So, What is Beginning Author

Reminder, this site is in a constant state of being built. Over time more and more content will be added

Honest answer, right now I don't know what it is going to turn out to be because the journey isn't finished yet. I know what I plan on putting on this site, but I don't know how your help, suggestions, and input are going to affect it...yet.

Here is my story. At the moment I have several book contracts signed and one book coming out within a few months. I've had short stories published over 20 times, and I have two audiofiction podcasts, with a third in the offing. I'm presently working on three other novels with every intention of getting them published.

Sounds like a lot, right? Well yeah, it is a lot, especially when most of that happened within the last two years. Lots of work. Lots of time. Lots of fun, but here is the deal. Writing a book is only the beginning. The hard stuff comes later. I've already encountered a lot of that hard stuff while going through the editing stages of my first book. Fortunately, I did not throw a lot of ego into my priceless words so it did not tear me up too much to change things around, or even to move an entire chapters. Still, going through four different editors took several months. By the end of the process I was pretty tired of looking at that first book, but success has been reached. My book is almost ready to roll. It is written. It is edited, and a publishing date has been set. Pretty good, right. Easy Street.

WRONG

You see, after years of trying to get the attention of the big boys, I dropped back and went for small press publishing. This means no bookstore shelves. It's all e-books and POD (print on demand). It also means that my publisher (whom I love dearly) does not have a huge budget to throw out advertising for my books. That leaves most the promotion work up to me. This means virtual tours, making contacts, getting reviewed, and I don't know how much more. Fortunately the resources and ideas are out there for me to find. Unfortunately, they are not all piled up in one place waiting for me to pick them up. A large number of people have set up a lot of author resources sites. Most of them are very good, but the ones I have run across do not have everything that I want, just like this site will not have everything you want.

WHAT I (we if you join me) WILL TRY TO DO

What I will have is information and links that I have found, as well as, hopefully, information and links that you can suggest. With your help we can add links to book and short story submission sites. We can talk about different editors at the various magazines and find out from each other which editors are more approachable and what they are looking for. We can, perhaps have discussions about book agents, though I don't have much to add there since I don't have one, yet. We can come up with a list of writing groups, what they are about, what resources they have to offer, and rate how effective we think they are. We can list Cons and classes and places where published authors and publishers are holding a chat that we can drop in on. We can recommend writing groups that seem to work. Most of all, we can support each others work and help each other along the path to seeing our words in print.

As I said above, I have two podcasts and have intentions of doing at least one more. My podcasts are not the big boys on the street, but at just over a year and a half old, The Hell Hole Tavern has over 100,000 downloaded episodes. Mercy Bend is still fairly new, only thirteen episodes so far, but even now episode one has just over a thousand downloads. Again, I am not one of the big boys but my numbers have hit far into the respectable range, so if somebody is looking to start a podcast for their fiction I will do my best to give them help. Overall, it is a fairly simple process, but there are a few pebbles in the road.

Mark

PODCASTING

As I said above, I have two podcasts and have intentions of doing at least one more. My podcasts are not the big boys on the street, but at just over a year and a half old, The Hell Hole Tavern has over 100,000 downloaded episodes. Mercy Bend is still fairly new, only thirteen episodes so far, but even now episode one has just over a thousand downloads. Again, I am not one of the big boys but my numbers have hit far into the respectable range, so if somebody is looking to start a podcast for their fiction I will do my best to give them help. Overall, it is a fairly simple process, but there are a few pebbles in the road.

WHAT I CAN NOT DO

Critiques are out at this time. I'm sorry. I've done several hundred of them in my earlier years, but I no longer have the time to do it any more. I will have a forum set up where people can post and comment on each others work, but I won't personally have the time to do more than jump in and make an occasional comment. There comes a time in everyone's life when they are just too busy to take on an extra load. I don't know many editors personally, and the ones I do know all work for my publisher. However, nothing prevents us from setting up a critique group in a forum where you can exchange writing and crit each others work. Warning. On those few occasions when I do a critique I am very honest which sometimes means the people I crit are not happy. This does not mean your work is useless. It does mean that I see areas that need improvement. When I first pursued writing in earnest I was the victim of a hundred harsh crits. They made my skin thicker, important if you are a writer, and they gave me a great deal of insight into where I was making mistakes. Without honest input my writing would never have grown.

LOTS MORE WORK

Everything I listed above is going to be work intensive. I'll throw myself into it as much as possible, but my writing and publishing come first, not to mention the fact that I have a daytime job. This means that if these pages are to be a success I will need your help to pull it together. I will need your resources, your time, your ideas, and your help. In other words, contributers, officers and every other type of cer that something like this could require.

So how about it? Want to step in and give it a shot? If so, take a run over to the volunteer page.