Indie Publishing

In 2009, when I decided to self-publish, the tide of opinion on the writing blogs was that authors who chose to self-publish were some combination of:  (a) inferior writers, (b) lazy,  (c) too arrogant and/or impatient to play by the rules.  Traditionally published authors smirked. Agents harked about the importance of letting "the process" work. Publishers, as far as I could tell, were evidently not paying attention at all. I felt kind of bad about it (because normally I'm a "play by the rules" kind of person), but I decided to self-publish anyway. It felt right for me.

Throughout 2010, the numbers of indie books self-published or published by small publishers on Smashwords grew, and they exploded in 2011. In mid-2011, I think the tide turned. John Locke and Amanda Hocking were making serious money selling indie-published e-books. Amanda Hocking ended up with a seven figure publishing contract and Locke evidently signed an unusual but cool deal of his own.  Agents are marketing their clients' work on Smashwords.  Free and cheap e-books are everywhere. More and more of the writing blogs are not only okay with indie publishing, but they're encouraging it.

The consensus seems to be that the good stuff will rise to the top. I think that's absolutely correct. Maybe we should view the universe of self-published books as a gigantic slush pile that is open not only to publishers and agents, but also the reading public in general. It gives authors whose work may not be "commercial" the opportunity to connect with people who might actually like it.  The really good stuff will go viral, and the traditional publishers can skim the cream that make it all the way to the top.

That can't be anything but good for everybody.

Some super successful authors will hit the publishing lotto and make enough money to support themselves on their writing alone. Good on them! Most of us will limp along with minimal sales. But speaking for myself, any sale at all is pure and utter BLISS. Best of all is getting occasional feedback from people who read the stories, and like them, because for me writing is for the purpose of sharing stories more than it is about making money.

(Not that I would turn down money, mind you.)

Kindle Direct Publishing

I have delayed publishing my work through the Kindle Direct Publishing in part because I hoped that Smashwords would close a deal with Amazon. It does not appear that will happen any time soon, because Amazon has no real incentive to distribute for Smashwords when it operates its own system for publishing e-books in the Kindle Store. Meanwhile, I'm missing out on a huge and expanding market.  

I had looked at KDP when it was first announced, but I was intimidated by the instructions for converting the book to the Kindle format. Recently, fueled by the awareness that I'm losing out on money by not publishing on Amazon,  I screwed up my courage and tackled the project of uploading Sisters to the Kindle store.  I managed to convert and upload it after only four tries. (That's very good for me.)  Ultimately, I'll make less per e-book sold on Amazon, but I'm not selling anything there now, so I'll be ahead no matter what.

I'm doing pretty well with sales on Sony and B&N.  It doesn't cost anything besides a few hours of my time to do the formatting, and the rewards from selling on Amazon could be pretty good. Anything greater than zero is 100% profit for me.

We'll see.

Now the question is: do I want to go to the effort of converting all my other stories and publishing via KDP also.  While I'm deciding about that, Sisters is available in the Kindle Store and on Smashwords.

Escalation of Work

A few years ago, after I got serious about writing, I started querying agents to try to get my work published. It was a demoralizing and time-consuming effort. Worse, the more I learned about the traditional publishing process, the less I desired to be published in that way. For one thing, it is a horribly time consuming and unfair process, and it is very bad for the environment. It is costly and wasteful.

From the outset, I liked the idea of eBook and Print-On-Demand publishing, even though I was mindful of the stigma of "vanity publishing."  After doing some reading about the abysmal state of the publishing industry right now, I decided to focus on writing stories and not worry about landing a book deal. I published all of my inventory at the time on Smashwords, initially for free.

Within only a few months nearly 10,000 copies had been downloaded. Three readers sent me messages indicating that they liked my work and thought I should charge for it. About the same time, I read a blog post that said anything you give away for free may be deemed to have no value.  I realized that's how I felt. I thought that free books were "bad" books, and -- for my own personal reading -- I stuck with traditionally published books from the library.

