Test of determination – a journey to fulfill a dream

It wasn’t an all-time dream from childhood, more like something that started forming along the way. I read a lot, and watched so many movies, along with a fairly strong imagination, which is all a good mix of stimulations, I thought I could/should make something interesting. Something that I would like to read myself. Also it started bothering me a lot when movies and series wrote utterly stupid scenes, turns, plots, reactions etc. I thought I could do better than that. It was a satisfying pleasure to control a story that is believable. The idea of having my own book which I could hold in my hand excited me. I never thought I would actually do it.
I remember one day in primary school a guest was asking each student in my class “the classic” what do we want to become when we grow up and the main thing I said was that I don’t know because anything can happen, but I had a few ideas which I said: special forces, cartoon creator, or writer. In this order. That was the first and last time I included writer in this answer. It usually was the first two, with its comical contrast.
So it shows that I had interest in writing a book, that eventually dropped a few fruits, and this is the first one of it.

The idea of the book was forming during the early years of struggle being an emigrant starting from “zero” (relatively). I came out with a sport bag and a backpack, and enough money for one month of rent and food. As the years passed by working as an agency worker, I could see that this path is a slow and wretched one, with too slow a progress, and naturally I was daydreaming of other lives as I could not see a more promising path at the time. I felt I was just a dust in a large cog, doing menial jobs, grinding day after day, while my soul and life was leaving my body. It wasn’t all that bad though, and was lucky with finding romantic relationship, friends, fun, etc. But nevertheless the idea formed like a stirring soup; how would it be like to live different lives within a lifetime? How largely different lives can be, and how do they cope? How do they feel when they wake up and look out their window? What do they see when they look out their window? Some people don’t even have windows, let alone their own room, or bed, or freedom of opportunity. The spectrum is huge.
What if the consciousness could hop into somebody else uncontrollably during your sleep perhaps, and you wake up in a completely different life? Experiencing random environment, connections, possessions?
Philosophy, psychology, science always interested me, and I wanted a combination of that, if I was to put together a story.

One of my all-time favourite movie The Jumper (2008) represents the freedom I love. I fantasised about reworking it without the whole bank‑robbing conflict or a secret group of enemies chasing you. That ability with a healthy body and mind without all the conflict is pure perfection. That world was a happy-place:

But that story existed already, and teleportation is an ability that takes on countless forms across fictional worlds. I knew I needed/wanted something more unique/niche that hasn’t been done yet. *Thinking of it now, the ability in my book is also a form of teleportation, but in a more “realistic”/grounded, gone-wrong, uncontrollable way, which gives its main conflict without having foes. One thing I learned about writing stories (while writing mine) is that a conflict/problem is a must have.

So once I had the above soup ready, I started researching.

Before all this “Deep Research” and other AI tools that can do research for you, I just googled all sorts of keywords along mind-travel, waking up in different bodies etc and could not find the exact idea I was about to write. Thinking of it now, it was a sloppy research, because I could have gone to libraries and ask the librarians, too. Or bookshops.
I was worried that I was just not searching for the right keywords and somehow I miss it and a similar story/ability surely existed already in some books. I did not want to put a lot of long-term effort into a concept that already existed. I was worried I did not find the one that exists and it could pop up randomly while I’m already deep into creating my own, which exactly what happened later…

I just checked, and the first save I did for my manuscript was in May of 2017, but that manuscript was already 26 pages, and some days I only managed to write one paragraph, so I don’t know when exactly I started.

My main approach was baby-steps; “Any length of step forward is a step forward.” “You are getting closer.” “Don’t miss a day, do at least a little every single day.”
Since it’s just a side-project, a dream-on-the-side, little effort is enough, because eventually it could bear a physical copy.
Another strategy I stuck to is that I told about this project to absolutely nobody until I had the completed physical copy in my hand (at least until necessary for publishing). That gave me freedom from any sort of pressure, and left me with a solitary test. Some say you should tell somebody so they keep you in track or they could nudge you (I don’t need nudges when I’m determined). Some say tell nobody and keep the energy to yourself. I felt most comfortable telling nobody. Kind of like what I’m doing now with the website while building it.

