It's out there.
I have published a book.
To be more accurate, I have written a book, rewritten it, rewritten it again, revised and corrected it a dozen times, designed its interior, steered its marketing and released it onto a variety of e-book platforms.
A thing that began as a vague plot idea now exists as a complete novel for real readers to buy. How did that happen?

Well, for a long time it didn't happen at all. I wrote 'How Soon Is Now?' over a period of three years, beginning tentatively at the end of 2019. When it was finally finished - after much revising, restructuring and honing - I was delighted with it. I read it over and over throughout those revisions and enjoyed it a little more each time, as it came closer to the book I had in my head. Unusually, for me, at the end I felt I had created something worthwhile, that people would enjoy.
And I still feel that way about it, even after a bruising few months in 2022 during which I submitted the book to dozens of literary agents, with limited success. After that, I got straight to work on my second novel, which at one point was called 'To The End' and which is now probably and permanently 'End of a Century', while 'How Soon Is Now?' languished on my hard drive.
I'd spent so long with the characters in 'How Soon...?', though, that I couldn't let them go. There was so much life in those people and their stories, that it seemed like I'd failed them, just letting them lie around as a bunch of ones and zeros in a digital file no one else would ever see.
I've already written in some detail about my decision to self-publish here, but a big part of that decision came from a feeling of loyalty to the characters and stories I'd created. There's a lot packed into it. There is - I hope - a backbone of pure page-turning intrigue running through the book, but it's also loaded with ideas, subtext and stories, and plays fast-and-loose with genres and genre conventions.
That's a strength in many ways, but also probably the main reason it struggled - bar one enthusiastic but commitment-shy agent - to sneak past the traditional publishing business's gatekeepers, who prefer a clearly-defined niche into which they can slot books and an easily identified market at which to aim them.
'How Soon Is Now?' wasn't written for any market. It was written for readers, and took its final shape based on its characters and their stories, not on focus groups and market trends. The completed book is 100% itself and what it had to be, without a shred of calculation or cynicism.
It was written with love, and shared with love. I hope it finds a little love out in the world.
You can buy 'How Soon Is Now?' for Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook. Rakuten Kobo and Apple Books by following the links on this page.
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