I can’t believe how close I am to actually publishing my first fantasy novel, Visions of Zarua. This has been my dream since junior school when I first discovered the magic of creating my own stories. Now I am about to accomplish that dream, and it’s exciting but also terrifying.

Items ticked off my checklist

The proofread is done.

The final changes are done – I managed to lose another 1,100 words. The final word count is now down to just over 152K.

The cover is paid for, proofed and on its way.

The table of contents is inserted with all its bookmarks and hyperlinks, and seems to be working. It was actually very easy, just tedious – why do I have 48 chapters?

I’ve saved the novel as a HTML web page file and checked the formatting looks as it should.

Still to do;

Once I have the cover, I can download to Kindle and check for any formatting errors. Then I’ll need to do the same with Smashwords.

In a few days I hope to get my press release out there with the cover reveal and a link to pre-order – something else I need to learn how to do. 

Finally, I just have a few more decisions to make about setting the price, how long to have it on pre-order, my actual launch date and how to reach potential readers.

Anyone have any marketing tips and tricks?