My approach to the story-writing, however, was a type of writing that I only discovered later that is an actual strategy for many writers. (I had zero studies on writing before that, other than the frequent creative writing practices in primary school which I think I was pretty good at with my on-the-fly imaginativeness.)

Stephen King calls it “Discovery writing”. Other names are Pantsing, and Exploratory drafting.
Basically you begin with a concept, vibe, or seed idea and discover the story as you go. Characters surprise you, plot twists emerge naturally, and the world forms during the act of writing. The perfect creative brainwork, especially when you get a concept of having to wake up anywhere on earth in anybody as yourself. That’s total freedom to create.
I had a few ideas which I wanted to include, and I knew I was going to get there to weave them all in, but did not know how or where exactly in the story. I just knew that pacing and tension and rhythm etc was all important, to turn things meaningful, to have a big punch.
At least 90% of it was exploration, which I loved. It was like daydreaming with that ability. That exploration, however, led me to discover that this ability is more of a curse, and not the type of freedom that I wished.

I just checked, and on the 3rd of December 2017 I saved the manuscript with 146 pages done. On the evening of 17th or 18th, during my day job I got the shock. (At that time I was already working in a part time contract in a hotel chain, and left the agency world. I also tried to make extra with a second job of delivering pizzas, but that together took too much extra tax, and for the time loss it wasn’t worth it. My contracted hours in the hotel eventually increased, anyway.)

It was quiet in the hotel bar and I was browsing on my phone and saw a headline of an article that a movie is being made/soon-to-be-released. That movie had the same idea as my book.
Here it was, my early worries materialising…

I even forgot the name of it, let me find it quick.
Every Day 2012 novel by David Levithan, adapting to a movie in 2018.
Dang it…

I just went and searched for that article as well, and found it.

Here is the trailer if you’ve never heard of it:

Needless to say I was kind of crushed, but I hoped it would still differ enough, that my one could still be unique. If not, that would be a hell of an interesting coincidence that I was also curious to find out. On the other hand, I felt like I was onto something. If it managed to be a movie, even if it’s not mine, this was proof that this story was a winning idea! Even now, reading some of the comments under this trailer with thousands of likes saying it is an interesting idea.
But from that moment, I knew I missed the train. Even if mine would be a success, they don’t make movies of the same story twice, at least not in this form and way. Plus, anyone who heard or knew this earlier story, would probably assume mine is just a copy from it, and there is no way of proving otherwise.

I did not dig into his story, because I did not want to be influenced by any part of it. I was rather intrigued of the similarities and differences. I decided I will complete mine, and only after would watch the movie. All I knew about his movie/version from that news article, and the look of the trailer photo, that it is more of a romantic story, a teenage looking one. This gave me hope, since mine is darker and adult.
Turned out that mine is way more ambitious, since his person’s ability only works locally, and I also go into some sleep science, trying to ground the fiction, giving it more mystery.

I just checked my saves, and apparently it was completed in January 2020, around 458 pages. Too long, and not even a complete story yet. I had some romantic turmoil between those years which also slowed completion.
At that point I did not know and did not care about “fluff”. I just wrote/discovered/explored. Might be a mistake, but felt good, and I considered each day in the book to be like an episode of a series. Each episode would add up to the main character’s emotional and mental state, enabling the reader to understand what lead him to certain thoughts and decisions. I might not have done edits until I finished the manuscript, can’t remember by now.

Disclaimer: this section can be controversial, and does contain generalisation, misbelief and broad claims. I put the corrections in parentheses after them in italic.
This passage represents my thinking at the time; what I discovered and experienced, what I took away from it, and my expectations from it. It does not represent my current thinking, which is more like this: The story you tell yourself and what you believe in affects your outcome. Don’t compare yourself to others, don’t judge others, because everybody has their own path, tasks and challenges. We are all different, and got many things to be grateful for. Just do the thing in front of you, and do it best.

I started researching book publishing, proofreading, editing, all that stuff.
Another “dang it” happened when I discovered from so many points of view that nowadays you got to have at least one of these three things to have an edge on the success of your published book: Fame, Connections, Money. (these are advantages, not requirements. Unknown/debut authors do get traditionally published.) There is a 4th one: luck. The more you possess any of those, the bigger the success. (They can improve access, visibility and resources, but they don’t reliably determine success.) But your book also got to be at least good and professional.

