Not all glory and riches

          It used to be that to become a published author (besides just writing a really good book) you also had to spend countless hours writing and addressing query letters, waiting patiently for agent’s responses (months), and then miracle upon miracles, you got signed to a LEGITIMATE agency. That was only the beginning.

         Then it was up to the agent to make that one-in-a-hundred sale as opposed to the one-in-a-million chance that an un-agented author had. Then, miracle upon miracles, if your book got sold, then came the marketing and promotion, the signings, the hope and praying that it stayed on the shelf long enough to acquire an audience. And, if three weeks later it wasn’t selling, it was gone for good.

          But today, things have changed. Writers are now able to bypass all that other hardship and get their books out there to sell literally minutes after writing “the end” at the bottom of the last page. However, it’s not all glory and instant riches.

          The ability for pretty much anyone who’s ever laid fingers to a keyboard and scrawled a story and then put it out there for sale to the world opens the playing field to a lot of garbage, but like carousing a bookstore, you just need to take your time to find the perfect book.

          I’ve sold more books on my own in the last year than I ever imagined I would all due to publishing through KDP and Smashwords. I will admit I spend a huge amount of time marketing and promoting, but I’d be doing that anyway if I’d been published traditionally. And I get a thirty percent royalty.

          I had an agent from a top agency and after three and a half years with no sales he dropped me due to what he said is a quickly shrinking professional marketplace. Judging from the soaring sales of ereaders and my novels, I tend to agree.

          To read more about me and my books please check out my blog: ALWAYS WRITING  http://www.neilostroff.blogspot.com