Autumn has been a busy season for retired Bermudian lawyer Warren Cabral. The London resident started his own publishing company, Wilton Books, released five novels for children, The Lakeland Mysteries and won a silver medal in the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards for one of them — The Fire on Slate Fell.

The series, set in the Lake District in Cumbria, England, follows the adventures of two mystery-solving sisters Isla and Mae Donaldson. They investigate everything from a mystery illness in the village to a possible terrorist plot.

Mr Cabral has always written plays and short stories, but his children’s book career began as a fun exercise with his two nieces.

Taking a creative writing course, one of his assignments was to write a story based on a writing prompt given to him by someone else.

They gave him singer Ariana Grande, gorillas struggling with climate change and a virtual world.

Mr Cabral enjoyed writing the short story so much, he kept writing for his nieces long after the homework assignment was done.

“I would send them a story chapter by chapter,” he said. “They would read it. Their mother would read it and my wife would read it and have a laugh.”

The more he wrote, the more serious he became.

After six months he found himself with five mystery novels for children. The main characters are based heavily on his nieces and set in Cockermouth, Cumbria, where they live.

During the writing, he was very particular about accuracy. If he wrote about a street in Cockermouth, he would send his brother-in-law to check it out to make sure he had things right and did not, for example, put in a two-way street where there was only a one-way.

Mr Cabral decided to self-publish.

“If you do it the traditional way, it takes a year to find an agent, another year to find a publisher and two years after that before you get to print,” he said. “I was 65 at that point. I wanted to see my books published before I shuffled off this mortal coil.”

He prepared himself for the book-publishing world by taking various courses and attending conferences such as one organised by the Society of Authors.

From that, he understood that self-publishing would be demanding, but did not fully comprehend the amount of time, frustration and competition he was in for.

“I have not written a word creatively in over 18 months,” Mr Cabral said. “I would really rather be writing, but I am now in the business of publishing.”

He is already seeing people trying to steal his brand. Luckily, being a lawyer, he has his logo and title trademarked.

When people put up social media pages pretending to be from him, he sends the trademark and copyright documentation to the web hosting platform.

“As soon as they see my documentation they take it down,” he said. “You have to have that piece of paper.”

There is also a lot of marketing to be done. Next week he is headed to a book festival in Whitehaven, a coastal town in Cumbria.

“I will have a stand there where I will sell my books, like someone selling fish at the top of Trimingham Hill,” he said.

One of the biggest lessons he has learnt from the process is that books are a product like any other.

“They are no different from say, a pair of shoes,” he said. “They have to be made. Someone has to design them. Someone has to distribute them and someone has to bank the cash and account for it.”

He said the creative process of writing is great, but the business of selling your book is very competitive.

“You have to fight with two million other people who are also trying to sell their books,” he said. “That is why I have taken great care with my websites. I have a corporate website and one for fans of the books.”

Mr Cabral has also hired someone to help with marketing and search engine optimisation, at least for the next six months.

He released all five of his books in paperback, e-book and audiobook formats at the same time.

“That is 15 products,” he said. “That tells the world that this is a serious company. With more products available, you have more impact in terms or internet viability.

“Applying for prizes, you have to have a bit of substance. Many prizes exclude self-published authors.

“A few of them will allow corporate self-publishing, provided you have an independent editor. I had that.”

To speed things up, he looked at artificial intelligence.

As a fun experiment he uploaded his books to an AI application and asked it to write the next chapter.

“I gave it the parameters and it claimed to have understood my characters,” Mr Cabral said. “The result was rubbish. It was so predictable.”

He asked AI to give him something mildly surreal and funny, but quickly realised AI did not have a sense of humour.

“It thinks telling a practical joke is the same as being funny,” Mr Cabral said. “It is not able to be witty, because it is not a living thing. It has no sense of irony.”

His conclusion is that AI for writing is largely worthless.

“I do use AI for research,” he said. “In fact, I have a process running right now that will give me information about bookstores in England.”

Mr Cabral’s goal is to eventually start publishing other writer’s work through Wilton.

The Lakeland Mysteries are available on Amazon.com and will soon be available in Bermuda as well.

Other books in the series include The Vanishing Young of Rydal Cave, The Lad in the Lane, The Mystery of the Chemic Tavern and the Wolf of Ennerdale.