Find someone to emulate. Who are the authors you admire? Are any of them self-published?
As the summer of quarantine came to a close, I decided to tackle the, write a book, bucket list item. Until that time, I never really thought about writing a novel. I had always assumed I would check off this item by writing some boring technical domain expert book that all of twenty people would read. Then I discovered Kindle Unlimited.
There, I could indulge in my love affair with sci-fi and fantasy for $9.99 a month. I'm sure it's a couple of dollars more now. Thanks, inflation. Anyway, I got my money's worth by reading a lot of good books and partially reading a few mediocre books. The good, the bad, and the ugly were all from self-published authors. Of all the authors I read, I became a fan of two in particular.
Marc Edelheit, with his Stiger's Tigers series, combined Roman military history with good old fashion D&D fantasy. I loved the combination and have read all of his books. He's branched out now and I'm really looking forward to the second book in his new Sci-Fi series.
Olan Thorensen (pen name) writes the cross genre series Destiny's Crucible. With aliens, military history and elements of time travel, it is a brilliant series. I devoured book eight and can't wait for nine.
What I appreciated most from these and other self-published authors is their need to tell a good story even if they don't write like Shakespeare. Don't get me wrong, I have seen a steady improvement from each of these authors as they spend more time in front of their keyboard and me between the pages they produce.
So I said to myself, "If they can do it, so can I." This mantra will be indispensable when you run into those inevitable roadblocks that will try to derail your writing journey.
Then I had a troubling thought. Even if I write a story that I want to read, how do I get others to read my books?
Part 2 coming soon.
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