I’ve been in an approach to this moment for a very long time. I’m putting the finishing touches to my first book and I mean to write at least one more.

It’s called The Obeahman’s Dagger and it’s a story in the genre of Magical Realism – that’s where you’ve got a real world story that’s mixed up with magic and strange phenomena. I’m self-publishing, and doing all the work myself. I never wanted to self-publish anything, but with the recent developments in the publishing business, I figure that as long as I don’t spend a dime on publishing, I’m actually just submitting my work to a bunch of publishers who will now have access to it and will like what they read.

What I’m saying is that for me success is still marked by an offer from a publisher who is willing to back my writing with his or her money. Yes, I’m talking about advances and marketing support.

Presently I’m very busy making sure that the epub file is clean and correctly formatted for BookTango, which is the ebook distributor I’ve chosen for my book. I’ve had some experience with Amazon and it was a lot easier, but this time I’m looking for exposure across readers – Nook, Kobo, Scribd, Apple, Google and Flipkart. We’ll see how that works out.

I’d rather not be doing all this work, but I don’t want to spend any money on this book. It’s not that I lack faith in its quality, it’s the principle of the thing.

Stay tuned for progress. There’s going to be some rule bending and breaking here.

Here’s the cover, done with a photo of a sunset sky in the background (my photography), placed behind a public domain portrait of Madame D’lo (Mami Wata), with the basic information, author name and book title, prominently displayed. I thought the finished product did the job. No claims here to artistic talent.

Mami Wata is a significant character in the book.