A fictional example I liked to compare to: You are a royalty with all the fame, connections, and money. You decide you’d like to publish some children’s book. Your chief of assistants will shortly gather the best professionals to help you put together a splendid book. The book is quickly completed in the best possible shape and form with very little (real) effort from the creator/author/director. It’s all fun and games. The biggest publishers are eye-watered (*dollar-eyed) for the opportunity to publish a royalty’s work. The marketing is nation-sweeping (more like international nowadays), and the population is buying up the books. Success guaranteed. No luck required. (lots of wrong here, starting with comparing)

You can knock on 1000 doors and get lucky with one agent if you work that hard and believe in your book that hard. As you will see by the end, I did not believe in it that hard because by the end I knew it is not professionally edited and written and translated. But more about it later. I do believe it is a good enough story , which shows in the fact that they made a movie out of it, and the feedback that it received. Even if it’s not a huge movie, or a well known one, it’s still a success. My version is just a different family member of the same idea. Another “spirit”, as they call it in his movie?

(I later realised and learned, that a writer is best to start with creating short stories, and sharpen their pens through those practices. And to share those stories online, so feedback could help shape the writer, and gather followers. It is an exciting path to walk, but I only learned this after my publications, and like I said, I didn’t care: I just wanted to get this dream done: have my book with a story I’m proud of, and get a physical copy available.)

Realistic numbers were talking average few thousand pounds of profit in total for “the little people” without luck, or even with luck. Most don’t even get that much and they’re lucky if it brings back the cost of the book.
Bestsellers don’t mean they sell millions of copies. Apparently if you just sell enough copies consistently each day – somewhere around 5-50 – for 7 days(?) – amazon will put your book in the bestseller category for that week, and you get the badge(?) forever? At least this is what I remember discovering when researched it. I’m sure it changed a lot since. It is also possible that it was complete nonsense.

All in all, it was another huge blow, but still did not deter me. It was a reality check, and I expected nothing, but held a little hope just in case. I was still doing it for all the previous reasons, and I was determined. The baby step strategy was still in works: just do a step forward each day, no matter what. Get to the physical copy stage! You’re way up the mountain already without anybody even knowing, finish it!

Anybody interested in the publishing world , I found a well put together Authors-earnings-report from post-covid era.

I found lots of scams regarding publishing. They weasel in all the unsuspected, big-dreamer writers. They will flatter your book to the moon, stroke your ego back and forth, tell you what a big success it will be and they will want your signed copy and not to forget them when you make it big. This just made me laugh all over again. All the poor people, though, that fall into it…
You ought to punch through any sort of veil of delusion and reveal the reality check, while remain positive, hopeful, hardworking, but vigilant.

I found one that was kind of legit and could have handled my book, but they asked around £2800-3500 to handle editing, cover design, publishing, and marketing.
I looked into all of this separately, and found that I could do it for way less. About 90% less. There was no way I am going to pay this exuberant amount for something that most authors’ review who chose them said in 3rd party review sites that it doesn’t seem to worth it. This company seemed to be just on the border between legitimate and scam, because they did some work, but most of it was probably pocketed, according to the unhappy customers. Also, as I later learned through my own marketing experience, this amount wouldn’t even cover proper marketing, so there is some truth to the publisher’s side, too.
The other biggie for me was that their cover designs sucked hard!
As an art enjoyer with a fairly good sense of design, the cover was the icing that I really wanted to get right. I always imagined it must be me who creates it but we get to the cover later because that deserves its own chapter.
So with that, I kept researching…

The proper way is through an agent, apparently, and you’ve got to have one of those three possessions under your belt I mentioned earlier for a legit agent to even look twice on opening your email. (partially wrong) I did not even waste time and energy on this route. I knew I wouldn’t even be considered an underdog, and they don’t even care about those. (partially wrong) Which is fair, because publishers need to make money and for that they need to select the best of the best, just like in any competition. And the publishing competition is extremely fierce, especially with the added presence of the self-publishers who mainly just muddy the water… (especially nowadays I assume, with the presence of AI)

