Okay, time for me to begin my own self-publishing journey thread. At the time I write this initial post I have four items self-published, with a couple of others soon to be ready. I'll list them in future posts. For this first post I'll just put in the link to my Amazon author page, and say something about my self-publishing start and where I am now. Here's the link:
In early January 2011 I was frustrated beyond description at the difficulty of breaking in to traditional/legacy publishing. I had been submitting since 2003, and had a little success with magazine articles and poems, but none with books. I received some good rejections—"Your writing is strong; I can't sell it"—that kind of thing, but no offers. It seemed the goal posts kept moving, in terms of marketing expected and platform and brand and minimum numbers of followers on several social networking platforms before agents or editors would even talk with you.
In early January a published novelist whose blog I follow, Randy Ingermansson, posted something about how self-publishing had come to make sense for lots of writers. I followed some links in his posts, and read everything I could about the pros and cons of self-publishing. I debated myself publicly on my blog, An Arrow Through the Air.
I finally decided I had spent enough time chasing the legacy publishing dream. While not totally abandoning that dream, I couldn't see any downside of self-publishing. So I took the plunge.
Being at best a Luddite and at worst a technophobe, it took me a while to get something uploaded. In my next post, hopefully later tonight, I'll talk about that. Then in some other posts I'll talk about my next three works, and what I've got coming.
Best Regards,
NDG
In early January 2011 I was frustrated beyond description at the difficulty of breaking in to traditional/legacy publishing. I had been submitting since 2003, and had a little success with magazine articles and poems, but none with books. I received some good rejections—"Your writing is strong; I can't sell it"—that kind of thing, but no offers. It seemed the goal posts kept moving, in terms of marketing expected and platform and brand and minimum numbers of followers on several social networking platforms before agents or editors would even talk with you.
In early January a published novelist whose blog I follow, Randy Ingermansson, posted something about how self-publishing had come to make sense for lots of writers. I followed some links in his posts, and read everything I could about the pros and cons of self-publishing. I debated myself publicly on my blog, An Arrow Through the Air.
I finally decided I had spent enough time chasing the legacy publishing dream. While not totally abandoning that dream, I couldn't see any downside of self-publishing. So I took the plunge.
Being at best a Luddite and at worst a technophobe, it took me a while to get something uploaded. In my next post, hopefully later tonight, I'll talk about that. Then in some other posts I'll talk about my next three works, and what I've got coming.
Best Regards,
NDG