So I am now a published author, something I’ve been working towards, well, just about my entire adult life. As of 11 p.m. Saturday, I’ve sold exactly six copies–five trade paperback and one Kindle edition.
And you know, I’m about as proud of myself as if I’d sold six thousand, or sixty thousand.
In April of 2009, while driving down the highway, I got a great idea for a story. “What if the cats had the magic powers?” I wondered. And boom! The Catmage Chronicles were born. As soon as I got to my friend’s house, I got a notebook and started writing down thoughts, plot points, ideas, the whole shebang. Then when I got home that night, I started writing what I’d plotted out, and got a few thousand words in.
And stopped.
Like I always did.
I have a collection of half-begun novels that I stopped writing. The Catmage Chronicles looked like they were going to be yet another in my series of failures.
But then I got an email from a literary agent in the spring of 2011, asking for a link to her website. And also asking if I had anything she might be interested in. She wasn’t interested in the first few pages of my novel, but brushing it up to send to her got me interested in writing again. So I decided to make up my mind to either finish a novel, or give up and forget about writing. Just stick to blogging and figure out a career, probably in web, for the rest of my life.
I couldn’t give up. Instead, I found a way to push through what was stopping me, figure out how to plot, get into a regular writing schedule, and finish the book. Along the way I re-learned the industry by reading writing blogs, talking with my friend Neil Clarke, and getting my mind back into the writing biz. I found a cover artist, cover designer, and re-learned Adobe InDesign to typeset my own novel.
And now, there’s a book out there with a fantastic cover (and a damned good interior) with my name on it.
So yeah, I’m pretty proud of myself.
Now go buy my book, and tell everyone you know to do the same. Those books aren’t going to buy themselves, you know.
It’s been a long, long time coming. But my new career has begun.
Congratulations!
It is a good feeling isn’t it?
I was in the same boat as you, with a couple of unfinished novels sitting at the 20-25,000 word mark staring at me every time I opened my computer.
The folder on the desktop “writing” would remind me that deep down I wanted to be a writer, but also that I had so far failed in that goal.
Then I wrote Erasure. My first beginning to end: first word, 10 draft, then to editor THEN cover art project, and I couldn’t be happier.
It is an interesting thing this whole “Being published” thing. What I have found is that the next book is actually easier, because I have already walked the publishing path, so I know what is to come.
So congratulations, again. You have bridged the gap between talking about being a writer, and actually getting it done.
Now… time for the public to get on board!
Thanks. Sorry for the delay approving your comment… I had comments locked down for so long I’ve forgotten about having to moderate the first one.
The Kindle price point is okay. Occasionally it will be as much as the paper version. In any event, I plan to buy a copy and see what’s under the hood. After I know what’s in it, I’ll be better able to interest other people.
Congratulations, and good luck.
Well, so far, the book has three Potterhead seals of approval. Four, if you count my eleven-year-old nephew, who likes everything I do. But his mother says that if he didn’t like the story, he would have stopped reading the book.
So thanks, and I think you’re going to like what you read.
The Kindle price is the introductory price. I don’t believe in underpricing my work, especially since I have no big publisher behind me doing any PR. It’s all on me. And my strategy is pebbles in a pond. Throw in a pebble, watch the rings spread outward. I have a LOT of pebbles planned.