I decided to post a small charge for my books. Around a dollar. I thought that would give me the satisfaction of earning some money for my labor, but it wouldn't be so much that the buyer would feel gypped if there were typos or stylistic errors in the text.  A few months later, I got my first royalty check from Smashwords. It wasn't a big check, but it was actual money that people paid to read my work. I made a copy of it. And framed it. (After I finished crying.)

For three subsequent quarters, each check doubled the previous one. It's still nothing more than "mad money," but it's "mad money" to a person whose normal budget does not include "mad money."  In the spring, I was able to buy some much needed software for my computer. This past August, I earned enough to buy a Kindle and a whole bunch of eBooks. That set me off on a different course for this blog.

I started reviewing indie books and communicating with other Smashwords authors.  Traffic on this blog and my website started to increase, incrementally but steadily. Ebook sales increased as well.

So. I realized I needed to improve the quality of my marketing materials. My website stank and my blog was turning into a mess. I spent one entire weekend in September overhauling both. In the process of posting sample chapters on my website, I realized that my novels, especially the early ones, were still in need of editing.  I should revise them and publish "Second Editions".  I should blog and interact with other authors on Facebook. I should use Twitter.

It's all so much work and so overwhelming! I try to keep up, but the task is daunting.  I guess that's the price to be paid for going solo.

It is November. NaNoWriMo.  That means no blogging. No Facebooking. No Tweeting.  No nothing except writing like a maniac to finish a first draft of a new novel in a month.

Self-publishing is a lot of work. I'm taking a break in November to do what I really love.

My First Royalty Check

When I first started publishing my stories on Smashwords, my intent was to give away my stories for free because I simply wanted to share my writing.  I have been astonished at how many people have downloaded my stories.  As of January 2011, more than 15,000 downloads from Smashwords alone and another 7000+ from its other markets.

When Smashwords shared the stories with vendors, a couple of them actually charged for the stories.  In December, I received a check for a little more $80 in royalties.

At one point last year, I received an email from a woman who had read a couple of my novels.  She said she thought they were good enough that I should charge for them. Soon after that I read a blog article somewhere debating the pros and cons of giving away your work for the purpose of building an audience.  There are certainly good arguments on both sides.

The bottom line appears to be that it's important to give away samples and free content of some sort that readers may appreciate.  On the other hand, there is the perception that if you are giving away your art for nothing (whatever it is), it has no value.  I thought about that for a long time, and realized it is true even for me.  When I see something being given away for free, I assume that there's either some kind of catch (which is usually true of giveaways on the Internet) or it's worthless.

Therefore, I've decided to change my tack a little.  I'm going to charge a nominal amount for my e-books.  If a reader doesn't like the story, he/she is only out a buck or so, but there is still a small investment on the reader's part and a small payoff for me.  Charging a dollar or so for my e-books is not going to allow me to quit my day job.  In fact, it may well provide nothing more than the money for a nice dinner a couple of times a year.  That's something.

No, actually, that's huge for me.

More on Self-Publishing and Marketing

According to what appears to be the prevailing sentiment among bloggers who write about writing, I'm doing absolutely everything wrong. According to some, I'm part of the problem that is about to kill off the publishing business. According to others, I'm too arrogant to play by the rules that everybody else has played by since Gutenberg's day.  (And probably before: How did the Scribes decide which books to copy?)  Those folks have some valid points.

I, however, submit that I have a right to a different point of view and my own opinion. It seems as though in the past few months everybody else has weighed in on their vision for the future of publishing and why they are using the approach they have chosen.

