Guest Post: Laura E. Bradford, Author of FLYDAY!

We're fortunate to have another guest poster here today:  Laura Bradford, indie author of FLYDAY (a futuristic time-travel adventure). 

I met Laura on an internet forum I frequent that doesn't have anything to do with authors, read her book, enjoyed it immensely, and then asked if she could share her story with us.  Why indie publishing?  Why now?  She was kind enough to share her thoughts below.

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Take it away, Laura!

My journey so far:


I have been writing for about as long as I can remember. I currently blog over at A Writer's Notes, which serves as my personal writing blog, and I released my first novel, Flyday, in January. I'm currently working on the next novel in the series, and this week I released a free collection of short stories, Sunset on Mars.

It took a long time to finish the novel, off and on. I started with the basic ideas and characters in 2006; in early 2008 I tore it apart and completely rewrote it. I gave it to my betas, took their advice, and eventually finished it the following year, and then I had to put it aside for nursing school.

I gave serious thought to releasing the book myself after reading J. A. Konrath's blog. I had been submitting to agents, sending carefully crafted query letters, and kept receiving either form letter rejections or "Interesting project, but not for us" or, worse, no response at all. One agent's assistant asked to see the first fifty pages, but ultimately passed. I took someone's advice and rewrote the beginning of my novel, and everyone agreed it was much improved. But aside from a vague idea that ebooks were taking off, I had no idea about e-publishing.

Enter: Zoe Winters' book on self-publishing, Becoming an Indie Author, which describes exactly how one would go about uploading an ebook and setting everything up. I dove into the project on a break from school, hired an artist, and released my first novel in January. I also set everything up on Createspace, so my book is out in paperback as well.

I'm still figuring out the "promotion" aspect. Someone convinced me to give Twitter a chance, and I'm exploring areas, so right now I'm balancing promotion and writing. All in all it's been quite a whirlwind experience, and I hope to release many more books and see how e-publishing goes for everyone.

Promotion seems to be the toughest part for indie and traditionally published authors alike!  Thank you for taking the time to share your story with us and best of luck with your novel, Laura! :)

If you haven't, definitely check out Laura's blog or Flyday over at Amazon.com.  What really impressed me was the way Laura effortlessly interweaves timelines through the story.  Definitely worth a read, especially at $2.99!

Also, if anyone here is an author and would like to guest post, I'd like to make this a regular thing on this blog :).  I'd love this to be a place where writers share their stories, both their writing journey AND their fiction! 

Shoot me an email if you're an author--I'd love to have you!