This week’s Flashback Friday comes from June 7, 2020, and I chose it because I still need the reminder. When writers first begin, every sentence feels precious. We polish, protect, and defend words simply because we suffered to put them on the page. Cutting them can feel less like editing and more like destroying evidenceContinue reading “Flashback Fridays #8”
Tag Archives: self-publishing
Flashback Fridays #7
I skipped a bunch of posts about my writing plans and progress in editing The Slaying of the Bull. They are interesting to me in a documentation way, but since many of those plans changed and The Slaying of the Bull wasn’t the hit I thought it would be at the time, I won’t boreContinue reading “Flashback Fridays #7”
Chasing the Current
Sylvanus: Swords and Sons has now crossed 60,000 words, placing me roughly at the midpoint of the novel. After a long and arduous journey, Sylvanus and his remaining companions are preparing to cross into the Northlands and enter the realm of his brother, Koen. It is a major transition in the story, but also inContinue reading “Chasing the Current”
Flashback Fridays #6
In this week’s look to the past, I focus on the moment I received my first novel in hand. True to the nature of my life, it had a bumpy road getting there (it was a premonition of my future struggles with Amazon), but when it finally arrived, it was something special. Finishing a bookContinue reading “Flashback Fridays #6”
Lament for the loss of data
Six years into self-publishing, what surprises me most is not how hard it is. Hard is fine. Hard can be endured. I’m no spring chicken. I have faced many hardships in life, and I know how to deal with them. What wears on a person is trying to build on unstable ground, especially when youContinue reading “Lament for the loss of data”
I swam the market until I hit a rock
I’ve decided to stop my query process for Jezelle: Thief of Forks and switch gears to self-publishing the book. On the surface, that may look like defeat—another swing at traditional publishing and missing—but that’s not what this is. This is me looking directly at how this business actually works, looking at how far Jezelle swamContinue reading “I swam the market until I hit a rock”
2025, a year in review
It’s that time of the year again to look back and see how far I’ve come. It’s not really what I want to do right now, as I have quite the sinus infection- not the ideal way to bring in the New Year. Really, I want to wrap in a warm blanket and stare atContinue reading “2025, a year in review”
Reviews: The hot meal after a long journey
In my last post, I talked about the silence after a book launch and how self-publishing isn’t the celebratory parade some imagine, but a cold, slow grind. You hit publish, watch your book go live, and then… nothing. No fanfare. No crowd. Just the quiet realization that the hard part is still ahead of you.Continue reading “Reviews: The hot meal after a long journey”
Self‑Publishing Isn’t a Fairytale — It’s a Fight!
If you think you can self‑publish a book and watch it take off on organic traffic alone like you read about with the self-publishing superstars, here’s a wake‑up call: you can’t. Writing a book is a lot of work, but hitting “publish” is not the victory parade most people imagine. It isn’t the moment theContinue reading “Self‑Publishing Isn’t a Fairytale — It’s a Fight!”
Thinking of Self-Publishing? Read This First.
This post reflects my personal publishing experience. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by any company, and is shared in good faith for the purpose of transparency and community discussion. These are my well-documented experiences. They named it after a treacherous river that winds through an unforgiving jungle for a reason. It’s vast, it’sContinue reading “Thinking of Self-Publishing? Read This First.”