First of all, from what I've learned about the publishing business in the last six years of reading blogs by writers, agents, editors and publishers as well as studying publishers and agents websites, I think the traditional publishing business is doing a fine job of killing off its own self without any help from me and all the other writers who choose to self-publish. They are not keeping up with the times or with technology.  Maybe self-publishers are not good enough to get published the traditional way or maybe we're not patient enough to jump through all the hoops entailed in begging agents to please consider representing us and then having the agents beg publishers to please publish our books, most of which will wind up in the trash if the author doesn't buy the unsold copies.  How long does the average book remain in print?  Twenty-minutes?  Maybe it is arrogant to feel that going through all of that is just too much of a hassle. I prefer to think of it as a choice to go in a different direction that doesn't kill so many trees unnecessarily.

The traditional method of publishing books that involves printing off books and sending them out to bookstores which return unsold copies should end. Soon. And permanently. Does that mean that hard-copy publishing is dead? I hope not. I don't have an e-book reader and I personally prefer to read books in hard copy. [I have to tell you: one of my goals for the next year is to buy an e-Reader and convert myself to reading e-books. Time will tell if I can pull that off.]  I do shop online, and I absolutely positively would definitely be willing to pay more for print-on-demand books. Always. Every time. Starting now.

That doesn't mean bookstores would necessarily have to go the way of the dinosaur. Bookstores could be POD outlets. They could offer sample copies of popular titles for browsing and print off the books on site. I understand that the super-high quality printer-binder machine is very expensive right now, but like everything else in the sphere of electronics, the price will fall.  That will probably happen immediately after one of the big chains gets their head out of their butt long enough to figure out that they can make money printing books in the store.  That will get people in the store where they will have the opportunity to buy all the other stuff bookstores sell (coffee, bookmarks, games and picture books).  They could still do book signings and promotions. They could sponsor NaNo write-ins or book groups.

That would put more books in circulation.  Maybe the quality of some of those books might not be the greatest, but then again I have read quite a bit of traditionally published stuff that is not very well written or proofed.  It would make more titles available to more readers. There will be more crap, true, but there will also be more potentially good stuff.  The choices of books available online is already dizzying, but that's a good thing. The cream will rise to the surface. Readers will blog about good books, and other readers will read them.  The bestsellers will happen in the same way they always have: book-lovers spreading the word about good books. The difference is that there will be more players in the game.

I don't think that's a bad thing.

I have no aspirations of being a critically acclaimed literary author. The stories in my head insist on being written. Once written, they demand to be shared. I don't do it for money or acclaim or attention.  I do it because sharing stories is what storytellers do, and have done since language was invented. (I'd be willing to bet that language was invented in order to share stories.)

My reason for choosing to quit querying agents and self-publish my novels was based completely on a combination of lack of time and my desired outcome.  I have a busy day job and other responsibilities in my life.  I devote every spare moment I have to writing stories.  I don't want to spend any of that writing time querying agents or Twittering or Facebooking or doing any of the other time-consuming marketing gimmicks that the wisdom of the Internet (ahem!) says I should be doing. I don't even visit and comment on other writers' blogs much any more (although I always very much enjoyed doing that). The time that I have to spend in front of my computer, I prefer to spend writing. I do maintain this blog and my website because I agree that an author has to do at least some marketing. 

For all those reasons, I choose to self-publish my stories as eBooks on Smashwords. Someday, I want to self publish them for POD sales on CreateSpace or some similar site in the event that someone might want to read a hard copy. If I sell no copies, I'm not out anything.  If a reader downloads a free or very cheap e-book or buys a POD copy, and doesn't like the book, how is that different from buying a traditionally published book and hating it? Who hasn't felt gypped a time or two at the old-fashioned bookstores?

I've chosen to spend my available time in way that will make me a better writer: writing stories. Story lovers are reading them.  That accomplishes my purpose, and it makes me happy.  From some of the feedback I've received from a few readers, some of them are happy, too. How can that be a bad thing?

I suppose that makes me a (very disciplined) dilettante. So what, if it means that I will never have the chance to be the next Joan Didion?  Hell, I was never going to be the next Joan Didion, anyway.

