Quite probably you do. Others may well be interested in your life story, your experiences, your thoughts, your imagination.
It may be unlikely that you would produce a best-seller. However, your friends and relatives at least would be your audience. And you meet (online if not in person) numerous sympathetic and supportive people. There are so many good people out there, with shared concerns and interests.
And so, what are the barriers? It turns out, that with “print on demand”, the barriers are lower than ever before. You can self-publish easily. I use Lulu for self-publishing. At least 2 million authors use Lulu!
I have written a number of books. Mainly on the topic of saving Western civilisation from Islamification. Available via my Lulu spotlight page, here: https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Hellish2050/ I have been quite busy!
Because Lulu is a US company, and the USA has freedom of expression that the UK has sadly lost in recent years, I am hoping that my books will not be censored by the UK government! We have become the modern pamphleteers. We who value free speech are the new subversives. We have to use every tool available to us now, if we are to restore our freedoms. I see self-publishing as a valuable tool for this serious task.
I have already lost my job, as a result of writing a book that is critical of Islam. The book title is “Hellish 2050”, updated with details of that experience. You need to scroll down my Lulu spotlight page to find it.
I am mentally prepared to be thrown into prison at some point too. They can do that, but hopefully my books will be available to those not (yet) incarcerated. Those in government who perpetuate their lies, will become increasingly desperate to stifle the truth. History gives us many examples of such suppression, and there is no particular reason to expect the UK to be an exception, in the coming decades. We already see harsh punishments for social media postings. The judiciary has been thoroughly infiltrated by pro-Islam judges. And this has been happening since at least 2008, when Sharia courts were given official recognition. That is when we lost the important principle of “one law for all, and everyone subject to the same law”.
I have produced some step by step notes for self-publishing on Lulu. Feel free to contact me, I will email them to you: clivematelas@gmail.com
What is Lulu? How do I create a Lulu account?
Lulu is a print on demand service for authors.
Creating an account is free.
You need an email address in order to create an account. You may like to consider having a separate email address just for use with Lulu. Maybe a pseudonym. You can have any number of Lulu accounts, but each requires a distinct email address, as it is used for logging in.
Lulu handles the entire transaction, you as the author do not get to see the name or address of the customers, nor their payment method. And that is a good thing in my opinion. It takes all the hassle away from you and ensures for the customer that their data is secure.
OK, go ahead and create your Lulu account. Of course - keep a note of the password!
I am writing a book. Yes of course you are!
I have met several people who tell me that they are writing a book. And they tell everyone, and of course all their friends are so impressed.
A year later I ask: how is the book coming along? And of course it has not progressed beyond a dozen pages. I am not surprised.
Writing a book is a serious slog. It has to be treated as a job, not as a pastime to be dipped in and out of. If you are writing a book it is probably best not to brag about it to everyone you know. Because you thereby create the reward for yourself in that moment, not in the moment of completion.
In fact there is no such thing as completion. Once you really get into it, you find ever more items to put into it. And then it is best to stop adding to that book, and consider what would be best put into another book, to follow on. A certain amount of pruning and re-arranging is to be expected.
There is the usual stuff, about knowing who your audience is. But I suggest you ignore that and write what you need to write. It is hard to second guess what anyone wants to read anyway. Some of the most amazingly successful books were a puzzle for the publishers. “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” could not easily be categorized, and the manuscript was rejected by numerous publishers.
More words does not mean a better book. People have generally short attention spans now, so I tend to write short chapters, maybe even a single page or just 2 or 3 pages per chapter. Of course, this depends on the type of book – factual or fiction. Re-read your chapter, and see how many surplus words can be cut, without losing the meaning.
What does Lulu need you to produce?
Lulu needs a file for the interior pages and a file for the cover artwork. I use PDFs for both. You can use your favourite applications, assuming they can produce PDFs. I use Libre Office. This is free. Libre Office Writer for the internal pages, and Libre Office Draw for the cover artwork. Save the work in the default file type. And then export as PDF.
If you do not already have a favourite word processor and an artwork generation application, then download and install Libre Office:
Contact me for the notes. They give the fine details of the steps you need to take. It is not complicated, but there are some pitfalls to be aware of.
The book cover
Give some thought to the book cover: it needs to convey instantly what the book is about. And be eye-catching.
Once you have uploaded the interior pages PDF file, and selected the type of book (paperback or hard cover) Lulu will tell you the dimensions required for the cover. I generally produce paperback books, for which a single artwork file is needed, as a wraparound single image. The rear part of the cover is on the left, and the front of the cover is on the right. Create the PDF for the cover artwork. Then upload the PDF.
An image of the front cover appears, in the Book Preview section, with guide boxes overlaid. The important bits (i.e. title and author name) should properly centred in the boxes. And not intruding into the margin. Here is an example of one I made earlier:
Do it! Do it now!
Some discipline is needed. Treat book writing as a job. Get up, get dressed and breakfasted, and be sitting in front of your computer by 9:00 am. And don’t do anything else except work on the book. Plan out a rough structure, gather info and allocate it to chapters, write a few notes as a reminder for the chapter content. It is bound to be fluid at first. And chapters will be re-arranged, new chapters inserted. It is quite a messy process.
I tend to write in the morning, and cogitate and gather information in the afternoon. You may well read far more material than you write. In any particular day you may feel that you did not achieve very much. However, by persisting day after day, in a week, or two weeks you have achieved a fair amount. It is a slog, not a sprint. In a month, or two months you have a book!
In that time you will have gathered enough information to make a good start on the next book. But just get started. It may seem like a huge mountain at the beginning, make the first step!