I've been writing all my life. In 25 years, I've completed 26 books. I've never shared my work. It's just something I do. I have a hurry up and wait kind of job. Lots of time waiting on people. I've amuse myself by jotting down dialogue, notes on storylines, etc., but then I always did that, even in school, because everything was so not stimulating there for me!
Then my daughter from another mother(that's what I call the close girlfriends of my daughters) asked if she could read one of my books. I thought it would be nice to get it printed in a pretty book copy so I signed up for a create space account to see what that would entail. Then, last January, I received the email for the ABNA contest and thought: I just started something that might fit into that contest. So I finished that novel and entered February 16th. I should have taken the class on query. Crashed and burned in the query round. But I still had the book, and thought, this is the one I'll give to Alyssa. And the forum for ABNA is full of chatting self-published authors and I thought, I'll do that. See how it works. See how to build it into something fun for me. Trust me. Trying to save California Air Quality one vote at a time isn't a lot of fun! So here I am.
As a business idea, if someone brought a self-publishing business model to me, I'd say run. The economics are not a good structure for profitability. Even if you sell a book to a publisher, the likelihood of the big bucks is really slim. I look at all publishing, self and tradition, like the stakes at a California Indian Casino. The odds are slim and the payoff low if you win. There is unlikely to be a big power-ball payoff at the end. The goal is not to lose money doing it.
So why put so much effort into something that won't be monetarily rewarding. First, a promise is a promise. I did promise to give Alyssa a book and I was finishing one anyway! Second, I write because I have to, but there is always that fascination with the hope that I could write something and have it read a country away. That's the thrill of it all for me.
I was really happy the first time I saw foreign sales on my kindle account. Many of the abbreviations I didn't know. I had to look them up. I guess I must be just a tad a thrill junky because it was a thrill the day I looked and knew there was someone in the UK and Mexico, maybe sitting somewhere with my book and taking a journey on a story written by me.
That's why I released via self-publishing. Tell me your story...\
Then my daughter from another mother(that's what I call the close girlfriends of my daughters) asked if she could read one of my books. I thought it would be nice to get it printed in a pretty book copy so I signed up for a create space account to see what that would entail. Then, last January, I received the email for the ABNA contest and thought: I just started something that might fit into that contest. So I finished that novel and entered February 16th. I should have taken the class on query. Crashed and burned in the query round. But I still had the book, and thought, this is the one I'll give to Alyssa. And the forum for ABNA is full of chatting self-published authors and I thought, I'll do that. See how it works. See how to build it into something fun for me. Trust me. Trying to save California Air Quality one vote at a time isn't a lot of fun! So here I am.
As a business idea, if someone brought a self-publishing business model to me, I'd say run. The economics are not a good structure for profitability. Even if you sell a book to a publisher, the likelihood of the big bucks is really slim. I look at all publishing, self and tradition, like the stakes at a California Indian Casino. The odds are slim and the payoff low if you win. There is unlikely to be a big power-ball payoff at the end. The goal is not to lose money doing it.
So why put so much effort into something that won't be monetarily rewarding. First, a promise is a promise. I did promise to give Alyssa a book and I was finishing one anyway! Second, I write because I have to, but there is always that fascination with the hope that I could write something and have it read a country away. That's the thrill of it all for me.
I was really happy the first time I saw foreign sales on my kindle account. Many of the abbreviations I didn't know. I had to look them up. I guess I must be just a tad a thrill junky because it was a thrill the day I looked and knew there was someone in the UK and Mexico, maybe sitting somewhere with my book and taking a journey on a story written by me.
That's why I released via self-publishing. Tell me your story...\
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