Writing Series - Is publication the finish line?

As an author of a novel, when the final edit before publication is done, when you've crafted your story, reworded it, changed the words, formatted it and it is the best you feel it could be. When you've put your heart and soul into it, hours and hours over days and months to write the best story that you can, to create a work that you would like to read and you think your readers would like to read, you're done. That's it you've crossed the finish line.

Me crossing the finish line

Is that the end? No! That is the finish of the writing of your novel. Now you're at the start line of the next phase.

I wrote 'Thai Die' in 2003 but I didn't publish it until 2014 and 'Connecting Trains' I didn't publish until 2019. I didn't actually tell anybody, other than a few close friends and family, that I had written a book let alone published it. I am self published or the term now appears to be, an 'indie author'.

I've learned this year, in completing my third book 'Aloha Goodbye', that this is by far from the finish line, next week when it's available to purchase and read in fact is only the first mile.

I decided in February 2025 that I was going to 'come out' as an author. I wrote 'Thai Die' because I always felt I had a novel in me. I wrote 'Connecting Trains' to see if I had another and to do a real police procedural and one set in the UK. Now I write because I love creating my novels and stories. My head is full of story lines and ideas, all in keeping with my authentic experience of the places, spaces or events my novels are set within.

As I've learned in the last three months, since embracing Helen as an author finishing a novel in one sense is just the starting line.

The finish line is after marketing it, after becoming a social media 'creator', recording and video creator, editor and reluctant star, getting comfortable with being seen, hearing myself on my podcast, a radio show and the audio book and shouting as loud as I can about it.

The ultimate finish line is getting that book, all my books, into the hands of people who will read and, more importantly than anything else, enjoy what I have created.

I can't say that I enjoy the marketing as much as I do the writing but I don't dislike it as much as I expected to.

So while I've crossed the finish line on the race to publish 'Aloha Goodbye' now, I'm starting the harder more endurance based work of pushing it out, telling everybody about it and I'm crossing my fingers that everybody that gets it in their hands, whether the paperback, the kindle or their device and headphones to listen to the audio version, that they enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Excited to launch in ten days,

Have a great week,

Helen x