It's my time!

So I get up this morning, this final day of vacation and am bummed out of my wits. I am totally fed up of being broke and have had enough! It's time I do something about it.

I admit that while I've had plenty business ideas in the past have been happy to pass them on to someone else, I know I can develop something and make it great. But everything I can think of requires lots of money, something that I have extremely little of. Lately I've been thinking of my writing and how I've only tackled it in a half-assed way. I've never seriously sought out an agent or a publisher. So these past two weeks that I've been on vacation I've been sending out queries and such. Nothing positive yet but at least 2 nice rejections and 2 promises. Believe me, it's hard work. It's like throwing darts blind folded -- you never know what you're going to hit. Already I know how impossible it is to understand the North American literary market from a country in the Caribbean. It seems like you have to be there in the thick of things in order to know whom to bug and when. Oh, that's another thing, if you don't understand the reading period during the year, forget it. I got one response from a publisher that said I am to check back in November to see if my story was accepted. November! By then I'll be on the street corner begging a change.

So I've been thinking of this self-publishing thing. I go back and forth with it and I've even tried it. I'm proud to say I loaded a bunch of short stories on Kindle and without any form of advertising or publicity, I've sold 29 copies. It's no money, but it's 29 copies among the thousands and thousands of novels and stories on Kindle. Not bad. Not bad at all. If I could only sell 3,000 more a month, I'd be set. LOL! Kindle takes a chunk of money but it's worth it if your intention is for instant publication.

What if I do my novels myself, publish and advertise them and see how that goes? Then when I get some volume going, I can approach an agent. I know few persons have succeeded at this and as a matter of fact, there are established authors who are going the self-publishing way and keeping the money for themselves. It's not easy and it means working remotely and finding the money for ads and a site, but it's certainly doable especially if I tackle one part of the project at a time. My only drawback is me thinking my stories are good enough. It takes the courage of a lion to fight off these nerves.

You know what? I think I'm going to do it. If it fails then I move on to something else.

Onward!