Joy M. Lilley

I experienced a number of difficulties when writing my first book. There never seemed to be enough hours in the day to be able to sit, contemplate and then get the words in my head onto the paper.

When I did eventually finish writing the story,or should I say thought I had finished it, I got such a shock to see the number of rejections encountered.
I should have had more sense, than to think I was good enough to be published. The only ray of hope I had and that which spurred me on to continue writing was when the short story, first written was thought to be good enough for me to send them the full manuscript. As eluded to before, I expanded the work which has now become my first novel. Figs,Vines and Roses.

I had so many rejections that I nearly gave up altogether. Then I asked for some help from my daughters boyfriend and my stepson. They were good enough to help me through the process of getting it published as an ebook.Then I sat back and thought all would be well and that those other than family and friends would read and hopefully enjoy the content. I tried to find my way around establishing how many I had sold and how on earth would I get paid, well I need not have fretted about that as I sold few and was paid virtually nothing. My expectations and the realisation of being the novice I was, shocked me into understanding that it does not work like that, and that as an unknown writer who wants promotion you had to do it yourself.

The first step I took to achieving this was to have the manuscript professionally proof read.
This of course had to be paid for. The same company Silverwood books Ltd. of Bristol U.K.then went on to help with the finished product. It was then uploaded onto Amazon Kindle, WHSmith Kobo Gardeners and IBookstore.

I love to write and with or without success I shall continue to carry on doing so. In my next blog I will tell you a little of the work in progress on my second novel, a completely different genre to the first.