How I Accidentally Published Myself

Seriously. I'm published. Razed.

It was an understated event. I didn't throw a party. Oprah's producers weren't blowing the ringers off my non-existent agent's phone for an appearance. And I have not had to reject masses of autograph seekers in crowded auditoriums. I've only told a few people, and four of them have purchased 10 copies, which means $33.40 in my pocket. So how did I accidentally publish myself?

The tale begins in November 2007 when I took up the challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days for National Novel Writing Month. I made it to 50,000 but the story wasn't finished, so I took it to about 56,000. It took 26 days. After I saved the document for the final time, I closed it and, though I thought about it every once in a while, it remained closed.

Then in October 2008, I, along with all the other "winners" -- those who reached the word-count goal -- received an e-mail telling us that a company called Create Space had agreed to print, for free, proof copies of our submissions, or books. While I didn't necessarily think obtaining a proof copy would cost a crazy amount of money, I'm a fan of free. I had six months. I'm also a fan of deadlines. Six months would be plenty of time to rework it. Add some chapters to fill in some holes. Develop the characters a little more to give them some more depth. Make the setting more of a character than it was, which would put it more in line with what I originally intended.

Five months later, I finally got going on the first draft, which I wrote in 26 days and hadn't read since I closed it more than a year earlier. Then I got a job. For a minute, I even gave up on the idea. It's just a proof copy, I said to myself. Technically, I could take it to Kinko's (or whatever the Sydney version is) and get it into some type of book form. That was just for a minute, though. Unfortunately, my lack of motivation, or fear, or insecurity, or laziness, or whatever it was that prevented me from taking a real stab at it, meant I only had time for a read-through.

Finally, with one day left before my six-month window closed, I went to the Web site to begin the quick and easy process of ordering my proof copy. Yeah, right.

Ninety minutes, three versions, and two days later, I finally succeeded. I had to design three different covers, search far and wide for a suitable-to-me cover picture (turned out to be one I took), and settle for a really poorly written description. But my submission was finally accepted. And as a part of all of this, I had the option of selling it on Amazon.com.

After going through all that, there was no way I wasn't going to put it online for sale. It's $15. I get $3.44 for each copy sold (or something like that). And I'm published. Sort of.

I finally got my free proof copy in the mail. I saw my name on the binding. On the front. I flipped through Razed, stopping at a few randomly selected sentences -- three, to be exact -- cringing at all of them. And why wouldn't I: 26 days; no editing.

But then in some strange display of maturity, perhaps influenced by the fact I couldn't do anything about it, I didn't seem to care. I cringed, yes, but I wrote the poorly constructed sentences, which contained metaphors as lofty as hot-air balloons on a summer's day. Really. And I accepted them. It is, after all, my book. If I can't accept my own writing, then I can't expect other people to.

I got a taste of being published -- my name on a book and all that. It's actually pretty sweet. And I want it to happen again. But next time, I want someone else to do it for me. And I want Oprah's people to call.