Looking a little deeper into it, I find that Bookrooster is possibly a con and more than likely just overwhelmed with newly-published e-authors. That one goes down to experience I guess.

So it's published!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00N1YQ3TO

I thought it would feel major. It sort of does.

I've been getting the word out to my friends and contacts but my detestation of social media is something of a handicap. How do I get Stephen Fry to mention my book? Hmmm.

Getting the reviews

I have spent hours searching numerous blogs about self-publishing looking for the fine detail of publishing on Amazon KDP and the advantages of KDP Select.

I like the KDP Select model since I am not bothered about trying to set up other distribution. My first conclusion was to publish in KDP Select and immediately give the book away to try to get some traffic and hopefully, reviews. However, it seemed that to get anyone to download it I need reviews in place on Amazon.

After some more looking, I came across bookrooster.com, who, for an admin fee of $67 distribute free copies of your book to their members until you get ten reviews on Amazon from those members. You cannot let anyone distribute your book at all while in KDP Select, so I uploaded to Amazon without joining Select.

When and if I have some reviews through bookrooster, I will enrol the book in the KDP Select programme.

The subtitle has changed. Although I liked the sound of 'Cautionary Tale' it didn't truly reflect the contents.

The first read by someone other than myself has been done by my faithful editor (missus). Lots of little typos and nonsenses sorted out. A handful of excellent suggestions. One or two fairly heated disagreements. Still, all settled now and ready to go.

I have decided on a schedule. The publish button is ready to press on the KDP website. I now have a nail-biting time waiting to see if any of the half dozen friends who have said they will read it, actually do. Then, if they do, will they have any constructive feedback?
As and when I get that, I can go ahead and publish, and hopefully persuade them to leave reviews on Amazon.

Options

Now that I'm nearly done with editing, I started exploring the how-to of publishing on Kindle. I have to say that initially, it's baffling. There are so many options and so many opinions about what options are best. As I sifted through the opinions, I realised that I had to make a major decision.

What is my motive?

It seems a lot easier to come up with a motive for a character to do something in a story than to find one's own underlying motive. It's the same old story with any creative process whether it be writing, painting, photography, acting... We all want praise.

How do I measure praise?

Is it by the noise of the applause or the balance in the bank?

Aftermath

When I finished George and the Dragon, I was delighted to be able to say to friends and acquaintances "I've written a novel" rather than "I'm writing a novel". To me, there's a world of difference. A sense of achievement rather than a sense of struggle.

Of course, now that I read it back over and over, I find that there are all sorts of little hiccups in the flow of it. At first, I had the feeling that it should stay as written, then realised that those hiccups are what make me stop reading a book.

So it's edit, edit, edit for the moment, while friends give me feedback (I hope) and my very own dragon goes through it with a red pen. Eek!

I started writing George and the Dragon back in the nineteen-eighties. I got stuck, put it aside, transferred it from 5.25" floppies to 3.5" floppies to Winchester drives to IDE drives, from computer to computer and told myself I would have the time to finish it sometime.

Then I saw a TV programme about Kindle Self Publishing two months ago and realised that what had held me back was not the writing but the thought of all the grief of finding an agent, printing manuscripts, sending them out, getting endless rejection slips and bruises to the ego.

I went back to where I was stuck and had a revelation - I was writing fiction and I could just invent something to get out of the blind alley. Suddenly, I was writing every day. I would go for walks and think about where the story was going to go next, start writing to that plan and almost immediately find the story going off in another direction.

I have now finished it and am getting friends to read it for feedback before I hit the go button on Amazon.