My Own Self-Publishing Journey — Part One — One Honest Indie

Hey, you know something? I’m just gonna read from my journals a little bit. I don’t know if I’ve done this one already. It’s called “How I Pictured It.” Well, that’s the title I put at the top.

“How I Pictured It, dot, dot, dot.” Okay. Here’s life the way it was supposed to go, according to the narrative in my head. After years of working on novels and completing them, along with meeting people: authors, publishers, editors, reviewers, et cetera, at conferences, I managed to get a short story published in the Sisters in Crime Chesapeake Chapter’s first anthology, and then the publisher signed me to a three-book contract.

I figured I’d earn a few bucks, maybe because I didn’t have grand expectations as a newbie writer. In fact, I have very little patience for anyone who comes into the writing profession with the attitude that they have produced an absolute work of genius, such as the world has never possibly encountered. This is because I knew that writing was difficult. Writing well is difficult, that is, and making a living at it required a few key…