History

(This is the short version of the history of the book. For another take on the experience, with more about the Kickstarter thing, try the other piece in the History menu – yes, this one.)

Everything Turns Out Just Fine began as a jokey riposte to my first book of short stories.

I’d written They All Die At The End and, as well as numerous comments about how wonderful, exciting, life-affirming, gritty, hilarious, etc it was – I also heard comments like…

Does it have to be quite so dark?

The short answer was…

Yes. But the sequel doesn’t.

About six and a half stories later, I had a crisis of confidence. Sure, I liked the book. I was happy with the work. But where were the readers going to come from? I could have another giveaway frenzy of setting the ebook price to zero – but what did that achieve? It got the book out there but would anyone read it or would they just feel pleased about the size of their Kindle library?

So I had the slightly strange idea of pre-selling it. I put together a Kickstarter project. You can find it here. And I notified/badgered everyone I could think of and, rather wonderfully, I hit my funding target. Which meant that I would get paid, that a bunch of people had bought my unfinished book, that I had a waiting audience of eager readers.

And I had some inspiration because some of them had paid extra to name characters or give situations. Some of them were more of a blessing than others.

Writing a wedding story as a gift to a couple due to marry in a few months (as a gift from two of their friends) was a joy. The one with the mountains in it was more of a challenge but I didn’t reject it, gave it my best shot and, do you know, I think it turned out just fine. Let me know what you think.

It was officially launched at the Edinburgh eBook Festival. There was a review from the festival director but the website itself has been packed up and put away – just like a flesh-and-blood festival, it happens and then fades into the past. But I saved the review here.

Of course my lovely Kickstarter backers got their ebook copies in advance. Yes, I managed to finish proof-reading and correcting. And reformatting for Kindle. And printing a proof copy of the paperback before ordering a print run. (And probably other stuff which I’ve forgotten.)

And finally, I edited together the out-takes from my Kickstarter video…