Self-publishing and Pipe-Dreaming

A while back, I read an article on a literary agent's blog blasting people who self-publish. The thrust of the article and the comments were that self-publishers fall into one of two categories: the egotists who think they are geniuses and are "too good" to have to play by the rules and those who are too lazy to play by the rules. The writer's opinion was that, in either case, self-published writers are inferior writers.

No doubt there are plenty of examples of both of those types in the self-publishing world. I would add for the record that just because a book manages to get published by a standard house doesn't mean it is necessarily any good: I have read some real stinkers over the years!

There are some very good reasons to self-publish. I've written before about the fact that I'm self publishing my earlier work because I couldn't generate any interest in the stories by querying agents, but I'm just not willing to shove them under the bed to molder. Somebody just might enjoy reading these stories I am making them available. As I move forward and write new novels I will continue to submit them for publication. If that fails, I may consider self-publishing some of them. Or not. I like having the option.

Another reason I like the concept of self-publishing, or at least POD publishing, is because it involves no unsold copies of books. I had no idea how quickly publishers recall unsold books and destroy them. Too many trees are sacrificed in that process! It also means that books go out of print way too fast and never have a chance to develop a following. POD solves both problems. It could allow a book that might be ahead of its time to still be available when the market for it catches up.

The entire publishing process is changing. Personally I'd like to see the entire process to be managed like the ABNA competition. I like the idea of having one place to submit queries for various genres for review and evaluation by several people. Those that pass muster could be published online as POD or by a standard house ..... better still: both ways.

Oh, I am such a Dreamer. What are your pipe-dreams?

Meredith

Two-Pronged Approach

I decided to self-publish several months ago because I believed that the time I was spending querying agents was taking too much time from my already limited
writing time. I thought that I might be able to sell some of my stories on Amazon without the frustrating, time-consuming and annoying business of querying agents.

Okay, everybody stop laughing, now!

I have actually sold a few books, mostly to friends and family, but I'll bet they are the first ones to buy "officially" published novels as well.

Having built up an inventory of completed manuscripts over several years, even my unobjective eye can see how I have grown as a novelist. Despite my love for them, I know that my early stories are not as good as what I am writing now. That does not mean someone might not enjoy them. Therefore, I am going to take a two-pronged approach to publishing. I will continue to self-publish works that I have been unable to get published through the traditional route. I want to share the stories I have worked so hard to write. Even if they are not good enough for a standard publisher, someone might enjoy reading them. My self publishing will be the literary equivalent of putting stuff out by the curb and hoping that somebody will come along who needs it and can use it.

I also plan to go through the usual channels for my newer stories, at least until I am satisfied that there is no interest in the regular marketplace. At that point, I will consider self-publishing them as well.

This will probably create even more work for me in the long run, but it feels right to me.

Today, anyway.

Meredith

New Website

I am slowly groping my way forward. Some days I feel as though I'm making negative progress and then other days, I think I may have hit on something helpful. Half the time those things don't pan out.

Here's the newest plan:

This blog will be about writing and self-publishing. It will continue to be "writing on writing" -- probably with a large dash of bitching and moaning about how much I hate the marketing process.

My Author Page on Amazon will be a banner page to point people to the books.

My new website, Meredith R. Morgan, will showcase the novels themselves.

Inventory / Upcoming Publications

I prepared this list for my new blog over at Amazon. I thought I would post it here as well.  Preparing these manuscripts for publication will be Job One around here for the foreseeable future.

Below is a list of my inventory of upcoming publications. Always Faithful is already available for purchase; the rest are "completed" manuscripts. Some need more editing and polishing than others. My plan is to publish them in this order. I don't know at this point how long the journey will take, but this is the roadmap we'll be following.

Always Faithful - is a love story set in the Midwest, populated with salt-of-the-earth, Mom-and-apple pie Hoosiers. The story is about the love between a man and a woman as well their commitment to their family and community. I wrote it as a kind of love letter to the part of the country where I grew up and to the people who are some of the most decent folks imaginable. The story takes place over a period of one year during which the main character's daughter moves away from home, she retires, and the daughter gets married. It's about shifting gears and moving into a new phase of life, which requires dealing with demons from the past. It is already available for purchase here.

