MusicTakeMe

d i f f e r e n t c o l o r s

Just starting out is hard. Just starting out and not knowing anyone makes it harder. Just starting out, not knowing anyone, and not being given a chance can be crushing.

As you may be aware, I independently published my first book on amazon.com. So far I’ve had a good start. One five star review, a bunch of copies sold and given away in various formats. I’ve even had a book signing.

It’s the little things that make me foam at the mouth about the whole marketing aspect of being an author. I didn’t study marketing. I don’t know what I’m doing. That much is obvious. So I reach out for help. I looked for help in places I thought would be interested. Like my Alma mater, and my high school. News flash, they weren’t. The most I got was silence or a “good job, buddy”. I didn’t expect a lot, just a brief line in the alumni magazine. X of class y published his first book. Eight little words. Minimal effort. They have plenty of room in those things to announce weddings.

Now, full disclosure. I wasn’t a student to be brimming with pride over when I went to those schools. I was one of those kids that realized the system itself is flawed and participated enough to advance but knew it didn’t measure anything of actual value to me. College was a little different. I actually enjoyed it. I felt challenged, it wasn’t all about grades, it was about experience.

So I reached out to the alumni relations of both. I know some alumni of my high school and college. They’ve been trying to help as well. But it seems like to get anywhere you need to have the same things that you normally would need to get your book published the traditional route. Otherwise they don’t seem to care.

You need to know someone. You need to have money. And you need to already be an established author. Basically you need to be a sure thing. You need to not be a risky investment. By nature of being new, you’re automatically risky. If you don’t have these things you need to be extremely lucky.

There’s one thing I have, and maybe you do too, that they undervalue. I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to keep writing. I’ll finish my second book and publish that on my own if I have to. I’ll keep reaching out to these people. At this point I expect rejection. That’s fine. Not everyone is going to like everything I write. People are different from one another.

Mainly, none of this is about them. It’s all about the work. The work is its own reward. I’m going to write until I drop dead. I’ll be exploring the human condition through fantasy and Sci fi, and all the various other genres that don’t get enough credit. When I’m done I’ll have a body of work that I can be proud of, even if no one else is.

The thing about that is, I already have reached the point of being proud of my own work. And it’s not in the status symbol sort of way. It’s in the way that a creator is proud of something.

Well, it’s been done. The book has been done since April. Hello Tumblr, let’s talk about this book for a bit.  I wrote this partly to tell a story about a world I created back in 2009 and have been working on ever since. The other part of the reason why I wrote it is because I need to write something. I start to feel sick if I’m not working on something creative. Since I’ve completed this one I’ve started working on the second volume. 

I’ve also continued to work on the site I built in 2009. It’s been a long road. I deleted all the old posts on this tumblr to mark the beginning of a new era.