Ah, yes.. The amateurs’ route. The underdogs and the delusional and the big dreamers and the ones that just want to get a copy for whatever reason or expand their operations etc: The self-publishing… The option that is finally a good enough path for me, while possessing varying percentages of all the former reasons.
Only dread is, that you’ve got to do absolutely everything, so the work doesn’t stop here by paying off a publisher and wait for your book and the riches… There is another mountain spawning right in front of you on top of your so-close summit, while the chance of the books’ success is possibly close to zero.
Awell; baby steps, here we go. Head down and keep goin’…

Like I mentioned, I wasn’t gonna spend a lot of money on this “long-shot” project. It was more of a test if I can make it. So after some research, I settled with Fiverr – freelancing, to do my proofreading and translation. Oh, right, I might not have mentioned yet that I had written it in Hungarian. There are services on fiverr from really cheap to costing an arm and leg. I found that you can find real value in that market, where an upcoming pro is trying to get more reviews and jobs to build their business. That was what I was going for, but it was a lot of research to find the one among the hundreds of people.

The translation bothered me. I did not want to do the translation. It seemed like another mountain on top of my 2 mountains already. I didn’t feel I had the stamina for it. It already took me years to get here with my low-effort baby-steps, and that above movie about this story was out and forgotten already. I wanted someone else to do it for me for cheap.
Found a university student on fiverr, who I first tested with a short-story of mine for translation. With that test I realised that my English might be a bit better than hers, but she agreed to translate my book for an incredibly cheap price. We are talking less than £100, which is criminal for 400+ pages. There was no better choice for this “value”. Problem is, the first dozens of pages she shared back was flooded with mistranslations and errors. To a point where it would change the meaning of the current scene/situation. I sent all my highlights back for her to fix, but with that, it was still enormous work for me to go through everything, highlight, send back, wait for fix, approve, continue… The whole thing started to feel like a massive drag, and I knew she wouldn’t be happy either.
Worried she might realise down the line that it is gigantic work for that price, and it showed. She voiced it around page 70ish I think. If I remember correctly, we agreed to top it up with “tip” at the end of her service. Effectively doubling or so, which was still incredibly cheap for me, to take all those hours off me.
It took I think either around 6 month or a bit longer for her to finish. Instead of sending back errors or mistranslations, I just went through it myself after her, to make sure it wouldn’t change the meaning, which helped her spirit, too. But at this point, I had to change so much I could have just translated it myself to be honest.. Still, it was helpful to keep MY spirit up, not carrying the load alone.
She also doubled down as a reviewer, and shared how interesting the book is, which topped up my spirit a bit.

Though she pointed out how filled it is with “fluff”, or “fillers”.
Unfortunately, this was the first time I heard of this. After learning about it, I thought it was too late. I tried cutting back wherever I could, but found that somehow they did serve the story, or so I believed so as some bias… I believed it would give context to the feelings of the protagonist, or the consequences etc like I mentioned in the beginning of this post…
Again, this project took too long already, so I decided I just leave it as is. It was an “exploratory” story at the end of the day.

Sometime between 2018 and 2020 I read “The Idiot by Dostoevsky”, and it was in my opinion awful in this regard. Full of things that doesn’t even matter, chapters without connections to other chapters, going on and on with no start and end between subjects or scenes… I’m sure some people would crucify me for this opinion, but it was one of the most insufferable reading experience of my life to date, especially because it is around 700 pages, but I did complete it. I’m also pretty sure books back then had the advantage of Market Concentration effect. In the sense that less available products -> more people would choose the same – > drives reviews, opinions, and therefore fame. If a person is already accomplished at the time, it has an even stronger pull. Anyway, my point with that is simply very humble: compared to that book, Shifter is neatly packed, even if it seemingly has fillers.
I think it also correlates to today’s attention capacity (deficit) of the population. We seem to lack time, want stimulation as soon as possible and as much as possible, so action has to happen rapidly one after another. “You got to grab the attention and keep it.”
Nevertheless, I learned my lesson, and I kept this important point in mind for future works.

The proofreading was different, I just needed some more feedback, now that it was the first time I ever shared it with anyone else, other than the translator. Of course cheap services came back doubtfully quickly with positive feedback (remember this is before AI era, so there was nothing that could quickly read through documents and analyse it and give feedback). Either way they didn’t make much difference, other than pointing out a few things. I’m not even sure I changed anything.

