The adventurous world of self publishing - a white chocolate ganache tart to sweeten your sours

January is off to a really good start. By mid December, when I published the digital version of my latest novel, I noticed that Kindle had now the possibility for publishing paperback versions as a print on demand service. I immediately jumped on that bandwagon, truth be said I have dreamt of having my own novels paper printed ever since I started writing. How could I not succumb to this particular siren's song? So as soon as I had finished writing first draft of the second book on my trilogy, I took a little break from writing and started looking into this thing of paperback publishing. Which is to say I started trying to format and upload my first novel so it could be available as a paperback as well.

It did not go well. For starters, I'm useless around technology of any kind - my photo editing skills are laughable and you all know it! - and I am the most impatient person in the world. I'm also the kind of person who gets her hopes up really high and then has to tumble down from immense heights, and the fall tends to hurt. A lot. I had it in my head that luck was on my side and it would be a breeze and I would have my novel ready for print in a couple of days. I should have thought back to when I first tried to upload the manuscript for the eBook edition and it was chaos. My mind decided it would not dwell on that and that it would be all smooth sailing. As you can guess by now, it was anything but.

My nerves were on edge and raw and all this right before Christmas, but a friend came to the rescue offering his skills - he worked for a very long time in the editorial business - and although I am such a control freak and hate leaning on other people for my shit to be done, I promptly said yes as I felt I was way over my head and skills with the paperback printing and all. Sadly, not even his skills were enough to tackle Kindle's hardships when it comes to self publishing. Just a couple of days before Christmas I told my friend it wasn't working but that I would try to send him a print screen of the errors after the holidays. I still felt that I was not up to the task, and I loathed having to bother him any more, so my mindset was one of giving the whole thing up.

But I couldn't let go of the idea of having my books printed, on real paper, with real covers, for me to touch and smell and browse at will. Christmas came and went, and also New Year's and our mini break, still my head was obsessing about the whole business, and I kept going round and round in circles trying to figure out what to do. To cut a long story short, I decided to try and do it by myself once more, downloading one of the templates and copy pasting the whole manuscript paragraph by paragraph. It worked. Kind of. The book is out there, now. Available for purchase in paperback format as well as digital. And my second novel is hours away from having a paper option also available - scratch that, it's now available in paperback as well! Moral of the story: I'm not as useless as I always think I am. I'm no less than the rest. Why do I always start out with the "I can't do it, I don't have it in me, I'm not good enough" outlook, I wonder? Been trying to change that for years, and I still fall on to the same trap. Getting out of my comfort zone is a good thing, yes. Trying something new is good, yes. And turns out I'm quite capable of doing shit for myself. Lesson learned? I hope so.

The thing is, stressing out about technology makes me wanna bite ito something sweet. Makes me crave for dessert. And these were such pretty little jewels of sweetness!! Cookie crust, white chocolate ganache, red berries... oh yum, it was delightful! Took my mind right off the hassles of being an author, an editor, a publisher and what not that I have to be as an indie author! So here's how you can have them too:

• half a recipe of cocoa vanilla cookies (right here)
• a good knob of butter, melted
• 150 gr white chocolate
• 200 ml cream
• about two large cups of red berries - according to taste, really, if you like more, use more on each tart, if you prefer to have less, then please do!

Start by pulverizing the cookies. You can either use a food processor, or if you're quite irritated, do it by hand like I did, with a rolling pin. Add the melted butter to the pulverized cookies, inside a bowl or the food processor and mix well until you have a sort of dough. Now start covering the bottom and sides of individual pie dishes with this dough, and once you're done, place them in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight. Once the crust is set, start on the filling. Heat up your cream until it's simmering, then get it off the stove. Drop the chocolate into it, cut into pieces, and let it melt. With a wooden spoon, stir it around until it blends. Let it cool until lukewarm and pour over the individual tarts - I know it's still only crust... - and then scatter your berries over the ganache, piling them up as much or as little as you want to. Refrigerate for at least two to three hours and tuck in. Chocolate will melt away your sour moods!! Trust me, it worked for me.