The Way Home - is a love story set in rural Georgia, populated with the kind of small town folks who go to church on Sundays, the high school football games on Friday nights and bake pies for their neighbors who are sick or in mourning. I wrote this as a sort of book-end to Always Faithful. I grew up in the Midwest, but I have Southern roots and I have always loved almost everything about the South. After writing my love letter to the midwest, I had to write one to the South as well. The story is about resurrecting lost love and finding your true home in the world, in the last place you'd ever look.

Spoleto - is a love story set in Charleston, South Carolina. The story itself was a big breakout for me because it was the first time I moved out of my comfort zone (writing about the kinds of places and people I knew first hand) and let my imagination run (or at least trot a little). I happened to be in Charleston once at the end of the festival, and I could feel the magic in the air, without even attending any of the performances. It was easy to imagine how wonderful it would be for someone to fall in love ... in Charleston ... during the Spoleto Festival. I started writing the story as a continuation of my "love letters to America" series, but ended up writing for the sheer joy of spinning a story about a bunch of characters whom I had come to cherish. It is a story about finding love after you've given up any real expectation of ever doing so, and then going for it -- despite many obstacles.

An Odyssey - is basically a backwards "Call and Response" story. It's about an Episcopal priest who feels called away from her ministry. It's about reorienting your life in a totally new direction when the Call that has been your animating passion and raison d'etre simply dies. The topic was difficult and deeply personal, but the story ended up featuring some of the most interesting family dynamics that I could dream up (e.g. the Episcopal priest's son-in-law is a Conservative Rabbi and her secular humanist husband's best friend is a Catholic priest). This was the only story I'd written up to that point in which I didn't have at least a general idea for an ending when I started. I put the characters in the situation and then let them deal with it.

Road Trip - is a "buddy story" and a "journey story" that starts at the beach in Florida and meanders across the South into the Southwest. It's a road trip, narrated by a husband and wife who are traveling across country to be with their daughter when she has a baby. Each of them keeps a separate journal of their days. They see the same sights and share the same experiences, but their stories are quite different. They are a couple of self-described old curmudgeons, but they have a lot of fun together. There is no destination; it's all about experiencing the Journey.

Baiting and Fishing - contains a love story wrapped in a mystery, but the plot is just a pretext for writing a story set in Florida. This was the first time I intentionally attempted to write a genre novel. As a reader, I love Florida fiction. I'll never be as zany as the masters of that craft, but I couldn't resist taking a shot at it. Whatever the plot, Florida fiction is really about the goofy and dysfunctional state of Florida. I fell so in love with the protagonist, Ray Bailey (a would-be crusty newspaper man who is a kind of cross between Jimmy Buffet and Clark Kent), that I plan to write more "Ray Bailey Stories" when I can find the time.

Kisses and Lies - is a story about friendship or, more specifically, the unraveling of friendship. The two female protagonists have been inseparable friends since junior high and and are still like sisters. Mary Jo is happily married and a rising star litigator in a law firm where she is up for a partnership. Her friend is trapped in a loveless marriage to a man who treats her like the maid. When Mary Jo and her friend's husband are set up to compete for the same partnership position, it sets off a chain of events that torpedoes one career, one marriage, and the women's friendship.

Marianne's Vacation - is straight-up Romance. I wrote it just for kicks as my National Novel Writing Month project last year. It has all the stereotypical romance stuff, including the mousy, shy female (she's a cook at the lunch counter in a five and dime) and a movie star whose career is at a turning point. It has exotic locations, fabulous clothes -- and the requisite separation, followed by a happy ending. It is pure escapist fantasy, and the most fun I have ever had writing a story!

