A short, 5-part LGBT+ YA story intended for everyone.
The Way She Surfs is a tale of realisation and coming out. It is formatted in a dyslexia friendly style, white an off-white background (grey) and a British Dyslexia Association recommended font in 12pt.
I originally wrote this short story for my undergraduate dissertation and I was so proud of it, and knew I wanted to do something with it. But, for an entire year, I was too scared to. I had worked so hard on this, and whilst my feedback from my undergraduate supervisor was incredible and so inspiring, I was still worried because- that was just two lecturer’s who enjoyed it. Would anyone else?
I also spent about a week looking at the cover (which I designed and created), and deciding whether or not it was too egocentric to use a photograph of myself. I decided it wasn’t. The photo is taken at Tan-y-Bwlch beach, Aberystwyth, where I am longingly looking out to sea. This would have been taken in either 2017 or 2018.
So why did I choose to self-publish?
I’ve always known I’ve wanted to be an author. But I have also always known that I never wanted it to be my career. And since I started studying my MA in Publishing, this knowledge has only solidified. I want my career to be behind the scenes (if any publishing professionals reading this are hiring, I’m about to finish my MA…).
I don’t want to publish stories to become a mainstream, millionaire author (which is virtually impossible, FYI); I want to publish stories that some people will enjoy, some might hate (and that’s okay). If my story only resonates with one person in the world then- that’s fine, I’ve done what I set out to do!
I chose Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing mostly because it allows me to retain full copyright; this means that I can sell elsewhere, or re-publish as an anthology in later years with more LGBTQ+ short stories (which is my plan). It also gives me the option to sell as a paperback, however I am not planning on this due to the short length of the publication (approx. 38 pages).
Where else am I planning to sell?
Directly on my website!
This is a great opportunity to improve my typesetting skills and Adobe InDesign skills, and allows me to sell my work cheaper than the list price on Amazon, and means if you detest giving money to soon-to-be trillionaire Bezos, there is another option!
Hopefully I can figure out an order-system and safe payment way through my website by the end of the month. This also means that if you don’t have a Kindle, or have the free Kindle reading app downloaded, you could read as a PDF or different ebook file.
So, if you would like to give my short story a read, you can do so by searching ‘The Way She Surfs’ on Amazon, or by clicking this link. And if you give it a read, please leave a review! You can also find it on Goodreads, if anyone still has positive thoughts of that website.
Paige Briscoe 