I am taking a short story writing class from Holly Lisle, and my birthday is coming up. So I decided to take a HUGE STEP and request Vellum for my birthday so that I can test my nerves and publish a short story!
Vellum is a Mac Only publishing software that allows you, in addition to formatting your files for publication, to see what your file will look like on a myriad of devices. This is hugely attractive, because it can prevent formatting errors that will get you bad reviews. I want to give readers the easiest experience possible, and bad formatting isn’t that!
It’s not cheap.
I don’t have a Mac, but I found a work around in MacinCloud which SHOULD allow me to run it. If not, I’d have to borrow my mother-in-law’s Mac.
But here’s the thing… I need thick skin to be an author, and I need to be able to take bad reviews. I’ll do my best on the short story, but I figured it would help build up my tolerance if I published some short stories rather than my novel straight up. That way I can get bad reviews and teach myself how to deal with them. The short stories aren’t my babies, if that makes sense? I only spend a month or more on them… not a year or more like the novels.
And I need to actually test the waters. Not just talk about publishing, but actually let someone other than my beta reader read my work! I’m such a scaredy-cat.
So, I’ll let you know how this goes. It’ll probably be a disaster, but it’s worth trying! I intend to post that story in Kindle Unlimited, and I’ll post here when I publish. *crosses fingers*
Do you write? Have you published anything? How did you learn to deal with bad reviews? How do you deal with bad blog comments? Inquiring minds want to know! *smile*