For all you folks wondering if your dream of being an author can ever come true. Yes,
it can! But, dreaming about it won't do it. You must act. Ben Franklin
once said, "Failing to prepare is the same as preparing to fail." He was
of course, talking about preparing for war with the British once the
Declaration of Independence was signed. But, I've come to realize all
those old guys from years ago were probably the most intelligent group
to ever live at one time, in one place. Much of the things they wrote
can be taken myriad number of ways.
Did I dream about making a
better living for me and my family with my story telling? Yeah, for many
years. But, I was target
fixated. That's when a fighter pilot concentrates so hard on the tango
he's trying to shoot down, he completely misses the other one coming up
behind him. My target for nearly three decades was getting on the
bookstore shelves. I'd never heard of an ebook. Then, our oldest
daughter and her husband gave me a Kindle for Christmas two years ago. A few months later, I mentioned to him that I'd
been reading a lot of authors I'd never heard of on it. He told me they
were probably self published. That's when I learned he worked for Amazon. When I mentioned I'd been trying to get
published since the eighties, he explained how self publishing worked and showed me on my laptop
how to do it. That was in June, 2013, one year and three months ago.
A
month later, I took out those dusty short stories from the late eighties and began
writing my first novel based on them. I was determined to do it. My goal
was to compile and lengthen those three shorts into two novels and with
any luck, I could make enough to buy tools for a wood working shop. I was a truck driver and wanted desperately to get off the road and work for myself, building furniture,
cabinets and most of all, boats.
I cranked out my first book,
with little or no guidance, in three months and published it last
October. I put it out of my mind completely and started on the second
one. Though it was 20K words longer, I cranked it out in 2-1/2 months.
Mind you, I was working upwards of 70 hours a week as an over the road
truck driver and writing in the sleeper of the truck. My first goal was to get both books published before Christmas and that's just what I
did, 178K words in less than six months, publishing my second book on
10/23. December sales were only a couple hundred dollars, most of it after the second book. January sales were over $2500. More than enough for all the tools
I wanted.
That's when it hit me. I could make a living at this, which had been a dream for decades.
Something else hit me at about the same time. The numbers. I realized
I'd written 178,000 of my own words in two stories, in 178 days. One
thousand words a day. I'd read somewhere that was the key to successful writing. And those two stories earned me $2500 in one month! It wasn't
hard to calculate that two more stories in six months would double that
income. I hadn't yet learned about how ranking and exposure caused
exponential sales of multiple works. I knew nothing about book
marketing, or even proper editing, cover design and formatting. I was
wet behind the ears at 55.
That's about the time I found Kindle Boards (
www.KBoards.com) and all the writers that hang out in the Writers' Cafe forum there. What a blessing that was. I spent a month lurking and learning everything
I could, soaking in the vast expanse of accumulated creative and
marketing knowledge that are right there on those boards. I learned what
worked and more importantly, I learned what didn't work. Armed with
better weaponry, I attacked my first two books with a vengeance and
rereleased them as second editions with much better covers, formatting
and a marketing plan. Sales climbed slightly and I started on a third
book, but without the guidance of those short stories.
I wanted
to write about something that I was emotionally too close to, so I
sought the help of a young Marine who'd recently left the Corps after
three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as an Infantryman. He's the son of a
friend and suffered post traumatic stress. At first he was reluctant,
until I told him about my own demons. It took us a while,
but I like to think we put together a fictional story that might help
others to seek out someone to talk to. I published Fallen Pride in early
April, 2014. Sales that month were equal to my best month as a truck
driver. I was almost there. I could feel it.
From KBoards, I learned a
"feeder" was needed, but I was reluctant to reduce the price of my first
book, or EGAD, make it permafree. So in just six weeks, I cranked out a
53K word prequel to the others and knowing that my dream was doable and
already having a good emergency savings and retirement in place, I QUIT
MY JOB half way through writing it. Fallen Out was published on May 30,
two weeks before the one year anniversary of the first time I ever
heard about self publishing. Since day one, it's been my sales leader,
drawing in more and more readers. I intentionally made it a little
jerky, to more closely match the pace of my first book.
