Obwieszczenie! — Carrie Muller

I have some news, and I thought it would be fun to tell you about it in Polish:

I know what you’re thinking: “Big whoop, Carrie. You’ve been tinkering away on one book or another for LITERALLY DECADES now. What’s the big deal this time?”

Well, first off, thanks for paying attention. Second, this time it’s different. I’m actually publishing one of these books. I would have said that in the beginning, but I haven’t learned the Polish word for “publish” yet. However, I have learned other vital phrases, like this one:

Or, try this one on for size:

Now, I should mention that I will be self-publishing this book.

(Are you still there? Have you fainted in disgust?)

Listen. I know. Self-publishing still has this stigma about it. Anyone can self-publish a book, people say. It’s right there. In the name. Self-publish. To which I say, Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

But I’ve thought about this a ton (you didn’t think I spent all those years actually writing books, did you?!), and here’s the thing. All that thinking wrung out my brain and left me a useless husk of a person. So I stopped thinking and instead asked my gut, “Hey, man, what’s going on?” And my gut just croaked out, “Have you forgotten? You have anxiety. I’m no good to you, child. At this point, I’m little more than a What-If factory.” So I turned to my heart and said, “Heart? You’re my only hope. What should I do?” but I’m still waiting on a response that doesn’t sound like feral shrieking, so in the end I went and flipped a coin. But then I couldn’t decide which choice to assign heads versus tails, so next I tried some visualization. I pictured myself going the traditional publishing route, which would mean either sending out more queries to agents in a market that currently (and rightly) prioritizes other stories, or throwing out everything I have and writing for the market. God, it makes me tired just thinking about it.

Then I pictured myself publishing my own books. Not accountable to anyone. Free to put all my odd little ideas out into the world. Beholden only to mine own self.

I guess, since you already know which one I picked, there’s not much point in dragging this out.

I’m going to release my first novel in 2022.

(OOH. Anyone else get the SHIVERS? Probably not. Sorry. Never mind.)

However, as soon as I finished with all the hemming and the hawing and made up my mind for good, someone reminded me that this whole debate over traditional versus self-publishing is ultimately moot. Nobody will care who actually publishes the thing, as long as there’s an audiobook.

I’m actually really excited about this process! DIY publishing! So fun! So much to learn! So many mistakes to make! Of course I will post updates on the process here as I hire an editor, produce cover art, and complete the millions of other tasks that go into publishing a book. Like purchasing an ISBN number! Who’da thought, when I was a little girl, that someday I’d grow up to buy myself an ISBN number of my very own?

Not me, honeybee.

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