About four and three weekends ago, I published the first and second chapter of the novel I’m in the progress of writing. However, that hasn’t happened since then. I can’t remember the update in which I explained why but that doesn’t matter. Basically, I’m in the process of preparing another novel for publishing.
‘The Bond of Sisters’ is the first book in a yet-unnamed series of which ‘A War without Reason’ is the second book. I started writing in way back at the end of 2008, the beginning of 2009. About one and a half to two years later, I was putting the finishing touches on the epilogue.
The plot of the book changed over time. It began as a story about a young Punjabi girl, the daughter of a Raja, and her life through the turbulent partition of India and Pakistan. Slowly, somehow, that morphed into a story set in modern terms. The plotline focuses on the unfortunate problem of forced marriages in Pakistan and how a young adult must deal with the forced marriage of her dearest and closest friend to a cruel man. At the same time, she must come to grips with her own arranged marriage. Here’s a better, more in depth, plot summary:
Qamar is the only daughter of a wealthy Pakistani businessman. Her mother died only a few weeks after giving birth to her, leaving Qamar under the care of servants. Qamar resides in her mother’s house in Lahore, while her father, his wives, and their sons live in Karachi. This arrangement gives Qamar a freedom most Pakistani girls don’t experience. She spends her days writing and wandering Lahore with friends. But then her world falls apart. Batul, a friend so close she’s like a sister to Qamar, becomes an unwilling part of a forced marriage. It isn’t long before Qamar must go through an arranged marriage herself. Her father strikes a deal with a man: his daughter in return for the resolution of a centuries-long blood feud. Qamar is forced to marry a man several years older than her. However, despite Qamar’s earlier concerns, she finds her new family to be better than expected: her husband is kind and loving while her sister-in-law becomes her closest friend. But a happy life can't erase the pain of losing Batul. Memories resurface and it all becomes too much, and so Qamar decides to begin searching for her friend. When she finds her, she must devise a plan to free Batul from her abusive husband.
For some time now, I’ve known I would like to publish the book once I had finished it. But standard publishing is pricey to go about: finding an agent, submitting manuscripts, hoping a publisher will pick it up, or going with self-publishing and hoping people will buy the book. Neither of those two options are cheap, and for some time I thought I would never get the chance to publish ‘The Bond of Sisters’ or any other book I authored.
Then I came across a Barnes and Noble program called PubIt! Authors could easily publish their books in eBook format. Most importantly? The service was free. Barnes and Noble would take a cut of any profits, but there are no fees to publish the book and post it for sale on their website. And now I’ve discovered the online retailer giant Amazon.com offers the same service for their Kindle.
This discovery of a free way to publish my novel means I can finally do what I have long dreamed to do. It also might be more beneficial to paper publishing as eBooks have outsold paperback and hardcovers put together in the last year. As time goes on, that will only increase.
So for the last few weeks, I’ve started to prepare ‘The Bond of Sisters’ for publishing. First, there’s the editing to get through. I have edited the book at least once, if not twice for some sections. The problem is I hate reading books more than once; I know what’s going to happen, there’s no suspension, and thus it’s boring. Now, imagine me having to read a book I wrote myself. Plus, there’s 39 chapters to get through, 39 long chapters. But someone has to do it!
Secondly, it’s not only the actual story I have to prepare, but there are a few other components as well. The cover, the copyright page, the dedication: all are up to me to create. There are also a few bonus additions I’ll have to type up, specifically a character list and glossary. As I go through and edit, I have to compile a list of names and words.
Lastly, there’s the whole formatting issue. When an author goes to transform a Microsoft Office Word document to a .epub or .mobi or whatever eBook format, the formatting has to be perfect to keep the new eBook file nice and clean looking. Unfortunately, I’m a bit of a perfectionist; I like everything to be in place and looking clean, nice, and organized. If it’s not, I get frustrated. I have little to no patience when it comes to technology and formatting everything. I read a guide from Amazon.com about what steps to take to change a .doc to a .mobi, and truly I didn’t understand it much. I’m not looking forward to that step!
The day I have completely finished preparing the novel, changing the file format, and finally publishing it is still far into the future. My guess, or my goal rather, is to publish it by the end of the year if not the end of the summer. When I do, I’ll post a link so those who are interested in my writing can find it. I have no idea when everything will be ready to publish. So far I have only edited 4 of the 39 chapters – obviously there’s still a long way to go. But insha’Allah one day all my hard work will pay off!
