I know Laurie through being involved in the local adult autistic groups, and he’s just published his book about mental health, Positively Negative. Laurie has kindly agreed to write a post for the blog about creating and publishing his book.
Here’s a bit of a look into my first-hand experience of releasing my first book.
At first it started off as a fun little idea among the many I had shooting about. I commonly am playing around with narratives for use in stories here and there. For the most part I would churn out a script, a comic or a video that tells the story I want to tell.
It was one day when cycling home that I noticed how every day in my daily life I felt like I was fighting a constant battle with thoughts and feelings and I really wanted to externalise it as I felt like no one I had ever talked to was able to understand that aspect of my life; I have said to people, “I am an anxious person” or “I get easily overwhelmed” and it gets easily misinterpreted by people as, “he just stumbles a little when talking sometimes” or “he needs constant checking on”.
I feel like these feelings are not always understood and I really wanted to create something that people could show and understand these feelings. I made the book to be easily digestible and appealing, I am a big fan of short and sweet comics with cute characters and felt the storybook like aspect may resonate well with young adults.
My creative process is at first constant note taking and spider diagrams. Everything I make has a long life as an idea before it becomes something more tangible. I like to make sure I know the real ins and outs of an idea before I put pen to paper or finger to keyboard.
My book could not exist without pictures, I’m in love with visual design and visual storytelling is the only way I could have told a story that is seemingly so foreign to a lot of people.
When I first start writing I do a VERY quick writeup or a “Crap draft”, this forms the foundations of the idea and is soon discarded for an improved version. I put samples of my writing by a large group of my peers and ask for feedback and take a lot of it in.
My book is about human experiences not just my experiences so it was really important to find out what others thought of the message, the themes and visual elements so that I could make a book that could engage with a broader audience.
As for the publication process. Wow. It was not as easy as I thought it would be.
I went it practically blind with only a few pointers from my editor.
I bought 10 ISBNs before I even knew what they are and every day was stress as I still struggled to understand the full process. I spent more time on self-publishing and getting set up on Amazon than I am willing to mention. This experience has been quite liberating though, I’ll admit. Once it’s done and you have got your first orders in it is hard to hide a smile! I still hold my book now and struggle to see it as mine as I can’t believe it has been officially published.
My book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1838026304
My Book’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/positivelynegativebook
My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/someartfromearth/
My art Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SomeArtFromEarth/
Thank you, Laurie. Not bad for ‘off the cuff’.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 