Trying to Change the Publishing Game

I have begun to think that I’m in a rigged game with this self-publishing thing. Now, you may say, welcome to adulthood where we all eventually realize that it always was. My answer to you is, you’re right, I should have and intellectually, I did. Here’s the thing. I think we know that our head and our gut tend to process things at different speeds and in different ways. My head knew that publishing my stuff myself on Amazon was an uphill battle and it would take lots of time and work. My gut, however, did not understand what a hit a to your ego a flat sale page can be, not to mention to your pocketbook. Part of the way that I’ve been fighting through this is to look at my options. One of them is to expand beyond Amazon, and I am taking that route by using Smashwords to add content to Nook, Kobo, iBooks and other digital bookstores. I somehow managed to do everything I needed to my manuscript, as explained in the 168 page style guide and put into Smashwords’ meat grinder aka their way of peeping the book for everything besides Amazon. I still have work to do in cleaning up that process, but I feel good about it.

Then I had to starting listening to a book called Information Doesn’t Want To Be Free by Cory Doctorow and my gut started churning. Then my mind started working and I’m in the process of trying something new, something very different. It could fail, but, hell, what do I have to lose? Today is the start of putting it all together. I’ll keep writing about it as I go.