I don’t think I hired an editor, because besides costing a lot (cheaper editor was out of the question in this regard), they would have probably changed so much it wouldn’t be my work – or the original – anymore. To go through the story again felt like another unneccessary drag. Especially after translating it all with the translator, tripling down as editorial help. Went through the book multiple times myself, even after the translation. Did further edits, and it was good enough for me at this point.

The blurb! At this point I liked how I can hire workforce to do work for me, and I threw a couple pounds for someone to write the blurb. Ironic. It was stupid, as it probably took more time to find the right person, explain the story so they could come up with a satisfactory blurb, and go through the whole service-process.. At the end, I modified it anyway…

Formatter: again, this was some InDesign job. A program and skill I did not possess and wasn’t going to acquire. It is crucial though so all the pages are nicely aligned for print and easier readability. I found someone on fiverr for that, too. She wasn’t a pro (unlike the Viking’s formatter), but did the job well enough.

I genuinely can’t remember at what point I realised it was way too long (just like this blogpost, lol). Either after the translation, or after the formatting. With the calculations I did on amazon printing cost, I would be in the negative for each print, no profit at all. I had to cut it to two parts. I found the right place to do that within the story, and that solved the problem, but it did create another: had to publish the second part soon after the first, and it would become at least a 3 part series, because it is not even the complete story. I didn’t want this, even though my initial research revealed that series become more popular and sell better than standalone books (another questionable finding). I really just wanted one complete book, but it was too late. First work mistake. Messy messy messy.
I had to find a “subtitle”, and again, I think the formatter suggested genesis, who, again, really liked the story, but I couldn’t know if she was just nice because she learned they’d get more tips if they compliment the stories they format, or was genuine. I tipped her nevertheless. I remember struggling to find the right subtitle. I knew straight away the second one would be “a way out”. I don’t know why I accepted genesis. To this day it sounds generic to me. Maybe my stamina was wearing out and just wanted this over with.

All these jobs cost me between £5 – £35 each, except the translation which I explained above.

Oh, you needed a registered publisher as well.. So I came up with one, and created a simple logo for it.

You have to get all the first page info in there as well, decide what you want in there. Dedication, Table of Content decisions, etc. There are a lot of extra things you’d never thought of before. All this was not fun, really. Turns out the writing part is the easiest and the most fun (other than designing the cover, of course).

Also I was thinking during the translation part that since I have it in Hungarian, I might publish it in Hungarian, too, at some point. So it was another extra work during translation, to switch between the two documents and fix the other version, too, wherever I cut some fillers, or modified something.

All in all, this section of the summit was the hardest. All these people involved helped keeping or boosting my spirit, which was appreciated and needed.

Ah, the exciting part to me! Finally at the stage of working out the perfect cover design! The part which I could not wait for! My real element! Visual design to match the feeling of the content!

Keep in mind, this was way before image-generating AI era… You had to find pictures online for inspiration, and create your own. (Unbelievable to think that future generations won’t ever know that world anymore.)

My initial idea was some sort of Rorschach blob. Since it’s a psychological thriller, and the “ability” is abstract that can take many faces and forms, I found this to be the perfect answer/solution. Wanted it to be dark and mysterious and eerie. To show some actual parts of a face, bodyparts or both, but not fully recognisable, as he is never himself physically.
Some inspiration from series/movies/games further helped shaping this idea:

I tried drawing my own version, experimenting with different layouts, arms hanging out the side of the blobs, screams and pain coming through from all parts. I I didn’t manage to make it good enough, and it looked horror, so had to dial it back:

They didn’t stick. Not sure what happened but I searched for other ideas before trying to develop this further. Found some really fitting and interesting inspiration online:

I realised there could be so many solutions to this book’s cover. I loved many of these. A blob just didn’t feel substantial enough after seeing these other – more imagery – options. Plus, there were already products out there with that Rorschach idea, like the mindhunter netflix series. I still loved its clean design, and the resemblance shows in my final cover I hope.

