Published. On Smashwords.Yes, I did.
A Drum Is Empty is finally available to readers who have already waited too long. I also uploaded two short stories as freebies. You might say I celebrated Mother’s Day by giving birth to a litter of literature.
It was a day’s work. First, I had to make sure the manuscripts were formatted correctly. I was a good girl, I read the Smashwords style book. Then I slapped Word around for a while. Did Drum more than once from scratch to ensure clean formatting. Then there was the cover art.
I had taken some time previously developing the Drum cover. It only needed a couple of minor tweaks to be ready to go. The other two were hastily cobbled on the spur of the moment. I had to get up and take a photo of my hand for Grandmothers. By the time I got around to Tiwa’s tale, I was running out of steam. Obviously. Thank goodness for The GIMP in all cases.
Anyhoo, the “Meatgrinder” had no trouble digesting my perfect docs. I uploaded the short stories first, to get the hang of it. Then the Big One. It was fun to watch the process, the page refreshing over and over. Nothing like chocolate or sex, but a bit of a thrill for that first time. Yeehah, I had ebooks.
I had never intended to publish Kewarratiwa’s Story when I wrote it, but on looking it over one more time after a long hibernation period, I decided that it hung together well enough. I needed to read it again anyway. Tiwa is still a problem character, but I am coming to understand her better.
So…why Smashwords? Because I like how they do things. Because I loathe DRM. Because I could. I did it, and it feels good.
One thing that surprised me was how many times the short stories were downloaded in the first 24 hours. Not too many nibbles on the novel yet (and no sales), but I think I dropped my line into good fishing waters.
At least I finally got my bait good and wet 😉