I've been writing for years. In fact, I'm probably old enough to be a grandmother to a lot of you. I began writing in 1981 after my older brother murdered four of his neighbors. I had a story to tell about victims on the other side of the crime. It took twelve years to rewrite and rewrite ad infinitum and get it published. Oh, I had an agent, but the publisher she and her associate found for my work, butchered it. Much of the message I was trying to get across was ripped out of the work. What remained was raped and abused. I wrote another work, this time fiction, and published it. That publisher promised a lot. What he delivered was corruption. He and his son embezzled ten million from his company. He was forced into bankruptcy. We authors never saw any of that money when the bankruptcy was settled. I lost twenty thousand dollars.
Even with all the hassle and disappointment, by then I was hooked on writing. My fiction can be pounded into a number of genres. Some call it fantasy, some call it magical realism, some paranormal, mystical or visionary. At present I've written eleven books. They have the character develop of literary fiction - why - because when I read a story I want to know who the characters are, or I don't care what happens to them. Character development makes a story unique. Everything under the sun really already has been written about. So....
My last agent, who truly loved my work, died of lung cancer last summer. Now, by this time I've gone to conferences, taken classes, read lots of books on how to do everything pertaining to the craft of writing, including query letters and the like. I'm tired of pursing that avenue. So, kicking and screaming against the idea of self-publishing, I decided to try Smashwords.
In case you are unfamiliar with it, it was founded by Mark Coker in 2009. That year he published 140 titles, I believe. At this point there are 462,000 plus book that have been published through this company. They only publish digital works. It doesn't cost a person a thing. You do have to prepare your work through Microsoft Word - a .doc file. Since I write with Word Perfect, I purchased a used MS Word program for twenty bucks and converted my work. Using his detailed instructions I prepared my first work for publication and painted my cover art. It was the rewrite of the murder story. I uploaded it in the summer of 2016 shortly after my brother died in prison. Over the course of the year I prepared seven other books for publication through Smashwords. Plus, I uploaded three articles. At present I have eleven works available through Smashwords and most of the major outlets, except Amazon. I won't work with Amazon - a conversation for another time perhaps.
Have my works sold? Well, to be honest, not so much. But now, as I write my next book, I am also working on ways to promote my works. Unless a person gets a super deal from a publisher, they have to do the promotion themselves anyway. I did try Facebook - my account was hacked and eventually disabled. I tried a forum of my peers. One person was angry at one of the other members I befriended. When I talked of my book, she went to Smashwords, bought my book and trashed it in a review before she even had a chance to look at it. I know because I received notification of the sale - with a time stamp, as well as, a notification of the horrid review with a time stamp of only a few minutes after the sale. At present I'm in the process of cultivating new ideas for promotion. I plan to upload my cover art for my works on this site in the near future, as soon as I overcome my nervousness about doing it.
If you are thinking of self-publishing I suggest you check out Smashwords. The staff is very supportive. Thought you might like to know.
Even with all the hassle and disappointment, by then I was hooked on writing. My fiction can be pounded into a number of genres. Some call it fantasy, some call it magical realism, some paranormal, mystical or visionary. At present I've written eleven books. They have the character develop of literary fiction - why - because when I read a story I want to know who the characters are, or I don't care what happens to them. Character development makes a story unique. Everything under the sun really already has been written about. So....
My last agent, who truly loved my work, died of lung cancer last summer. Now, by this time I've gone to conferences, taken classes, read lots of books on how to do everything pertaining to the craft of writing, including query letters and the like. I'm tired of pursing that avenue. So, kicking and screaming against the idea of self-publishing, I decided to try Smashwords.
In case you are unfamiliar with it, it was founded by Mark Coker in 2009. That year he published 140 titles, I believe. At this point there are 462,000 plus book that have been published through this company. They only publish digital works. It doesn't cost a person a thing. You do have to prepare your work through Microsoft Word - a .doc file. Since I write with Word Perfect, I purchased a used MS Word program for twenty bucks and converted my work. Using his detailed instructions I prepared my first work for publication and painted my cover art. It was the rewrite of the murder story. I uploaded it in the summer of 2016 shortly after my brother died in prison. Over the course of the year I prepared seven other books for publication through Smashwords. Plus, I uploaded three articles. At present I have eleven works available through Smashwords and most of the major outlets, except Amazon. I won't work with Amazon - a conversation for another time perhaps.
Have my works sold? Well, to be honest, not so much. But now, as I write my next book, I am also working on ways to promote my works. Unless a person gets a super deal from a publisher, they have to do the promotion themselves anyway. I did try Facebook - my account was hacked and eventually disabled. I tried a forum of my peers. One person was angry at one of the other members I befriended. When I talked of my book, she went to Smashwords, bought my book and trashed it in a review before she even had a chance to look at it. I know because I received notification of the sale - with a time stamp, as well as, a notification of the horrid review with a time stamp of only a few minutes after the sale. At present I'm in the process of cultivating new ideas for promotion. I plan to upload my cover art for my works on this site in the near future, as soon as I overcome my nervousness about doing it.
If you are thinking of self-publishing I suggest you check out Smashwords. The staff is very supportive. Thought you might like to know.