…and I’m an author. Well, I’m a writer. I’ve been writing for years, but only in fits and spurts. There’s this whole “day job” thing that gets in the way, because, you know, my family and I like to eat. (Starving is overrated).
As you might expect, I’m a writer with a lot of friends who write. We sort of gather in clumps or herds. And we’ve all been writing for years.
Do any of us have anything to show for it? Sure. My friend Russell Lutz has had two sci-fi books published by a small press called Silverthought. And about a year and half ago, my friend Abby Strom had her romance novel picked up by Harlequin, which was a pretty exciting deal for her.
But neither she nor Russell were making any serious money.
Now, there is a certain school of thought that says that if you’re writing strictly to make money, then you’re writing for the wrong reason. And I won’t argue that. I personally think that writers write because they have no other option BUT to write. It’s either get the story in your head out through your fingertips, or explode. And the experience is different for everybody. Some people love the act of writing and story telling. I’m not one of those. I’m one of those writers for whom the act of writing is kind of like wrestling with the angel. It’s a damned hard thing for me to sit down and get the story out, cause it never (and I mean NEVER) comes out the way I had it in my head. And the further I get into a story, the harder it is to complete.
But, whether you like to write or not, and whether you’re doing it for the money or not, in the end, you just want to share the finished product with people, and if you happen to get paid at the same time, bonus.
So this past December, at a holiday gathering of families and friends, Abby was explaining the benefits of self-publishing. But not self-publishing in print. She was talking about self-epublishing. And to lend some credence to what she was saying, she explained that she was actually making money doing it.
This certainly got my attention. But being the procrastinator that I am, it took me four more months to actually get my collective crap together and do something with it.
Finally I did. I gathered a short story I had that was pretty much ready, created a cover, and published it. The result is The Girl In The Red Hoodie, a short story for Kindle by yours truly.
As this blog progresses (probably at a slow pace–remember, I’m a procrastinating kingpin), I’ll detail my experiences in self-epublishing. My next post will be about the process I went through to get my short story ready and to publish it for Kindle. So stay tuned…
Scott C Lyerly 
Good luck with your adventures in e-self publishing! I think the idea that if one is writing in order to make a living then it’s for the wrong reasons is starting to change. I think that many people are starting to think along the lines that being a writer means dedicating yourself to writing, and thinking of yourself as a full-time writer, thinking of writing as a job which you do everyday to the best of your ability while trying to become better.