COMPLETELY BROKEN

This week, I’m going to sell you my book.

I’ve recently revised and finally made available in paperback my horror novel Completely Broken. Herein you will find all the necessary links to buy it either for your Kindle or in paperback, but I’d also like to do a version of “What We Can Learn from a Random Book,” and “How I did it, and why,” so this isn’t just a commercial, but might be of service to my fellow indie authors out there.

First let’s tackle the definition of “indie author.” There is a clear distinction between an “independent publisher,” which is more accurately referred to as a small press, and an “independent author.” If your book is published by an independent/small press it is still “traditionally published,” in that that publisher, though it may be a much smaller operation than Penguin Random House, is still a publisher and is doing all the things any other publisher would do. If, however, you are doing all of that work yourself: hiring freelance editors like me, artists and graphic designers, maybe typesetters, then publishing the book yourself either through Kindle Direct, Kindle Unlimited, Lightning Source, and/or other self-publishing outlets, then you are an “indie author.”

Unfortunately there are still readers, critics, media outlets, and retailers, with a significant bias against indie/self-published authors, which makes an already difficult road unnecessarily more—even much more—difficult. I wish I had some magic wand to wave that bias away, but all we can all do is march onward as that, I think older crowd slips away and new blood comes into the book world from a landscape that has always included a vibrant independent publishing scene. To be a part of that is easy, by the way. Simply buy and read independently published books that interest you. In fact, we should all be buying and reading books that interest us no matter the publisher.

It’s also important to remember that there is no reason whatsoever to see your writing career in binary terms: I am either a traditionally published author or an independently published author. I, for instance, am both. I have books published by traditional publishers like Wizards of the Coast, Adams Media/Simon & Schuster (The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction) and Writers Digest Books/Penguin Random House (Writing Monsters), and have published short stories and poetry in anthologies and journals published by (sometimes very) small presses. I do not have to live entirely in one world, nor do I, and neither do you.

So then, here, with a cover created by my daughter Alex (who has a BA in graphic design), and fully without a trace of AI/LLM, is Completely Broken…

I don’t remember the exact year I started writing this. I think it was probably 1992, which accounts for why it’s set in that time period. The book begins with a page stating “Some Decades Ago,” to generally establish why no one has a cell phone or other connected devices. I started writing it entirely off the cuff, what I only later understood to be “pantsing.”

This is worth consideration since after that and in (almost) every other way I tend to be a “planner.” I write chapter-by-chapter outlines, and even in the past sort of criticized “pantsers” for thinking it was possible to do that: Just sit down and start writing and end up with a novel—all the while forgetting I did just that.

I wrote this book little by little over maybe a couple years, but got… I honestly don’t even know anymore… maybe a third of the way in and there it sat until—and again, memory fails as to why—I decided to jump back in and finish it. This was maybe in the 2005ish timeframe?

And I finished it the same way I started it, more or less making it up as I went along. That said, I do still stand by my general assertion that we authors are all some part plotter and some part pantser. I didn’t actually finish the book until I had an idea—however vague—where it was going to go. But looking back on the writing process, this was really 90% pants, 10% plot.

And even writing this this morning is making me think I need to maybe back off the outlines—for fiction, at least—and start pantsing it more. That would also match up with my non-manifesto of writing entirely for myself, especially since Completely Broken is, in every way, a novel I wrote entirely for myself.

So, okay…

It’s weird, to be this far along in a writing career and realize I was doing something I didn’t think I could do, and for some reason didn’t know I was doing, and that it actually worked for me. But this might be the greatest lesson of Completely Broken, not just for me but for anyone reading this post:

You never stop learning about writing, and you never stop learning about yourself as a writer.

Okay, then, so what even is this book? Here’s the back cover copy…

I have written cover copy for more books than I can count, sometimes months ahead of having read a finished manuscript—that’s a Wizards of the Coast tale for another time—and I have learned a few lessons over that time. In this case, the text follows advice I’ve given authors time and again. Describe your book (on the back cover, in a query letter, etc.) using this basic outline:

The Hero (Protagonist)

The Villain (Antagonist)

The Conflict

The Author and the Book

So here we learn just enough about the protagonist (Dave) and a problem he has to establish him as someone we can identify with. Then we learn just enough about the antagonist (Gilroy) to establish him as someone who is a serious problem. Then we see how they’re related to each other—what brings them together—and a tease as to why that’s bad. Finally, what is it, exactly, that I’m trying to sell you? Who am I and what is this? I answered this in sales/marketing talk designed to get you to buy the book.

I bet if you look at the back cover copy for at least the genre novels on your shelves you’ll see this repeated over and over, often in a different order, but more or less tracking this way. Look at your own query letters, cover copy, Amazon landing page copy (I just used the same text for Completely Broken) and think about this basic scheme.

Another thing I wanted to talk about was that I actually typeset this myself. I’ve gone through tutorials, even in-person courses in InDesign (the industry standard) but it has always… let’s say “challenged” me. And now, of course, it’s expensive. So then… can you do this on Word?

Turns out, yes you can.

I’m happy with the way the interior of this book came out. It looks professional, it’s entirely readable, it has some design flare to it… and it was all done in a .docx file then saved as a PDF and dropped into Amazon’s system, which identified one issue—one of my decorative fonts ever so slightly impinged on the margin—that I quickly and easily fixed, and here it is, done and looking terrific.

I wrote a post that gets into some “Typesetting Basics for POD,” if you’re looking for at least the minimum advice. I’ve done this before, and worked closely with professional designers for years and years, so I had some built in knowledge and experience going in, but forcing this sort of formatting in Word can still be a bit of a challenge. If you don’t feel up to it, or have no idea how to start, seek help before you just toss an unformatted manuscript out into the world. That’s the sort of thing that works against indie authors. This is your art, and also your business. Please take it seriously, for your own sake and for the sake of the rest of the indie publishing community.

And finally, go out there and sell the thing. Use things like… I don’t know, your weekly blog, say… your social media accounts… whatever you can think of, to tell people about it.

That said, what else is there to say except, again, please buy my book!

Thanks in advance.

—Philip Athans

Fantasy Author’s Handbook is now on YouTube!

Did this post make you want to Buy Me A Coffee…

Send me a book from my Amazon Wishlist? 

Follow me on Twitter/X @PhilAthans…

Link up with me on LinkedIn…

Join our group on GoodReads…

And our group on Facebook…

Find me at PublishersMarketplace…

Check out my eBay store…

Or contact me for editing, coaching, ghostwriting, and more at Athans & Associates Creative Consulting?

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Absolutely not one word of this post was in any way generated by any version of an “AI” or Large Language Model.

And once again, the fully revised edition of COMPLETELY BROKEN finally available in paperback…