Publishing an eBook — Mieradome by Kate Hegarty

Kate Hegarty is the author of an upcoming YA fantasy novel “Mieradome” that’s being published as an e-book on June 1. I asked her to write a post for the BookChick.com on the path to e-book publication since it’s a route that’s becoming increasingly common. In her words…

By Kate Hegarty

It has been one rollercoaster ride to get here, to finally see Mieradome published, but an awesome one at that. It first started with a dream of a young teenage girl looking out of a window towards an oak tree. A sparkling firefly bolts past the back of her ear and into the depths of the tree. Given that my Hegarty family’s coat of arms has the same oak tree that was featured in my dream, it made me think of my own family heritage, and the story of why we, as Hegartys, have those images on our coat of arms, wondering what mysteries lay within those colors and shapes of an oak tree and three birds.

The reason for publishing on my own, as an independent e-book, was that pretty much every agent or publisher that took unsolicited submissions liked my novel’s vibe, but said it, “didn’t quite fit with their current list.’ After looking over my YA fantasy novel Mieradome, I found that it may never ‘fit’ onto a shelf with the stuff that is currently being published. I see my novel like “Dune” by Frank Herbert or the “Stars Wars” story by George Lucas, Mieradome is something that takes the traditional ways of seeing something and twists it around to get you to think and get your own imagination spinning. It merges the human emotional story with the technology around us, and the possibilities of thinking ‘outside the box.’

My hope with this novel is that it gets readers stoked to create your own stories, build the realms of your own fantasy worlds, write your own novel or comic, and hopefully get that published. Even though the world may not always be interested in your work, keep trying because just like my grandmother once told me, “there is always a buyer for any art you create, you just have to work hard to find them.”