Romance #2 - started out as another Romance, although I think it may have spilled over into a love story. It is finished but for a name. This one started out as a shipboard romance on a cruise, but the romance didn't fizzle on the dock the way it was supposed to do. She is a widow who works an event planner for a resort chain (which gives her the opportunity to go to exotic places and attend some way-cool parties). He's a very successful trial lawyer who is also widowed. Neither of them is in the market for love, but they are soul-mates who were meant to be together. They both travel constantly in their jobs and their adult children have varying opinions of the relationship, which complicates things a little. Romance or love story: it ends well.

The Adventures of Miss Maybelle - is an ode to the Wise Woman. Maybelle Dickson is 75 years old, but she is having trouble acting her age. She is a veritable powerhouse who has lived an amazing life as a photographer for the National Geographic. She has been everywhere, done everything, and gathered an interesting assortment of friends and colleagues along the way. Now retired, she is at loose ends. Her family has asked her to write her memoirs, which she does, while attempting to adjust to the shock of switching gears from being a globe-trotting, hot-shot photographer to living in a small town in the Smokey Mountains.

Writing these stories has been an adventurous journey. I expect publishing them to be an uphill climb. Until now it has been a solo trek. At this point, I am inviting potential readers to come along. I hope you'll consider joining me.

Meredith
Always Faithful

My First Book Sale

I always believed that I couldn't be a "real" writer until someone paid me for writing something. My head always thought that was BS because reason tells me that something I'm so passionate about and that I spend so much time doing must count for something in and of itself, but my heart and my gut were adamant that until somebody actually plunked down cash money for my work, I was only a "would-be writer."

Friday my BFF bought a copy of Always Faithful. That was sweet of her and I really wanted to "count" it, but my heart wouldn't let me do it. It counts as my very first sale and the first royalty I've earned, for which I love her even more than I did before (which was a LOT). Having J buy a copy of my book was nice, but I couldn't really "count" it because she loves me and she knows how important this is to me. She probably bought it just to be supportive.

Sunday, however, I crossed over into the realm of "Writer". Somebody I do not actually know bought a copy of my book. Someone I have never actually met and who knows me only through my writing. Therefore: IT COUNTS!

Somebody paid for a story I wrote. I am thrilled ... and grateful ... and humbled.

That makes me even more determined than ever to write stories that others may enjoy reading half as much as I enjoy writing them.


Meredith
"Always Faithful" - E-store

Bitching & Moaning

I need to sit back and breathe! I have way too many things going on.

This past week I published Always Faithful on Create Space. (E-store link is below.) Now I've got to figure out how to get the word out about it. So I go on Twitter (which is totally annoying and I don't understand it) and I go on Facebook, which is only slightly better. I try to blog at Red Room; I love the site, but I hate their blog software. I check out writing.com, which has got to be one of the worst looking websites imaginable (their Facebook page is kind of fun). I go to Technorati, but still can't figure out what it is or does or does not do.

All that means that I've just spent more than two hours hopping around from site to site on the Internet not knowing what the hell I'm doing.

That's two hours of my prime writing time that I feel as though I just pissed away. The theory is that I'm sewing seeds to be harvested later. We'll see about that.




Meredith
"Always Faithful" - E-store

Publishing Adventures & Marketing Nightmares

I published Always Faithful on CreateSpace this week. That was a huge thrill. My story, three years in the writing, is now available for sale. My very best friend bought the first copy. (I love you, J!)

My decision to self-publish arose from my frustration with "traditional" process of querying agents, which was going nowhere, and taking up way too much of my time ... Time I thought I could spend more productively writing fiction.

Now that I have gone down that road, I realize that self-publishing carries with it certain negative aspects as well, starting with the obligation to market your own work. In the current world, that means being on Facebook and Twitter and various writing sites, in the hope of steering traffic to your book. Who's got time for THAT!????

I'm a writer not a salesperson, but I guess I'd better figure out a way to do both. Ugh!!



