As with most writers, I have had the dream of becoming an author since I was eight years old and finished reading my first chapter book. The magic of words on a page transforming into an entirely new universe was astounding to me. Reading still has that effect. When you see beyond the black and white lettering and fall whole heartedly into a story created entirely in writer’s mind, there is magic in that. I want to wield magic.

The dream of becoming an author has simmered below the surface since then. I have picked up the magic wand periodically over the years: first as a twelve year old writing horror stories that concerned my mother, as an adolescent walking the summer evening streets composing stories, songs and poems in a lined notebook with a pen strung around my neck, as a new mother who used her kids’ nap times to write a children’s book and then a middle grade novel.

Then I realized that there are gatekeepers that stop the magic from reaching its true potential. That stop it from being shared with others.

If you let them.

When I thought of being a writer, I thought of being published by a big name publisher. Going on book tours around the country and getting paid up front for your next book. That was what I had read about. That is how it worked in movies. Readers do not get to decide what a good book is: agents and publishers do.

When I started writing my full length adult novel, I had decided that I would write it as a bucket list project. To say, I did that, even if it was never read by another human being. I didn’t want to spend hours, months, years pitching it to the gatekeepers. I just wanted to write.

Why don’t you self-publish?

When my fiancé asked me that question, I thought he just didn’t get it. I don’t want to self-publish, I said. If I publish, I want to earn it. Self-publishing is cheating.

And then I actually started researching what self-publishing entailed. I listened to podcasts every single day about writing, publishing and marketing your own books. I learned about Indie Publishing. About Indie Authors, the term that the writers who use professional services and produce well written professional books have claimed, in lieu of the tainted “self-published author.”

And I discovered that publishing your own books is actually a badge of honor. You get to wield ALL the magic.

You get to write whichever story you would like, in whichever genre. You get to edit it, choose your own professional team, choose your own cover art, build a relationship with your readers and keep most of the earnings that the magic has unearthed.

It has opened up a whole new world, just as learning to read did for me as a child.

Now instead of dreaming, I am doing. Learning. Planning. Implementing. Writing.

Will you follow along with me?

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