’m actually doing it I’m realizing that self-publishing is such a great choice for me.
Like, seriously, I feel like not dabbling in this at least once would have been a tremendous loss. If nothing else, it’s giving me a much deeper respect for all of the things that happen to a book before it joins me on a couch for a lazy Sunday afternoon. It’s amazing, you guys!
The other day I was playing around with templates and spacing, and it just kind of hit me that I would get to choose my spacing. My margins. My font. Where I want the page numbers. Everything. I could put a tiny picture of an elephant in the middle of every page if I wanted. (Don’t worry… this will be a tiny-elephant-less production.) But I could, and that’s empowering. And terrifying.
I’m still solidly in the ‘finding my bearings’ stage of the process. (Strong hint: if anyone knows of any resources, those would look reeeeaally nice down in the comments section. Just saying.) It’s been fun so far, way more fun than a younger Olivia realized when she didn’t quite give the idea the attention it deserved.
And to sum up, I’ll leave you with a quote by David Bowie…