Meredith
"Always Faithful" - https://www.createspace.com/3390060

Using a Pseudonym

I debated for a years about whether to publish under a pen name or my own name. On the one hand, there is something in me that wants to put my own name on the stories that I have labored to write. On the other hand, for reasons of privacy, I prefer to remain behind a persona, especially online.

For reasons I don't totally understand, I struggled over this issue for a very long time. Now that I've made the decision to use a pseudonym, and to create an alter ego for my online marketing, I can't understand why the decision was so difficult.

Many novelists have used pseudonyms, for a variety of reasons, so it isn't like I'm doing something unusual. On the contrary, using a pseudonym seems to be very common. I guess it just feels strange to me to use a different name, even though I've been blogging under a "bloggish identity" for years.

In any case, having made the decision, I'm happy with it. Meredith may be a pen name, but my Inner Author is a real, honest-to-god part of who I always have been. I consider Meredith to be the writer in me. I'm kind of glad to give her a name and a semi-separate persona.

On the Threshold of a New Adventure

I am moving in a new direction in my life and in my writing, a new adventure in storytelling, if nothing else.

Since I was in grade school, I have spent a significant amount of my spare time writing. I have written abominable poetry, pretty decent non-fiction, forgettable short stories and a dozen or so novels ranging from the merely awful to a couple I think are good stories. I always wrote strictly for myself and never gave any thought to letting anyone read my work.

A few years ago, I got serious about working hard to write well. The result was a novel that I really liked. That was a breakthrough for me and, since then, I have written several other novels. Writing my stories was an act of joyful self-abandonment. I loved every minute of it (even the editing). But, after finishing several manuscripts, it dawned on me that a story untold and unshared is a very sad thing.

I decided to try to get my stories published. Frankly, I rather regret that decision. I was having such fun writing for myself, why'd I have to go muck it all up by trying to find an agent and get published? It ruined a couple of perfectly good years for me.

I spent more time in the last two years working on query letters than I spent writing stories. I got some good feedback but never actually succeeded in getting an agent to agree to represent me. This year, after participating in the National Novel Writing Month, I took advantage of the opportunity to print off a proof copy of my novel from CreateSpace. It was cool to hold my very own novel in my hand.

Correction! It wasn't merely cool. It was a positively beatific experience!

That got me to thinking some hitherto unthinkable thoughts.

The idea of self-publishing had always been anathema to me because I believed that vanity publishing was only for terrible writers who couldn't get published (and, of course, I couldn't possibly fall into that category!!), and no publisher would ever publish a novel by someone who had self-published. After exploring CreateSpace a bit, suddenly self-publishing didn't seem like such a bad idea. I sort of tucked the idea away in the back of my mind and visited with it from time to time just to see if I might ever get comfortable with it.

A couple of weeks ago a colleague and I were discussing our reading habits. (When I'm not writing or writing about writing, I'm either reading or talking about reading.) My colleague mentioned that he had a signed copy of John Grisham's first novel. He said he bought it directly from the author, because in those early days Grisham couldn't get published the "regular" way, so he self-published his book and sold copies out of his car. So much for the idea that a self-published author can't ever get published in the legitimate press!

That got me to thinking about other things, like why I write or what I want to get out of publishing, or at least sharing my work with others. Once I realized that my real motivation is the desire to share my stories with other story lovers, not to make money or to achieve any kind of critical acclaim (not that I would turn down either of those things, of course).

Suddenly I felt I had the freedom to explore options other than querying agents to try to get the attention of a standard publisher. What those options may be and how I might go about exploring them is still a mystery. That will be part of this new Adventure.

I have blogged for years, but I have never shared my fiction. I decided to create a pseudonym and, potentially, head down the road to self-publishing and self-marketing. If nothing else, instead of blogging about the daily minutia of my ordinary life, I'll blog about the daily minutia of my writing life, for a change.

This blog, then, will be both a record of my Journey toward self-publication and a forum for sharing my writing -- as well as an escape valve for the frustrations and joys of the process.

I have no idea how I will go about any of that, that will be the Adventure.