New to writing a book or short story

Elizabeth Persevere….I landed a publishing contract after several ‘No thanks’ There was someone I read about who had approached 38 publishers. She got a contract in the end

Here's the link to kindle free publishing. Costs you nothing but you do need some decent IT skills and it helps to have your manuscript proof read by someone. kdp.amazon.com/en_US/

I always wanted to be a good writer. I worked a lot on my skills, and I had a lot of help from the writers writix.com/top-writers who have quite a lot of experience in this field. I think I will definitely be able to write my own book in the future.

You can publish it yourself. Oh yes you can! You do not need anyone's permission and there is a widespread false myth that only a company be a publisher. Not so.

You can get a small website and produce a PDF (Portable Document Format) document using budget desktop publishing software and make it publicly available.

There is no obligation to be selling copies.

Send a copy as an email attachment To The British Library for Legal Deposit and specifically request a receipt.

If it is above a minimum size (I may be wrong but I think 7 pages is the test), it will get into the British Library catalogue.

www.bl.uk/help/how-to-deposit-your-digital-publications

www.bl.uk/help/how-to-deposit-your-print-publications

Also, you might like to get a quote for printing your book for you as hardcopy. You don't need a file to get a quote it is just quoted on number of pages, size, etc.

viking-virtualprinthouse.co.uk/

I have not used them yet. But I am hoping to get myself a small quantity in hardcopy.

If you let them take a bit longer to do the work, it costs a bit less.

Something to consider, if you are using a computer with Windows 10 S then the protection of the S means that you need to get the desktop publishing software via Microsoft Store rather than direct from the maker.

Serif Affinity Publisher is good.

There is an active support forum.

Elizabeth1 I am in the same situation as you. I have been told that many, many people have written books in lockdown. My DD knows someone whose husband has written 4. So publishers are sticking in the most part with already published or recognisable or famous names. These will guarantee sales. Some hope for the rest of us ordinary mortals!!!!!
Publish yourself ? I’m not going down that road yet.

Thank you Dottygran I’m trying to get Amazon but so many other publishers pop up I’m getting real tired trying to get a published for free. I’m a bit of a technophobic.

Have you approached Amazon? A friend wrote a (very good) book and had it published as an ebook - first novels are offered on their kindleunlimited subscripton (to which I subscribe), you only get a couple of pounds I think each time the book is 'borrowed' but once you get some good feedback and some followers subsequent books can be retailed.

Sorry, not too sure how it works but certainly worth looking into