What is Success?
How does one measure success? Is it sales, or overcoming adversity to get to the point where you're published and can actually have some sales? At the risk of alienating potential readers I'm going to tell my story.
I found myself in a situation where I had lots of time on my hands. I've always known I had a talent for writing since I started scribbling science fiction at age 14. I wish I had those scribbles now. So I utilized that time to give vent to that creative talent. Years before I was fascinated by a writer named Robert Aspirin, who wrote Myth Conceptions, Another Fine Myth, and many others. I was inspired by an anthology he edited and published written by some of his followers. He wrote scifi-fantasy, I wrote a western.
What!?
Yeah, strange, huh? I have no idea why a western, I didn't even read them. The idea for Educated Injun
came to me and flowed out of the pencil onto the paper. It's a good Detective/Lawman story set in the late 1800s with really interesting characters. Actually, it was fun to write. A second one,
Chicago Chase, followed that introducing a new rascally character and I'm working on the third, How Do You Steal A Tree.
With all that "time on my hands" came the time to read. I devoured most of the books in the Sword & Sorcery Fantasy series Forgotten Realms, Ed Greenwood and R.A. Salvatore being the primary authors. I wrote a magical fantasy concentrating on character development. That's what make for a good story to me, characters you like, characters you love, characters you love to hate. Another fun story, different genre.
The working title was Fantasy One. When it came time to name it I agonized over it for weeks. Then it finally dawned on me, make the title about the book. Yeah, right, in two or three words. Well, the story is about The Crystal, and at one point it's on fire.
Crystal Fire. Duh! Some smart you are, pal. It's currently on it's sixth (and finally professional) cover. Good story, good characters, but there were a lot of question left unanswered. (Do you like the cover?)
Hey! Book two,
The Last Battle. In the timeline it takes place prior to book one, but it sets up a big time adventure for book three,
The Twelve Tablets. Book three is a lot more complicated, 365 printed pages, and seriously taxed my editing-proofing abilities. So there it is, the Tales of the Crystal Trilogy. Fini! Whew!
Getting Crystal Fire published was a major pain in the posterior. Being new to self-publishing I went to a (so called) professional self-publishing company. That turned out to be a $1000 lesson in frustration. Every time I blinked they wanted $150 for this, $75 for that, and you can't get there from here. While waiting (and waiting - and waiting) for them to publish my book I learned how to do it myself on Amazon, Createspace, and Smashwords. I finally gave up on that company, chocked the (now) $1200 up to experience, and published it myself with a different ISBN on Createspace.
A big part of this process was just surviving to the point where I could go from handwritten pages, some in pencil, some in felt tipped pen, some in ink, to a word processor. In case you're wondering where I had all that "time on my hands", I was in prison under a questionable Nevada conviction. I had 12 years to write and was lucky to have a pencil to write with. Please, sir, may I have another.
It took a while to do all this. It wasn't the most conducive environment for creativity. I wrote
Exile about a space traveler in 1600s Japan. My first efforts at age 14 were Science Fiction. But I wasn't satisfied with the length so I added 30,000 words and it turned out to be quite an adventure. To one reviewer it seemed like two separate stories with the same characters, but it works.
I was released with nothing more than the clothes on my back and a heavy cardboard box full of manuscripts. No money, nowhere to go, no nothing! Thankfully our illustrious government decided to do something right. They instituted a grant and per diem program to eliminate (yeah, right) homelessness for American Veterans. I got into a veterans transitional living program at Vitality Vets in Reno. So at least I had a place to rest my head and plenty of food. I was eligible for Social Security so I used that to buy a computer and internet connection, WORDed the manuscripts, edited-proofed-formatted-uploaded-and published. Thank you Amazon and Mark Coker (Smashwords).
I've since published a fourth Sword & Sorcery Mystical Fantasy,
The Prophecy of Tara, and following the advice of fellow authors in the Createspace community, wrote erotica
Bizarre Stories under a pseudonym aimed at quick sales (yeah, right).
So here's the success part. I'm still working on promotion, the hardest part of self-publishing. I've had a few sales, only one print book (the erotica, sigh) and close to 200 eBook sales. Not very many compared to some. But I consider this entire venture a success in that I went from being slammed in a 12 x 14 cell and all the adversity that entails to publishing eight books. I overcame one obstacle after another and did it. Success.
