New Book! Hedgewitch of the Village!

It started out as a witch’s book on herbal teas and then one day I wondered what it might look like as a novel. It was at that point that I began thinking about a new title and finally settled on Hedgewitch of the Village. Never having written a novel before, I thought about saving the file before revising it and then proceeded to continue writing without doing so. Months later, my laptop died and I hadn’t moved the most recent file to Dropbox so that I’d actually have access to it. I did have a not-so-recent copy of the file, but unfortunately, I was unable to recreate everything from memory. But I got most of it so I continued writing.

I publish the books I write on Amazon Kindle. From there, I publish the paperback version on Amazon’s Create Space site. Amazon makes it easy to publish manuscripts in both ebook and paperback formats. They can be uploaded in several formats, but I prefer to upload a Word file. The cover is typically in a .tif format and the preference is for graphics that are 300 dpi. Anything else appears a little blurry so I take the time to resize any pictures I include. I’ve been using Paint.net for that purpose even though I have a more expensive graphics software. It’s simpler and quicker than the other software I have and I actually like it better.

I prefer to create my own covers and I used one that I created using Publisher. I chose two pictures, one of a moon surrounded by trees, and the other of my workspace. I inserted the workspace picture into a round shape and then played around with special effects in the more expensive graphics software and then applied some to the new picture. I then covered the open space where the moon appeared in the other picture with the new round picture of my workspace. I added the title and my name and then grouped all of them together, saving it as one picture in a .tif format.

Amazon gives authors the option to use their own cover photo or to use one from their gallery. I used one of their photos for my first book, Confessions of a Back Porch Herbalist but thought better of it for the other books. It’s all a learning experience and this go-around, Amazon has updated and streamlined their publishing site and the whole process took less time than it has in the past.

From there, it’s a matter of refreshing the page until I see the green LIVE icon appear on Amazon’s site. Full disclosure: I refresh constantly. This is my fifth book and it’s as exciting now as it was the first time. Only now I don’t need a sedative to get through the process.

They say to write about what you know, so of course, it’s about a hedgewitch because I’m a hedgewitch. The story includes herb classes that cover herbal teas, tinctures, oils, and salves. It also includes a class on cannabis preparations as well as the cooperative efforts between witches, demons, and some magickal neighbors to repair the village Portal to other dimensions and planets. Okay, the Portal stuff is creative, but the rest is what it is.

I have another book in the hopper because I can’t seem to write only one at a time. But I want to look at it some more before publishing it. Besides, I have to recover from this one before publishing another. Here’s the thing about writers. We write because we have to. Not because it’s good or bad, but because we can’t seem to stop. So, whenever we publish anything, there’s a part of us that is published along with it. And I think I stop breathing during the last moments until I approve the final copy and hit, publish.

So I hope folks like this new offering. I think it’s quirky, which I like. And it has herbs which I also like.

Maybe you will too!

Blessings!