I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. Usually that just gets me into trouble, but lately there’s a lot of thinking that needs to be done. What have I been thinking about? Funny you should ask.

Self Publishing.

I’ve written a lot and I feel I tell a pretty good tale. I know what it takes to make a story interesting and write characters that are enjoyable. I’ve written and edited the stories and sent them to many agents and publishers. I’ve gotten request for full manuscripts and partials and I’ve had a lot of rejections. In fact everything has been rejected. It’s not rejection that bothers me. It’s that I’ve always gotten notes on the rejections like “good writing”, “great premise”, “I like the way this sounds” and then I get the ‘but’. “We just don’t have room in our schedule”,”We just can’t take on another client at this time”,”Please try us again another time”.

Frustration has been had aplenty. Obviously my query letter and synopsis were good enough garner attention and warrant a request for more. I just haven’t been able to make it past that point. This is where my thinking cap has been put on firmly and I sit in front of the computer and wonder if I’m doing this all for myself or is there something I could do better? Or could I really do this myself?

What’s prompted all this thinking about self publishing? I cannot take all the credit myself. I have wanted to see my name on a book for a long time and almost succumbed to the temptation of such scams of sites like Publish America (back in the day) though I always felt I was going to make it one day.

That day has still not arrived and I continue to hear people like Mike Stackpole and Mike Mennenga on The Dragon Page talk endlessly about doing it yourself and that the day of big publishers is nearing its end. I hear podcasts like Get Published doing interviews talking about the great success people are having with doing it yourself.

The fact is that I can find an editor to edit my books fairly inexpensively. Back when I wanted to do this myself it was anywhere from $2500 – $5000 to have a manuscript edited. Now you can find people willing to edit your manuscript for as little as $150. That’s a huge difference. You can also find people willing to do book covers for around the same price. Suddenly it’s not so daunting to get an edit on your book and a cover and be ready to publish a book.

So where has all this thinking gotten me? Well. I did podcast two of my novels and it would seem that many people do enjoy my stories. So I’ve decided to head out on my own and start publishing my own books. You may have heard me on a podcast or two lately talking about my YA Fantasy story Astel. In my next post I will tell you a little more about the story and what I’ve done to prepare it for print. I know it could have been as easy as saving the word document as an HTML file and loading it up to Smashwords but I want to do a little more than that. Stay tuned. I’ve decided to start blogging and self publish my books and I’m not looking back.

Look out 2011! Here I come!