Whadda' ya' think?
I found myself in a situation where I had lots of time on my hands. I've always known I had a talent for writing since I started scribbling science fiction at age 14. I wish I had those scribbles now. So I utilized that time to give vent to that creative talent. Years before I was fascinated by a writer named Robert Aspirin, who wrote Myth Conceptions, Another Fine Myth, and many others. I was inspired by an anthology he edited and published written by some of his followers. He wrote scifi-fantasy, I wrote a western.
What!?
Yeah, strange, huh? I have no idea why a western, I didn't even read them. The idea for Educated Injun
came to me and flowed out of the pencil onto the paper. It's a good Detective/Lawman story set in the late 1800s with really interesting characters. Actually, it was fun to write. A second one,
Chicago Chase, followed that introducing a new rascally character and I'm working on the third, How Do You Steal A Tree.With all that "time on my hands" came the time to read. I devoured most of the books in the Sword & Sorcery Fantasy series Forgotten Realms, Ed Greenwood and R.A. Salvatore being the primary authors. I wrote a magical fantasy concentrating on character development. That's what make for a good story to me, characters you like, characters you love, characters you love to hate. Another fun story, different genre.
The working title was Fantasy One. When it came time to name it I agonized over it for weeks. Then it finally dawned on me, make the title about the book. Yeah, right, in two or three words. Well, the story is about The Crystal, and at one point it's on fire.
Crystal Fire. Duh! Some smart you are, pal. It's currently on it's sixth (and finally professional) cover. Good story, good characters, but there were a lot of question left unanswered. (Do you like the cover?)Hey! Book two,
The Last Battle. In the timeline it takes place prior to book one, but it sets up a big time adventure for book three,
The Twelve Tablets. Book three is a lot more complicated, 365 printed pages, and seriously taxed my editing-proofing abilities. So there it is, the Tales of the Crystal Trilogy. Fini! Whew!Getting Crystal Fire published was a major pain in the posterior. Being new to self-publishing I went to a (so called) professional self-publishing company. That turned out to be a $1000 lesson in frustration. Every time I blinked they wanted $150 for this, $75 for that, and you can't get there from here. While waiting (and waiting - and waiting) for them to publish my book I learned how to do it myself on Amazon, Createspace, and Smashwords. I finally gave up on that company, chocked the (now) $1200 up to experience, and published it myself with a different ISBN on Createspace.
A big part of this process was just surviving to the point where I could go from handwritten pages, some in pencil, some in felt tipped pen, some in ink, to a word processor. In case you're wondering where I had all that "time on my hands", I was in prison under a questionable Nevada conviction. I had 12 years to write and was lucky to have a pencil to write with. Please, sir, may I have another.
It took a while to do all this. It wasn't the most conducive environment for creativity. I wrote
Exile about a space traveler in 1600s Japan. My first efforts at age 14 were Science Fiction. But I wasn't satisfied with the length so I added 30,000 words and it turned out to be quite an adventure. To one reviewer it seemed like two separate stories with the same characters, but it works.I was released with nothing more than the clothes on my back and a heavy cardboard box full of manuscripts. No money, nowhere to go, no nothing! Thankfully our illustrious government decided to do something right. They instituted a grant and per diem program to eliminate (yeah, right) homelessness for American Veterans. I got into a veterans transitional living program at Vitality Vets in Reno. So at least I had a place to rest my head and plenty of food. I was eligible for Social Security so I used that to buy a computer and internet connection, WORDed the manuscripts, edited-proofed-formatted-uploaded-and published. Thank you Amazon and Mark Coker (Smashwords).
I've since published a fourth Sword & Sorcery Mystical Fantasy,
The Prophecy of Tara, and following the advice of fellow authors in the Createspace community, wrote erotica
Bizarre Stories under a pseudonym aimed at quick sales (yeah, right).So here's the success part. I'm still working on promotion, the hardest part of self-publishing. I've had a few sales, only one print book (the erotica, sigh) and close to 200 eBook sales. Not very many compared to some. But I consider this entire venture a success in that I went from being slammed in a 12 x 14 cell and all the adversity that entails to publishing eight books. I overcame one obstacle after another and did it. Success.
Whadda' ya' think?
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