My First Attempt At Indie Publishing!

I wrote four books for Dorchester in the Bombay Greatest Hits series.  When I got my rights back, I published my backlist.  Then, two years later, I finally sucked it up (and caved in to angry fans) and wrote the fifth story in the series, putting it up myself.

PARADISE is a novella.  According to my sister, this means it's in Spanish.  I had to explain to her that no, this was just a shorter novel.  She asked why that wouldn't be a novellette. 

After writing 300 page books, a 150 page book should be easier to write, right?  Wrong!  It was much, much harder.  I was used to the luxury of 300 pages to spread the story out.  Pacing is everything.  But in half of that space, I still had to have a compelling mystery (which I really hope I had), show growth in the character and give a realistic story arc.

And my characters were having none of that.  The Bastards.

It took longer than a novel to write.  I wonder how much of that is in my head.  It was an intimidating task.  I'm not sure I would do it again.  But so far (10 days) the fans seem to like it.  So maybe I won't give up on that idea just yet.

I do love the freedom associated with indie publishing.  I'm thinking of doing a collection of short stories - all featuring various Bombays through history.  Of course, I might be biting off more than I can chew. 

I'll let you know how it goes.

Leslie Langtry