An Assassin's Redemption: A Publishing Journey

So the path to this book getting published has been a long one. It all started a long time ago (longer than I am sometimes willing to admit) when I had an idea about a story. I would work on this story off and on at times, with a good deal of the time more emphasis on the "off" portion rather than the "on," but I kept coming back to it and eventually had a complete manuscript. Now that I had a story, I decided that I wanted to share my story, so I went about finding first...an artist, because after all, every book needs a cover.

My first artist of choice was my father's god-daughter, who is a professional artist and has some experience in book design because she had done the artwork for her husband's book. Unfortunately, delays were to be had which I just accepted, because by this time I had been many years in the process of working on this story, and I was in it for the long-haul rather than a rush job. The delays kept extending however, and when I finally reached out to the artist a year or so after my search started, she told me that she was about to have her third child and would no longer have the time to even consider my commission. Congratulations to her.

On my quest to find a new artist, I asked friends and family for recommendations, without luck, but eventually came across the suggestion of placing an advertisement in the art department of my local college. Etsy was another suggestion as I was wanting a professional job, but I wanted to try for more local first. A week or so after I put up the advert, I got one person contacting me, but their art style was a lot more cartoony than I was interested in. Two to three months went by with nothing, and on Monday of one week, I decided that I would go start looking for an artist on Etsy after all, after work ended for the week on Friday. So, of course, that's when I got a couple more responses. The first response was again a more cartoonish art style than I like, however the second was Ale Orozco, and I must say that I liked her drawing style. As you can see by the cover, she is an excellent artist, so after a bit of back and forth, we eventually had my cover created.

Now that I had a cover, I just needed to get published. Wanting to do things correctly the first time, I went online seeking help. I eventually found the Alliance of Independent Authors organization, which is a large group of independent authors. They had all the resources I needed to publish, including a vetted list of reputable companies that I could hire to do much of the actual publishing work for me. Searching through this vetted list, I contacted a number of companies and eventually settled on working with Gatekeeper Press, who have been a delight to work with. I tried to limit my expenses, as I already had all the artwork created (granted, since I wanted "art" rather than just a cover, I probably paid a lot more than if I had had the graphics designed by Gatekeeper Press) and was confident in my writing skills (I had already had others review my work for continuity issues) I didn't want to pay for an extensive editing job. While I did not pay for full editing, I did have them do a final proofing job on my manuscript, which was a good thing. This allowed them to clean up the formatting a bit to be more industry-standard in style, and find any minor mistakes that I had made by being yet another pair of eyes (80%+ of my 'mistakes' were missing commas, but hey, that's what I hired the proofreader for - they agreed that I didn't need to go back for more comprehensive editing) and making things look a lot more professional.

My journey is now coming to a close, long as it has been, and I now have my book published as a new release at the start of the new year - how is that as a way to start of 2025? Now I just have to get my friends, family, and friends of them as well to check out and enjoy my story.

Interested in becoming a published author yourself? I strongly recommend that you check out Gatekeeper Press yourself. I found their fees to be reasonable, and their service excellent. They manage all of your distribution needs, including publishing internationally. This means that your friends can easily get the book globally. Best of all, all expenses are paid up-front in the publication of the book, and Gatekeeper Press will not take any of your royalties. Since they are managing things, you receive a single payment combined from all sources of sales, which means you only have to report one source of income on your tax forms, yay!

When filling out the New Title Questionnaire form, please list me (Josh Sackheim, sackheim.josh@gmail.com) as how you heard about this service, and I'll get a little bonus for helping you to find them. Better yet, if you use the discount code of Josh-Sackheim you will receive a 5% discount on publishing services at Gatekeeper Press. This discount can be combined with any current promotion, but does not cover marketing services. Happy publishing.

 

Wanting to be a self-published author, proud of publishing yourself? Check out the Alliance of Independent Authors for loads of resources to help you on your way, including private discussion forums populated by international writers, writers self-help books, lists of vetted companies that you can work with for the things you cannot do yourself, contract vetting & general legal advice, and much more!