Last
month, I earned more than four times my best trucking month and now KDP
wants to reward that hard work by slapping on another three grand? Yes,
my friends, dreams really can come true. But, not without sacrifice and
hard work. Oh, and planning to succeed. In the Corps, I had a Platoon
leader who always reminded us of the "Seven P's", "Proper prior planning
prevents piss poor performance".
Dream big. My wife and I did
this together and then we laid out a detailed plan, in writing, exactly
what we needed to do, to make those dreams a reality.
Learn. I
was shooting emails back and forth last night with one of my favorite
writers, who is now a close friend. Although I didn't discover his work
until after I'd started writing my second book and his books were a few years old,
we agreed that our works were eerily similar. We both chalked it up
to being kindred spirits. He said, "There are no original thoughts,
Wayne. Only reorganized ones." There's nothing you can think of doing
that hasn't already been done. My dad always told me, "A smart man
learns from his mistakes, but a wise man learns from the mistakes of
other men." KBoards forums are full of successes and failures.
Fortunately, I'd stumbled onto a place where people don't mind
sharing both. If something didn't work for other people, why would you
try it? Some ideas on there, you can tweak and "rearrange the thoughts"
to make it better. It's all there, though. Learn it.
Work hard.
One thousand words a day, by habit, will create four 80K-90K word novels
a year. You won't make squat with the first one, so hammer out
something that'll lure and hook readers. When you have withdrawals
because you're not writing that thousand words a day, you'll start to
see some success. In some genres, that might happen fast. In others,
slower. You might well be a talentless hack. That's okay. Do you
honestly think Tiger Woods first game was three under par? Learn and
work hard to gain that talent. It's not a sprint. My feeble success was
thirty years in the making. That's an ultra-marathon. Sure, there are
the very rare few that hit exactly the pacing and many readers happy
button and hit it out of the park very early in their career. Odds are
you're not going to be one of them. Work toward the future.
Set
your prices high. Don't let the market dictate that you should be giving
your stuff away cheap. Get that second book out in less than three
months. Do a little marketing, so you're part time gig can make enough
to pay for itself. Good covers and editing cost money. This will also keep your significant other from screaming
that you're squandering the savings.
Keep writing. Hone your
craft. Don't be afraid to experiment, there's always a delete button. If
you don't like it and you're writing in the genre you like to read,
others probably won't either. But, don't let that be your limiting
factor. Play around and have fun.
Write what you know. Don't try
to write about how beautiful the ocean is if you live in Nebraska and
have never seen it. It will show. I'm fortunate. I'm old and have seen a
lot more than most. From the islands of the Caribbean to the Columbia
River, from the foggy cliffs of Maine, to Rodeo Drive and everywhere in
between. I've visited and lived in more foreign countries than most
people have visited cities. Write in the genre you most like to read,
you already know the pacing of what you like. As a reader, my books are
exactly what I love to read.
It's not a dream for the faint of
heart. People will call you out in reviews. Friends will tell you it's
not possible. I spoke to a guy I used to work with the other day and he
asked who I was now driving for. I told him I was still working for
myself as a writer, four months after quitting my job. "Ah,
unemployment, huh?" he said. "You know that won't last forever." I didn't tell him I'd
already made way more since quitting, than I did all of last year as a driver. An
easily discouraged person without a plan will sell one copy a month of
their one and only book for many years. If a $2 a month pension is okay
with you, by all means stop right there. If you want an income stream
you can leave to your kids, ignore the nay sayers, think positive, make a
plan to achieve your dream and work hard to get there.
But, it all starts with a plan. A dream without a plan is just a wish. And their ain't no dang genies.
for only $.99.
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" is the fourth novel in John H. Cunningham's exciting Buck Reilly Adventure Series. The first book in this series is "
