My Dark Horse - An Unexpected Tale

Hayis Eylül 25, 2022

Last year, I heard quite a bit about self-publishing and I was wondering if I could publish my second novel myself. Like all new things, I didn't feel very confident in my abilities to begin with, and that coupled with wishing I had all my favourite short stories in one place led me to the conclusion that I should have a "test drive" at self-publishing a story collection before I decided whether to publish a novel in that way.

I blogged about the processes I went through in detail (click here to see the posts) and as time went on I was pleased that I'd have a nice little book for my Mum, sister and maybe a couple of friends to have for Christmas.

It never occurred to me that this little project of mine would lead to sales. That thought didn't hit my radar until I had struggled my way through my first Kindle formatting and upload session and felt so chuffed with myself that I told my Facebook friends. And within ten minutes 14 of those people had bought a copy, inducing a mad panic as I hadn't even checked it through myself.

Since then, A Knowing Look and Other Stories has steadily sold across all formats.

I am so proud of this collection now. What started as a "test drive" has turned into a book I am incredibly happy to think about, not least because of the reviews it has received on Goodreads, Amazon and elsewhere.

I made a decision a couple of months ago to upgrade my paperback distribution to enable people to buy it from all online retailers as well as via "proper" bookshops out in the real world. That distribution is now complete.