Ten years… a whole decade… since my first book baby, Stronger Within was published for Kindle. (The paperback edition followed a few weeks later)
It feels truly surreal that ten years have passed since that day.
I chose the date carefully. (I’m a bit weird about dates) The 15th April would have been my Wee Gran’s birthday. It was also the date that The Big Green Gummi Bear proposed to me. It was a date that felt as if it augured well.
In all honesty, I was absolutely petrified about self-publishing my first-born book baby. Was I about to make myself a laughingstock? What if no one bought it? What if everyone who did then hated it? What if they all thought it was rubbish? What if….
Looking back, it took me more personal courage than I knew I had to release that book, but I also knew that by taking the plunge that I was making my lifelong dream come true.
Ever since I had been a little girl, I’d dreamed of being an author one day and seeing my name on the cover of a book. I made that dream come true.
Stronger Within’s story began almost two years earlier on 8 May 2013 when I bought a notebook and pen on the way home from work then after dinner that evening, sat down on my front doorstep in the early evening sunshine and began to write. As I wrote page after page over the coming weeks and months, I had no idea that this story that I was writing was destined to become my first book.
One of my biggest fears, one that I have worked hard to conquer, is a crippling fear of letting people read what I write. It’s a terrible fear for an author to have! It was months before I told anyone about what I was attempting to do. Thanks to the belief that a few close friends had in me, I was persuaded to type the story up and share it with them. They loved it! Even the friend who on the face of things should have hated it, loved it. Their love and faith in my storytelling gave me the push I needed to venture into the world of self-publishing. It was a steep learning curve!
If you’d said to me on 15 April 2015 that ten years down the line, I’d have seven novels and a poetry anthology for sale worldwide via Amazon and that they’d all have multiple glowing reviews, I would never have believed you. I’d have thought you were insane to even think I could achieve that. Seven novels? Me? Never….
Yet here we are and that’s exactly what happened. My eighth novel is in the pipeline too. It still feels completely surreal…I am a published author who has sold books in several countries around the world!
Over the years people have asked me how I do it. I’ve been asked countless times about how I find the time to do it. I’ve been asked why I do it.
The how is that I sit down somewhere, whether that’s at my desk, or the picnic table or the doorstep with a notebook and a pen and I write the story one word after another.
The time I carve out to do something that I am passionate about. If you care enough about something you will always find time in your day to do it. Some days it’s a few hours and on others it’s a few minutes.
The why is a bit more complex to answer but the short version is that it gives me somewhere to escape to.
Writing to me is like oxygen. I can’t imagine a day without it in one form or other.
I’ve always said that if it ever begins to feel like work then that’s the day that I put the lid back on my pen, close over my notebook and put them down.
If you’ve spared some of your hard-earned pennies to purchase one of my books, I thank you.
If you’ve read it and then taken the time to leave me a review online, I thank you.
If you haven’t read any of them yet, then I’d encourage you to give one a try. You never know, you might enjoy it. Lots of other people have so far.
For me the end goal here isn’t to seek fame and fortune. (Ok a little bit of a fortune would be nice, I’ll not lie.) There are very few indie-authors who earn enough from their books to make a living. Without a word of a lie, at the time of writing this, my estimated royalties for the month are £1.56/$2.00 – not even enough to buy a cup of coffee. I write for the love of telling the story and if by telling that story I evoke an emotional reaction in my reader whether it be laughter or tears then my job is done.
They say everyone has a book in them so if you fancy finding the book in you, buy a notebook and a pen, find a sunny spot, sit down and begin to write. You never know where that dream will take you.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you to each and every one of you who has supported my creative journey over the last ten years, especially to my Infamous Five. I couldn’t do it without your love and support and belief in me.
Love n hugs
Coral
PS If you’ve not checked out any of my book babies yet, here’s the links-
Silver Lake series
Amazon.com links –
Stronger Within – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VXDSC1M FREE TO DOWNLOAD TODAY
Impossible Depths – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01C0GS30K
Bonded Souls – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XSQHG71
Shattered Hearts – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZY8ZSDM
Long Shadows – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08RR1FGLG
Amazon.co.uk links –
Stronger Within – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00VXDSC1M FREE TO DOWNLOAD TODAY
Impossible Depths – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01C0GS30K
Bonded Souls – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XSQHG71
Shattered Hearts – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07ZY8ZSDM
Long Shadows – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08RR1FGLG
Riley
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B9SWP6K3
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B9SWP6K3
Ellen
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FYHKR44
http s://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07FYHKR44
Beginnings – poetry anthology
Beginnings – a collection of poems eBook : McCallum, Coral: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
Coral McCallum 