At this point, I revealed the project to a couple of people to ask for cover feedback, mainly a writer friend from school, and a graphic designer friend. I also searched for some cover designer on Fiverr and gave them a try. I realised I did not know the exact formulae, dimensions etc to create it by myself for a book publishing, plus these designers had a lot more font options and stock-photo subscriptions etc. The first lady made a butterfly for me as the main cover. That was the furthest to my idea I could have imagined. I think she associated the story with the butterfly effect, which is also wrong. I don’t even upload that here. Another guy, however, was really effective, and gave me a bunch to choose from. The second row is me swapping the image with the Rorschach blobs just to see how I feel about it. I was also afraid that those blobs or pics that other designers would include would cause me copyright issues down the line, so I had to be careful.

My graphic designer friend did a version as well. He came back with this, but I didn’t like the fully recognisable face, and the overall colour theme. I do like that logo-type brain-shaped Rorschach blob above the name, though. It somehow gives the cover more value.

I went back to that previous guy’s version, and started working with that:
At first, he made a version with just the figure in the middle, so I added extra hands on the sides, but that was too bleak, so I added smoke around and cracks, but then it was too much.
Also the emotion comes from it is a bit too revealing, desperate and negative perhaps, but I went with it.
I really did like this simple design with nothing fancy for the fonts, but I thought it would be too outdated for today’s standards:

At this point I took over, and cleaned the whole design to my liking. Pictures, placements, fonts, colours etc. It was easier than going back and forth a hundred times as the graphic designers like to joke about in their dread. This way, I could also feel like I had my hand’s work in it.
I was finally happy with the outcome. This has become the final version:

I gave it to the guy to do the formal edits for dimensions etc so I can upload it. He gave me this cool mockup which I loved. I could finally envision the complete book in my hand!

ISBN and barcode… there was an option to get it from amazon, or have your own. Another research on what are the pros and cons. If you use amazon’s, you can only publish it through their platform, whereas if you have your own, you can publish it through other means, too? I know I wanted to publish it through at least another major self-publishing route, so I purchased my own. I might as well give it the best chances for discovery after all this work. There was a discount on buying 10 ISBN which doesn’t expiry apparently, or only in a very long time (can’t remember now), so I opted for that, because I knew I’ll have to publish at least the second part, and it gives me the option to publish more books in the future. I called it an investment… it was about £160 for the 10.

There are options for all sorts of things when you upload your formatted book and cover design. Everything has to be precise. Right size of book, bleeding, etc. Had to do it twice for both publishers because they used slightly different systems! This research intertwined with the previous chapters, when I hired formatter and designer. I honestly don’t remember every detail by now but I just kept putting in the work on the side to get through the finish line. I was ever so close!

I set the price not as what was suggested through the platforms, which is always higher in my opinion, but the lowest I can tolerate. So I only make about a pound profit for each purchase.

There was an option to get a copy first before the final version would be available for purchase. That’s really useful and recommended! Of course I wanted to see how it would come out. Here is the very first test print:

If I remember correctly, there were a few minor aligning, colour, and picture quality (pixelated) issues which I needed to fix. Mainly the white was more like a light grey/turquoise mix, and not white.
The bigger issue I had with it that it was a larger size than what I really wanted. But that was too late to change on many fronts, so I had to accept it. Otherwise it would be another round with the formatter, cover design dimensions etc. The page number would jump up again, making it thicker… I would absolutely not want to go through more work with it. IT’S GOOD ENOUGH! The first book is a learning experience…

I didn’t get a copy from the other publisher. Fix one and upload to both.

All uploaded, all live, all perfect. Or is it?
I did not order another test copy after the correction of the first test copy. They were only minor things, anyway. I knew it would be okay.

I ordered a small box as a starter. The book is a print on demand, so unlike older times, you don’t need to stock up and spread, unless you do the shipping yourself.
Still nobody knew about my book, other than that handful of people.
When the box came, I was excited, and content.
I finally arrived. I summited!
I held the complete physical book in my hand.
I made it.
I fulfilled my goal and one of my dreams.
It was an accomplishment to the self.

It was an exciting feeling, with possibilities and future routes I couldn’t even imagine.
Except, the world and the work does not stop here. Nobody knows about it, and research said books have the highest chance of selling when they come out, and during the first few weeks. Just like videogames and movies.. A first big splash of hype, then it dies down. IF anybody knew about it and there was hype-momentum built until release! (This is probably a section of some marketing studies I didn’t look into but wouldn’t have done it anyway, because I just did my own thing, no matter.)
There are exceptions of course. Some stuff can slowly build up audience over the years or decades, you never know, but it’s rare. Either way, now I had the chance for it.
I didn’t care much about all that. I just wanted this out, and wanted to fulfil my goal and dream, and to prove it to myself. The strategy worked, and my determination and willpower was strong enough to summit all alone, with the necessary help towards the end.
Do I just abandon my first baby at this point? I couldn’t. Self publishing mean you got to do all the work, including marketing…
I gotta help my baby somehow… You can’t sit down and create another work, or continue this story. You got to try and put yourself and your book out there! Except, this thought made me grimace. It was like a mountain in the horizon spawning again..

It’s cringe and embarrassment. I got some feedback, and I can’t even say if they were honest, because none of the people who got it would tell me if it’s crap, or a mess. Of course, family said it is a good and interesting story, but family is biased. As time went on, and I wanted to upload it to a website for free, chapter by chapter, I went over it in Microsoft Word (the whole book was written in some free textwriting app on my old laptop). Microsoft Word had the grammar errors underlined, and it was just filled with it. Meaning this is how the book got out. From embarrassing English, to comma issues, the situation is bad. How did the translator not notice this? Wasn’t she using Word? I went with the fixing for a while, not even caring about the Hungarian version anymore, but eventually the drive died out. I dropped it. I wasn’t going to republish it. At least not for a while..

To this day I’m yet to receive a brutally honest feedback from a stranger, but no wonder if people can’t get through it. Full of fillers and grammar errors? I haven’t read it since. I might be just too harsh?
At this point I will probably have to ask some powerful AI to give me a balanced feedback, as they are already at a point where humans prefer stories written by AI over humans (when they don’t know it was written by computer codes).
What would be beneficial, perhaps, is to ask one to fix all grammar, and convert it to a digestible version. Shorter, error-free, while keeping every important details and writing style etc. If it’s a powerful enough version, I have no doubt it would do a splendid job. As I write this, they surpassed in capability to create a full-blown short movie, see below, and that was a month ago. Right now the news just came out that OpenAi’s model came out with 722 mathematical discoveries.

Problem with that; currently the majority of people still hate anything that was made by AI, and I get why. Maybe I should write about it in a separate post.. However, if you check some of the comments under the video above, many people enjoyed the hell out of this short film. So I think, as the sloppiness of the models will decrease, people will accept enjoyment from their work more. Or just become desensitized. We’ll see.

I’m sure self-publishing is already flooded by AI slop, and it is only going to pile.
Well, if I ever do this, I will surely put the disclaimer before it.

At the moment, Shifter is 100% human made slop (?)

I might just be too harsh, but objectivity and self-criticism is important.

I have/had a very clear vision of the ending, and have notes saved about it, and certain details (including the cover design). It is a pretty cool ending in my opinion, but opinions are subjective.
I just don’t yet know when I will create it. There is one thing I know; that part will be more enjoyable and more professional by a significant degree. And shorter!
I know my mum wants to know the ending, that’s for sure. So at least I should honour that, haha.

I’m proud of the idea and the story, even if the channel it comes through is hard to digest.
The main issue is the “professionalism” of this book in my opinion. It has to be professionally written (proper use of the language, easily read, good rhythm, captivating pacing etc), edited, formatted. You are either excellent at these, or you pay good money for a team of professionals.

Was it wasted time? No (of course, cognitive dissonance reduction and sunk-cost-fallacy will find all sorts of explanations), because I did not have any other “big project” on my horizon at the time, so time would have been gone either way. This gave me some sort of background purpose and some hope while grinding and wasting my time away at jobs I didn’t enjoy (this was my old thinking). It also taught me a lot about many things, and I proved to myself that I can walk through my self-created, long-term, herculean challenge using baby steps. First and foremost: I fulfilled one of my dreams!

On the other hand, perhaps this medium isn’t what I’m good at, therefore I could have used that time and effort to produce things I’m better at. But this is “should’ve could’ve” territory, and I have no regrets.

Where does it stand currently?
I am not marketing it anywhere, other than that it is on my website now, tucked away. I don’t talk about it anymore. I honour it through this massive blog post, explaining the journey and story behind it, and I let it sit in my Library, until I might give it a conversion, or complete the story.